Hi all

I have a player running a Wookie PC, complete with bowcaster. He's really interested in the idea of alternative ammo types - especially the idea of turning it into an area-affect stun weapon, which the fluff suggests is absolutely a thing that bowcasters can do - but there's no rules for this so I'm trying to come up with my own.

The issue I have is that the RAW bowcaster is NOT - unlike the Malaxan grenade launcher - a limited-ammo weapon, implying that its quarrels are small enough and easy enough to manufacture in quantity. So I was thinking that, instead of having the PC craft individual quarrels, he could craft ammo clips for different types of quarrel. This would essentially be like crafting a unique weapon, except that when the ammo runs out (from Threat or Despair) he would have to craft an entirely new one. Essentially, he'd be crafting specialised Extra Reloads. (My theory is this would also save on book keeping - otherwise he and I have got to keep track of the differences in each individual quarrel he crafts!)

Does this sound like a good idea? If so, what should the time/cost/difficulty be? I was figuring about 6 hours, 200 credits of parts and a Hard Mechanics check, looking at template examples in Special Modifications . Also, how powerful would you make the quarrels? I feel that giving them full grenade-like stats is making them OP, since they won't be limited ammo or restricted to short range, but they also need to be worth using.

What are people's thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance.

Sure, optional ammo types can be fun, but be careful that you don't let him turn that bowcaster into the Ultimate Weapon in the Universe. In a situation like this there's a very real chance of power creep, and suddenly you have a player with a weapon that's way, way better than everything everyone else have (including the other players at your table). You'll have to ask yourself, if bowcasters are that awesome why aren't everyone using one?

I came up with something a while back but I still need to figure out the price for supplies for quarrels.

Building a Bowcaster

Choose type: Standard or Slinger

Gather Supplies: 1,250 credits/7

Build the Weapon: Hard Mechanics check

Time to build: 24 hours

Slinger type Bowcaster

Standard Quarrels (Average Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 1, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Armor Piercing Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3, Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 3, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Incendiary Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Burn 3; Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Explosive Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 4, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Thoughts?

Sure, optional ammo types can be fun, but be careful that you don't let him turn that bowcaster into the Ultimate Weapon in the Universe. In a situation like this there's a very real chance of power creep, and suddenly you have a player with a weapon that's way, way better than everything everyone else have (including the other players at your table). You'll have to ask yourself, if bowcasters are that awesome why aren't everyone using one?

Absolutely, this is what I'm trying to avoid. Part of that will be in keeping the damage down, but I'm also thinking that the following restrictions should be in place:

• Specialist ammo types are not readily available. Crafting them will require a Mechanics check, as well as several hours' work, and the appropriate components and tools which you will have to purchase. Alternatively, specialist quarrels could be commissioned from an NPC craftsman, for a significant fee.
• Specialist ammo types will not suffer from the Limited Ammo quality. However, clips of specialist ammo will run out on a roll of a Despair OR on a roll of 3 Threat during any combat check using that ammo.
• An ammo clip for each different type of quarrel has an encumbrance of 1. So carrying multiple types of ammo could lead to a lot of encumbrance.
• It takes a manoeuvre to swap ammo types. This is in addition to the manoeuvre required to cock the weapon on a standard bowcaster. (Wookies have very low strain, so this is quite a significant limitation).

I came up with something a while back but I still need to figure out the price for supplies for quarrels.

Building a Bowcaster

Choose type: Standard or Slinger

Gather Supplies: 1,250 credits/7

Build the Weapon: Hard Mechanics check

Time to build: 24 hours

Slinger type Bowcaster

Standard Quarrels (Average Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 1, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Armor Piercing Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3, Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 3, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Incendiary Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Burn 3; Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Explosive Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 4, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Thoughts?

Interesting - I like the idea that even the basic quarrels have to be crafted specially; that fits with the fluff. But why have you changed the base stats of standard quarrels? Adding Blast and Pierce to the basic weapon seems unnecessary.

Sure, optional ammo types can be fun, but be careful that you don't let him turn that bowcaster into the Ultimate Weapon in the Universe. In a situation like this there's a very real chance of power creep, and suddenly you have a player with a weapon that's way, way better than everything everyone else have (including the other players at your table). You'll have to ask yourself, if bowcasters are that awesome why aren't everyone using one?

Absolutely, this is what I'm trying to avoid. Part of that will be in keeping the damage down, but I'm also thinking that the following restrictions should be in place:

• Specialist ammo types are not readily available. Crafting them will require a Mechanics check, as well as several hours' work, and the appropriate components and tools which you will have to purchase. Alternatively, specialist quarrels could be commissioned from an NPC craftsman, for a significant fee.
• Specialist ammo types will not suffer from the Limited Ammo quality. However, clips of specialist ammo will run out on a roll of a Despair OR on a roll of 3 Threat during any combat check using that ammo.
• An ammo clip for each different type of quarrel has an encumbrance of 1. So carrying multiple types of ammo could lead to a lot of encumbrance.
• It takes a manoeuvre to swap ammo types. This is in addition to the manoeuvre required to cock the weapon on a standard bowcaster. (Wookies have very low strain, so this is quite a significant limitation).

I came up with something a while back but I still need to figure out the price for supplies for quarrels.

Building a Bowcaster[/size]

Choose type: Standard or Slinger[/size]

Gather Supplies: 1,250 credits/7[/size]

Build the Weapon: Hard Mechanics check[/size]

Time to build: 24 hours[/size]

Slinger type Bowcaster[/size]

Standard Quarrels (Average Mechanics)[/size]

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 1, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1[/size]

Armor Piercing Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)[/size]

Dam 10; Crit 3, Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 3, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1[/size]

Incendiary Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)[/size]

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Burn 3; Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1[/size]

Explosive Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)[/size]

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 4, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1[/size]

Thoughts?[/size]

Interesting - I like the idea that even the basic quarrels have to be crafted specially; that fits with the fluff. But why have you changed the base stats of standard quarrels? Adding Blast and Pierce to the basic weapon seems unnecessary.

My guess would be The Force Awakens. The movie went out of its way to demonstrate how powerful a bowcaster is/can be.

TFA didn't really enter my thoughts when I wrote these. I differentiated between two types of bowcaster. One is the RAW bowcaster, which I told my Wookie PC is built from blaster components. The other type, the slinger, is designed based on information given in Legends material.

He will still be allowed to use the attachments and mods for bowcasters on the slinger type (Eventually can gain autofire, Pierce +2, and +2 damage). But he has to build it himself or have another Wookie build it for him. Also each type of quarrel would 500ish (maybe more, maybe less) credits per magazine of 5.

I came up with something a while back but I still need to figure out the price for supplies for quarrels.

Standard Quarrels (Average Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 1, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Armor Piercing Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3, Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 3, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Incendiary Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Burn 3; Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Explosive Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 4, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Thoughts?

You will want to look at balancing these.

Standard Bowcaster is Dam 10, Crit 3, Knockdown. No Blast. No Pierce. Per RAW.

Armor Piercing - Adding Pierce 3 is fine, but I would eliminate Knockdown and up crit to 4 just to balance it. No Blast.

Explosive - Dam 6, Crit 4, Blast 6, Knockdown. The damage drops to make it slightly worse than a Frag Grenade, but it keeps knockdown instead. Blast 6 makes it useful. Don't forget the blast rating is how much blast damage is caused by the quarrel. I suppose you could keep Dam 10, Blast 4 if you allow extra successes to add to Blast Damage. But otherwise, the blast is pretty irrelevant to armored enemies.

Incendiary - Dam 8, Crit 3, Blast 5, Burn 1. This is slightly less Burn rating than the Inferno Grenade, but otherwise identical. Alternately, change to Dam 10, Crit 3, Burn 2, Short Range only. Depends on whether you want a burst of flame catching an area on fire (mini incendiary grenade), or a small concentrated burn that ruins a single target's day (shotgun with Dragon's Breath rounds). Remember Burn rating is the number of rounds you inflict base damage (no extra successes) to the target (unlike the blast rating which is damage inflicted).

As mentioned before, don't make the ammo types superior to other similar weapons without some balance. With your suggested stats, no one would ever craft standard ammo. Your incendiary ammo was just insanely powerful (more damage than any other burn weapon with better range).

In Savage Spirits you have the stats for the Explosive arrows, Stun arrows, incendiary arrows and net arrows. I think you can easily reskin them for quarrels:

Explosive Arrows: Dam: 6; crit 3; blast 4; limited ammo 1; price 50 R:5

Stun Arrows: Dam : 6; crit: / ; stun damage; limited ammo 1; price: 60 R:6

Incendiary arrow: Dam: 7; Crit: 5; burn 2; limited ammo 1; price: 60 R: 5

Net arrow: Dam: 2; Crit: / ; Ensnare 2; limited ammo 1; Price: 30 R: 5

all arrows have medium range.

I came up with something a while back but I still need to figure out the price for supplies for quarrels.

Standard Quarrels (Average Mechanics)[/size]

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 1, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1[/size]

Armor Piercing Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)[/size]

Dam 10; Crit 3, Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 3, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1[/size]

Incendiary Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)[/size]

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Burn 3; Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1[/size]

Explosive Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)[/size]

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 4, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1[/size]

Thoughts?[/size]

You will want to look at balancing these.

Standard Bowcaster is Dam 10, Crit 3, Knockdown. No Blast. No Pierce. Per RAW.

Armor Piercing - Adding Pierce 3 is fine, but I would eliminate Knockdown and up crit to 4 just to balance it. No Blast.

Explosive - Dam 6, Crit 4, Blast 6, Knockdown. The damage drops to make it slightly worse than a Frag Grenade, but it keeps knockdown instead. Blast 6 makes it useful. Don't forget the blast rating is how much blast damage is caused by the quarrel. I suppose you could keep Dam 10, Blast 4 if you allow extra successes to add to Blast Damage. But otherwise, the blast is pretty irrelevant to armored enemies.

Incendiary - Dam 8, Crit 3, Blast 5, Burn 1. This is slightly less Burn rating than the Inferno Grenade, but otherwise identical. Alternately, change to Dam 10, Crit 3, Burn 2, Short Range only. Depends on whether you want a burst of flame catching an area on fire (mini incendiary grenade), or a small concentrated burn that ruins a single target's day (shotgun with Dragon's Breath rounds). Remember Burn rating is the number of rounds you inflict base damage (no extra successes) to the target (unlike the blast rating which is damage inflicted).

As mentioned before, don't make the ammo types superior to other similar weapons without some balance. With your suggested stats, no one would ever craft standard ammo. Your incendiary ammo was just insanely powerful (more damage than any other burn weapon with better range).

I misread the Burn quality and will adjust the incendiary.

The only person using these would be my Wookie player. He's already the killingest of all killers with a nearly tricked out bowcaster (has autofire, +2 damage mods, and trying for the Pierce 1 mods) under the Sharpshooter spec (2 ranks of True Aim and Deadly accuracy). He already does a ridiculous amount of damage and doesn't use anything else unless forced. Blast costs 2 Advantage to activate, Knockdown also costs advantage to activate. By showing him something equal or slightly better, he consistently debates himself on building the Slinger type. The RP and killy elements tempt him every time I bring it up.

But I'll take a closer look at things when I have time and make adjustments as needed.

Stun Arrows: Dam : 6 crit: NO stun damage, limited ammo 1 price: 60 R:6

I first read this as:

Stun Arrows: [ … ] No stun damage [ … ]

If you put some commas in there between each item, I think that will help make the list more readable.

Add a Grenade Launcher attachment to a Hard point?

On 1/4/2017 at 5:19 AM, Oden Gebhac said:

I came up with something a while back but I still need to figure out the price for supplies for quarrels.

Building a Bowcaster

Choose type: Standard or Slinger

Gather Supplies: 1,250 credits/7

Build the Weapon: Hard Mechanics check

Time to build: 24 hours

Slinger type Bowcaster

Standard Quarrels (Average Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 1, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Armor Piercing Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3, Medium; Blast 1, Pierce 3, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Incendiary Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 1, Burn 3; Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Explosive Quarrels (Hard Mechanics)

Dam 10; Crit 3; Medium; Blast 4, Knockdown, Cumbersome 3, Limited Ammo 5, Prepare 1

Thoughts?

Blast 1 is so useless it's not worth adding, unless you have massive minion groups it will always be absorbed by soak so not worth the 2 advantage cost unless you use blast and burn in unison to set multiple enemies on fire.

On 1/4/2017 at 4:47 AM, edwardavern said:

Wookie

On 1/4/2017 at 2:07 PM, Oden Gebhac said:

Wookie

*Wookiee

On 1/4/2017 at 5:47 AM, edwardavern said:

So I was thinking that, instead of having the PC craft individual quarrels, he could craft ammo clips for different types of quarrel. This would essentially be like crafting a unique weapon, except that when the ammo runs out (from Threat or Despair) he would have to craft an entirely new one. Essentially, he'd be crafting specialised Extra Reloads. (My theory is this would also save on book keeping - otherwise he and I have got to keep track of the differences in each individual quarrel he crafts!)

Does this sound like a good idea?

It does not sound like a good idea. The purpose of having a system where you have an 'out of ammo' result on dice rolls and weapons that by and large lack explicit clip sizes is to reduce book keeping, and to me this looks like unjustified complexity. The two questions I don't see answered are:

• In your opinion, why does the player need to be crafting specialized additional reloads when extra reloads are already generic
• In your opinion, why does

I think Brother Malachai's solution is best: an under barrel grenade launcher 'reskinned' to be stun quarrels, or just create a Bowcaster weapon mod to allow stun AoE shots very similar to the grenade launcher. Make the damage/range/etc substantially less powerful than a stun grenade.

For tuning the damage/utility of whatever solution you use, start somewhere reasonable but tell your player you're going to be adjusting the stats if you feel its needed. I would start somewhere less powerful than a stun grenade to balance the lack of limited ammo.

Also, in the original post, it sounds like the player is just interested in stun quarrel. Is there a need to add in armor piercing, incendiary, etc?