9 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

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.

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...

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.

How would I do it? Well, when the NPC says 'Hey you cant carry that rifle around in here' I am pretty sure my basic light blaster pistol will work better.

On the other hand, when things go south and there is a bunch of hovertrucks dropping off hordes of stormtroopers outside, I am glad that autoblaster is around.

The whole pointlessness of this discussion is that there is a competition between builds. Asking 'Can Pistol builds compete with Rifle builds?' is like asking can 'Charm builds compete with Pilot builds?'

It isnt a competition. I dont lose Star Wars if I dont kill as many stormtroopers as the guy with more guns on his wall than words in his vocabulary.

No, pistols are not as damaging as rifles. So what?

39 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

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.

Sorry, I definitely didn't intend to be adversarial here. I wasn't kidding when I said I appreciate your posts in the thread. We learn by talking with knowledgeable people who have different perspectives.

Then you need to concede that a pistol is not going to compete with a medium support machine gun and being upset that it doesn't isn't reasonable. A heavy blaster rifle is not on the table imo, it's like comparing a spoon and shovel for digging a hole. No one should expect to be able to dig holes as well with a spoon as a shovel, as has been stated common sense comes into play at that point as to why anyone would ever buy or lug a shovel around.

In regards to the overall effectiveness, there comes a point where we are only talking about 'dead', there is no deader or deadest options. You can spool up the amount of damage a heavy blaster rifle does, but at a certain point beyond mowing down minions with the very meta game minion rules, there is no benefit gained, plus there are auto fire pistols that will do a **** ton on a group of petty minions as well used by a skilled/specced character.

When you take a pistol like an H7 , add in Jury Rigging, throw Deadly Accuracy in, a couple ranks of Lethal Blows, some of the attachments, particularly in the case of the H7, you're routinely landing damage in the range of 15 to 20 points and rolling a crit routinely right out the gate that's probably +50 to +100. That means your typical worse hit will be blowing off limbs, and one shotting targets regardless of Wound pool will be pretty regular. You're going to cross off targets, even beefy ones, like nobodies business in a round or two. Make that H7 a disruptor pistol and forget about it.

2 hours ago, 2P51 said:

In regards to the overall effectiveness, there comes a point where we are only talking about 'dead', there is no deader or deadest options. You can spool up the amount of damage a heavy blaster rifle does, but at a certain point beyond mowing down minions with the very meta game minion rules, there is no benefit gained, plus there are auto fire pistols that will do a **** ton on a group of petty minions as well used by a skilled/specced character.

So if I understand your main point here, you're saying:

(1) Obviously the most OP Ranged (Heavy) builds will be more destructive than any pistol build, BUT

(2) Only an insane murder hobo would play with the most OP Ranged (Heavy) builds, and

(3) For any sane Ranged (heavy) build that would actually be worth playing with, you can put together a pistol build that is just as effective.

That does seem plausible. I think I'm convinced that there isn't really a problem here, although I'm still tempted by the idea of modifying the Gunslinger spec to facilitate characters who want to use it with a single pistol.

There's no need to alter gunslinger. Second Chance and Double or Nothing put damage potential and crit activation through the roof on single hit. Doubling your Successes and Advantages won't require a second hit.

4 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

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.

I'm sorry if you felt accused, I was only relaying our experiences at our table. However, this picture you're painting....

17 hours ago, 2P51 said:

There's no need to alter gunslinger. Second Chance and Double or Nothing put damage potential and crit activation through the roof on single hit. Doubling your Successes and Advantages won't require a second hit.

Wait, you mean Gambler, right?

Yah, I'm essentially trying to stay in career for careers/specs/talents, and EoE.

We're pretty deep in a FaD game, but I really want to play in an EotE game where the character's are rebel sympathizing scum (or even scoundrels who make great agents).

The character I have in mind is a charmer-gunslinger.

"Hey, hey now," he said with a disarming smile. "Don't shoot!"

Fastdraw: BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

"Sorry about the mess."

56 minutes ago, Vondy said:

We're pretty deep in a FaD game, but I really want to play in an EotE game where the character's are rebel sympathizing scum (or even scoundrels who make great agents). The character I have in mind is a charmer-gunslinger.

"Hey, hey now," he said with a disarming. "Don't shoot!"

Fastdraw: BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

"Sorry about the mess."

Wait. There are other characters than this?

On 6/22/2018 at 7:07 PM, DaverWattra said:

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?

Since the discussion has revolved around how much damage the weapons do, and not making weapons "equally good", I don't think that is a fair comparison. The advantage of pistols is their size, how they are easier to hide, how they are more socially acceptable. If you could have all that, plus have all the advantages of rifles within combat, why would you choose a rifle? Why would they even MAKE rifles?

10 hours ago, TheSapient said:

  Since the discussion has revolved around how much damage the weapons do, and not making weapons "equally good", I don't think that is a fair comparison. The advantage of pistols is their size, how they are easier to hide, how they are more socially acceptable. If you could have all that, plus have all the advantages of rifles within combat, why would you choose a rifle? Why would they even MAKE rifles?  

Exactly. Different tool for different jobs. You carry a battle rifle into a war zone, you carry a pistol into a cantina

Another factor that plays into a pistol is the penalty when used at engaged range , 4 difficulty gives a significant disadvantage to hit against 3. There are talents that mitigate this but they also mitigate ranged -light the same.

Ultimately though it's the same argument , why use a blaster instead of a heavy blaster.

Another thing is a starting character with no extra cash can only afford a slugthrower rifle , and very few specs even have combat skills never mind ranged -heavy. Those that do tend to be military focused (hired guns/bounty hunters or Big Game Hunters as far as I can remember)