Continuous beam weapons

[Lostboy]

Are there rules for Continuous beam weapons or dose anyone have any ideas about how to deal with them mechanically in game?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[Leon The Lion]

I simulate such weapons by giving them at least 1D in Autofire, depending on how long the weapon can sustain the beam.

Autofire dice were originally proposed by ZzaphodD, I think, to simulate volume of fire. Basically, everytime you shoot, depending on weather you concentrate fire for effect, or spray an area to increase the chance of at least one shot hitting, you get to add the Autofire dice either to damage or the attack roll. Works fairly well, and I think it can be reasonably applied also to continous beams instead of many single blasts.

Maybe also grant the weapon 1D in Fire Control on top of that, to show how easy it is to correct your aiming point when you have a visual cue for the whole path of the shot, like with tracer ammo.
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[Fallon Kell]

[Ray]

But they're great for digging a farming plot! Or, if you get them big enough, a trench for stationary combat.

Which should not be used against Imperial Forces, as shown in Empire.

[Bren]

Of course I would listen to anything Ray says about continuous beam weapons.

[garhkal]

From most sci fi shows i have seen, OTHER than the continuous beams of the Ori ships in S9 and 10 of star gate, continuous beam shots DO seem to have less individual omphf than comparative single shot/multi shot beams do.

So i can agree to a +1d fire control/to hit bonus, with a -1d damage.
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[CRMcNeill]

There is also the heavy continuous beam weaponry from Babylon 5, which could chop a capital ship in half with one sweep.

In addition to using auto-fire rules, I also have a sustained damage rule for things like cutting torches, lightsabers, and other beam weapons. Basically, for every round a beam weapon is used to attack the same target, add +1 to the damage roll.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Bren]

I had continuous beam weapons in a cross over scenario that I ran. IIR there were only two real differences in how I ran them.

1. Continuous beam weapons did an additional +1D damage per round on target.
   
2. Due to the continuity of the attack, a Jedi could parry a single beam weapon (or maybe two) with his lightsaber, but could not parry multiple beam weapons.

[garhkal]

Was there a slower ROF for beam weapons? What of the user doing other actions?
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[CRMcNeill]

[Bren]

[ZzaphodD]

[atgxtg]

A couple of ideas. First off pulsed weapons tend to be more powerful than continuous beams. The main reason for pulsed weaponry is that many electronic components can take a higher charge for short periods of time. So I7d probably start with a lower damage for a continuous beam.


EABA, which has game mechanics similar to D6, has a rule for continuous beam weapons. Essentially you hit the target one time per point you exceed the difficulty by, up to a cap of something like 10 hits per second (EABA uses 1 second turns). So you might want to co opt the combined fire rules here. Take a couple of dice off the damage, but add +1 damage per point over the difficulty-up to a cap. You might want to add the extra pops after seeing if the shot gets pasts shields.

[jmanski]

I think I like that.
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[Lostboy]

All good ideas thanks guys.