There's one! Set for stun!

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

The stun setting on a blaster is the equivalent of an ion weapon for a ship. Isn't the stun setting a bit powerful in the game?

I'm talking about 1E stun setting, but the 2E version is powerful, too.



Question: How does stun work?

We know that blasters operate by igniting tibanna gas to a plasma state, then firing the plasma bolt down the barrel magnetically. The weapon needs tibanna gas and an energy source in order to operate.

How does stun work?







Comment: I'm guessing that the stun setting somehow overtaxes the weapon's power pack, sending out an electrical charge that overpowers a beings nervous system.

Shouldn't this be a real burden on the powerpack? Shouldn't there be limited uses at stun--much more limited than the 25, 50 or 100 shots a character gets firing blaster bolts.

25, 50, or 100 shots? Man, it doesn' take a lot of tibanna gas to create blaster bolts, does it?



More Comment: We saw the stun setting being used in ANH. Since the stun beam was visible, we can see how it arced out in about a 45 degree angle from the troopers' blaster rifle, creating a cone shaped area of effect.

Should this effect the range of Stun? It would seem that the stun effect would dissipate fairly closely on a wide setting like that.

From what we saw in ANH, I'd say it should be limited to Short Range.

Is it an area of effect weapon?

But, maybe the shape of the cone can be changed to a more narrow cone, reducing the area of effect but increasting range? Therefore, when set for Medium Range, the area of effect can only be applied to one or two targets adjacent to the primary target. Where as, when set wide, as we saw in ANH, the one stun attack can be used for every target within Short Range in front of the attacker? And, if switched to long range, the stun beam is a straight line that can only hit one target?



Thoughts on all of this?

[garhkal]

In the house rules and game-master area, there's been several discussions about stun weapons being too powerful.. One of the more common HR's dome to aleviate this is to reduce it to ONLY being usable at short range...
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Telsij]

[CRMcNeill]

With regard to the cone-shaped area of effect, I'd treat it similar to a shotgun blast. As garhkal suggested, limit it to Short range, but with some modification. Because of the cone-shaped effect, treat all shots as Point Blank, but reduce damage as range increases, which represents the spreading, dispersing effect. So, say for a Blaster Rifle, all shots are at Very Easy Difficulty, but Damage is 5D/4D/2D, and it can't hit targets at Long Range.
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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

[MrNexx]

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

The other option is to keep stun as written except make it a harder wound level to achieve the stun.

That way, it would make sense why stun isn't used that often (in all of SW lore, I've only seen or read it used in that one scene from ANH). So, if it's difficult to achieve (and Leia just got unlucky), that would make for a good reason why nobody ever uses it unless absolutely necessary.

[garhkal]

Another option is to have a potential side effect. Like was said in the Heir to the empire nove; "Using stun on pregnant women can cause miscarriages" or "overuse can cause permanent nerve damage (so say if you get a KILL result, you cause nerve damage)..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Naaman]

[Telsij]

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]