The description for a Hotshot round says that a las weapon using a hotshot round gets Penetration 4. Not Penetration +4 . What do you think, unintentional (it's supposed to be +4) or game balance (so that you can't make a Steel Burder a poor man's plasma pistol)?

It's most likely intentional, if you read the errata on man-stopper rounds you'll see that they changed the wording to "increases its Penetration to 3" so the wording you find in the Core Rulebook was probably just a misstake. The hot-shot charge should be that much better than man-stoppers, even if it is just a one-shot mag.

I'd go with +4 interpitation since it only has one shot and most Las weapons have little or no Pen. The way I see it the weapon with standard load can do 'this', therefore a better load will do 'that'.

If you have AP rounds in a pistol they won't be as good as AP rounds in a rifle. The cartriges are just that different to begin with so they aready have differing Pen stats. If it was "changesit to Pen 3" then when the rifle had Pen 2 and the pistol Pen 0, you add AP rounds to the pistol and the rifle they both go to Pen 3. So even though the rifle had a better Pen to begin with the improvement was not the same magnetude as the pistol's.

Ichiban11 said:

Don't forget that not only will you get higher penetration, you'll also get +1 Damage and the Tearing quality when you use hot-shot charge. To add 4 to the penetration is too much, imo anyway. The rules are not always for the sake of realism, sometimes the need to be for the sake of balance. If man-stopper rounds were to add 3 to penetration, then the handcannon becomes way too powerfull; 1d10+4 and 5 Penetration for a weapon that cost 65 Thrones and practically everyone can get at character creation? Too much, I say.

Yeah, the provlem with Hotshot round adding 4 to Pen instead of setting it to 4 is that you can then turn a Steel Burner into a one-shot Plasma Pistol. *G*

I go with the interpretation that it replaces the penetration with a 4. This is a game where +1 wound score is a significant bonus, unlike DnD where HP rises much faster. So since +1 wounds is a significant character improvement, even a slight increase in penetration is also a significant improvement to a weapon's effectiveness.

xenobiotica said:

Where does it say that? I've check the DH, IH and 2.0 Errata ad haven't seen that mentioned anywhere. Nor does the Steel Burner have those features. I think you're confusing Overcharge with Hotshot.

The Steel Burner does have a Pen 2, but is not Reliable to begin with so it reduce it to Unreliable. Negitives don't go away just because the gun doesn't have the Positive it affects.

A Plasma Pistol has a Pen 6 1d10 + 6 with a 10 round clip. Sure it has the Recharge rule, but unless your opponent has Rapid Reload the RoF is the same until the 10th round.

If you would say that it only upgrades the Pen to 4 then a Lasgun and Long Las would have the same Pen even though the Long Las had a better one to begin with.

Ichiban11 said:

Overcharge Pack - Core Rulebook - Page 142:

This is an enchanced power pack for a las weapon increasing the strenght of its fire. An overcharge pack adds 1 to the weapon's Damage. Unfortunatly the increased output of damage reduces the number of shots and so the clip size is halved.

Hot-Shot Charge - Core Rulebook - Page 143:

This is a single powerful charge pack for a las weapon. A weapon using a hot-shot charge adds 1 to its Damage, rolls two dice for its Damage and picks the highest, and gains an Penetration of 4. However the weapon loses its Reliable special quality, and its clip is reduced to 1 (basically hot-shots are one-use charge packs).

You'll notice that I never said overcharge pack in my previous post, what I was describing was clearly the hot-shot charge, and that "rolls two dice for its Damage and picks the highest" is exactly what the tearing quality is.

Yes the laspistol and the long las will have the same penetration when using a hot-shot charge, and I clearly voiced my reason why I think that's apt: The rules are not always for the sake of realism, sometimes they need to be for the sake of balance. And the long las would still do 1 more damage than the laspistol anyway.

Oh, and where does it say that when a weapon should lose its reliable quality but does no have it to begin with, it instead gains the unreliable quality? If that is an actual rule, I must have missed it.

Interpretation xenobiotica said:

Oops I missed that part, my bad. So explain to me again WHY it's balanced that a gun with a Pen becomes equal to one that didn't. And my example was a LASGUN not Las Pistol whitch does the same damage as a Long Las.

The Steel Burner and the Death Light are the only times I can see where they would be a better option to own then a Plasma weapon, but when you take in the other Las weapons it's not much of a jump.

And you're right agian it doesn't say that in the rules, oh great one. But if all that happens is that you gain bonuses and no negitives how is that balanced?

I'm sorry that I like realism and logicaly try to explain my interpretation of a rule. To me it makes sense that if the weapon is originally capable of containing the energy necessary to produce the a penetrating hit is should be able to temporarily contain more power to inflict more damage, but at the cost of damaging/jamming the weapon. Therefore if the weapon had the Reliable feature it would lose it and if it never had it to begin with it would gain the Unreliable feature. Thus you will do more damage, but it BALANCES it out by making it more likely to breakdown.

The main argument it seems it that the financial cost for getting a gun that will do a lot of damage with upgrades is not the same as the cost of a gun that will do the same of slightly less right out of the box. I have a solution for that. JACK THE PRICE UP! Make the items less available to the players, make it difficult for them to get them by making it illegal to own the items, make the tech level not be able to make the items, throw NPC's at them that can take the kits or are immune to it. Use the prices as a guideline not as if they're written in stone. AS the GM you have control over the world and what's in it.

If you don't like my interpretation so be it. It's just my opinion anyway, it's nothing personal. And trust me I won't lose any sleep over it. The bottom line is that it's just a game read the rules how you see fit and have fun.

Ichiban11 said:

Realism and logic is all well and good, and I think they're just as likely to be on my side of the argument. In my mind it's not just the weapon itself that makes it capable of the damage and the penetration that it has, but also its usage of the charge pack. A charge pack is, as stated in the ammo section, basically a powerfull battery, and there's no significant difference between the charge pack for a laspistol or that for an MP lascannon, they just use different amounts of the battery with each pull of the trigger, thus gaining different damages. Now a hot-shot charge works just the same, but it's designed to release all its energy at once, thus making the amount used by each individual las weapon a non-issue. And maybe nearly all las weapons has an upper limit to thier penetration power, making even the hot-shot charge uncapable of exceeding that set limit. I think it works just fine that a hot-shot charge is more usefull with less powerfull weapons.

You're not really making an interpretation, though, what you are doing is changing the wording to suit your opinion. I, on the other hand, am trying to interpret the wording of the rules and forming an opinion of the intent behind them. But if you prefer your method of making reliable weapons unreliable just to gain some additional penetration, then by all means use that. But you might want to consider making up further rules for laslocks and twin lasguns, which are already unreliable

And of course it's nohing personal, this is just a discussion, I don't intend anything I say to personal either. But I did take that "oh great one" personal, and I kinda liked it, think I might just change my username to that.

Could modify it to +1 Pen if Pen is already 4.

xenobiotica said:

Now that's the type of explanation I was looking for. When you put it that way it starts to make a little sense.

BTW sorry to you and everyone else. For some reason I was in a snobbish prick mood.

Ichiban11 said:

Hehe, no worries, I like a good discussion, and I'm always up for making a little sense. =)

Take a look at the dueling las if you want to see an example of a pistol modified with the hotshot pack.

The reason the hotshot doesn't add 4 pen is because its designed to be a last ditch effort to save yourself, not a standard clip to add to your hellgun and have a superior sniper weapon. Either way its only a single shot, if your GM allows it to stack then fine, but RAW it does not stack, just like every other mechanic in the armor/weapon category.

The reason the hotshot doesn't add 4 pen is because its designed to be a last ditch effort to save yourself, not a standard clip to add to your hellgun and have a superior sniper weapon.

Er... sorry, but that's not correct. The Uplifting Primer says that the longLas is commonly used with Hotshot packs. The whole point of the things is to be used for sniping.

Also, I really fail to see where adding four points of penetration isn't balanced when the main problem with the pack remains having exactly one shot. There is no las weapon in existance that can be loaded in less than a full action, meaning that unless you have rapid reload, you'll fire only a single shot within two turns. For everyone else, that's enough time for two solid projectile Full Auto bursts. Considering that there are quite a few enemies whose real protection lies in their toughness instead of their armour (like, for example, the entire cast of Disciples of the Dark Gods ), I don't consider that overpowered.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Long Las has the Accurate keyword. The accurate keyword was errata'd so that, when firing a basic weapon with the aim action, the firer gains an additional d10 of damage for every two degrees of success (to a maximum of +2d10 damage). The hot-shot pack may give the bothLas Pistol and the Long Las both a penetration of 4, but the Las Pistol will never be rolling... (I just cross-referenced the errata and the rulebook on the hot-shot charge, and it doesn't explicitly state that the hot-shot charge gives the Tearing property to the weapon).

Well, the Las Pistol rolls 2d10+3 pen4 and discards the lowest die, or rolls 1d10+3 pen4 twice and takes the better roll.
The Long Las would either roll 4d10+4 pen4 and discard the lowest die, or roll 3d10+4 pen4 twice and take the better roll.

edit - sorry for the necro-post.

cbpye said:

Ehr I think you are incorrect with your Longlas example:

It would roll 4dice and keep 3.....not roll 3 dice twice and keep the better result...