Blaster skills and rate of fire

[scott2978]

Hey all,

Got a few questions here for how you do blaster skills and rate of fire in your games.

1. Should the blasters with more damage have a slower rate of fire than the lighter ones? It seems like almost every blaster has an unlimited rate of fire. If I limited the high rate of fire to the military type blasters and customizations, it would add some appeal to "everyday" blasters. Should a heavy blaster fire slower to make up for the higher damage? Just how much does rate of fire come into play in your games?

2. Also, if the blaster specializations were more specific, it could keep everyone from becoming Wyatt Earp. For instance, making "Hold-out Blasters" and "Heavy Blaster Pistols" specializations instead of just "Blaster Pistols". Is that too much? In a galaxy were alien techs from 20,000 seperate civilizations are building weapons, I don't think more specialized specializations are out of the realm of plausibility.

3. I was pretty shocked to find that the same skill applies to everything from a tiny hold-out to the monstrous E-Web heavy repeating blaster. I'd like to propose a "Repeating Blasters" skill, and specializations in each type: "Light repeating Blasters", "Medium (or perhaps 'General Purpose') Repeating Blasters" and "Heavy Repeating Blasters". What do you think? If Blaster Artillery has it's own skill, shouldn't crew-served small arms have one too?

Please tell me your thoughts.


Scott

[Gry Sarth]

1. To be honest, fire rates don't usually enter into our games, unless some rather unusual weapon is used. It's extremely rare that anybody try to shoot more than twice per round, so fire rate is not a big concern in our game.

2. I don't quite understand. Isn't "Hold-out Blasters" and "Heavy Blasters" specializations of the "Blaster" skill? along with "Blaster Pistol", Blaster Rifle", etc? Or did you mean that each type of blaster should be its own separate skill, with specializations covering just a specific model (ie: Heavy Blaster Pistols: BlasTech DL-44)?

3. Maybe you could tuck Tripod-mounted blasters into the "Blaster Artillery" skill, that sounds pretty reasonable. A Light Repeating blaster would still be under "Blasters" as it's not that different from a heavy rifle, but the E-Web would fall under "Blaster Artillery" as it's almost a Blaster Turret.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[scott2978]

Unless I'm remembering wrong, by the book the specializations of the Blaster skill are Blaster Pistols, Blaster Rifles ect.

I tend to agree with the E-Web being different from other small arms, but again, by the SWRE2E book it falls under the "Blaster" skill. Rediculous IMHO.

Thanks Gry!

[Gry Sarth]

the official rule is that specializations of the Blaster skill are all the different blaster types, including hold-out, pistol, heavy blaster, rifle, etc. Although strangely, the screen does list "DL-44" as a possible specialization, though I don't know why anyone would pick that instead of just "Heavy Blaster Pistols".
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[garhkal]

IIRC heavy blaster pistols and rifles have a 1 for ROF, while reg pistols have a - (meaning no limit).. That to me is reasonable.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Pel]

We never have paid much attention to fire rates either, but it turns out that most weapons have them listed, even the nifty ones in the Fantastic Techs and Rules of Engagement. Whether or not this applies to a particular game depends on preference and which version you're playing.

In 2nd Ed. the only personal weapon I found with a ROF is the bowcaster. In 2nd R&E, everything has a ROF except slugthrowers, heavy blaster pistols, and repeaters. All have a measly fire rate of 1, significantly reducing the carnage one can inflict with the most common weapons found.

Interestingly enough, the Sorosuub Stormtrooper One blaster rifle lists a fire rate of 1, while it's chief competitor, the BlasTech E11 has no fire rate whatsoever. Fans of raining destruction upon others will no doubt prefer the E11. More esoteric players may purchase the Sorosuub product to give their enemies a sporting chance.
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Aha!

[Vanion]

Typically, I don't enforce the ROF on weapons either. My players have never really gotten their blaster skills high enough to effectively fire more than a couple shots per round, plus any other actions (such as drawing the weapon), and still manage to hit anything.

I tend to think it's more interesting, (and maybe more realistic) to think characters might "spray the area" with blaster fire!
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"Life is not measured in years, but by deeds"

[Xynar]

I actually use ROF all the time. This way a character can get a knock-off that has a few different stats than the original. Not to mention, with a Force Point, I can have a player shoot 10 times in one round.
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Xynar
The Great Adventurer

[Esoomian]

Your more hefty species may find that they can weild an E-Web like a blaster rifle.

It's the only blaster my Esoomian character can actually use as he tends to crush everything else he weilds. Of course it's had to be specially modified to work as a blaster rifle without the powere generator, and it takes 15 standard clips to power it. Actually no-ones really sure how many shots we'll get out of it before it'll have to be reloaded which is going to be a mission under heavy firepower.

Actually now you've got me thinking that gun has never been fired it's usually enough to be 3.5 meters tall and holding an E-web like a blaster rifle and sudenly people reconsider their thoughts of violence.

[Ray]

My group figured out this rule: If it doesn't have an ROF, it's a "Semi-Automatic", which means one pull of the trigger means one shot. If you go overboard, and Criticially Fail on the Wild Die, the Blaster Overheats and goes into Shutdown Mode (If you're lucky) or Blows Up (If you're unlucky.).

We were going to come up with custom rules for the infamous T-6 Thunderer Heavy Blaster Pistol, but never got around to it. Mainly because two shots were often more than enough.

Weapons with an ROF were "Burst Fire" weapons, which meant for every pull of the Trigger, that number of shots were fired (Or, you could set it to Semi-Automatic mode with a toggle switch.).

IIRC, Light Repeating Blasters had an ROF of 5, Medium Repeaters had an ROF of 4, and Heavy Repeaters (E-Web!) had an ROF of 3.

Prax Arms Blast And Smash Rifles were Assault Blaster Rifles, and had an ROF of 6 as described in the expanded rules for it, and we used those same rules for the Repeaters. Blast and Smashes also required custom Blaster Clips, and were *VERY* Blaster Gas Inefficient, which made them expensive to field. Each clip cost about five times a regular blaster pack, and cost three times the same amount to reload, IIRC.

Repeaters work off a generator, and the Blaster Gas in them was good for about 1,000 rounds depending on model (We didn't bother counting). For defensive installations (Something we never worked with), a blaster gas canister can also be used, allowing for almost unlimited amount of bolts. Light Repeaters could use a Rifle Blaster Pack for shots as described in the rules (But we never used it as such, IIRC.).

Hold-Outs could fire once per round, due to their small size and inefficient design. What do you expect, it's a derringer!

That's about all I recall at the moment. Hope it helps!

[Esoomian]

*nods* Yeah our group used similar rules for repeaters saying that their rate of fire was equal to the listed rate of fire (For an E-web it was one) however if you had the repeater setting on then each squeeze of the trigger was D3 shots

[garhkal]