Howdy everyone! I'm currently trying to convert over the Fragged Empire setting over to Genesys. I've never GM'd using the GEnesys/Star Wars system before, and homebrewing stuff this extensively is not something I'm familiar with, so I'm worried about making mistakes in terms of balance or what have you.

One of the races for Fragged Empire, the Twi-Far, have a natural energy attack, and I wasn't sure how to port it over. I have the ability listed below but basically, suffer strain to use a more explosive version of a Light Blaster Pistol from Star Wars. They'd be able to use this weapon at any point (unless they're unconscious or are suffering too much strain to risk using it).

Any feedback is appreciated! I think I might post what I have for the Fragged Empire conversion here in the future, but until I'm confident enough to do so I was hoping to ask individual questions like this.

Edit: I think it might be more useful to post the full racial stats of the Twi-Far, so here we go! Again I have zero experience with converting things or homebrewing races, so any kind of feedback is great!

Starting Wound Threshold: 10 + Brawn
Starting Strain Threshold: 10 + Willpower
Starting XP: 90

Special Abilities: Twi-Far begin the game with one rank in Knowledge (Lore) or Astrogation at character creation. They can’t raise these skills above 2 ranks at character creation.

Faren Blast: Twi-Far may suffer two strain to use their natural energy attacks. This attack does 5 damage, has a range of medium, a critical rating of 4, and the Blast 4 quality. The skill used is [Discipline or Resilience, haven't decided yet].

Organic Energy Conduits: Twi-Far gain +1 Soak against Energy weapons. On the negative side, the GM may spend a Despair or 4 threat to give Energy attacks against you to give that one attack the “Blast 4” quality.

Bioluminescent skin: Twi-far suffer one setback dice to Stealth checks.

I've never heard of this setting, but if it's an organic process, you might be looking at a Resilience check in place of Ranged check. Or if it's more mental or whatever, a Discipline check.

You could give it the slow firing quality too if it’s something that needs to recharge, I agree it doesn’t need to be a combat skill either.

Hmm...I think that makes sense! It's supposed to be an innate ability more than anything else, so it makes sense that you don't need military training or what have you to use it. I think I'll use either Resilience or Discipline for it.

If I give it Slow Firing of, say, 2, should I mess around with how much damage/blast it does, or how much strain you receive when using it?

43 minutes ago, Neongelion said:

Howdy everyone! I'm currently trying to convert over the Fragged Empire setting over to Genesys. I've never GM'd using the GEnesys/Star Wars system before, and homebrewing stuff this extensively is not something I'm familiar with, so I'm worried about making mistakes in terms of balance or what have you.

One of the races for Fragged Empire, the Twi-Far, have a natural energy attack, and I wasn't sure how to port it over. I have the ability listed below but basically, suffer strain to use a more explosive version of a Light Blaster Pistol from Star Wars. They'd be able to use this weapon at any point (unless they're unconscious or are suffering too much strain to risk using it).

Any feedback is appreciated! I think I might post what I have for the Fragged Empire conversion here in the future, but until I'm confident enough to do so I was hoping to ask individual questions like this.

Edit: I think it might be more useful to post the full racial stats of the Twi-Far, so here we go! Again I have zero experience with converting things or homebrewing races, so any kind of feedback is great!

Brawn	Agility	Intellect	Cunning	Willpower	Presence
1	2	2	3	2	2

Starting Wound Threshold: 10 + Brawn
Starting Strain Threshold: 10 + Willpower
Starting XP: 90

Special Abilities: Twi-Far begin the game with one rank in Knowledge (Lore) or Astrogation at character creation. They can’t raise these skills above 2 ranks at character creation.

Faren Blast: Twi-Far may suffer two strain to use their natural energy attacks. This attack does 5 damage, has a range of medium, a critical rating of 4, and the Blast 4 quality. The skill used is [Discipline or Resilience, haven't decided yet].

Organic Energy Conduits: Twi-Far gain +1 Soak against Energy weapons. On the negative side, the GM may spend a Despair or 4 setback to give Energy attacks against you to give that one attack the “Blast 4” quality.

Bioluminescent skin: Twi-far suffer one setback dice to Stealth checks.

5

I'm a fan of Discipline for innate powers like this, so that's where my vote goes.

I'm confused as to organic energy conduits. I get the +1 soak thing, that's cool. But spending (threat, not setback) to give incoming energy attacks blast 4? How long does that last? Since you can only generate threat on rolls you make, it's impossible for that to apply to a specific incoming attack.

Just now, c__beck said:

I'm a fan of Discipline for innate powers like this, so that's where my vote goes.

I'm confused as to organic energy conduits. I get the +1 soak thing, that's cool. But spending (threat, not setback) to give incoming energy attacks blast 4? How long does that last? Since you can only generate threat on rolls you make, it's impossible for that to apply to a specific incoming attack.

Hmmm...I see what you're saying. It's been a while since I've played this, so thanks for the refresher on how that works. (And pointing out incorrect terminology usage!)

The idea is that Twi-Far being naturally conductive to certain types of energy can be a benefit as well as a bane. They have an easier time resisting them and have innate blast attacks, but sometimes their bodies, unintentionally or otherwise, magnifies the effects of energy-based attacks that successfully hit them. The effect was intended to just be for a single attack.

Maybe I change it to where bad guys can spend advantage or triumph to activate that unintentional side effect on them if their attack succeeds?

1 minute ago, Neongelion said:

Hmm...I think that makes sense! It's supposed to be an innate ability more than anything else, so it makes sense that you don't need military training or what have you to use it. I think I'll use either Resilience or Discipline for it.

If I give it Slow Firing of, say, 2, should I mess around with how much damage/blast it does, or how much strain you receive when using it?

I wouldn’t change the Strain cost, if it’s too low it’s too easy to use for a medium ranged natural weapon that can’t be lost or confiscated, this isn’t pikachu I assume.

If you give it slow firing 2, so it can be used every three rounds, then the blast rating could perhaps be raised to 5, I think I you could also raise the base Damage to 6.

An important question is how much do advanced weapons feature in the setting? Are they common but ammunition is very rare? Or are guns common with readily available ammunition? Or is this a world with mostly primitive weapons now? If guns are common then this weapon can be more powerful, if on the other hand it’s hard to get rifles and pistols then this should be a less powerful ability, or at least more taxing on the user

2 minutes ago, Neongelion said:

Maybe I change it to where bad guys can spend advantage or triumph to activate that unintentional side effect on them if their attack succeeds?

That would be better, three or four Advantage with the always possible Triumph.

8 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

I wouldn’t change the Strain cost, if it’s too low it’s too easy to use for a medium ranged natural weapon that can’t be lost or confiscated, this isn’t pikachu I assume.

If you give it slow firing 2, so it can be used every three rounds, then the blast rating could perhaps be raised to 5, I think I you could also raise the base Damage to 6.

An important question is how much do advanced weapons feature in the setting? Are they common but ammunition is very rare? Or are guns common with readily available ammunition? Or is this a world with mostly primitive weapons now? If guns are common then this weapon can be more powerful, if on the other hand it’s hard to get rifles and pistols then this should be a less powerful ability, or at least more taxing on the user

Fragged Empire is a "post-post apocalyptic" setting, which just means that there was a horrible, genocidal interstellar war more than a century ago, but the surviving races have at least partially accepted what happened and are trying to rebuild and explore an uncharted galaxy, rather than merely trying to survive.

Standard firearms and ammo are fairly common. Energy gun variations are listed as Ion, Particle, Laser, and Plasma, at least in the Fragged Empire core book. Other variations are Metal Slugs, Self-Guided,, Self-Propelled (i.e. works in liquid), Spine Launchers and Burst Spores (bio-mechanical stuff), Rail, Gauss, and Irradiated ammo.

I'm not sure if every single one of those variations needs to be mechanically different yet (the mechanical differences between Rail and Gauss gun variations I don't think translate to Genesys well), but I'm gonna see what I can do in the future. I believe energy weapons are used slightly more than projectile weapons, but the latter is still massively popular: If it hurts, it works!

Ok I would go with something like these two options:

Faren Blast: Twi-Far may suffer three strain to use their natural energy attacks. This attack does 6 damage, has a range of medium, a critical rating of 4, and the Blast 5 quality. It also has the Slow Firing 1 quality as their bodies recharge between attacks. The skill used is Discipline.

or

Faren Blast: Twi-Far may suffer two strain to use their natural energy attacks. This attack does 6 damage, has a range of medium, a critical rating of 4, and the Blast 5 quality. It also has the Slow Firing 2 quality as their bodies recharge between attacks. The skill used is Discipline

Discipline because they have a 1 in Brawn

1 hour ago, Richardbuxton said:

Ok I would go with something like these two options:

Faren Blast: Twi-Far may suffer three strain to use their natural energy attacks. This attack does 6 damage, has a range of medium, a critical rating of 4, and the Blast 5 quality. It also has the Slow Firing 1 quality as their bodies recharge between attacks. The skill used is Discipline.

or

Faren Blast: Twi-Far may suffer two strain to use their natural energy attacks. This attack does 6 damage, has a range of medium, a critical rating of 4, and the Blast 5 quality. It also has the Slow Firing 2 quality as their bodies recharge between attacks. The skill used is Discipline

Discipline because they have a 1 in Brawn

I think I'll use the second one. Thank you everyone for your input! ^^

I'll probably submit the whole Fragged Empire conversion when I work on it more.

The Ithorians in Star Wars have a natural attack, pretty similar to what you're working on:

Resilience; Damage 6, Crit 4, Short Range, Blast 3, Concussive 1, Slow-Firing 2, Stun Damage. Ithorian characters suffer 3 strain each time they use this ability.

I think Resilience is probably a better skill to use than Discipline, unless it's a psionic attack.