Hi all,

We've started an Edge of the Empire campaign quite recently and I was looking at the rules for crafting stuff in Special Modifications.

We wanted to craft a Bowcaster with Long range while retaining the overall "feel" of the Bowcaster. The Wookiee in our group is a Hired Gun - Heavy and wanted to make use of the Barrage talent. So we looked at the Energy Rifle as a template. But to create a Bowcaster, with similar stats as in the core rulebook doesn't seem possible.

Rolling Mechanics netted two successes, two advantages and one triumph. All well so far, the two advantages to get Knockdown and one triumph for destructive. But that leaves us with a weapon superior to the regular Bowcaster in most ways having lower encumberance, better range, more HP, the same damage, the Knockdown quality and without the Cumbersome 3 quality.
While that would work we feel that it does not really "fit" the weapon, it looses some of it's character. Also why wouldn't all Wookiees make long range, light bowcasters instead?

Are we missing some rule that say that we don't have to cancel threats and advantages and could spend threats on the cumbersome quality for example, while keeping the advantages on knockdown?
Or is it possible to add Cumbersome voluntarily, even if I roll no threats? Would we get any advantage from doing that.

A related question, can attachments be moved between similar weapons? If we have an attachment on the old bowcaster, could it be moved to the new one? Would any modifications stay or be lost if we move the attachment?

Thanks!

Per RAW, the only way to get both Advantage and Threat on a check is via the Creative Design talent (from the Shipwright spec in Fully Operational).

Each rank of the talent allows the player to add an Advantage, but the GM gets to add a Threat equal to the amount of Advantage taken.

As for the "Why?", it's simple. The crafting tables are meant to represent "unique" items crafted by an individual, not mass produced items. If you roll well, then yes, your custom handcrafted item is better.

As for Attachments, per RAW, no restrictions. They are "plug and play". However, I apply common sense. Scopes and Custom Grips seem interchangeable. To me, Superior isn't really an Attachment, but a change to a weapon's quality, so I wouldn't allow that one.

Cheers!

1 hour ago, k7e9 said:

A related question, can attachments be moved between similar weapons? If we have an attachment on the old bowcaster, could it be moved to the new one? Would any modifications stay or be lost if we move the attachment?

Depends on the talent. Generally think of it as a modification to the weapon, or an attachment to the weapon? If it's a modification to the weapon, it can't be moved. If it's just a plug in, than it can likely be moved pretty easily. Swapping optics, grips, etc. would likely be easy enough. Swapping tweaks to the inner workings (Mandalorian Chamber, Enhanced XCiter)? not so much.

1 hour ago, k7e9 said:

We wanted to craft a Bowcaster with Long range while retaining the overall "feel" of the Bowcaster. The Wookiee in our group is a Hired Gun - Heavy and wanted to make use of the Barrage talent. So we looked at the Energy Rifle as a template. But to create a Bowcaster, with similar stats as in the core rulebook doesn't seem possible.

Rolling Mechanics netted two successes, two advantages and one triumph. All well so far, the two advantages to get Knockdown and one triumph for destructive. But that leaves us with a weapon superior to the regular Bowcaster in most ways having lower encumberance, better range, more HP, the same damage, the Knockdown quality and without the Cumbersome 3 quality.
While that would work we feel that it does not really "fit" the weapon, it looses some of it's character. Also why wouldn't all Wookiees make long range, light bowcasters instead?

Are we missing some rule that say that we don't have to cancel threats and advantages and could spend threats on the cumbersome quality for example, while keeping the advantages on knockdown?
Or is it possible to add Cumbersome voluntarily, even if I roll no threats? Would we get any advantage from doing that.

The only way to get a positive and a negative on the same check is to roll Advantage/Triumph and Despair or use Creative Design.

The bowcaster is a pretty unique weapon, so I'd suggest making a custom profile for it.

Maybe something like: Bowcaster, 650/5, Hard Mechanics, 18 hours. Ranged (Heavy); 10; 3; Medium; 5 Encumbrance; 2 HP; Cumbersome 3. And then it requires a Maneuver to draw it (since I can't use the other word) before you can fire. I intentionally dropped Knockdown to make it slightly inferior, but you could add it back.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Then we understood the rules correctly and generally I guess it's not a problem as you woudn't want any extra flaws on any crafted weapon. For the Bowcaster specifically we just felt that it was kind of "off" to roll and get such an improvement over the normal version.

I'll talk to the group and GM suggest the custom profile you suggested, it looked good. Either that or we might just use Energy Rifle and add Cumbersome 2 or 3 as an added flaw to the Bowcaster. We use careers and specializations from Edge of the Empire (at least for now, as we're just starting out), so while Creative design sounds like a good talent, we'll probably not get that any time soon.

Another question, about starships and weapons. We have a ship with a Quad Laser Cannon with a forward (90 degrees) firing arc. Is it possible to modify the mount for the current weapon so it has a turret mount and 360 degree firing arc?

If adding new weapon to our ship, does it costs anyting extra to get a turret mount for the weapon and have a 360 degree firing arc instead of just having a 90 degree arc?

Your problem probably comes from using the Energy Rifle profile. You should start from a custom schematic that resembles bowcasters (like the one P47 came up with)

Crafting can result in Success with Threats and Triumphs, and so could have good and bad effects at the same time.

3 hours ago, k7e9 said:

Another question, about starships and weapons. We have a ship with a Quad Laser Cannon with a forward (90 degrees) firing arc. Is it possible to modify the mount for the current weapon so it has a turret mount and 360 degree firing arc?

If adding new weapon to our ship, does it costs anyting extra to get a turret mount for the weapon and have a 360 degree firing arc instead of just having a 90 degree arc?

It does not cost extra to get a turret mount when adding a weapon. As for modifying the mount for the current weapon, there is no RAW way to do so.

For both of the above, I'd say fire arcs are at the GM's discretion when adding weapons. When adding weapons, you should always look at where on the ship you are putting it. That will often limit its field of fire naturally. Same for modifying. Some weapons could easily be modified to have a greater field of fire, while others cannot practically operate with a greater field of fire as they are obstructed, either from rotating or because something like the ship's superstructure would be in its line of fire.

is there a limit to how many weapons you can link or how many per hard point i am not 100% on how it works is a 3 weapon mount 2 hardpoints or 3 in not replaceing a weapon

2 hours ago, Oldmike1 said:

is there a limit to how many weapons you can link or how many per hard point i am not 100% on how it works is a 3 weapon mount 2 hardpoints or 3 in not replaceing a weapon

If an entirely new mount, it takes 1 HP. If replacing a weapon, it still costs 1 HP. The book says "always cost 1 hard point, even if replacing an existing system."

11 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

It does not cost extra to get a turret mount when adding a weapon. As for modifying the mount for the current weapon, there is no RAW way to do so.

For both of the above, I'd say fire arcs are at the GM's discretion when adding weapons. When adding weapons, you should always look at where on the ship you are putting it. That will often limit its field of fire naturally. Same for modifying. Some weapons could easily be modified to have a greater field of fire, while others cannot practically operate with a greater field of fire as they are obstructed, either from rotating or because something like the ship's superstructure would be in its line of fire.

We have a Wayfarer transport and when googling images on we felt that the weapon should be able to be rotate 360 degrees if it was turret mounted, without parts of the ship obstructing the line of fire. As it is quite a slow ship we our group felt that our gunner needs to be able to rotate the gun more than 90 degrees.

I'll check with the GM, but I feel like it should at least cost some credits to re-mount it on a turret mount.

Another weapon related question; could the quad laser cannon be unlinked somehow? It would be nice to break it up and have two sets of twin laser cannons instead.

6 hours ago, k7e9 said:

We have a Wayfarer transport and when googling images on we felt that the weapon should be able to be rotate 360 degrees if it was turret mounted, without parts of the ship obstructing the line of fire. As it is quite a slow ship we our group felt that our gunner needs to be able to rotate the gun more than 90 degrees.

I'll check with the GM, but I feel like it should at least cost some credits to re-mount it on a turret mount.

Another weapon related question; could the quad laser cannon be unlinked somehow? It would be nice to break it up and have two sets of twin laser cannons instead.

The problem is the location of the weapon. Unless the weapon is mounted to the top or bottom of the ship, you’re not going to get a 360 degree firing arc. If placed anywhere els, you’re only going to get one firing arc. If it’s mounted to a front facing surface, you’re only going to get a forward facing arc. If mounted aft, an aft arc. If mounted on either side, a side facing arc. Only a dorsal or ventral mount can grant a 360 degree firing arc.

12 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The problem is the location of the weapon. Unless the weapon is mounted to the top or bottom of the ship, you’re not going to get a 360 degree firing arc. If placed anywhere els, you’re only going to get one firing arc. If it’s mounted to a front facing surface, you’re only going to get a forward facing arc. If mounted aft, an aft arc. If mounted on either side, a side facing arc. Only a dorsal or ventral mount can grant a 360 degree firing arc.

When we started playing and got our ship we group googled the Wayfarer transport and looked at the image on this site: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Wayfarer-class_medium_transport . We all just assumed the ship weapon would be this thing on top of the wayfarer:

To us it looked like a cannon and that made us wonder if we could modify it to have a 360 degree firing arc. But we might be misinterpreting the image, the artwork in the core rulebook wasn't very helpful either.

3 minutes ago, k7e9 said:

When we started playing and got our ship we group googled the Wayfarer transport and looked at the image on this site: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Wayfarer-class_medium_transport . We all just assumed the ship weapon would be this thing on top of the wayfarer:

To us it looked like a cannon and that made us wonder if we could modify it to have a 360 degree firing arc. But we might be misinterpreting the image, the artwork in the core rulebook wasn't very helpful either.

To me, it looks like it would be obstructed by the part of the ship immediately behind it, which rises above the mounting for the turret. Its field of fire is also obstructed by the container to its port side, but not too much. At most, I'd say Dorsal Forwards, Port, and Starboard.

6 hours ago, k7e9 said:

We have a Wayfarer transport and when googling images on we felt that the weapon should be able to be rotate 360 degrees if it was turret mounted, without parts of the ship obstructing the line of fire. As it is quite a slow ship we our group felt that our gunner needs to be able to rotate the gun more than 90 degrees.

I'll check with the GM, but I feel like it should at least cost some credits to re-mount it on a turret mount.

Another weapon related question; could the quad laser cannon be unlinked somehow? It would be nice to break it up and have two sets of twin laser cannons instead.

It probably should cost some credits, but that's up to GM fiat as there's no RAW way to do it. Sometimes I just rule that a weapon has a greater fire arc than the RAW, regardless of any check or credit expenditure.

No. A quad laser cannon is a single weapon since it's sold as a single weapon. It's what you see on the Millennium Falcon. All other weapons are sold individually.

Just now, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

To me, it looks like it would be obstructed by the part of the ship immediately behind it, which rises above the mounting for the turret. Its field of fire is also obstructed by the container to its port side, but not too much. At most, I'd say Dorsal Forwards, Port, and Starboard.

True, it kind of looks like that. I'll check with the GM, if we modify it with a turret mount we might use the mount to raise the weapons above that part. In our minds the turret mount was something like this ball turret mount: https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/the-ball-laser-turret-project.328487/

It's also part of the reason why it didn't make any sense that there was no cost for a turret mount.

1 minute ago, k7e9 said:

It's also part of the reason why it didn't make any sense that there was no cost for a turret mount.

I think I'd suggest a +1,000 credits to turretize a weapon rated for installation on sil 4 and below minimum, 2,000 for a weapon rated for sil 5 minimum, and 4,000 for a weapon rated for sil 6+ minimum.

Most missile launchers wouldn't be modifiable without completely relocating them, as they are built into the ship itself. Having a missile launcher turret (see the Resurgent-class) is cool and makes sense, but it'd take an entire HP and be separate from any existing non-turreted missile launchers. So you could move a missile launcher to save on the cost of a new system, but it'd still take an HP.

8 hours ago, k7e9 said:

When we started playing and got our ship we group googled the Wayfarer transport and looked at the image on this site: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Wayfarer-class_medium_transport . We all just assumed the ship weapon would be this thing on top of the wayfarer:

To us it looked like a cannon and that made us wonder if we could modify it to have a 360 degree firing arc. But we might be misinterpreting the image, the artwork in the core rulebook wasn't very helpful either.

It is indeed a cannon. However what’s restricting it is the wall directly behind it.