I have a specific question, but I thought a thread on the new equipment provided in Enter the Unknown would be nice.

Laserhone Huntsman Vibrospear

The Vibrospear is more expensive, rarer, and worse stats across the board compared to the Vribro-axe (it's arguably worse than the vibrosword). The vibrospear has a crit rating of 3, where all other vibro weapons (including the vibroknife) have a crit rating of 2. The flavor text of the vribrospear says that it is amazing at parrying incoming blows (including even a vribro-axe).

So I was trying to think of some house rules for the vibrospear, and came up with some combo of the following:

1. Defensive 1

2. Crit 2 (to bring it on par with other vibro weapons)

3. Cortosis (ie. immunity to sunder)

I was thinking at least #1...

What do you all think?

I think you probably shouldn't use a Vibrospear.

My goal wouldn't be to make it better than the axe, per se (because the axe is better than the sword for damage, but not for defensibility).

To be honest this is tricky. Frankly there's no reason a spear should be better at parrying than a sword. And a spear, logically, should also be a 2-handed weapon.

Without also adjusting the vibrosword, just to keep a balance and role for each vibro weapon, I would leave the spear's Crit at 3 and maybe make it EITHER Accurate 1/Defensive 1 or flat out Defensive 2.

An alternate might be to give the sword Defensive 2, but increase its Crit to 3, and give the spear Defensive 1 and Crit 2.

I am amazed by the sniper rifle being cumbersome 3... Is anyone else as baffeled by this as I am?

Considering that it is described as being as long as a grown man is tall (roughly 1.8 metres), not at all. I'm more concerned with the possible missing quality of limited ammo, which the description goes out of the way to mention being unusual for a blaster, but missing from the quality list.

I am amazed by the sniper rifle being cumbersome 3... Is anyone else as baffeled by this as I am?

It makes sense. You aren't supposed to run around with it, firing from the hip. As large as it is, you should be laying down and using a bipod, which brings that cumbersome value down.

I am amazed by the sniper rifle being cumbersome 3... Is anyone else as baffeled by this as I am?

I'd suggest taking a look at modern-day sniper rifles. Those things are beasts, and pretty much require the shooter to be in a prone position and taking careful aim before squeezing the trigger. So Cumbersome 3 on the E-11S makes perfect sense, much as it does for the heavy blaster rifle.

Perhaps I need to look at the cumbersome rules again...

Okay, just did... I still don't see how it being big and or heavy should make a difference. Basically the cumbersome 3 implies that you need brawn 3 to properly use it so it wouldn't matter if you would be prone and have a stand or whatever you'd still get the penalties for not being able to lift it properly. Or am I making a big rules mistake here?

I'm pretty sure you can still carry it (measured by the items encumbrance, not cumbersome). Cumbersome rating is Brawn required to properly use and operate the weapon/equipment. If you don't meet the cumbersome rating, then any checks to use the item have (2) difficulty die added (I'm pulling from memory, but I think that's right).

Forget everything I said... I just read the bipod thingy.

Foot is in mouth.

I'm pretty sure you can still carry it (measured by the items encumbrance, not cumbersome). Cumbersome rating is Brawn required to properly use and operate the weapon/equipment. If you don't meet the cumbersome rating, then any checks to use the item have (2) difficulty die added (I'm pulling from memory, but I think that's right).

You're close. Cumbersome simply increases the difficulty by 1 for every point of Brawn the wielder is short. So a Brawn 2 character using a Cumbersome 3 weapon has the difficulty of their attacks increased by 1.

DanteRotterdam,

Cumbersome isn't just "big and heavy," but also factors in how unwieldy a given weapon is in a combat environment. For instance, the vibro-saw in Enter the Unknown has Cumbersome 5, not solely because it's big and bulky (Encumbrance is 6) but because it's a massive chainsaw and really isn't suitable for combat usage (point of fact, chainsaws in general are lousy weapons for melee combat, as they're actually more dangerous to the wielder than they are to the target, in spite of what Hollywood would have you believe). Bringing a weapon with a Cumbersome rating to bear in the heat of combat is very difficult for most folks unless they're exceptionally brawny or are making use of some kind of harness. See the movie Predator, with Jesse Ventura using a minigun; while he's certainly no toothpick, he was making use of a weapon sling to help offset the weight (the recoil is another matter entirely, and something more in line with movie magic than anything).

To be honest this is tricky. Frankly there's no reason a spear should be better at parrying than a sword. And a spear, logically, should also be a 2-handed weapon.

Logically? Then I think you should look at history as many cultures that used spears used them with shields. The romans, the zulus, etc... You can hold the end of the spear with the butt of it against your elbow and use it as a thrusting weapon (yes, this means it is down near your waist and not up over your shoulder like some people think).

To be honest this is tricky. Frankly there's no reason a spear should be better at parrying than a sword. And a spear, logically, should also be a 2-handed weapon.

Logically? Then I think you should look at history as many cultures that used spears used them with shields. The romans, the zulus, etc... You can hold the end of the spear with the butt of it against your elbow and use it as a thrusting weapon (yes, this means it is down near your waist and not up over your shoulder like some people think).

The vibrospear is stated as requiring 2 hands to wield. Yes, some spears can be wielded with one hand with a shield; but this is Star Wars, shield's aren't common and the vibrospear is about 2 meters long. I'm not arguing to change the mechanics of the weapon, just adjust the stats a little to bring it up to par.

My original point that it's arguably worse than the vibrosword is that the stats are kind of on par with each other, but the vibrosword has Defensive 1 and only requires one hand to use leaving the other free.

I like the idea of giving the Vibrospear the Accurate 1 and Defensive 1 qualities.

When hunting large game, you use a spear. How many cultures used a sword to hunt?

Give a player wielding a spear the ability to use it to keep other enemies at arms reach. Have shorter weapons add a Setback die when attacking a spear-wielding character. Or let them throw it as a javelin.

This whole thread I was thinking: "The main advantage a spear gives is keeping the opponent who has an axe/sword at an uncomfortable distance... how would you handle that?"

I like the setback die.

I would considering this when making a primitive Spear, before the Vibrospear was released. I had though to use the Silhouette rules to give Spears and some other weapons, "Long Reach", qualities. It got murky. Don't go there.

I would suggest as Joker Two did, to have a Long Reach quality add setback to a person attacking the wielder. Consider weapons without the quailty to have Long Reach 0. Longer weapons may have Long Reach 1 (sword, lightsaber, vibroaxe) or even Long Reach 2 (spear). Compare the reach, the attacker gets a setback for each point of reach lesser then the reach of the target. You may need to factor in the Silhouette of the wielder also. A Rancor, for example, might naturally have a Long Reach 2 quality.

I never implented this quality, because it gets pretty technical, too advanced I think for the flavor of the EotE rules. What happens when a player with a Combat Knife wants to sidestep the Spear and get in close? Add a rule that once the shorter weapon scores its first hit, he is considered inside the reach of the longer weapon which now suffers 1 point of setback per point of Long Reach versus the closed target?

Gets complicated.

Another way to handle long melee weapons involves the Range Bands and some bending of their descriptions. You could consider weapons with a Long Reach quality (and some large creatures) to be able to attack at Short Range. Melee opponents with the normal Engaged range melee weapons will suffer setback on their attacks and must stop at Short Range. Once they do get a hit, they get to move to Engaged as part of the attack. The longer reached weapon wielder now is suffering setback unless he drops that Spear and goes for his Combat Knife, starts punching, etc.

This whole thread I was thinking: "The main advantage a spear gives is keeping the opponent who has an axe/sword at an uncomfortable distance... how would you handle that?"

I like the setback die.

Isn't that the same idea as Defensive 1?

Thank you all for your responses, they've been really helpful.

So I have another question about a piece of equipment.

Tracker Utility Vest

This is shown under Tale 2-3 on page 44 along with the rest of the armor added in the supplement book.

It doesn't have any soak or defense, adds 2 the PC's encumbrance (has no encumbrance itself), and has 1 Hard Point.

Since it is listed under "Armor and Clothing", does that mean that it can't be worn with other armor such as Mountaineer Amor, Laminate, or even Heavy Clothing?

I really like the idea of using a utility vest in conjunction with the utility belt, but not if it restricts me from using other armor. You could just use a backpack and gain 4 encumbrance instead.

In fact storage/encumbrance increasing equipment has been kind of throwing me for a loop in general. There's a bunch of it, but each piece has it's own weird quirks. Like the Spacer's Duffel giving 2 extra encumbrance, but having Cumbersome 3...

Double post...

Utility Vest is armor. It can be upgraded with Armor Attachments, and other armors cannot be worn with it.

Concerning the Vibrospear: Although it doesn't appear to be as good as vibro-axe or other similar Melee weapons, unlike other vibro-weapons it's also completely silent. I would intrepret this to mean it eliminates a Setback die or two added to a combat check against an unaware opponent, or perhaps that it adds a Boost to such attacks during louder conditions (such as during a battle). So the vibro-spear is fine the way it is.

Concerning the Sniper Rifle: Allow to be used with the augmented spin barrel or marksman's barrel and its stats will make complete sense. With one of those two attachments, it becomes a total monster that deserves things like Cumbersome 3 and Slow-Firing 1.

Like the Spacer's Duffel giving 2 extra encumbrance, but having Cumbersome 3...

Can someone tell me exactly what Cumbersome 3 would do to a duffel bag? As far as I can tell, Cumbersome only really affects weapons...

Like the Spacer's Duffel giving 2 extra encumbrance, but having Cumbersome 3...

Can someone tell me exactly what Cumbersome 3 would do to a duffel bag? As far as I can tell, Cumbersome only really affects weapons...