Composite-Beam Lasers

[jtanzer]

I appreciate the talking-to. I have the unfortunate habit of getting passionate and not thinking more. I know I failed in my duty to the Jedi Code, and I will spend time meditating on my failure.


Edit:

Here's another stat block I came up for a project I'm working on. It's a derivative of the CBL (Composite Beam Laser) that's less finicky at the cost of being less powerful. For those who are wondering, I use Vehicle scale as the default since I come from 1e, which doesn't have separate scales for speeders and walkers.

Beam Cannon
Scale: Vehicle
Body Strength: 2D
Crew: 2 (1 min)
Fire Control: 3D
Damage: 2D (+4D against unshielded targets or targets that fail their shield roll)
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The best villians are the ones the PCs create.

[CRMcNeill]

Why give it extra damage against unshielded targets?
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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

[jtanzer]

My thought was that it sort of melts or burrows into armor, similar to a HEAT warhead, rather than relying on the flash-heating of conventional energy weapons. However, because it's still an energy weapon, if it hits a shield it's effectiveness is reduced.
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The best villians are the ones the PCs create.

[Darklighter79]

Regular blaster bolts did melt through armor metal also with ease.
However, a higher fire control for beam lasers, IMHO, represents nicely the explosive effect seen on screen as well as cutting several enemies in one sweep just as in this scene of Geonosis assault.
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Don’t Let the Rules Get in the Way of a Good Story.

[CRMcNeill]

My solution would be to give CBLs a very high Auto-Fire rating, specifically 4D(5D). That way, the gunner has several options: focused beam attack (Auto-Fire is applied to Damage), cone saturation pattern (Auto-Fire applies to Fire Control), or a linear sweep across multiple targets (Auto-Fire offsets MAPs for making multiple attacks).

I’m thinking Starship (+6D) Scale for both the LAAT and the CBL, but with Damage 3D. Still hits hard enough to devastate something Character-Scale like a Droideka, but the gunner would really have to work to damage something serious.
_________________
"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

[jtanzer]

My impression from watching the films was that the 'sweep' was a consequence of the vehicle's motion, not the weapon.
_________________
The best villians are the ones the PCs create.

[CRMcNeill]

[jtanzer]