Suns of Fortune weapons underwhelming?

By Maelora, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Picked up my copy today. Gotta say I like the variety of new stuff. Only glanced at it, but I am enjoying it.

About the H-7 and Superior quality, my thought is that you'd still get the extra advantage from it, but the damage bonus is already "baked in" to the weapon's damage rating.

I'm not sure why, say, a selonian would go to all that hassle crafting a glaive when it's inferior to a vibroaxe you could get off the shelf for cheaper... Yes, there's role-playing reasons, but I prefer it when players aren't punished with worse stats just for role-playing. The EtU slugthrower rifle, expensive though it is, is actually worthy weapon on par with a blaster, and the wookiee bowcaster is a great weapon, for instance.

Its a low tech, primitive cultural weapon that has the advantage of never running out of power, makes no sound, won't be detected on an energy sensor and one or two decent belts should lay out most people. Besides that, there's probably a fair bit of 'yawp!' satisfaction about clubbing and chopping someone to death what is essentially, a sharp bit of rock on a stick.

Cheap nasty guns have their own perks.

Namely, if you're under some heat from an Imperial security unit, ditching it in the nearest garbage bin or drain isn't that much of an economic blow or if you've used it to murder an entire apartment blocks worth of people with it and think it might be traced back. Nothing stands out like dogs balls to a trained observer than some tweeker running around with a tactical-loaded out custom chrome death stick, whereas if someone saw you blow away your local greedo's with a cheap piece of junk, then its just another guy, another street crime.

He was human, wearing dark heavy clothing, he shot him with a dodgy streetline special, then he ran that way

Great, says the Imperial policeman, that narrows it down to about 10 million people in a 30km radius...

The break-down rifle is fairly much a must for any covert operations fire support and assassination in a restricted environment where scrutiny and security is tight. Worse comes to worst you could take bits of it over several people's gear or a couple of trips to a sniping position and then do your job, break it down, throw the pieces down the elevator or laundry shaft and wander off with nothing incriminating to connect you with anything.

You could probably do worse than buy a few crates of cheap guns bought at a hard discount, in bulk to throw in your hold, chances are there will be some hard up malcontents and criminals with hard cash ready to buy them. They might 'like' super fancy shooter, but chances are they're poor, desperate and its better than nothing, warlords everywhere need some guns and they're not often too fussy.

About the H-7 and Superior quality, my thought is that you'd still get the extra advantage from it, but the damage bonus is already "baked in" to the weapon's damage rating.

I went ahead and fired off a query to the powers that be on this and we shall see what they have to say.

Yeah with how the weapon stats are, there are only so many combinations they can make. In DnD for example +2 to a weapon was nice but not game changing, in this +2 more damage is huge. Future material will have more and more retread weapons as they run out of new combinations to use. You can't keep making the next supplement just have better gear than the last. As someone mentioned an arms race supplement structure would suck ass.

seriously people......

if your a power gamer be proud, say the weapons are lame, rpg's like this one can have power gamers.

i guarantee if the movies were a replay of someone's rpg session, then Annikin Skywalker would have been played by a power gamer.

if your a power gamer in my game thats fine, i just mold the story around you, to gide you, to put walls in the way, so you change your power gaming style mid game and then, bam i switch it back to the way you were originally going for and now you've waisted xp.

if your a power gamer that has a plan and doesn't deviate (example i have a character who i have decided is going to attempt to have the highest soak possible, anything else will be determined as i develop) then thats good, because you have made a character, yes he is awesome at something, but thats just part of his character.

rpg's need all types of people, no one should ever feel shameful to admit they love to power game, or that they are disappointed at rules.

I haven't got my copy yet so i can't comment, but seriously weather or not you power game is irrelevant to how you feel about the new book. all opinions are valid.

Edited by Hakon

Interesting thoughts. I wonder if characters should know every type of equipment that is available to them I think FFG is struggling with new gear and should focus on components and materials for customization. This imho would allow for more "surprise" and less comparison by and for the PC's...plus they could use all of their skills and talents to improve their gear/character.

Nothing preventing people from introducing their own mods into the mix if they felt a particular item needed more options or buffs. Doesn't need to simply be limited to weapons either, I gave my players an immobile droid similar to Blue Max last session that's a sort of custom Outlaw Tech tool. I've got a carbine I plan on introducing mostly for my commando player's fun next game or so. I think as long as it is in theme and Star Warsy with that sort of retro, second hand look, like analog meets digital feel to it, anything goes.

I still haven't figured out how to make quotes work on this board so bear with me.

MKX: brilliant idea for cheap/nasty guns to exist in a Corellian book! What could be more Corellian than smuggling guns to criminal / rebel / warlord types (at significant profit because they are so cheap/nasty) right under the Empire's noses.

"Yessir mr rebel type, I have right here a crate of 20 of Corellian Arm's finest CR-2 heavy blaster pistols. How much you say? Wellll... a heavy blaster pistol will cost you 700 credits. If you can buy one legally. On a planet not under Imperial blockade. So given danger money, bribes, ship repairs, licence-waving fees, I'll call it about 1200 each. If you buy the whole crate, I'll even throw in for free some information that we got off that imperial customs ship we had to fight to bring you these weapons about when the Imperials will be conducting an armed sweep of your village."

Cost to buy 20 CR-2's = 12,000 credits. Sale price = 24,000 credits. The info about the sweep is all made up of course simply to apply pressure to the prospective buyer. :-)

Hakon: I played an Arbites in a dark-heresy campaign and one of his primary focuses was to be the soak-monster of the group. Judge Thadeus Grimm was one of the most fun characters I have ever played! And that's for the exact reason that you mentioned. Being a soak-monster was only part of the character, not the whole. Mind you, he was a not very nice man who ended up pulling the trigger on his own home-world (literally pulled the trigger) to blast it with Exterminatus due to chaos incursions. Good times. :-)

About the H-7 and Superior quality, my thought is that you'd still get the extra advantage from it, but the damage bonus is already "baked in" to the weapon's damage rating.

I went ahead and fired off a query to the powers that be on this and we shall see what they have to say.

Ta Dah!

"The +1 damage is included in the stats, but the automatic Advantage is not.
Hope that helps!
Sam Stewart
Senior RPG Producer
Fantasy Flight Games"

Due to his backstory of being the son of a corellian lord who owns the largest shipping manufacturer, he was the member of the party who procured the groups YV-560, stealing it from his dad in order to go rescue his kidnapped love.

Now that i am the captain and taking a majority of the damage (42 damage in the last 4 round combat, soaked down to 12/17 hp) i have decided that my next xp gain will be spent merging across to the hired guns third spec, the mercenary soldier, taking some ranks in leadership qualities, so as i run towards the enemy with my vibrosword i can inspire my men to do better, this has awesome character ties to his background, as since he is a noble born, inspiring men is something that fits into who he is. It will also mean i can be a gunner on my ship as at the moment our only option is a doctor with agility 2 gunnery 1.

so instead of maximizing and using the LHS of the marauder and gadgeteer trees, i am taking a side step for the group.

and that is what at it's core makes RPG great. My concept of a Soak monster will still happen, it is just now it will take slightly longer so that i can become more versatile then a sword swinging berserker could be.

once i do finally get the LHS of both gadgeteer and marauder trees complete (and merc + survivalist) i will be looking at a soak of 19 and defense 4 vs ranged and 6 vs melee and 32 wound threshold, with immunity to sunder, pierce and breach thats with pushing it to its limits and loads of money.

still being able to survive a direct hit from a ships light blaster cannon takes a lot of effort.

(50 damage minimum, -19 soak =31 damage, 1 wound left)

Edited by Hakon

Alas Seiito, while some of them are availability 4, none of them that are have limited ammo 1, the other requirement for the utility belt talent.

My only complaint about the weapons is the Selonian Glaive

That's not a Glaive.

Actually, the version in the book is in fact a Glaive.

Wikipedia Link

Notably "The term "glaive" is frequently misapplied in modern fantasy fiction, films and video games to various thrown weapons, similar to the chakram or hunga munga , which can mystically return to the thrower (as in popular myths surrounding the boomerang ). These objects are fictional, and are not in any way related to the historical glaive."

If I get an RPG book that calls their throwing weapons Glaives, I'm hugely disappointed. Not so much because they called their throwing weapon (which is not a Glaive) a glaive, but because odds are I won't be able to actually get a Glaive (which is the polearm similar to a naginata), and I happen to like them.

@Whafrog:

I could get behind that; that could work out. I can see them wanting to keep the weapons from power-creeping from the core book. I know in shadowrun 4e, I have a friend who wrote a pdf he called shadowguns. Using various base guns, and gun modifiers from several sources, he designed several sets of custom built guns which were significantly better than the ones in the book, and typically not that much more expensive. It was always worth it to buy a gun with the modifications over any gun in the book. Guns in the book were almost universally deemed disposable, by comparison; players who tried to use the guns in the core book were behind those who didnt.

I'm torn between agreeing with Maelora about the lack of reasons for adding substandard weaponry (especially when it takes up valuable book space), and recognising that not all weapons in the galaxy are great - and if you want a well-rounded galaxy, then those weaponry would need to be listed somewhere .

And I would hold up my hand and say that weaker weapons can be alluring to roleplayers, insofar as the penalties of doing so don't matter to them. I once played Changeling as a Lost called Elphaba (everyone joked that she was as elusive and strange as the Wicked Witch) who adamantly retained her pocket knife, despite being offered ample chance to change it. She wasn't a huge combatant, and the knife held sentamental value to her - it's why she kept it and used it at the expense of a sword, firearm or magical weapon.

I recognise that in the above example, I chose the weapon, which makes all the difference; having a GM drop weaker weapons on you, if it makes sense, can also be fun and challenging, provided he doesn't refuse to let you aim for something better when the opportunity knocks.

And I would hold up my hand and say that weaker weapons can be alluring to roleplayers, insofar as the penalties of doing so don't matter to them. I once played Changeling as a Lost called Elphaba (everyone joked that she was as elusive and strange as the Wicked Witch) who adamantly retained her pocket knife, despite being offered ample chance to change it. She wasn't a huge combatant, and the knife held sentamental value to her - it's why she kept it and used it at the expense of a sword, firearm or magical weapon.

We've about uncovered every Heavy Blaster Pistol in Hutt Space, and my Doctor Still carries around a holdout. Don't think he has yet to use it.

About the H-7 and Superior quality, my thought is that you'd still get the extra advantage from it, but the damage bonus is already "baked in" to the weapon's damage rating.

I went ahead and fired off a query to the powers that be on this and we shall see what they have to say.

Ta Dah!

"The +1 damage is included in the stats, but the automatic Advantage is not.
Hope that helps!
Sam Stewart
Senior RPG Producer
Fantasy Flight Games"

Sorry about bumping an old thread, but it's the most relevant one I found on the subject.

So with a H-7, it really only takes one rolled advantage to crit then? Since its two to crit naturally, and this statement says the "Superior" free advantage is not cooked into the stats.

Throw a "Bantha's Eye Laser Sight" attachment on it from Dangerous Covenants, which grants an automatic advantage on a hit, and that means you crit every single time you hit with this weapon? That seems a little overboard...

Is there a rule somewhere saying Crit chance cannot be lowered below needing 1 "rolled" advantage?

Provided there aren't Threats that cancel those auto Advantages and rolled Advantages, yes you crit with 2 on this weapon. You will need an uncancelled Advantage to land a Crit even on a weapon with a Crit 1 rating combined with at least 1 point of damage that gets past soak.

Edited by 2P51

Ah, okay, that makes sense. So it won't quite be an "automatic" Crit on hit, because there can still be Threats that cancel out the "automatic" Advantages granted by the Superior quality and the Laser Sight. Thanks for the feedback!

Just FYI for the "Equalizer" the Superior rating on the weapon is already counted in the stats right?? You do NOT add them on top of the stats on the weapon. I think this is correct.

Not the extra Advantage. The damage is. That was asked and answred in some thread.

Not the extra Advantage. The damage is. That was asked and answred in some thread.

"Some thread" being this one. And I quoted it above when I asked the new question. :P

Sorry. Didnt remember where. There were a # of threads on SoF.

For the Record...The Equalizer is AWESOME!! My PC is running around w/ Dual weapons...2 Blasters w/ BABs & Bantha Eyes on both...So me getting 2 Equalizers is the next step. I already found 1 for another in my party but there was only 1 so I couldnt get mine (And I didnt have the credits for it)

So my PC running w/ 2 Equalizers w/ BABs & Bantha Eyes on both....RUN BAD GUYS RUN!!