Yeah, I've never really seen the draw of the Heavy tree, with one caveat; it is a decent jack-of-all trades tree. It gives you durability, damage, and Encumbrance, and then you can supplement with other trees (i.e. Sharpshooter) to increase your damage and accuracy. I'm currently playing a Heavy, but I really only picked it because I could pick a second tree free, and Heavy gave me good career skills and was a good jack-of-all trades tree with good perks for heavy weapons. One of the big, big drawbacks to the tree is how hard it is to get anywhere. It has some really strong talents (Heavy Hitter, Rain of Death, Armor Master) but it is extremely time-consuming and expensive to get to them (145 XP to get to Armor Master, then another 20-25 XP to get to the other really good ones). One of the benefits of the tree is the 3 ranks in Burly, which pretty much add 3 to your encumbrance. The main things I see that would make it better, would be to remove Brace (D1), move Burly (E1) down into its spot, and put something like Deadly Accuracy into Burly's spot (E1). And maybe hook Barrage (D2) to Dedication, but you have to be careful not to then make the tree too cheap, and therefore overpowered.

To me the only point of Burly is if you play against type, and have a Brawn 1 Twi'lek sporting a rotary gun. In fact, all the weapons with Cumbersome or Unwieldy are underrated to pointlessness, since most PCs with a combat build are going to have both the Brawn and Agility to use them without penalty (or build up to them as part of their normal advancement). If you end up with Brawn 5, ranks in Burly end up having been mostly a waste of XP.

It ends up being relegated to flavour for when the party Hacker has to "make do" in a pinch, but that PC will never be a Heavy anyway.

The Heavy always made me think of that Xexto or Polis Massan character I wanted to make, weak as over-cooked pasta, but surprisingly strong grip with anything cumbersome.

Btw. How does True Aim work with Auto-Fire? Lets say we have 5 Agiliy and 3 Heavy and 3x True Aim.

GGGGG, YYY -> True Aim -> GG, YYYYYY.

How does Auto-Fire additional shots/hits work with that? Sorry, I am still grasping that combat rules....

With agility 5 and 3 in ranged heavy your pool would start at YYYGG, if you have three ranks in true aim and take the aim maneuver you would upgrade that 3 times and the pool would be YYYYYG. Once you are out of green to upgrade, the next upgrade adds a green, and then the next upgrade would change it to a yellow. Rinse and repeat. True Aim also says that you get the benefit of the aim maneuver so that would add a boost die and your final pool would be YYYYYGBl (5 yellow, 1 green, 1 blue).

23 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

With agility 5 and 3 in ranged heavy your pool would start at YYYGG, if you have three ranks in true aim and take the aim maneuver you would upgrade that 3 times and the pool would be YYYYYG. Once you are out of green to upgrade, the next upgrade adds a green, and then the next upgrade would change it to a yellow. Rinse and repeat. True Aim also says that you get the benefit of the aim maneuver so that would add a boost die and your final pool would be YYYYYGBl (5 yellow, 1 green, 1 blue).

EDIT: A, ok, I see. It's total size of dice pool.

But how does True Aim work (if at all) with Auto-Fire? Initial check can grand more advantages due to True Aim upgrades and more dices, right? So every hit benefits from True Aim during Auto-Fire?

Seems like if I wanted to make unmatched Ranged (Heavy) specialist that can later branch out to Gunnery guns and focusing on using Auto-Fire the following would be better than Heavy:

Starts as Soldier: Sharpshooter

1 . Start from right side of Tree and go for Grit, Lethal Blows, True Aim (now turn left), Sniper Shot, Deadly Accuracy, True Aim, Lethal Blows. Total Cost 85 xp.

2. Branch out to Gunner spec. Go for Debilitating Shot, True Aim. Then go from Durable to Jury Rigged. Total Cost 65 xp.

So for total of only 150 xp you have True Aim x3, Deadly Accuracy, 2x Lethal Blows, +1 Strain, +2 Wound Threshold, Durable, Brace and Sniper Shot.

After that I would either focus on getting Dedications or getting extra soaks on Gunner tree first.

3. Gadgeteer is another great option for getting Jury Rigged faster + Armor Master + Tinketer. So you still get 2 extra soak, same as Gunner, but Gunner gives also 2x True Aim, but it needs more xp invested.

So Alternative would be starting as Sharpshooter, then going Gadeteer for Jury Rigged, Armor Master and Tinketer for 50 xp. Then from Gadeteer we can still grab second Deadly Accuracy or go straight to Dedication.

Mercenary Soldier sadly needs 180 xp (!) to get 2x True Aim, 2x Point Blank and Deadly Accuracy in shortest way without even starting his second spec.

I think This combo of Sharpshooter -> Gunner/Gadeteer will create way more deadly auto-fire shooter than Heavy and you can xp it way faster

To compare our 85 xp sharpshooter + 50 xp Gadeteer + 20 xp for second spec needs total of 155 xp to get Lethal Blows x2, True Aim x2, Armor Master, Tinketer, Jury Rigged. While Heavy needs 165 xp to be able to get to Rain of Death and Armor Master without even starting to branch out for new spec.

2 hours ago, Benny89 said:

EDIT: A, ok, I see. It's total size of dice pool.

But how does True Aim work (if at all) with Auto-Fire? Initial check can grand more advantages due to True Aim upgrades and more dices, right? So every hit benefits from True Aim during Auto-Fire?

True Aim doesn't affect Autofire in any way whatsoever, other than making it easier to score Advantages to trigger Autofire. I'm not sure how you think Autofire works, but I don't think it works how you think it works, because the extra hits don't even have dice pools that could be affected by True Aim.

Quote

Once per round, before the character makes a ranged
attack, he may perform a True Aim maneuver. By performing
this maneuver, the character gains all the benefits
for aiming and also upgrades his attack roll once
per rank of True Aim.

4 hours ago, Benny89 said:

EDIT: A, ok, I see. It's total size of dice pool.

But how does True Aim work (if at all) with Auto-Fire? Initial check can grand more advantages due to True Aim upgrades and more dices, right? So every hit benefits from True Aim during Auto-Fire?

When firing on auto-fire, you can spend 2A to score an additional hit. Every hit deals damage = weapons base damage + number of successes. So not only does True Aim mean you get more advantages and thus more hits, you also get more successes and thus more damage on each of your more hits.

3 hours ago, Talkie Toaster said:

When firing on auto-fire, you can spend 2A to score an additional hit. Every hit deals damage = weapons base damage + number of successes. So not only does True Aim mean you get more advantages and thus more hits, you also get more successes and thus more damage on each of your more hits.

THANK YOU! ❤️ My build looks better and better now

11 hours ago, Benny89 said:

EDIT: A, ok, I see. It's total size of dice pool.

But how does True Aim work (if at all) with Auto-Fire? Initial check can grand more advantages due to True Aim upgrades and more dices, right? So every hit benefits from True Aim during Auto-Fire?

I see others have answered it, but I'd like to throw in a little walk through just to be thorough.

There are two types of dice pool modifications for both making things harder and making them easier. They get confused with each other a lot. The basic modifications are increasing and decreasing which mean that you add or remove greens and purples. The other is Upgrading and downgrading which is a little more involved. When you upgrade a check you convert a green to a yellow or a purple to a red. If there are no more greens or purples to convert then you instead increase the pool by one and continue your upgrades. Downgrading works in the opposite direction but you do not remove dice. Any downgrades left after the pool has been downgraded are ignored.

So a 3 agil, 4 heavy skill character has a pool of YYYG. The character choses to attack the Pirate Captain.

1. Character takes the true aim maneuver. Since they have two ranks it upgrades the pool twice. The first upgrade converts the pool to YYYY. The second upgrade, having no greens, adds a green as if the roll was increased for a pool of YYYYG. Finally the character gets the benefit of the aim maneuver for a boost dice for a total pool of YYYYGBu
2. The character declares that he's using an attack action on the pirate captain and that he is using auto-fire. They are at medium range which is an Average (PP) difficulty. Because of the auto-fire you increase the difficulty by one for a difficulty of PPP.
3. The GM let's the player know that the Pirate Captain has one rank of Adversary which upgrades the difficulty. This makes the difficulty RPP. The Pirate Captain also has a defense of 1 because of the cover that they are behind. This adds a setback for a total difficulty of RPPBk
4. The final pool is now YYYYGBu RPPBk

Hopefully this helps.

39 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

I see others have answered it, but I'd like to throw in a little walk through just to be thorough.

There are two types of dice pool modifications for both making things harder and making them easier. They get confused with each other a lot. The basic modifications are increasing and decreasing which mean that you add or remove greens and purples. The other is Upgrading and downgrading which is a little more involved. When you upgrade a check you convert a green to a yellow or a purple to a red. If there are no more greens or purples to convert then you instead increase the pool by one and continue your upgrades. Downgrading works in the opposite direction but you do not remove dice. Any downgrades left after the pool has been downgraded are ignored.

So a 3 agil, 4 heavy skill character has a pool of YYYG. The character choses to attack the Pirate Captain.

1. Character takes the true aim maneuver. Since they have two ranks it upgrades the pool twice. The first upgrade converts the pool to YYYY. The second upgrade, having no greens, adds a green as if the roll was increased for a pool of YYYYG. Finally the character gets the benefit of the aim maneuver for a boost dice for a total pool of YYYYGBu
2. The character declares that he's using an attack action on the pirate captain and that he is using auto-fire. They are at medium range which is an Average (PP) difficulty. Because of the auto-fire you increase the difficulty by one for a difficulty of PPP.
3. The GM let's the player know that the Pirate Captain has one rank of Adversary which upgrades the difficulty. This makes the difficulty RPP. The Pirate Captain also has a defense of 1 because of the cover that they are behind. This adds a setback for a total difficulty of RPPBk
4. The final pool is now YYYYGBu RPPBk

Hopefully this helps.

Thank you so much for this! I understand it better now. Looks like my plan to stack True Aim for Auto-Fire build is a right call.

Just a note though, auto-fire is horrendously OP in this system, even with a Heavy Blaster Rifle. You are very likely to be able to wipe out any nemesis smaller than a rancor in a single attack. Be prepared to change your weapon to something single-shot if it causes gameplay issues.

1 hour ago, Talkie Toaster said:

Just a note though, auto-fire is horrendously OP in this system, even with a Heavy Blaster Rifle. You are very likely to be able to wipe out any nemesis smaller than a rancor in a single attack. Be prepared to change your weapon to something single-shot if it causes gameplay issues.

Actually modded HBR is still probably best Ranged (Heavy) weapon you can wield and you can start with it.

And I know about Auto-Fire. We will see how it goes. Even then my Sharpshooter/Gadeteer/Gunner build will be able to easy use any other Ranged (Heavy) weapon. The goal is to make generally deadly shooter, which this combo allows so I can easly use to great effectiveness sniper rifles or semi-rifles if I will need to.

I will say, there's something to be said for something like the HRB that works really well "off the shelf," as opposed to something that requires a series of very difficult checks to mod up to amazingness. Especially if you're waiting on someone else's character to pump up their Mechanics roll to the point where those checks are reliable. In one game I'm playing, our Soldier ended up waiting until the 400 total XP mark to get all of the attachments and mods on her wish list finally into place.

8 hours ago, Kaigen said:

I will say, there's something to be said for something like the HRB that works really well "off the shelf," as opposed to something that requires a series of very difficult checks to mod up to amazingness. Especially if you're waiting on someone else's character to pump up their Mechanics roll to the point where those checks are reliable. In one game I'm playing, our Soldier ended up waiting until the 400 total XP mark to get all of the attachments and mods on her wish list finally into place.

Usually our GM in other systems don't make much problems with getting gear when we earn money for it, so it should be ok.

Besides even if I have to wait - HRB is still the best Heavy weapon to be used if you are building for Auto-Fire. Not restricted, can be used in egagment, 10 base damage, 4 HP, auto-fire, can be modded with some really nice mods (not best ones) very fast (like laser sight for example). It's hard to find better weapon.

The other option to start game would be to start with weapon with crit 2 and Jurry Rigged it to Crit 1. But I want auto-fire.

If I start game as Bounty Hunter: Gadeteer I not only get Jury Rigged for 15 xp (so i can start using Auto-Fire on 1 advantage from early game) but I also get bounty hunter license which will definitely help in many places.

I'm not sure I agree on the HRB being inherently less customizable than the various LRB's. It pales in comparison to the variety available to blaster rifles, but anything limited to a rifle is off limits to and LRB as well. Sure, there are sights and scanner that apply to Ranged (Heavy) weapons but not gunnery weapons, but there's more than enough stuff to cram into your HRB. Tibanna-jacked, Enhanced Xciter and Amplifying Chamber can bump an HRB up to Damage 18, Pierce 5 and most importantly, Crit 1. You can reliably go hunting Armor 2 vehicles with this thing. With Crit 1 and Vicious 1 you can stack up some pretty nasty crits on vehicles, even if you don't manage to cause any hull trauma. With a good roll, or a bonus from talents, Armor 3 is within reach too. The sheer damage output and Pierce rating will also make a mockery out of minion groups. Three successes is enough to take down four stormtroopers in a single hit. A single advantage is needed to add another one with a crit. Add autofire to that and good roll can easily take down 10-15 minions in a single attack, given enough targets to engage.
With a skilled mechanic, it can bumped all the way up to Blast 9, which together wither Pierce 5 can be kind of horrific if the targets start clumping up, or as a nice consolation price if you miss with a few advantages to spare. Alternatively, if you're flush with cash, drop the Amplifying Chamber for straight up Superior. No blast, but a the auto advantage makes up for that. And it's not even Jury-rigged yet. If you Jury-rig the Crit down, you can get the same performance out of the HOB Heavy Repeating blaster at extreme range (but Cumbersome 6), or you can just let the tibanna-jacking do its' thing a and lower the Crit to 1 by upgrading the difficulty once.
This is a destructive output hard to match with a Ranged (Heavy) gun. The Z-6 also struggles with having Prepare 1, meaning that's a maneuver that needs to be spent before every attack. You could also kit out a heavy repeater with "ease of use" attachments, like custom grip, telescopic sight and gyrostabilizer. It still beats the smaller guns in sheer damage output and gets you Accurate 1, 1 Rank of Barrage, reduced difficulty at long and extreme range and 1 setback die removed.

As for Burly, as pointed out, it lets you not focus on Brawn, meaning you can still swing a good agility score making you actually be able to hit, and/or forgo wasting hardpoints on stuff like weapon slings, gyrostabilizers etc. It also saves you a few encumbrance points, letting you bring something like a carbine optimized for short range (useful if you get stuck in engaged range), a medpack, climbing gear or a jetpack that you might not otherwise have been able to fit into your gear. Very useful considering how much encumbrance the big guns eat up.

You can still make an argument for, say Gunner being superior to Heavy when it comes to shooting in general, due to True Aim and if their gun is big enough to make a dent, shooting at vehicles. On the other hand, the will have trouble wielding the really big stuff without either their agility suffering or spending hardpoints on cumbersome-reducing attachments. If they can't dent vehicles, a bunch of their talents are useless. Two ranks of enduring are hard to argue with though. It might be the single best aspect of the tree. In comparison to True Aim, Rain of Death and Heavy Hitter can feel a bit underwhelming, even though they are kind of nifty tricks. Where Heavy really shines is the three ranks of Barrage. Sure, you need to go to long range, and, as you point out out, that doesn't always happen. The trick is to make it happen. Get a jet pack, rocket boots or something along those line, and start by falling back to long range. The encumbrance saved from Burly should cover this. This is 2-3 maneuvers on foot, but if you can fly, it's a single maneuver. With a telescopic sight, long range is the same difficulty as medium, and you have +3 damage bonus. That's worth just under 3 successes, which is generally more than you can expect out of upgrading twice. You can compound this with the armor attachment Targeting System, giving you an extra boost die at long and extreme ranges.

You mentioned that Gunnery is for the "time to pull big gun" moments, and I'd argue that for the most part, the Heavy is too. Don't try to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Does that mean that the Gunner is simply a more flexible tree? Well, we see them as completely isolated trees, yes. However, if we factor in Careers, maybe not so much. Gunner is part of the Ace Career, meaning that as soon as the gunner steps outside her vehicle, she synergizes pretty poorly with the rest of her career. Mechanics is of course nice to have as a career skill for upgrading those attachments, but spreading towards Intellect as well is really spreading the attributes thin. Gunnery in both Career and Spec means you can start out with a cheap 2 ranks, but that means you need to sink points into brawl to be able to lug it around. You can of course spread out into other careers (like soldier or hired gun) later, but that is going to cost you +10xp with every career. Likewise, if you're going from say, sharpshooter and have to pick between Heavy and Gunner, those extra 10 points might not be worth it. Likewise, the Ace's Signature Abilities are great in starship combat but don't really do much in personal combat.

Heavy, on the other hand, can be part of either the Soldier or the Hired Gun career, both chock-full of ground combat specialists, often with a few teamwork or utility abilities and surprising synergies. Take the Heavy's Sidestep talent. A single rank might be useful if desperate, but is otherwise pretty meh. Couple it with the bodyguard's two ranks however, and it will save you a world of hurt, as well is bumping Barrage up to a total of six ranks. Sure, a gunner speccing into a Sharpshooter for a total of 4 ranks of true aim is quite nasty, but I'd argue that Marksman + Heavy might be an even more powerful combo, the way Barrage and Deadly Accuracy stacks. Burly also pushes the marksman's ability to use bigger guns, such as Heavy Blaster rifles fitted with marksman's barrels and grenade launchers.

However, what might take the cake is of course the Heavy that speccs into Gunner as the two specs complement each other very well. Two ranks of Enduring and Armor Master? With Heroic Resilience on top? Oh my! Two ranks of true aim to increase the chance of a triumph to activate Heavy hitter when needed. Yes please!

1 hour ago, penpenpen said:

However, what might take the cake is of course the Heavy that speccs into Gunner as the two specs complement each other very well. Two ranks of Enduring and Armor Master? With Heroic Resilience on top? Oh my! Two ranks of true aim to increase the chance of a triumph to activate Heavy hitter when needed. Yes please!

Small correction, Armor Master isn't ranked.

8 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Small correction, Armor Master isn't ranked.

No it is not and I didn't say it was.

1 hour ago, penpenpen said:

No it is not and I didn't say it was.

Ah. 2 ranks of Enduring. And you also get Armor Master. Rather than 2 ranks of Enduring and Armor Master.

23 hours ago, penpenpen said:

I'm not sure I agree on the HRB being inherently less customizable than the various LRB's. It pales in comparison to the variety available to blaster rifles, but anything limited to a rifle is off limits to and LRB as well. Sure, there are sights and scanner that apply to Ranged (Heavy) weapons but not gunnery weapons, but there's more than enough stuff to cram into your HRB. Tibanna-jacked, Enhanced Xciter and Amplifying Chamber can bump an HRB up to Damage 18, Pierce 5 and most importantly, Crit 1. You can reliably go hunting Armor 2 vehicles with this thing. With Crit 1 and Vicious 1 you can stack up some pretty nasty crits on vehicles, even if you don't manage to cause any hull trauma. With a good roll, or a bonus from talents, Armor 3 is within reach too. The sheer damage output and Pierce rating will also make a mockery out of minion groups. Three successes is enough to take down four stormtroopers in a single hit. A single advantage is needed to add another one with a crit. Add autofire to that and good roll can easily take down 10-15 minions in a single attack, given enough targets to engage.

<snip>

However, what might take the cake is of course the Heavy that speccs into Gunner as the two specs complement each other very well. Two ranks of Enduring and Armor Master? With Heroic Resilience on top? Oh my! Two ranks of true aim to increase the chance of a triumph to activate Heavy hitter when needed. Yes please!

Of course you can customize your Gunnery weapon, however the point is that you can customize HBR to the point where you don't really need Gunnery guns anymore. Gunnery weapons always shine when you fight vehicle. However you have to ask yourself- how many times your party fight vehicles when GM knows very well none of you have any means of hurting it. If it's not some mean attempt to TPK - it's usually not really a threat that you suppose to fight with guns.

The other factor is what is available. Getting HRB is one thing, its rare, its big and and it's even less likely (much less) to be taken where maybe HBR with Bounty Hunter license could get into. No chance with HRB.

There also a question of dimishing return. Crit 1 sounds awesome, but with Jury-Rigged Auto-Fire with True Aim and modded HBR - do you really need it? You will kill most things in one turn anyway at some point. Extra crits won't make much difference here.

And one last thing- Ranged (Heavy) also get you to use Sniper Rifles + various other Heavy weapons. Gunnery is quite limited to compare.

Then there is a question of XP invested. To get Rain of Death you need to spend 165 xp for it plus Armor Master. With as straight path as you can, skipping everything else. Getting second spec for 30 xp and we have 195 xp.

To compare, starting with Bounty Hunter Gadeeter nets you +2 WT, Jury Rigged + Armor Master for 30 xp. Buying second spec: Sharpshooter will cost us 30 xp. That is 60 xp so far. Getting from Sharpshooter Grit, Lethal Blows, True Aim, Sniper Shot, Deadly Accuracy, True Aim, Lethal Blows will cost us 85 xp. 145 xp total and we already have 2x True Aim, Lethal Blows, Jury Rigged, Armor Master, Deadly Accuracy. Now we buy our 3rd spec - Gunner for 40 xp.

Total cost of 185 xp for Gadeteer/Sharshooter and started Gunner vs 195 xp just to get Rain of Death + Armor Master and started second prof. While Heavy will be getting his Jurry-Rigged finally we are getting our 3rd True Aim from Gunner and start working our way to Enduring x2 + Brace + 2x Durable.

Long Story Short: I agree that Gunnery weapons are more powerful than Ranged (Heavy). I also know that Heavy can be good. My criticism was that you don't really need Gunnery weapons when HBR exists and Heavy needs so much XP that by that time you can build much more deadly shooter who will not only be beast with Auto-Fire but will also be tanky AND, on top of that - deadly sniper when needed.

1 hour ago, Benny89 said:

Of course you can customize your Gunnery weapon, however the point is that you can customize HBR to the point where you don't really need Gunnery guns anymore. Gunnery weapons always shine when you fight vehicle. However you have to ask yourself- how many times your party fight vehicles when GM knows very well none of you have any means of hurting it. If it's not some mean attempt to TPK - it's usually not really a threat that you suppose to fight with guns.

This is kinda, sort of my point. Heavy shines when the really big guns come out. If you're sure you'll never need anything bigger than a Heavy Blaster Rifle, then yeah, you should be fine. But, don't cling to the idea that anything that's too tough for the PCs is a "mean attempt at TPK". There is always (or at least should be) the option to not fight, or deal with threats with other means than direct violence. I wouldn't hesitate to throw in an armored vehicle against the PCs if it makes sense for the scene regardless what kind of guns the PCs are toting. I dont put a lot amount of effort into carefully balancing the opposition. If the PCs can't make dent with their conventional weapons, well, tough. Run away or get creative. That's what advantage, triumph and destiny points are for. If the PCs have gunnery weapons handy, well then they have a lot more options.

So yeah, the argument that you probably won't need more than a heavy blaster rifle because it would be inherently unfair for the GM to throw in opposition that the PCs' weapons are too weak to handle is invalid. This is not D&D with challenge ratings and such. Running away should be a fairly common first or second turn coutse of action, particularly when fighting the empire, who can always bring more and heavier stuff to throw at the PCs.

For the most part, you can kill the heck out of most stuff with a tricked out blaster rifle, but when that's not enough, you might need a Heavy.