Blasters.. Does anyone not max out this skill?

[ninja42]

Hi!

I would like to pick your brains regarding your thoughts about how many dies and CP you put into the Blasters skill, and how much you let your players focus on it.

Except for perhaps Dodge, Blasters is probably the skill that has the highest probability of being called for during a game, and when it is called for your.. backside.. usually depends on wether or not you succeed your roll(s) or not. So why not spend the maximum number of dice increasing the skill at character creation? Personally, I cant think of any reason not to do it apart from not wanting to be a munchkin.

When you play, how many dice do you usually put into Blasters? And when you are the GM, how much is a good Blasters skill needed to survive?

[Akari]

Standard blaster skills in our groups are usually between 4d and 7d. We have a few characters specializing in different weapons, like slugthrowers, melee weapons, lightsabers or heavy weapons.

The highest weapon skill we ever had, was a "western" kind of character with dual morellian .48 enforcers and 9d specialized slugthrower skill, but he was severely handicapped by the fact that his pistols had a huge recoil and only 4 shots. He was able to pull off some rather amazing stunts with them though.

Thing is, a higher blaster skill is always nice, but it gets expensive after a while. And as we don't have too many combat scenarios, I also love to have a bunch of other skills...
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[Ankhanu]

It really depends on play style. If you're just out to succeed in combat situations, maxing out blaster is a must... however, if you're building a character it may not always be appropriate that they be a crack shot. Other reasons for not maxing out Blaster is being clever enough to figure out other ways to handle a situation, or using other combat methods... not everyone goes for the full frontal assault.

My characters have ranged from 2D-7D in blaster, depending on who the character is and what their backgrounds/experiences are. When I GM, there's no real threshold for success dependent upon blaster skill... those who can't shoot will often figure out some other way to succeed, or else get the hell out of Dodge.

LIke Akari said, having a really high blaster means that you probably suck at most other non-combat skills... which really kinda blows
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[masque]

The way our last campaign worked (arms smuggling), my character, a merc type, had blaster relatively high, 5-7D, everyone else averaged 2-4D at the highest. My melee and gunnery skills were about on par with my blaster, but I was relatively worthless in tech skills and whatnot, but that was by design.

I was basically the meat shield guy, the others were a pilot, a slicer, and a faceman type. I did the most in combat, but everyone had their chances to shine in their own areas of expertise. I'd say the face and the slicer moved the plot along the most, my role was largely reactive.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Raven Redstar]

Generally, starting characters that I make tend to have 5 or 6D after specialization if they're professional fighters, or 3-4D max if they're not. My veteran characters that I've played for years have never had blaster skill higher than 9D even with specialization, and mind you, I played this same character in the one campaign for like 3 years and he only made it up to 9D with a spec. Although I do tend to roll pretty well on average, so I don't usually sink too many dice into one particular skill.

When creating a character, especially a baseline character more often than not I'm going for some degree of character concept. I would say that if the concept I'm making of the character is a normal person who has grown up in the star wars galaxy, then they have their blaster skill increased by at least +2 above their dexterity, usually 1D. This is out of habit because my first GM told me that in the Star Wars universe, everyone and their grandmother carries a blaster. So I was under the assumption that most people in the universe have at least a basic knowledge and training level with their weapon.
Now, if the character is a character who is either military or works on the wrong side of the law on a regular basis, that character tends to specialize in whatever his main weapon will be.

So, to answer your question, blaster skills as a player for me generally range from 3D+2 - 6D max.

As a GM, I try to work the story around the types of players that I have. If they're not very good in a fight, then I don't typically put them in those sorts of situations where they're forced to fight, usually it's running away. I tend to micro-manage my players a little bit during character creation, talking with them about character background and stuff like that. When I see them dumping max dice into blaster and dodge, I usually ask questions which most players who have only thought that they want their blaster and dodge high enough to kill any baseline enemy and avoid getting shot. But, my players have gotten used to the fact that if they skimp on any of their non-combat skills, I will most definitely put them in a situation where there's a very serious chance of death if they don't pull off a decent piloting roll, or tech roll to either fix something or open a door, or jumping across a nice little pit, or rooftops. There have been a few times where their characters have failed and gotten stuck in worse situations that could have been avoided if they split their skill dice up a little bit and made an interesting character.

So for my players to survive my games they generally have 4Dish blaster and usually the same in dodge. I tend to come up with the argument that if their character is a "professional gunfighter" then 4D is enough to start with. It's the same way I look at it when I'm a player.
So for a how many dice, usually max they put in blaster and dodge are 1D and then maybe spend some of their starting CP to raise it by another +1.

The other thing you'll want to remember, the base line thugs and bounty hunters in the books don't look that tough, which is true, one on one they're not much of a match. But, add a few of his buddies into the mix and you've got yourself a decent challenge for starting PCs. I had one character who was harassing a housing complex owned by Jabba the Hutt in Mos Eisley, the guard behind the gate (standard npc bounty hunter) called for backup and 4 of his buddies showed up. One of my two PCs decided to leave and figure out another approach, but the other one was cocky because he had high blaster and dodge (maybe 5d). So when the guy finally decides to leave the gate to the compound 2 guys step out of the alley to his right, another one steps out from around a wall, and the other one steps into the street right in front of him. The player decides to fight it out. Just cause you have enough skill to hit doesn't mean you'll automatically drop the bad guy. He got taken down to incapacitated and was captured by Jabba. The other player then had to figure out a way to bust him out, even though she wasn't aware that he had been taken. Anyway, moral of the story is, just cause a character loses a fight, doesn't mean they're dead. Just wakes up someplace else or where they were left missing gear or money, or both.

Hope this helps.

[Gry Sarth]

In my games, blaster skills are usually around 3D-6D. I would never condone a character with a high blaster skill that has no excuse to be such an excellent marksman. RPGs are not to be WON, they are to be PLAYED. If a character has a high blaster skill, it must be part of who they are. A normal noble, Jedi, tech, etc, has no business having a blaster skill beyond 4D.
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[garhkal]

[Whill]

[garhkal]

The best i can remember starting a guy with blaster was 6d blaster, 7d pistol specialty. He travelled the space lanes looking for competitions to get into for trick shooting and such, and had (according to his history) won a number of them.
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[cheshire]

I think the highest one of my players ever got was 7D. Most of the time they hover between 4-6D. It really isn't to my player's advantage to dump dice into this skill. First, they're more interested in putting the CPs into dodge first. It's better to not get hit and not hit anything than it is to make a bunch of attack rolls, and then get nailed on your defense. Second, there is plenty of situations that can't be solved with a blaster. That being the case, how are you going to sneak, bluff, or otherwise work your way out of the situation? Personally, I think that if players have their blasters maxed out, then they haven't been properly put through the paces in terms of the variety of their experience. Why haven't they been given the incentive to use their security skill, their bluff skill, or others.

I've never micro-managed characters telling them what they can or can't increase. However, I've always looked at character sheets after advancement, and many times the players would keep their character sheets at my house between games. I would examine them and give people suggestions, letting them know that there will be challenges in the campaign where they might come up short if they didn't start diversifying their skills. The choice is theirs, but they have a strong incentive to listen.

In terms of character creation, usually the blaster skills of my players hovers between 3-4D. The reason why they don't max this out from the outset is similar to why they don't do so in the process of a campaign. They know that they'll be asked to perform a number of other tasks as well. I ask my players to think about what the backstory is, and find skills appropriate to that. I can't see many reasons why someone should have a specialization in blaster pistols of 6D or 7D right from the beginning.
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[jmanski]

We're in a military campaign and most blaster skills seem to be 5d-6d, with one 7d. At or around 6d it seems to get too expensive for the benefit.

Blaster is important, but so are other skills. It's nice to be able to shoot, but it's also nice to be able to climb walls, run without falling, find the enemy, etc.
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[garhkal]

I can attest to that. I made a module especially to hurt those who blastered out over putting anything in other skills..
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[Dread Pirate Al]

How many dice go into Blaster is a dynamic situation between GM and players surely?

If GM always ambushes the players with fight scenes then should be no surprise that they allocate most attribute D to Strength (after all it defends against damage and its most efficient to max it out to begin with) and most skill d to Blaster.

If there is instead a mix of fightin', shootin', drivin', flyin', sneakin' and talkin' then players are more likely to spread Attribute and Skill dice around a bit.


Having said that, I tend to put a lot of fight scenes into my games and get bored of everyone having maxed out Blaster skill

I:
cap all Skills at twice controlling Attribute (and thence Specialisatiosn to thrice controlling Attribute)
give another set of Skill Dice which must be added to non-fighty skills



Yaaarrr

[jmanski]

I don't think players should be limited unilaterally. If a player wants a character who can shoot the wings off flies across the horizon, then fine. But that character won't be much good at anything else and will suffer.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[bobenhotep]

it depends on how you run your game. I played a lot of Cyberpunk before i did star wars, so my universe was sort of a " endless cantina " scenario. you were almost blind without a decent streetwise. running and dodge were good if you wanted to live. so was sneak.

I guess it is based a lot on how you run games. i thought of picking 5 random skills and building an adventure around them...
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