I am going to start testing a new rule to address what I feel is poor damage from Pistols. Disruptors are not considered in this, as they almost never show up in my game. Humans have a standard Brawn of 2 which means that naked they have a soak of 2. Weapons always do at least +1 damage over base in the rules because the success which makes the Hit Result is counted so the Hold-Out blaster having a 5 base damage is always at least a 6 in practical use, but will run into a minimum of 2 Soak almost always and therefore is actually 4. Guns are a tool designed to kill. When set for Stun, the idea is to incapacitate so as to not endanger the Stunner by having a Stunnee needing to be zapped 20 times before they fall. A pistol designed in such a way as to not be lethal makes little sense to me. In practical use I find that my players who take a Carbine or bigger tend to drop foes in one hit, but the pistol-wielding characters are always in protracted slogs because their lethal weapons aren't lethal. I like the idea of a bigger weapon dong more damage, but I don't like the idea of ineffectual weapons. Ineffectual weapons push players to want the gun that will drop the enemy, and therefore it encourages Power Creep via Gear.

I'm not a fan of "Tree Chopping," or combats in which it's about whittling down your foe round after round. I would rather the firefights be more misses but with the hits being significant.

Preliminary Rule Verbiage:

All Pistols do a Base Damage of 9

Extra Damage for Successes is only possible if the number of successes rolled is greater than the difference between the weapon's RAW damage and 9. Therefore a Hold-Out Blaster user would have to roll 5 Successes to get 1 extra Damage (5 + 5 = 10 which is +1 over 9). Attachments and Mods that give the pistol more damage simply lower the number needed to be able to count extra Successes as additional Damage, unless the Attachment or Mod Would Take the damage of the Pistol over 9 Damage Base.

Effects:

• Higher Base Damage means that PC's, Rivals, and Nemesis characters will be less resistant to Pistol Damage, which should increase lethality.
• This will result in Players needing to be aware of the danger of Blaster Weapons and especially of Blaster Weapons used on targets who aren't moving, have no cover, etc.
• Criticals become Less Important for determining success in hits with Pistols, as damage alone will be a viable option instead of relying on the need for a Critical Hit with a low-damage Blaster Pistol. The game seems to have been designed with Critical Hits as the equalizer for many low-damage weapons, but this still puts the low-damage blasters as Lucky Shot weapons. Meanwhile players toting long guns or heavier will wholesale destroy the enemy with standard damage alone.
• Necessitates use of Favorable and Unfavorable modifiers to hit as the average character can be gravely wounded by even one hit from a Blaster Pistol at a damage of 9.

Possible Downsides:

• Critical Hit chance improved by Talents may affect outcome if weapon was designed to trigger criticals easily but now does extra damage too.
• Minions will tend to die in Multiples unless hardened, and will be rendered less effective than in RAW.
• More Calculation and Clunk.
• NPC's with such weapons will hit harder and will Kill PC's not able (or not willing) to respect the lethality of the weapon.

Before I put this into test I was hoping for some input on possible good and bad that you can foresee associated with using this house rule. Thank you for any feedback.

It doesn’t make since that heavy blaster pistols, fancy dragoneyes, and tiny holdout blasters all do the same amount of damage. What about saying +3 damage for pistols?

19 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

It doesn’t make since that heavy blaster pistols, fancy dragoneyes, and tiny holdout blasters all do the same amount of damage. What about saying +3 damage for pistols?

It's not a bad idea I'd say. I was trying to have a floor for damage for lethal weapons and that's why numerically I went with the same number , but I also put in that mechanic for the extra damage. So if for instance I do +3, then a HBP does 10 and since every success counts it will always do at least 11. But they could roll 4 successes and kick that up to 14 points of damage. That is very heavy indeed, and to be honest may be more of what I am looking for. Thank you Yacc

I should also say that I cap the XP in my game at 400 with a slow trickle after that so it's not a game where there are a lot of PCs running around with Soak of 8 and WT of 18, so I was going for a flat upgrade.

But I will test your idea too, thank you again.

I would just say more minions are needed, with low Soak/wt.

then invoke the house rule that you can activate a Crit multiple times against minions to remove multiple minions from the group on a single check.

lastly you could have minions reduce the Crit Rating of any weapon attacking them by 1 (minimum 1)

still, test your idea and see what happens.

1 hour ago, Richardbuxton said:

I would just say more minions are needed, with low Soak/wt.

then invoke the house rule that you can activate a Crit multiple times against minions to remove multiple minions from the group on a single check.

lastly you could have minions reduce the Crit Rating of any weapon attacking them by 1 (minimum 1)

still, test your idea and see what happens.

Thank you Richard I think that's on the table for sure. I think my problem is that the weapons that are considered blasters are a bit far apart on Damage for the type of game I like to run. The Hold-Out Blaster as it's listed is basically just going to piss someone off if you shoot them, which puts you in combat holding an ineffective weapon that apparently was designed to kill Chadra Fan or Jawas or something small. I don't want players having to grab disruptors, missile tubes, and heavy blasters to feel like they are actually using dangerous weapons. I tend to also like the Old West feel of the characters not wanting to get shot No medicine for a life that's fled and all that.

I agree that pistol damage can be a bit anemic, but making said pistols equal the damage output of a lightsaber feels like a mistake.

In my opinion, weaponry should definitely be subject to "right tool for the job" considerations. What I mean by that is if you're fighting stormtroopers, trained and armored soldiers capable of assaulting across a battlefield into enemy fire, then you should be packing heavier weaponry. You shouldn't be able to carry the day with small concealable weaponry, unless it's through some bizarre combination of luck and incredible marksmanship.

X-30 Lancers among other blaster pistols are just fine with low base damage. They work best in the hands of an exceptionally skilled marksman and I have seen as much.

There’s also talents like Point Blank to add Damage to every shot, as well as Anatomy Lessons ect. Then you can jury rig as well. Then there are attachments. Assassin, Agressor, Executioner, and Gunslinger all excel with a pistol or two.

theres plenty of ways for players to be awesome with a pistol, if they want to be.

As gm give the players scenarios where a heavy pistol has bad social stigma, give them minions with 1 Soak and 4 Wounds. Not all npc’s should fight to the death either, if 4 pc’s are shooting at some npc’s those npc’s may just run from the intimation factor.

Try to think of the reasons a small pistol will be preferred and put them in that scenario

Pistols have different damage in real life too

a 9mm does a whole lot less damage than a 7.62mm Full Metal Jacket.

Yes you can kill with a pistol, but you have to be far more acurate to hit the right spot to do it, compared to just getting it close with a 7.62, which causes massive trauma.

That is represented well in this system.

You hit with your holdout, do say 7 damage. not enough to kill. But if you hit with a crit, dead! thats a good, acurate shot.

You hit with your Blaster Rifle, do say 13 Damage. Thats one dead stormie and you clip the guy next to with your burst. Easy to kill with an assault rifle.

You hit with a crit! thats 2 dead stormies and a third wounded. Easy to kill more when your trained to use said assault rifle.

So pistols give you the tool to kill if needed, if your good at them but you also gain the ability to conceal it, use your other hand for something, and you don't draw as much attention. It is also handy in a fistfight

Rifles are heavy, conspicious, take up two hands, and very hard to use in close combat

27 minutes ago, Funk Fu master said:

Pistols have different damage in real life too

a 9mm does a whole lot less damage than a 7.62mm Full Metal Jacket.

Yes you can kill with a pistol, but you have to be far more acurate to hit the right spot to do it, compared to just getting it close with a 7.62, which causes massive trauma.

That is represented well in this system.

You hit with your holdout, do say 7 damage. not enough to kill. But if you hit with a crit, dead! thats a good, acurate shot.

You hit with your Blaster Rifle, do say 13 Damage. Thats one dead stormie and you clip the guy next to with your burst. Easy to kill with an assault rifle.

You hit with a crit! thats 2 dead stormies and a third wounded. Easy to kill more when your trained to use said assault rifle.

So pistols give you the tool to kill if needed, if your good at them but you also gain the ability to conceal it, use your other hand for something, and you don't draw as much attention. It is also handy in a fistfight

Rifles are heavy, conspicious, take up two hands, and very hard to use in close combat

Great points, thanks for discussing this with me Funk Fu master. To me there are some weird things I notice with talking about guns. I like the meaty feel of the 7.62 x 39 and the 7.62 x 54 for the .308 equivalent, but that makes me no less enthusiastic about the .223 or 5.45 mm cartridges. I also do not wish to be shot with the often maligned 9mm round, even though I recognize and have seen intruders (not personally) take multiple hits to down with it, and like you said a shot to the head or heart will put you down with any of them.

But Cartridges are designed to do different things, and have considerations like cost, manufacturing, and sometime political design choices. The assumption that seems to be made with Blasters is that it's the same thing as cartridge and gun manufacture for our guns. You have a carbine then it must be more joules at the impact than a pistol.

What if the size of the power module for these things has been refined over tens of thousands of years of technological plateau, so that the right size emitter for power consumption and performance is the same roughly for any frame (Pistol, Carbine, Rifle, etc. ), but the range and velocity is what is affected, not actual output . There are minor differences in output I would imagine in small arms Blasters, but there is a point of inefficiency through overkill, and a point of engineering the weapon into not being able to accomplish its function if it's incapable of killing or defeating personal body armor. Han's DL-44 in older material I think was supposed to have the guts of a Blaster Rifle in it to make it more powerful, so yeah I can see having some variation in damages. But I think of Blasters being the gun equivalent of a lightsaber to a steel sword: they must be very good at causing wounds, and doing it with the purpose of killing.

After all, the projectile here is not a solid slug being propelled by a chemical charge down a barrel, but some sort of a plasma bolt with a magnetic field keeping it coherent along its trajectory. There must be a reason, besides ammo, that people use Blasters instead of Slugthrowers. My guess would be that they are more destructive because of a combination of electrical, heat, and kinetic damage.

Also the Critical Table seems to be underwhelming a lot, and has things on it like, "Ouch! You stubbed your toe, take a Black on any Presence rolls until your next Turn," so while you are right that going for Crits is legitimate, the results can be weak unless you have talents and circumstances boosting the Crit Roll.

Also a rifle up close is a good melee weapon usually, and I feel like unless you were holding something the size of a Light Machine Gun, the close up thing is just something the devs did to balance the little guns against the big guns. Pistols had less damage and range, so there had to be some advantage to using them.

Also I agree with you that the size of the weapon has a lot to do with when and where you can have it, but I notice that Players tend to always go for the big weapons, especially if they feel the sidearm is gonna simply put them in a prolonged battle at close range like pirate ships trading blows. I want players who choose to use a pistol to be effective, and I feel like saying that a Blaster bolt in general is a better weapon over all than a bullet justifies this. If you get hit by it you are gonna be in trouble. I know Luke and Leia both got shot in the movies and it wasn't a big deal either time, but I would say that they had Plot Armor. Pistols in the movies and cartoons kill people and even creatures dead no problem with one hit.

But not everyone will assume the construction and engineering of these things to be the way I do, and I agree with you really about the fact that the system largely does what it should with weapon damage. Along the lines of your point about accuracy, do you have people with pistols doing a lot of called shots? That may be another solution.

A pistol and a rifle are both effective already, but not at the same things. If your players are avoiding pistols then that’s because you as gm have not made a pistol an appealing option. Pistols are cheap, they are light, they are welcome in all but the most extreme social situations.

by all means try your modifications, but consider changing other things too and testing that as well.

6 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

A pistol and a rifle are both effective already, but not at the same things. If your players are avoiding pistols then that’s because you as gm have not made a pistol an appealing option. Pistols are cheap, they are light, they are welcome in all but the most extreme social situations.

by all means try your modifications, but consider changing other things too and testing that as well.

That was a general statement and not applicable to any games I am running or in currently. I have not made the pistol an appealing option, well that's interesting. Wouldn't boosting its damage make it an appealing option? Also I am looking to alter the overall feel of combat by doing this so that the fights tend to be short and nasty. It wouldn't be an unintended consequence if they tended to avoid fights if possible because they are actually very dangerous.

A friend of mine tends to use minions very scarcely and runs SWRPG a bit like D&D or something, where your enemies can tend to be singularly tough but also numerous. I think I feel like that is not the spirit of the way this game was designed but for a more dangerous campaign higher damage pistols and more Rivals might do the trick don't you think?

Honestly no. Minions are the single easiest way to make a pc feel cool, but also the easiest way to eat them for lunch.

Patches (Gang members) (Minions).

2,2,1,2,2,1. S:2, WT:4. Skills: Coercion, Ranged (Light), Brawl. Gear: Blaster Pistol, Brass Knuckles.

Put two groups of three of those onto a party and watch the pc’s enjoy a bit of biff but basically mop the floor, even the pistol guys will have a bit of fun.... two groups of ten of them and your pc’s will have to work really hard to not get sent packing. But for a GM the amount of effort required to plan and run both encounters is identical, throw a single Rival with decent Vigilance or Cool to get a good Initiative and it’s even better.

Minions are amazing, plain and simple, they are easy to plan, simple to run, and devastating in large groups. A full squad of 15 storm troopers in a single group basically kills anyone but seasoned soldiers, only vehicles are more daunting. They roll AAPPP and take many hits before that dice pool is reduced.

13 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

Honestly no. Minions are the single easiest way to make a pc feel cool, but also the easiest way to eat them for lunch.

Patches (Gang members) (Minions).

2,2,1,2,2,1. S:2, WT:4. Skills: Coercion, Ranged (Light), Brawl. Gear: Blaster Pistol, Brass Knuckles.

Put two groups of three of those onto a party and watch the pc’s enjoy a bit of biff but basically mop the floor, even the pistol guys will have a bit of fun.... two groups of ten of them and your pc’s will have to work really hard to not get sent packing. But for a GM the amount of effort required to plan and run both encounters is identical, throw a single Rival with decent Vigilance or Cool to get a good Initiative and it’s even better.

Minions are amazing, plain and simple, they are easy to plan, simple to run, and devastating in large groups. A full squad of 15 storm troopers in a single group basically kills anyone but seasoned soldiers, only vehicles are more daunting. They roll AAPPP and take many hits before that dice pool is reduced.

That's good advice I think, and it also has the added benefit of being elegant and easy to implement. I would also say that it's a solution in alignment with the spirit of the game and setting.

1 minute ago, Archlyte said:

That's good advice I think, and it also has the added benefit of being elegant and easy to implement. I would also say that it's a solution in alignment with the spirit of the game and setting.

Exactly. It also makes sense in the narrative too. A shootout between 4 pc’s and 6 lowly gangsters should be fun but ultimately not too difficult. Change that to 20 gangsters and it should be really hectic, blaster shots going everywhere, the walls falling apart, and real injuries. 15 storm troopers gunning you down should be terrifying.

5 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Also a rifle up close is a good melee weapon usually, and I feel like unless you were holding something the size of a Light Machine Gun, the close up thing is just something the devs did to balance the little guns against the big guns. Pistols had less damage and range, so there had to be some advantage to using them.

Shooting the rifle in engaged means you add two dice to the pool. So same difficulty as shooting them at extreme range. If you use it as a melee weapon without a proper attachment, then it's an improvised weapon and it can break on two threats.

Pistols meanwhile get the same difficulty as melee when engaged. Meaning you can still do your 8 heavy pistol damage rather than have to smack them with your fists.

As for the hold out blaster, those things are like a .22 derringer. Yeah it's a gun and it can kill you, but it's not going to bother someone in body armour all that much. It can be better than nothing, but that doesn't make it good.

A 9mm pistol is of course a lot less powerful than 7,62mm rifle, but if you get hit by the round, is it really that much less dangerous ? Sure, it impacts with less force, but that force should still be enough to do the job if it hits where it's supposed to. As long as we're not talking about ridiculous calibers, one hole in your body is about as dangerous as another. It usually matters a lot more where the exactly the hole is. Of course, a more powerful round has advantages like more easily penetrating a bone that would otherwise protect a vital organ, but if you set aside things like tumbling, frangible ammunition etc, the power of the impact might not matter nearly as much as the location (unless, of course, we go into extremes like .22s and .50s).

This might, or might not, apply to blasters to the same degree (depending on whether you see a blaster bolt primarily as surface explosion or a penetrating impact), but if you want shot placement to matter more, how about upping damage by +2 for every success, making accuracy and skill more attractive versus pure power? You could apply this to all blasters (or even all weapons), or perhaps just pistols (by the lords of FFG, it might make slugthrower pistols borderline useful) if you want pistols to be more attractive.

Personally, I'm pretty fine with how things work (but I agree that crits can be somewhat anemic). Someone taking a blaster pistol hit that only causes a few wounds is obviously just grazed. It takes a crit to actually cause a serious wound. Of course, this narrative approach to wound threshold (it's not as much a measure of how physically resistant you are to taking a beating, as as it is a narrative resistance) runs into a few issues with how soak is derived from brawn and such, but that's a topic for another day.

5 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

Shooting the rifle in engaged means you add two dice to the pool. So same difficulty as shooting them at extreme range. If you use it as a melee weapon without a proper attachment, then it's an improvised weapon and it can break on two threats.

Pistols meanwhile get the same difficulty as melee when engaged. Meaning you can still do your 8 heavy pistol damage rather than have to smack them with your fists.

As for the hold out blaster, those things are like a .22 derringer. Yeah it's a gun and it can kill you, but it's not going to bother someone in body armour all that much. It can be better than nothing, but that doesn't make it good.

For sure, I agree, and I am aware of the game mechanic, but I don't think it's actually all that realistic in many situations with readied weapons. Also, a .22 derringer is something that was developed at a time and in a place where armor isn't worn, and where their aren't Stimpaks and bacta. Weapons technology isn't effective if it doesn't do its job. For the needs of its use in old timey Earth that weapon was effective, but a hold-out blaster that doesn't kill is an inadequate and dangerous implement to use in the context of the setting.

4 hours ago, penpenpen said:

A 9mm pistol is of course a lot less powerful than 7,62mm rifle, but if you get hit by the round, is it really that much less dangerous ? Sure, it impacts with less force, but that force should still be enough to do the job if it hits where it's supposed to. As long as we're not talking about ridiculous calibers, one hole in your body is about as dangerous as another. It usually matters a lot more where the exactly the hole is. Of course, a more powerful round has advantages like more easily penetrating a bone that would otherwise protect a vital organ, but if you set aside things like tumbling, frangible ammunition etc, the power of the impact might not matter nearly as much as the location (unless, of course, we go into extremes like .22s and .50s).

This might, or might not, apply to blasters to the same degree (depending on whether you see a blaster bolt primarily as surface explosion or a penetrating impact), but if you want shot placement to matter more, how about upping damage by +2 for every success, making accuracy and skill more attractive versus pure power? You could apply this to all blasters (or even all weapons), or perhaps just pistols (by the lords of FFG, it might make slugthrower pistols borderline useful) if you want pistols to be more attractive.

Personally, I'm pretty fine with how things work (but I agree that crits can be somewhat anemic). Someone taking a blaster pistol hit that only causes a few wounds is obviously just grazed. It takes a crit to actually cause a serious wound. Of course, this narrative approach to wound threshold (it's not as much a measure of how physically resistant you are to taking a beating, as as it is a narrative resistance) runs into a few issues with how soak is derived from brawn and such, but that's a topic for another day.

Thanks for posting this, I agree with you of course on lethal is lethal, and I also agree that it's in how you interpret blasters for your game. I will try he +2 for each success, that's a cool idea. Also I was wondering why they made Soak only off of Brawn and not factor in Agility, or allow the choice or something.

2 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Also I was wondering why they made Soak only off of Brawn and not factor in Agility, or allow the choice or something.

Soak is based off Brawn so you can deflect blaster bolts by flexing your manly pecs at them. That's why action heroes go shirtless, after all.

Another way to potentially pump up blaster pistols is to give them pierce based on range. +3 at engaged, +2 at short, something that would make carrying one make more sense if you are looking for a more gritty, punishing style of play. This would make a hold out terrifying, but only at fist fight range, which is what they're designed for.

Sorry to come to this late. Read the thread earlier and this solution came to me out of the blue and I wanted to share.

2 hours ago, JRRP said:

Another way to potentially pump up blaster pistols is to give them pierce based on range. +3 at engaged, +2 at short, something that would make carrying one make more sense if you are looking for a more gritty, punishing style of play. This would make a hold out terrifying, but only at fist fight range, which is what they're designed for.

Sorry to come to this late. Read the thread earlier and this solution came to me out of the blue and I wanted to share.

That's a great idea, thanks for sharing it. Did you envision the other weapons not having it and it would be just sort of a counter for the pistols against the utility of the bigger guns?

13 hours ago, Archlyte said:

For sure, I agree, and I am aware of the game mechanic, but I don't think it's actually all that realistic in many situations with readied weapons. Also, a .22 derringer is something that was developed at a time and in a place where armor isn't worn, and where their aren't Stimpaks and bacta. Weapons technology isn't effective if it doesn't do its job. For the needs of its use in old timey Earth that weapon was effective, but a hold-out blaster that doesn't kill is an inadequate and dangerous implement to use in the context of the setting.

Weapons are force multipliers. With a hold out blaster, a Chadra-Fan or Drall is able to punch well above their weight-class in engaged if needs be. And weapons don't need to kill to be effective, they just need to take out your opponent or convince said opponent you're more trouble than you're worth. So they do their job, much like the .22 derringer.

It's not like it's a 2 mm kolibri, that thing is one anemic freaking calibre.

2 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

Weapons are force multipliers. With a hold out blaster, a Chadra-Fan or Drall is able to punch well above their weight-class in engaged if needs be. And weapons don't need to kill to be effective, they just need to take out your opponent or convince said opponent you're more trouble than you're worth. So they do their job, much like the .22 derringer.

It's not like it's a 2 mm kolibri, that thing is one anemic freaking calibre.

I had to look that up and man that is crazy small! I just don't agree that in a society as technically advanced that they would have weapons (at standard technology level, not artifacts etc.) that couldn't do the job. You shoot someone who is an armsbearer with a gun that only hurts them, and you are asking to be dead. I agree about taking them out or maybe scaring them if they are not armed or civilians unused to fighting, etc.

Why does a Chadra Fan punch above their weight class? Because they game doesn't restrict their Brawn? I am a bit confused on that one.

1 minute ago, Archlyte said:

I had to look that up and man that is crazy small! I just don't agree that in a society as technically advanced that they would have weapons (at standard technology level, not artifacts etc.) that couldn't do the job. You shoot someone who is an armsbearer with a gun that only hurts them, and you are asking to be dead. I agree about taking them out or maybe scaring them if they are not armed or civilians unused to fighting, etc.

Why does a Chadra Fan punch above their weight class? Because they game doesn't restrict their Brawn? I am a bit confused on that one.

Because they're tiny. So your average Chadra-Fan, who isn't a PC but rather a minion civilian with minimal training, is likely to have brawn 1. They're not even likely to bother a normal human by punching them, since the normal human's got 2 brawn and minimal training, your tiny Chadra-Fan would need to roll 2 successes on 1 green dice to even inflict damage on the human. With a hold out blaster they're able to deal 5 damage with one success, bringing the pain to the average human minion of soak 2 and 4 wounds, one good hit or two average hits and they're down.

The average person in the Star Wars galaxy is not a PC or a Nemesis, they're not even a rival. They're a minion with minimal stats. Most people aren't likely to need much more than a hold-out blaster in their life, it's a perfectly working gun for taking out or scaring off most people the average person is going to encounter. So it's a weapon that can do the job it was designed for. It just wasn't designed for military operations against well trained and well equipped enemies.

And when it comes to the level of technological advancement I think we're not likely to agree entirely. Miniturisation doesn't really seem like a Star Wars thing. If you shrink down the size of a machine then you get less power output from it, all weapons seem to use Tibanna gas for the plasma they're firing but there is a world of difference between a Turbo-Laser and E-11 blaster carbine. Hel, there is a world of difference between a E-11 and a heavy repeating blaster. The hold out blaster trades power for size.