You have beefy pistols that do a base 8 damage. The beefy rifles are like 10. 2 points is not that big a deal. Attachments and Talents make those 2 points meaningless. This just isn't an issue.

On 6/15/2018 at 10:50 AM, DaverWattra said:

I don't think of Han Solo as a support character.

I just slapped together this minor modification of the Gunslinger tree for a PC who fights with one pistol. What do people think?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1UokS4egJwpTbZqx_PHq0F_c7Cd5eJlDz

No, he's not supporting cast. But, he's not presented as a professional combatant, either. He's a smuggler who carries a sidearm for (occassionally preemptive) self-defense. Repeat after me: "only a damned fool brings a sidearm to a gunfight when a longarm is available." A sidearm is a weapon with a specific application. Its a defensive weapon you carry for close-quarters personal protection. It is more easily concealed, can be worn in a broader array of circumstances, and is lighter and less cumbersome. Its can be there when you have no advanced warning that a combat is upon you.

At the same time, sidearms are less powerful weapons in terms of range, penetration, and associated wound factors. Hands down. There is no contest. Its not even remotely open for debate. There is a simple and indisputable reason mainline infantry soldiers are carrying long-guns and not sidearms: firepower. Its the same reason special forces and and SWAT teams about to enter CQB opt for long-guns or sub-machineguns as their primary weapons: firepower. A sidearm is not an offensive weapon. If you walk into a firefight with a sidearm against long-guns without heavy-handed plot-immunity or lots and lots of genre-enforcing talents, you're dead.

To that end, the system gives you some talent-paths to sidearm superiority: the Gunslinger spec in Fly Casual is one. The signature ability Unmatched Destruction from No Disintegrations is another. Here is a two tree path to total sidearm destruction: Bounty Hunter (Career) with Assassin (Spec) and Gunslinger (Spec) plus Unmatched Destruction (SA). Enjoy.

4 hours ago, 2P51 said:

You have beefy pistols that do a base 8 damage. The beefy rifles are like 10. 2 points is not that big a deal. Attachments and Talents make those 2 points meaningless. This just isn't an issue.

In terms of just the damage itself, I agree that 2 points is not a big deal. But when it comes to getting pask Soak (and/or Reflect) at all to deal a critical hit, it can matter quite a bit. The difference between 8 and 10 damage could be the difference between needing 1 success + 3 advantage to inflict a crit, vs needing 3 successes + 3 advantage. That could easily halve your chances of getting a critical hit past Soak, e.g.: http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=2&ability=2&difficulty=2

Or if attacking heavily-armored minion groups, it could mean the difference between killing a Stormtrooper every turn with your average roll, vs taking two turns to kill a Stormtrooper with your average roll. It's only 2 extra damage, but that could mean you get about twice as much damage past Soak if you're hitting a target with Soak 5+. Small-looking differences in damage can actually make a real difference in this game's combat system.

1 hour ago, DaverWattra said:

In terms of just the damage itself, I agree that 2 points is not a big deal. But when it comes to getting pask Soak (and/or Reflect) at all to deal a critical hit, it can matter quite a bit. The difference between 8 and 10 damage could be the difference between needing 1 success + 3 advantage to inflict a crit, vs needing 3 successes + 3 advantage. That could easily halve your chances of getting a critical hit past Soak, e.g.: http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=2&ability=2&difficulty=2

Or if attacking heavily-armored minion groups, it could mean the difference between killing a Stormtrooper every turn with your average roll, vs taking two turns to kill a Stormtrooper with your average roll. It's only 2 extra damage, but that could mean you get about twice as much damage past Soak if you're hitting a target with Soak 5+. Small-looking differences in damage can actually make a real difference in this game's combat system.

At the end of the day, why should pistols do as much damage as rifles? If you want a gun that does the same amount of damage as a rifle, get a rifle (and all the advantages and disadvantages that come with it).

1 hour ago, DaverWattra said:

In terms of just the damage itself, I agree that 2 points is not a big deal. But when it comes to getting pask Soak (and/or Reflect) at all to deal a critical hit, it can matter quite a bit. The difference between 8 and 10 damage could be the difference between needing 1 success + 3 advantage to inflict a crit, vs needing 3 successes + 3 advantage. That could easily halve your chances of getting a critical hit past Soak, e.g.: http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=2&ability=2&difficulty=2

Or if attacking heavily-armored minion groups, it could mean the difference between killing a Stormtrooper every turn with your average roll, vs taking two turns to kill a Stormtrooper with your average roll. It's only 2 extra damage, but that could mean you get about twice as much damage past Soak if you're hitting a target with Soak 5+. Small-looking differences in damage can actually make a real difference in this game's combat system.

I'm not buying your argument. Too many Talents and/or attachments available, and for very little xp/cash that add damage in the game. Plus successes on a roll added to damage? sorry, things are not as desperate as you're painting it. Pistols and rifles are fine exactly how they are.

Another point that has been neglected in this thread: Two weapon fighting.

Yes, the difficulty is tougher, but it ramps the average damage up a lot. Especially because two advantage isn't that hard to get with a bit of investment.

Also, if you don't want to use two pistols, it still opens up shields, off-hand melee weapons, and other benefits.

I mean there really cant be an argument here. I love pistols and most of my characters bar one mad wookie are pistol fighters. A pistol in no setting other than when it comes to concealment or weight will never outmatch a rifle, it is simply a smaller and less powerful version of the same. If you want to be a combat focused character with pistols you need to use two to make up for their inherent weaknesses compared to rifles. Now if you want to be combat focused and not two weapon fight do something else fun with your second hand like sue a grapple gun to zip around the battle or maybe use a shield. To try an house rule it so that a dude with a single pistol can be comparable to a dude with a rifle is just silly.

Now while i love the idea of your Deadeye talent it is broken AF. My guns currently have accurate 2 and im looking at my third rank of quick strike, take into account aiming and im throwing about 5/6 blue dice on my opening salvo. add in your class and you have that each shot and a stupidly high amount on first salvos. You would need to write in something at the very least that states you cant take this and Gunslinger but then again you will be dissappointed because those extra two blue dice will never out damage the second pistol.

you beat me too it

On 6/18/2018 at 9:57 PM, Genuine said:

Another point that has been neglected in this thread: Two weapon fighting.

Yes, the difficulty is tougher, but it ramps the average damage up a lot. Especially because two advantage isn't that hard  to get with a bit of investment.

Also, if you don't want to use two pistols, it still opens up shields, off-hand melee weapons, and other benefits.

I agree with this. I had a player who used two pistols and he could put down most if not all enemies before they even have a chance to react. He built one gun for accuracy and the other for damage. He also had the paired upgrade so it only took one advantage to trigger the second gun.

In fact there one one time he almost killed another player by accident. He shot an an enemy that was engaged with the other player. He rolled and hit with both guns and triggered a crit with both guns. He then rolled the difficulty die. He rolled a Despair. As a GM who likes making things hard for my players, I laughed so hard. But I was nice and allowed one to hit the intended target but the second shot hit the player.

36 minutes ago, HistoryGuy said:

In fact there one one time he almost killed another player by accident. He shot an an enemy that was engaged with the other player. He rolled and hit with both guns and triggered a crit with both guns. He then rolled the difficulty die. He rolled a Despair. As a GM who likes making things hard for my players, I laughed so hard. But I was nice and allowed one to hit the intended target but the second shot hit the player.

How can he hit and trigger a crit when the the difficulty dice have not been rolled yet? You build a dice pool and roll it, this is how this system works ?

In my Opinion: If you want to really deal damage with Blaster Pistols, use 2 of them with two weapon combat and weapon pair attachment, just as said above. On a successful two weapon attack you will surpass rifles.

For me Rifles and Carbines have the better range and better base damage, but they lose flexibility in regards to close range. Pistols are much better to hide, have lower range but arent as limiting in a cqb situation.

I have to say I really like how this is balanced.

I was experimenting with treating the system more like x-wing. You roll the positive dice, chose how you want to spend the advantage, then roll negative dice, then I chose what you lose with the threat. The negative dice roll was Blank/Despair. His positive dice pool was YYYGBBB. So he kept both Triumphs, and the 4 Advantage. He did lose 1 of the 3 Success he rolled.

The experiment was fun but it only lasted a few sessions.

3 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

In my Opinion: If you want to really deal damage with Blaster Pistols, use 2 of them with two weapon combat and weapon pair attachment, just as said above. On a successful two weapon attack you will surpass rifles.

One minor caveat - against high soak opponents the twf can potentially do less damage. So there is still balance between them.

Yes, of course. But that was kinda my point. The Weapons have a very good balancing on my opinion. From Pistols to Carbines to Rifles all have their own advantages and disadvantages ?

On 6/15/2018 at 8:54 AM, DaverWattra said:

Can anyone recommend a way to bring pistols up to the level of rifles? 

Don't worry about maximizing the damage you do? Play to what's cool? Play to the concept not the stats?

20 hours ago, HistoryGuy said:

I was experimenting with treating the system more like x-wing. You roll the positive dice, chose how you want to spend the advantage, then roll negative dice, then I chose what you lose with the threat. The negative dice roll was Blank/Despair. His positive dice pool was YYYGBBB. So he kept both Triumphs, and the 4 Advantage. He did lose 1 of the 3 Success he rolled.

The experiment was fun but it only lasted a few sessions.

Interesting concept. If the player got three advantages and used them to trigger a crit with his crit rating 3 blaster and later a threat is rolled, what would happen? Can he decide on what to spent his remaining two advantages on, or does he keep the triggered crit and the GM uses the threat on something else, like suffer one strain?

51 minutes ago, Rogues Rule said:

Interesting concept. If the player got three advantages and used them to trigger a crit with his crit rating 3 blaster and later a threat is rolled, what would happen? Can he decide on what to spent his remaining two advantages on, or does he keep the triggered  crit and the GM uses the threat on something else, like suffer one strain?

I only did this kind of rolling for combat.

The crit he got to keep it but it would be reduced by the number of threat I used X5 to a minimum of 5 up to the number of advantage used to trigger the crit. So for example: Player A shoots Enemy B and trigger the 3 advantage needed for the crit. He then chooses to spend the Triump to add 10. Enemy B has one crit against him already so that adds 10 more. He rolls for the crit and rolls 67 which becomes 87. I roll the two purple dice for difficulty. I roll 4 threat. Because the crit on the gun is 3, I can only apply three threat. The crit is reduced by 15 to 72. The last threat can be used to cancel another advantage, or used as normal if there are no more advantage.

Like I said, it was fun for a few sessions but it ran into more bookkeeping than we all wanted to do.

On 6/15/2018 at 8:54 AM, DaverWattra said:

Can anyone recommend a way to bring pistols up to the level of rifles?

I read your post and I'm not sure why you're trying to accomplish this. I mean, the undertone is "I want my pistol to do as much damage as a rifle" and we can eschew any argument about realism given laser swords and people surviving in open space with nary a breathmask, but as a GM I'd be wondering just what you were after.

18 hours ago, themensch said:

I read your post and I'm not sure why you're trying to accomplish this. I mean, the undertone is "I want my pistol to do as much damage as a rifle" and we can eschew any argument about realism given laser swords and people surviving in open space with nary a breathmask, but as a GM I'd be wondering just what you were after.

The goal is to have a pistol build that is as good as the Gunslinger prestige class from Saga Edition. In other words, a pistol build that is as good overall in combat as a rifle build of the same XP--equally likely to win a fight, that is.

52 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

The goal is to have a pistol build that is as good as the Gunslinger prestige class from Saga Edition. In other words, a pistol build that is as good overall in combat as a rifle build of the same XP--equally likely to win a fight, that is.

Okay. I suspect that the nature of this system not to focus on raw numbers and firepower and instead on what makes a good story is the genesis of your consternation here. It's been the experience of our table that it doesn't matter how hard we minmax, the dice are the dice and from great heights come great falls so we've moved away from hyper-specialized builds.

2 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

The goal is to have a pistol build that is as good as the Gunslinger prestige class from Saga Edition. In other words, a pistol build that is as good overall in combat as a rifle build of the same XP--equally likely to win a fight, that is.

In the game currently, all there, no houserules needed, a number of spec, weapon, and/or attachments make it so.

4 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

The goal is to have a pistol build that is as good as the Gunslinger prestige class from Saga Edition. In other words, a pistol build that is as good overall in combat as a rifle build of the same XP--equally likely to win a fight, that is.

If it was possible to have a single pistol build which was just as good in combat as a rifle build (with similar levels of min-maxing), why would anyone use a rifle?

39 minutes ago, TheSapient said:

If it was possible to have a single pistol build which was just as good in combat as a rifle build (with similar levels of min-maxing), why would anyone use a rifle?

Maybe you want to shoot someone you can't talk to? ?

7 hours ago, themensch said:

Okay. I suspect that the nature of this system not to focus on raw numbers and firepower and instead on what makes a good story is the genesis of your consternation here. It's been the experience of our table that it doesn't matter how hard we minmax, the dice are the dice and from great heights come great falls so we've moved away from hyper-specialized builds.

Whenever one complains about anything in the combat system, one is always accused of being a min-maxer or something. I love the focus on good story in the system, I would just like to have pistol fighters be as effective in combat as rifle users.

3 hours ago, TheSapient said:

If it was possible to have a single pistol build which was just as good in combat as a rifle build (with similar levels of min-maxing), why would anyone use a rifle?

Because that player thinks rifles are cooler-looking than pistols? Because rifles are better at X and pistols are better at Y, and the player wants to try a character who focuses on X?

One could just as easily invert your question: If pistols and rifles were equally good, why would anyone use a pistol instead of a rifle?

Anyway, none of this is a huge deal to me. I started the thread asking a factual question: Is there any way to make pistols as good as rifles for the same XP? If people think that question is stupid, just move along. I appreciate the posters who have addressed the question I asked, such as 2P51...

5 hours ago, 2P51 said:

In the game currently, all there, no houserules needed, a number of spec, weapon, and/or attachments make it so.

How would you build a PC who fights with a single pistol and is as effective as, e.g., a Gunner with a heavy blaster rifle jury-rigged for autofire? I understand that's a pretty extreme example since jury-rigged autofire is really OP, but in a way that is my point in the first place.

2 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

How would you build a PC who fights with a single pistol and is as effective as, e.g., a Gunner with a heavy blaster rifle jury-rigged for autofire? I understand that's a pretty extreme example since jury-rigged autofire is really OP, but in a way that is my point in the first place.

You wouldn't and asking and/or expecting to be able to is absurd. I'm done with this topic. You should probably go play Saga if that meets your expectations because clearly this system won't.