How powerful should.....

[Badger]

....I make a blaster in a Star Hero type campaign?

 

Anyway, I am thinking of making it a 3d6 RKA shot. But, I worry about it being either too powerful or not powerful enough. So I was wondering about your opinions.

[Markdoc]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

Well, you want your characters to fall down unconscious most of the time they get hit? Do you want a lot of player death? In that case, a blaster at 3d6 killing sounds about right.

 

(Of course I'm assuming that people arent going around in heavy battle armour all the time, but if blasters are 3d6 RKA, they probably wil be....)

 

cheers, Mark

[Starwolf]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

When I design a weapon I look at the overall effectiveness in game terms as compared to writeups of real world weapons. In example, since I don't have any real data on blasters, if I want a blaster to have about the same damage potential as a 20th/21st century .50 caliber weapon, I assign it 3d6 RKA. For reference on real world weapon game stats I use Dark Champions. On the other hand there are some pretty good weapon write-ups already in Star Hero and Terran Empire. I assume there are some write-ups in Alien Wars as well, but sadly I have not been able to purchase it... YET

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

I veiw this as being an excercise in campaign design philosophy.

 

Factors to consider... do you want to compare to modern weapon stats? What are the everyman starting stats of an average person in your game? How tough are your vehicles, structures, materials and the like? What kind of visual/pratical effect do you want hand weapons to have on the landscape?

 

Working from base assumptions from the rules...

 

base 8 stats for normals allows comparisons between late 20th/early 21st century tech and your setting. Sidearms have a set of variables, that in game terms usually have a certain amount of balance (in the regard that if one aspect is improved it is usually at the cost of another aspect's performance). My fellow gunbunnys might disagree, but I'd probably look at the Desert Eagle .50 as a benchmark "heavy" pistol (due to the fact that I'm looking foreward concerning technological advancement, so I'm avoiding revolvers despite the fact that some variation of the revolver action can be ported and updated into a Sci fi setting)

So a 2d6+1 RKA, +1 Stun, 9 shot Sidearm represents a high tech pistol as of today. Other modern sidearms explore other avenues... magazine capacity, controlabillity, rapid/autofire capability (3 round bursts, usualy). In general, you're always going to see these kind of variations in different models of sidearms, as the debate will last as long as there are gun nuts

 

So I see a 3d6 RKA as a good functional base for a pretty heavy sidearm. The pistols in my SH game varied from 1d6+1 RKA a the way past 4d6 RKA's. There was always a trade off tho... thats the big thing is to remember balance.

 

To whit...

In my setting there were a LOT of guns...I had 7 pages worth of just weapon tables, with another 35-40 worth of notes and illustrations ('cause folk like to know what their gun looks like, as long as it looks cool). Heres an example of one of my weapons... this isn't the write up as much as my design process

 

Parker .177 caseless carbine: a rough and tumble infantry weapon. Used extensively by Confederation "peace keepers", Base guard units, Police forces and the like. High rate of fire, very controllable even in full auto, excellent for sustained supression fire. 500 round magazines. This design relies on superior to modern day materials and chemical tech to work... the barrels disipate heat faster than modern, and superior explosives are needed to miniaturize the propellant block and explosive cores for the bullets (at .177 caliber, the rounds need someting to make them lethal). Basic idea stolen from the Steven Perry Matador series, with additional though put in to rationalize how they work.

Notes: The parker is designed to provide a lot of cover fire. It poses a credible threat to lightly armored or unarmored targets, such as insurgent forces, rioters, civilians, and sometimes PC's. Written up as a 1 1/2d6 RKA, AF10, AP. Can penetrate the standard armored coveralls worn by most troopers, but not any heavier body armor (such as Aliens style rigid protection on vitals and joints). Confed troops, in my game, served approximately the same function as Stormtroopers. I wanted their main weapon to be dangrous, but not something I'd shy from hitting the PC's with. I also wanted the design to fit with my justification for the "stormtrooper school of marksmanship"... a standard practice of using suppression fire as a main attack mode. A quad of Confed troopers with Parkers can lay down a withering area of Suppression fire, cutting apart advancing forces and making the prosepct of popping up from cover to shoot at them a dangerous thing. Not a common choice for PC's, but effective when they have been used (scavenged off fallen troopers, or in disguise, for instance)

 

I've found that thinking things through in this manner is really quite helpful in Sci-Fi games for increasing suspension of disbelief.

[Badger]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

Well to update.

 

I dnt have any of Star Hero or its supplements. I have been more interested in Champions overall. So I dont much admittedly. And dont really have a world idea set up yet. Kind of an early stage deal. As far as deaths. I want it to be somewhat realistic. But, not hard core realistic. I would want PCs to have a more than slim chance of dying, but not an uber-gritty everybody dies every adventure type of thing either. I guess I was "fishing" as it were for an "estimate". I kind of want an "average" blaster and then work up and down the scale to figure out weak/strong extremes of it. You guys have given me a fairly good range.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

In my Terran Empire campaign, the crew carried Ion Rifles which had two modes. One was 10d6 EB and the other was 3d6 RKA. Either mode can be used up to Autofire 5. They are friggin' deadly.

 

In hindsight, this was more lethal than I would have liked. People go down in a single hit, and with the targetting computers, it was hard to miss. If I were to rewind this campaign and start over, I'd think about removing the Autofire capability of these weapons. This would give someone with a lower initiative a chance to fire back.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

And one more tip, you need to consider what type of defenses people wear. If everyone is running around with 2 DEF, then a 3d6 RKA will kill them. If they have a nice 10 DEF force field, things change a little.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

Yep. It's not really a matter of anything more complicated than "how much do I want to destroy with a single shot?" Or, looked at from the player's point of view, "what are the odds of death from a single shot? How many shots, on average, would pretty much garaunteed getting killed?"

 

When you get to things like "how much damage should standard item x do?" what you are essentially doing is setting the risk / fatality level of your campaign-- how bloody do you want your adventure to be?

 

If you are looking for something like the old Traveller games, then two or three shots should pretty much garauntee a death. If you want something more like a space opera, then characters shouldn't need to mortally fear a wound or two.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

Well to update.

 

I dnt have any of Star Hero or its supplements. I have been more interested in Champions overall. So I dont much admittedly. And dont really have a world idea set up yet. Kind of an early stage deal. As far as deaths. I want it to be somewhat realistic. But, not hard core realistic. I would want PCs to have a more than slim chance of dying, but not an uber-gritty everybody dies every adventure type of thing either. I guess I was "fishing" as it were for an "estimate". I kind of want an "average" blaster and then work up and down the scale to figure out weak/strong extremes of it. You guys have given me a fairly good range.

 

One other resource you might have overlooked -- Hero System Equipment Guide. It has a full chapter devoted to science fiction equipment, weapons and defenses. Good luck on the game!

[catsman]

Re: How powerful should.....

 

Might I suggest that you try 2d6 RKA penetrating, That would give the Blaster a big danger factor and make it useable agisnt ship (but not very usefuil)