Help! Phaser Disintegration Redux

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Help! Phaser Disintegration Redux

 

How about just saying that at a bit more than double your target's body that the body disappears. Not like you can Resurrect dead folk in Star Trek.

 

Cost Powers

75 Phaser: Multipower, 75-point reserve

7f 1) Stun Setting: Blast 9d6, Constant (+1/2) (67 Active Points) - END=7

7f 2) Heavy Stun Setting: Blast 10d6, Constant (+1/2) (75 Active Points) - END=7

7f 3) Kill Setting: Killing Attack - Ranged 3d6, Constant (+1/2) (67 Active Points) - END=7

 

Of course it doesn't include the Focus limitation or the 0 End on the slots (Because I have never seen a phaser run out of power). I wouldn't recommend the Beam Limitation because phasers can be dialed down in power a great deal. They DO work on Force Fields (or the ones on the ships would be pretty useless against ships with shields). Phasers may have a bonus to OCV because they are easy to fire. To make a Phaser Rifle increase the DC by 2 or 3 on all attacks and give another +1 ocv and +2 Range mods or more if you think it's worth it.

 

I wouldn't fool with NNDs or Penetration or any of that other crud. On the shows people weren't instantly disintegrated unless fired on by multiple people or if the phaser beam is held on target for a few seconds. That always felt to me like you hold the phaser beam on target till you do more than double the targets body (Killing them as per Hero Rules), then you do a few more body to clean up the meat on the ground.

 

Really you don't want to give PCs instant disintegration beams. Making stuff to easy in combat and disintegrating PC's is not really fun. This write up can do anything you see in the shows and not be totally overpowered.

 

BTW as I pointed out in that other phaser thread, the Marines portrayed in Undiscovered Country wore what looked like body armor which seems to imply that armor mitigates Phaser damage. Also Klingon Warriors wear body armor though it can be argued that it's for the knives, swords etc. I think that it is for both Disruptor/Phaser fire as well as physical damage. BTW you can use this to explain why Star Fleet officers don't seem to bother to wear body armor. It's possible that it's part of their uniform. On top of this I will point out that in TV shows one has only a short time to show the action, the writers just choose who is stunned and how fast it seems. RPGs are a different beast and IMHO sometimes you have to take our medium of expression into account when converting things you see in other mediums (ie TV and Movies). That means that its' a good thing that it takes a couple of phases to knock someone out and that it takes a few phases longer to totally disintegrate a body.

 

That's pretty-much how I handled the aliens' Death-rays in my The Invaders,1999 campaign. Of course, they were autofire weapons, to allow someone to "sweep" his fire over several targets. Repped.