I want to check a rule please.

Have a commando player with a green of 5 and burly 3. He is walking around with a heavy repeating blaster with a sling. Then asks for two blaster rifles or a rocket launcher.

I said no as it's ridiculous.

Was I being harsh and the PC CAN physically carry all that or is his characters unable?

Plesse clarify.

Thanks in advance.

So with a Brawn of 5, that PC has a base Encumbrance Threshold of 10, and I'm assuming it's higher due to gear such as a utility belt or load-bearing gear.

With the three ranks of Burly, so long as the total Encumbrance of those items is under his PC's Encumbrance Threshold, then yes by RAW the PC can carry all that gear without penalty. Of course, any PC can lug that much stuff, but they're going to be encumbered, which has penalties that I don't recall as I've never seen a PC exceed their Encumbrance Threshold.

So from a purely rules perspective, yes you were being overly harsh as you're denying the character something they're legally allowed to do just because you thought it was silly. Granted, the player's also being a bit silly be wanting tote around that much firepower, so you're not totally out of bounds.

That said, I see where you're coming from as it's not very realistic to have someone just be tugging around so much gear without a problem. Apart from this system not being a reality-based tactical simulator, remember that this PC has invested in things that would allow him to lug around large items without much trouble, given it's very difficult to start with a Brawn of 5 (I'm assuming he started with a 4 and then took Dedication) and he's invested lots of XP into getting those Burly talents. As a concession, I'd suggest requiring him to have something that permits lugging extra gear (like load-bearing gear) to justify being able to carry and be able to access that stuff in the midst of combat without difficulty. In game terms, if he wants to be able to draw or stow that stuff as just a maneuver, he needs something that lets him effectively carry the stuff, otherwise it'll take two maneuvers to draw or stow those extra weapons. The heavy repeating blaster is on a sling, so that's already taken care of.

It's worth noting that the weapons the player wants their character to lug around are military-grade weapons, and as a Rebel (I'm assuming this given the forum you're posting in) he's by default a terrorist guilty of sedition and treason against the Empire, the current ruling government body. Apart from active battlefields, there's really no way that PC should be able to just waltz around carrying that sort of firepower; it'd be akin to a someone walking down a city street with a 50-caliber machine gun, which isn't going to go over well with the local authorities at all. So that's something to keep in mind for when this PC wants to engage in activities that aren't centered around combat on an open battlefield.

This seems to be a thing mainly with people who have never had to walk around for extended periods of time with heavy gear and weapons. It makes almost everything more difficult. All of those items have their own inertia and weight as well as size. Having a bunch of stuff hanging off of you means you will make more noise, get stuck on things around you, have a harder time stopping from a run, climbing, crawling, maintaining your balance, finding gear quickly and reaching it.

Setback dice and Difficulty Upgrades.

It's really best if the player gets an AT-PT and rides it around everywhere. This avoids the ENC side and grants the option for even more firepower with almost total immunity to personal weapons! 😈

I don't have access to the books at the moment, so I'm going off the abbreviated text in the spec tree, but that text says that Burly reduces the Cumbersome and Encumbrance values of wielded weapons. Not carried weapons. If this character is using the heavy repeater, then those rifles are slung over his back and still have their full encumbrance of 4 each, not 1.

I have it as: " The character reduces any wielded or carried weapon's Cumbersome quality and Encumbrance rating by a number equal to ranks in Burly to a minimum of 1 ."

14 minutes ago, MrTInce said:

I have it as: " The character reduces any wielded or carried weapon's Cumbersome quality and Encumbrance rating by a number equal to ranks in Burly to a minimum of 1 ."

🙄 That's a pretty important thing to leave out of the spec tree text.

6 hours ago, Dafydd said:

🙄 That's a pretty important thing to leave out of the spec tree text.

The Spec trees have always left details out. Which is why the full text is where one should go first

14 hours ago, Daeglan said:

The Spec trees have always left details out. Which is why the full text is where one should go first

I agree, but that 'or carried' is a bit more than a detail.

7 minutes ago, Dafydd said:

I agree, but that 'or carried' is a bit more than a detail.

Hense ALWAYS read the long text. Inportant details get left out due.to.space constraimts in the tree. They have told us this from day one.

Bottom line is i cant stop this guy walking around with an E-Web!! Even though he isnt very good with it.

2 hours ago, mwknowles said:

Bottom line is i cant stop this guy walking around with an E-Web!! Even though he isnt very good with it.

Well, with an E-Web it's noted in the weapon's description that you need a three man crew to effectively use it; one guy to fire it, one guy to operate the generator used to power it, and the third to monitor the energy flow so that the neither the weapon or generator suffer issues causing the entire system to fail.

So while this PC might be buff enough to carry the whole thing, there's simply no way for them to operate it without a very high chance of something going very, very wrong. I'd say if your PC is determined to use an E-Web without the necessary support crew, then freely upgrade those combat checks and have yourself a blast (literally) when a Despair comes up as the generator goes kaboom since nobody was around to properly regulate it.

5 hours ago, mwknowles said:

Bottom line is i cant stop this guy walking around with an E-Web!! Even though he isnt very good with it.

You can do whatever you want. If you feel like Slicing shouldn't be Cyberpunk hacking you can do that as the GM. If you want to say that Ewoks are only on one planet in the galaxy you can do that. You can also do all kinds of stuff to make it known that this crew-served weapon is too big and unwieldy to be used as a hip-fired personal weapon. I haven't looked at the listing in a while but I don't know if the Enc includes the generator and the power cable which looks like a trunk line in the movie. This would be the equivalent of carrying a short fire hose, a half-sized refrigerator, and a Giant metal weapon (Assuming the tripod isn't being carried too) so the person would be hugely burdened. I the same way that you can say No to someone trying to lift up a space cruiser you can just say No to the E-WEB as implausible.

The Rules are there to serve the story not the other way around, so if the GM doesn't want to have a story where a character is walking around using the main gun off of a tank as his personal shooter then that is ok. In the same token if you want that kind of game you can do that too. The Gm has to provide the objective viewpoint in a situation where you have several subjective views on how things are happening. The GM is responsible for the simulation and can of course take as much input from players as they desire, but going beyond that too many times will make the GM feel superfluous and wonder why he/she is not playing instead of running. Especially if social pressure is being brought to bear.

Edit: Also I feel like this is something that was more understood in the earlier eras of TTRPGs. The benefits of an authoritative but fair GM are that the game can resolve faster as the players are given quick and unequivocal answers to questions about physics.

4 hours ago, Archlyte said:

You can do whatever you want. If you feel like Slicing shouldn't be Cyberpunk hacking you can do that as the GM. If you want to say that Ewoks are only on one planet in the galaxy you can do that. You can also do all kinds of stuff to make it known that this crew-served weapon is too big and unwieldy to be used as a hip-fired personal weapon. I haven't looked at the listing in a while but I don't know if the Enc includes the generator and the power cable which looks like a trunk line in the movie. This would be the equivalent of carrying a short fire hose, a half-sized refrigerator, and a Giant metal weapon (Assuming the tripod isn't being carried too) so the person would be hugely burdened. I the same way that you can say No to someone trying to lift up a space cruiser you can just say No to the E-WEB as implausible.

The Rules are there to serve the story not the other way around, so if the GM doesn't want to have a story where a character is walking around using the main gun off of a tank as his personal shooter then that is ok. In the same token if you want that kind of game you can do that too. The Gm has to provide the objective viewpoint in a situation where you have several subjective views on how things are happening. The GM is responsible for the simulation and can of course take as much input from players as they desire, but going beyond that too many times will make the GM feel superfluous and wonder why he/she is not playing instead of running. Especially if social pressure is being brought to bear.

Edit: Also I feel like this is something that was more understood in the earlier eras of TTRPGs. The benefits of an authoritative but fair GM are that the game can resolve faster as the players are given quick and unequivocal answers to questions about physics.

Thanks mate I do know this. Been DMing for 30 years. The issue is of fairness of rules v my feeling of reality. I have used setback dice for coordination check and stealth etc. I'll just keep doing that.

His character reminds me of the squurwd from Monty Pythons Holy Grail.

On 6/6/2019 at 9:37 AM, mwknowles said:

Bottom line is i cant stop this guy walking around with an E-Web!! Even though he isnt very good with it.

You can also impose setback or difficulty increases to all Athletics, Coordination, and Resilience checks someone makes when operating just under their Endurance Threshold.

The Rules don't mention it but just as in real life when you have to carry things for hours on end, you really start reconsidering what all is necessary. Drop them in a desert somewhere and have to walk for a day and a half and see which of his possessions are really important. I've only done this one time when I had my players trekking through a rough area and what I did was one setback for every 2 points over half their encumbrance threshold.

Also consider how local security is going to react when they see this guy walking around with all these weapons. Walking around armed is one thing, walking around looking like you can start your own war is another.

13 minutes ago, Varlie said:

You can also impose setback or difficulty increases to all Athletics, Coordination, and Resilience checks someone makes when operating just under their Endurance Threshold.

The Rules don't mention it but just as in real life when you have to carry things for hours on end, you really start reconsidering what all is necessary. Drop them in a desert somewhere and have to walk for a day and a half and see which of his possessions are really important. I've only done this one time when I had my players trekking through a rough area and what I did was one setback for every 2 points over half their encumbrance threshold.

Also consider how local security is going to react when they see this guy walking around with all these weapons. Walking around armed is one thing, walking around looking like you can start your own war is another.

Perfect example

2 hours ago, c__beck said:

So she is a heavy and has multiple levels of burly

6 hours ago, c__beck said:

Classic!!!!!

On 6/28/2019 at 3:19 PM, c__beck said:

I'm pretty sure I watched Spaceballs before ever seeing the SW movies. That probably shaped my experience of them significantly.