First off, please put anything final fantasy related on the backburner of your mind for a moment. I'd prefer people come at this idea from both a real life historical angle, and some of the older fluff in the 40k universe.

Now for those not familiar with the idea of a gunblade it is pretty much what it sounds like. It's a gun, that also has a melee weapon of some kind attached to it. In RL there were attempts from the earliest days of gunpowder tubes all the way up to modern times to create just such a weapon. Furthremore in 40k we see examples of this going back as far as the earliest days, and still occasionally popping up in the modern fluff.

Two 40k examples are the old nemesis force halberds of the Grey Knights and Adeptus Custodes which were halberds with a built in storm bolter, and the gauntlets used by Marneus Calgar. Eldar, orks, and Necrons also posess similar weaponry so it's not a foreign concept to the universe. in lue of the expanse there's also mention of a combination power glaive, hellgun.

So I've been plotting a simple way in which to create these items 'on the fly' for those characters wanting a little something extra and willing to pay for it. Thus I'm going to try and present some simple rules for their creation.

HOW TO MAKE A GUNBLADE FOR ROGUE TRADER

1) Select the two weapons you wish to combine and make note of which is the bigger one, and which of the two has the higher rarity. Increase the total rarity by one step. Only non unique components can be used for regular acquisitions, though the final item can end up as unique.

2)Two handed and or unwieldy weapons are always larger than one handed weapons. They may mount one compact basic or normal sized pistol weapon

3)One handed weapons can only mount compact pistol sized weapons.

4)A heavy ranged weapon can mount a one handed melee weapon but cannot mount unwieldy weapons, and gains the unwieldy trait.

5) Any weapon mounted to a melee weapon must have the compact upgrade unless it's a pistol on a two handed or unwieldy weapon. Furthermore the melee weapon loses the balanced ability, but retains any other bonuses to parry it may have.

EXAMPLE 1: A player wishes to mount a shuriken pistol to a chainsword the chainsword loses blanced and the shuriken pistol is now a compact shuriken pistol.

EXAMPLE 2: A player wishes to mount a bolt pistol onto a power fist. The bolt pistol does not have to be made compact. Were you to mount a bolter or lasgun instead, it would need to receive the compact upgrade.

EXAMPLE 3: Someone wants to mount a chainsword to a heavy bolter. The chainsword loses balanced and instead the weapon become unwieldy.

6)Take the weight of the heaviest weapon, and then apply half the weight (after any upgrades) of the lighter weapon. Note that this is the heaviest weapon, whether it's the melee part, or the ranged component.

7) Quality works slightly differently for combination weapons such as these.

POOR: Both weapons gain the unreliable, inaccurate, and imbalance properties. If it also has the unwieldy property the weapon is at -5 to hit.

COMMON: Normal rules apply

GOOD: Pick two of the following: Weapon regains the balanced property, may be a non compact weapon, or may have a +5 to hit in melee.

Best: Apply all three above, and add one to melee damage as normal. Furthermore one other modification can be applied to each weapon in the combo.

IE a best quality shuriken pistol, chainsword can now have a non compact shuriken pistol with the twin linked ability, The chainsword regains balanced, and is now +5 to hit in melee.

For those who play normal 40k, that makes the final example the equivalent of an Eldar Striking Scorpion's chain sabre.

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So, any thoughts?

Nice, and your rules seems to be fair and square.

Wouldn't it be simpler to just create new variates of the melee attachment upgrade ?

Bilateralrope said:

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. A bayonet is just a tiny gunblade.

That's basically what I did here. It's really not any more complex than the rules for ork weapon kustomization' and quality in my opinion.

It also provides some firmer boundaries on what you can put where. That way if a GM chooses to permit things of this kind he doesn't end up with options like the thunder hammer on a heavy bolter weapon. Sure he can just say no, but this cuts out that step and also gives players a means to have several table top weapons easily converted into Rogue Trader.

Plus people like numbered instructions, makes them feel like they're accomplishing something by completing the list.

George Labour said:

buahaha, this is epic

But it's also got a grain of truth to it.

Seriously, if a player has a choice between a prepackaged list of bayonet equivalents or creating his very own personal whip and bolter combiweapon I imagine a good number will choose the latter the majority of the time. Especially in a game where style is just as important as how deadly the weapon is.

If you're looking for the whole 'historically accurate' gunblade, could always look in DH's Inquisitor's Handbook. The Voidborn armoury has a sword which is also a one-shot handcannon, if I recall.

Or simply describe a melee attachment differently. Say your 'knife on the end' is really a sword with a gun attached, thus negating it's Balanced quality due to bulk. Kroot rifles seem to do a similar thing.

Since someone brought up style, I just have to remind you that gun+sword isn't that stylish when there are historical examples of gun+sword+calendar . If you want style, you need to top that.

I remember also gun-books, gun-katar, gun-spoon, gun-fork and gun-cutlery....

Gun katar would be a knife with a compact laspistol under the quick rules I wrote up.

AS for guns built into cutlery, books, teddy bears etc. That's what Digi weapons are for right? So just use the rules for those, but replace ring with your item of choice. Yes, that means you can have a book with a melta pistol shot. Make it a tome of the emporer to impress the locals.

I was referencing IRL gunpowder weapons. I do have some pictures in my unsorted files, I really need to sort them.

OH I know about all the myriad fun ways people have tried to incorporate guns into just about anything you can hold in your hands (and even some that you don't). I was just going for a quick and easy equivalent for them in RT terms.

That, and the idea of a missionary actually using his bible to purge the unclean does have a certain visual appeal to it.

Also while the Irontalon is a nice 40k analogue to the old naval pistol/cutlass weapons it's limitations kind of make it a poor choice for any PC. Hence, these rules.

George, my DH group's Assassin uses two Irontalons to great effect.

You could also play about with forearm weapon mounting with guns - at least to give you the powerfist + guns combo that people seem to like.

By memory it's something like reduce range by 30%

So melee attatchment to a basic weapon, or forearm weapon attatchment (weapon weapon attatchment) to attatch a pistol to a melee weapon.

Been pondering the mounting things to larger things some more and I may just come up with some house rule for putting basic class weapons on power armor and or power fists. There's entire chapters of space marines and eldar aspects that mount guns there, so I figure it's doable when you have the right foundation to place them on.

Also been messing around with making more exotic weapons such as the wargear of the various Eldar aspects and I'm finding that you can usually just take a already done item, and just modify it slightly to get the effect. Like taking the eviscerator, increasing its rarity to unique, and giving it balance instead of unwieldy. That gives you the Striking Scorpion biting blade without a lot of special rules for it. Option B is to make it like astartes lightning claws in deathwatch, only a two handed weapon.

Which brought me onto Striking Scorpion chainsabres. These weapons are listed as twin chainswords with twin linked shuriken pistols. There's no official model for this but I thought about making it in two ways. One is to make a gauntlet sword, like the Indian Pata, and having it carry a best quality chainsword and the equivalent of a forearm mounted shuriken pistol. If they're wielded as a pair and the user gets an exotic weapon talent for them he can use them at normal range, and they count as twin linked when fired in tandem.

There's also Shining Spear laser lances, but I can't find anything that depicts them as anything but archetypical jousting lances. Which would make using them in normal melee a wee bit impractical. Though having the ability to be a power weapon, hellgun, or short ranged lascannon did sound interesting.

As for the Irontalons. They're interesting bits of kit, and I imagine a moritat with a pair of lathe bladed versions would be quite the sight, but in Rogue Trader they're a bit to common and slow to fire.