Would it work within the system to have guns that are low damage but generate successes when used? So their average damage should come out slightly lower than say a Blaster Rifle in competent hands, but characters who are not skilled at shooting can get by?

I was thinking a Minigun type blaster like a Z3 Rotary Cannon which has Damage 5, Crit 3 can only fire on full Auto but generates 2 Successes Automatically - Essentially it shoots so many shots that you will hit something most of the time.

Interesting. There's already an accurate quality, but this seems more potent than that.

Are you trying to solve a problem you are seeing in your games?

As kaosoe said, the ability to automatically add successes (which not only ensure a successful combat check but also boost damage) is far more potent than the Accuracy trait (as boost die tend to just add advantages more often than not), so that right there makes the idea problematic.

I'd chalk this up as a bad idea, especially if a weapon has Autofire (which is considered to be one of the most problematic rules in the game).

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

As kaosoe said, the ability to automatically add successes (which not only ensure a successful combat check but also boost damage) is far more potent than the Accuracy trait (as boost die tend to just add advantages more often than not), so that right there makes the idea problematic.

I'd chalk this up as a bad idea, especially if a weapon has Autofire (which is considered to be one of the most problematic rules in the game).

One thing to mention, though, is that a Boost die (from Accurate) is less consistent, but for Auto-fire weapons in particular, nerfing the damage and adding X Success is a better idea than adding Boost if you don't want to OP the weapon because a Boost has 1/2 chance of rolling at least one advantage and a 1/6 chance of granting an extra hit.

I believe that it is probably not a good idea to use the "automatic Success" rule and just use Boosts for Accurate, but I would not suggest either for Auto-fire weaponry.

On the subject of Auto-fire, on the occasions that I play Battlefront 1 or 2 or whatever at a friends house, I use the TL-50 or the DLT-19 etc. because I don't play Xbox/PlayStation what have you, so I have awful aim. Basically I spray and pray cause that is my only way to hit someone (unless I use a sniper. I'm not sure how that works, but I can only hit someone if I'm using a machine gun or a sniper).
Now the point: I like the idea of increasing the difficulty when you want to use Auto-fire, but I had an idea for an addition: instead of increasing difficulty, you can decrease the difficulty by one (to a minimum of easy), but you can only hit the one target. This represents the idea of "spray-and-pray" where you just throw some blaster bolts at your target and hope something hits. Since Auto-fire weaponry can lay down so much fire, it seems to me that it would make sense to add this.

1 hour ago, kaosoe said:

Interesting. There's already an accurate quality, but this seems more potent than that.

Are you trying to solve a problem you are seeing in your games?

Not a problem per se. I want to add options for non-Agility driven characters to use alternative weapons - the idea being the big buff guy that uses a mini-gun to saturate an area in shots.

I think the Accurate quality is a different beast, as it is inconsistent - only adding a 1/3 chance of affecting overall success, and also contributing more to the Advantage economy which leads to other problems, like contributing to Crits and Triggering Auto-Fire.

The intent with this gun would be you can spray an area and you will hit someone - much like the Droideka ability. The key point being I want it to be weaker, kind of like a reverse Power Attack from D&D - you gain consistency at the cost of damage, because your shtos are all over the place.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

As kaosoe said, the ability to automatically add successes (which not only ensure a successful combat check but also boost damage) is far more potent than the Accuracy trait (as boost die tend to just add advantages more often than not), so that right there makes the idea problematic.

I'd chalk this up as a bad idea, especially if a weapon has Autofire (which is considered to be one of the most problematic rules in the game).

The key point of the idea would be weapons designed for high brawn characters that deliver low damage (so it would come with a High Cumbersome Rating), so an automatic success represents it being consistently easy to tag foes with shots, but each shot being less damaging.

I do not see a problematic interaction with Autofire, which takes Advantages to Trigger, not successes, and if its base damage is lower than other Autofire weapons, then it is surely less problematic than the current weapons in the game?

15 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I like the idea of increasing the difficulty when you want to use Auto-fire, but I had an idea for an addition: instead of increasing difficulty, you can decrease the difficulty by one (to a minimum of easy), but you can only hit the one target. This represents the idea of "spray-and-pray" where you just throw some blaster bolts at your target and hope something hits. Since Auto-fire weaponry can lay down so much fire, it seems to me that it would make sense to add this.

I thought about something that makes it easier to Auto-fire, but the problem is that exacerbates the existing issues with Auto-Fire already being incredibly potent against single targets, and doesn't provide a Support weapon that non-shooty characters can wield and hope to hit with.

1 minute ago, Spartancfos said:

I thought about something that makes it easier to Auto-fire, but the problem is that exacerbates the existing issues with Auto-Fire already being incredibly potent against single targets, and doesn't provide a Support weapon that non-shooty characters can wield and hope to hit with.

It doesn't let them do additional hits, it just makes it easier to hit in the first place. I'm not sure what you mean by that last bit though.

It honestly sounds better as a ranked talent than a weapon quality.

Spray And Prey
Activation: Incidental
Ranked?: Yes

Before making a Ranged (Heavy) or Gunnery combat check , you may have your character suffer 2 strain to use this talent. If they do so, you may replace a [boost die] in the dice pool with either a [success] or [advantage]. For every [success] added, reduce the base damage of the weapon by 1.

You may change out a number of [boost dice] equal to ranks in this talent.

Of course, trying to fit an entirely new talent in the game is a might bit problematic. So a weapon quality does make that a lot easier. So a new quality:

Spray : Before making a combat check with this weapon, you may replace a number of [boost die] no greater than the rank of this talent in the dice pool with either a [success] or [advantage]. For every [success] added, reduce the base damage of the weapon by 1.

This is all off the top of my head, so playtest would be a good idea.

Perhaps an attachment that grants the Droideka's Fire Sweep ability?

Spray Barrel Attachment
HP Required: 3
Can only be installed on blaster rifles
Base Modifiers: Grants the weapon the "Fire Sweep" ability. Reduce weapon's base damage to 6.
Mod Options: 2x Add automatic to rolls made with this weapon

16 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

It doesn't let them do additional hits, it just makes it easier to hit in the first place. I'm not sure what you mean by that last bit though.

Hitting a single target doesn't prohibit additional hits on that target. Your initial rule was to downgrade difficulty to hit only one target, not just hit once.

Once you downgrade difficulty you do not just make it easier to achieve hits however, you also make it easier to achieve advantages to trigger Auto-Fire. This means it is exponentially useful.

16 hours ago, c__beck said:

It honestly sounds better as a ranked talent than a weapon quality.

Spray And Prey
Activation: Incidental
Ranked?: Yes

Before making a Ranged (Heavy) or Gunnery combat check , you may have your character suffer 2 strain to use this talent. If they do so, you may replace a [boost die] in the dice pool with either a [success] or [advantage]. For every [success] added, reduce the base damage of the weapon by 1.

You may change out a number of [boost dice] equal to ranks in this talent.

Of course, trying to fit an entirely new talent in the game is a might bit problematic. So a weapon quality does make that a lot easier. So a new quality:

Spray : Before making a combat check with this weapon, you may replace a number of [boost die] no greater than the rank of this talent in the dice pool with either a [success] or [advantage]. For every [success] added, reduce the base damage of the weapon by 1.

This is good. This is real good.

I agree it would be better as a Talent, and if I was running Gensys I would probably go that route.

As this is still a Star Wars campaign using the Specialisation Trees I will probably adopt some sort of Attachment that grants a Weapon Quality or something akin to this:

15 hours ago, rogue_09 said:

Perhaps an attachment that grants the Droideka's Fire Sweep ability?

Spray Barrel Attachment
HP Required: 3
Can only be installed on blaster rifles
Base Modifiers: Grants the weapon the "Fire Sweep" ability. Reduce weapon's base damage to 6.
Mod Options: 2x Add automatic to rolls made with this weapon

This is good. This is real good.

I agree it would be better as a Talent, and if I was running Gensys I would probably go that route. A Weapon Quality or perhaps a weapon attachment does

8 hours ago, Spartancfos said:

Hitting a single target doesn't prohibit additional hits on that target. Your initial rule was to downgrade difficulty to hit only one target, not just hit once.

Once you downgrade difficulty you do not just make it easier to achieve hits however, you also make it easier to achieve advantages to trigger Auto-Fire. This means it is exponentially useful.

I meant only hit the one target once.

I do have to point out that at medium range a character with a 2 agility still has a fecrnt chance of hitting even with no proficiency. So i am not sure any of this is needed.

Auto-fire only weapons increase that difficulty to Hard, and even with 2 Difficulty and 2 Ability, most of the time, it will pretty much just offset (on average, 1/4 of a Success and 1/4 of a Threat [based on the number of symbols on the die]). Mostly irrelevant though.

33 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Auto-fire only weapons increase that difficulty to Hard, and even with 2 Difficulty and 2 Ability, most of the time, it will pretty much just offset (on average, 1/4 of a Success and 1/4 of a Threat [based on the number of symbols on the die]). Mostly irrelevant though.

Aim adds a boost. And dont use autofire. Also usually non shooters have other abilities that are more useful like scathing tirade

3 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Aim adds a boost. And dont use autofire. Also usually non shooters have other abilities that are more useful like scathing tirade

I was talking specifically about weapons with the "Auto-fire (only)" quality (i.e. the Z-6), though it would extend to all weapons with Auto-fire.

Do you have balance concerns, or just usefulness concerns? I think that the ability makes sense, it's just a question of is it balanced (and if it isn't used often, then no harm done).

The premise given is making an unskilled fighter useful in combat. I find the claim flawed

On 9/13/2019 at 7:56 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I was talking specifically about weapons with the "Auto-fire (only)" quality (i.e. the Z-6), though it would extend to all weapons with Auto-fire.

Do you have balance concerns, or just usefulness concerns? I think that the ability makes sense, it's just a question of is it balanced (and if it isn't used often, then no harm done).

In terms of balance, it kinda works fine with the big hitter weapons like the z6, but in reality it will be too beneficial on the smaller ones like the Carbines, and suddenly the Auto-Fire Mod weapon becomes the easiest way to hit single targets, so if I have a regular blaster rifle or pistol I should attach an autofire mod to have an easier time to hit single targets.

To me it is making other options redundant, and creates a narrative dissonance. Laser Sights already can add 1 Adv, which makes Auto-Fire more achievable and Accurate increases the chance to hit a bit, alongside Aim or talents like Clanker Killer.

On 9/13/2019 at 12:08 PM, Daeglan said:

The premise given is making an unskilled fighter useful in combat. I find the claim flawed

Yeah I am going to have to agree. Why didn't they make a character who could be useful in combat or progress toward that goal by Specs and Ranks in Skills. XP pours like water in this system so you can make a character effective in something pretty fast.

I guess if the GM is running a game that is basically a Call of Duty game and somebody made a space janitor it could be a bit of a bummer, but if the game is more like something from Star Wars that isn't like the Battle of Geonosis every session every character should be able to be useful.

@Spartancfos

The maneuver Assist is an often unused, but potentially helpful thing to do in battle, and narratively it can be described as providing suppressing fire for allies, or shooting up cover, or calling out targets, etc. Characters can do other things in battle besides direct fire on an enemy in order to affect the outcome, especially as skill checks can yield Triumphs that can be used to help change the momentum or situation in a scene.

Also the character who did not spec into combat is presumably good at other things that the infantry combat characters are not good at because they put points into other things. I'm thinking it makes it seem as though points put into combat ability are not as important as other things because the other characters can just get weapons that make them good at fighting and diplomacy or whatever without the point expenditure the other characters allocated. I guess if you make items available that make grunts good at Education or whatever it would balance but I still think it would not be a good idea.

I do think the OP's solution was clever, and mechanically it makes sense to me, but I think as far as characterization and the XP/Progression system not so much.

On 9/21/2019 at 8:55 PM, Archlyte said:

I guess if the GM is running a game that is basically a Call of Duty game and somebody made a space janitor it could be a bit of a bummer [...]

Space Janitor you say... That could be interesting.

On 9/13/2019 at 8:08 PM, Daeglan said:

The premise given is making an unskilled fighter useful in combat. I find the claim flawed

My premise isn't making a combat character out of a non-comabatant. It's about using the Brawny Character archetype to allow an alternative type of ranged attack.

1 hour ago, Spartancfos said:

My premise isn't making a combat character out of a non-comabatant. It's about using the Brawny Character archetype to allow an alternative type of ranged attack.

Doesnt seem to be a needed thing.

35 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Doesn't seem to be a needed thing.

This is a total non-response.

If it doesn't harm other aspects of the game, or cause problems, then I disagree. All content is equally needed. We could have run the whole game with just the EotE Core Rulebook, but we don't. Content is a good thing. Ideas are a good thing. Heck this system is the basis for Gensys, a system literally trying to capture any type of narrative.

54 minutes ago, Spartancfos said:

This is a total non-response.

If it doesn't harm other aspects of the game, or cause problems, then I disagree. All content is equally needed. We could have run the whole game with just the EotE Core Rulebook, but we don't. Content is a good thing. Ideas are a good thing. Heck this system is the basis for Gensys, a system literally trying to capture any type of narrative.

I am not seeing the problem you are trying to fix. So i dont see the need.