Okay, I like 3:16 a lot. Anything I like a lot I’ll eventually end up tinkering with. Here are some ideas. The goal here is to change the feel up a bit, not to fix any kind of perceived “brokenness” — approach the rules from that perspective. I like the weapons in the book, but some of them just seem less awesome than others. What I really want to do here is to create an arrangement where every gun is tempting and I go crazy with the “paradox of choice”.
Here are all the changes:
New rule: “HEAVY WEAPONS”
* Some guns (the biggest and baddest-ass, generally) are “Heavy” weapons. You can only carry one “Heavy” weapon at a time.
* The E-Cannon, Heavy MG, Flame-Gun, and Rocketpod are now “Heavy”.
E-CANNON
* Change Far damage from 0/d6 to -/-.
POWERCLAW
* Change Close damage from d6/2d6 to d10/2d10.
POWERBLADE
* Change Close damage from d10/2d10 to 2d6/3d10.
SIDEARM
* Add special ability “[Can automatically switch to this weapon]“.
That’s all the game-mechanical changes. Pretty simple. If you want to know why I did all that, read on…
(Quick recap of the dice track, since it’s important later: 0, 1, d6, d10, 2d6, 2d10, 3d10, d100.)
Far-range weapons:
Let’s start with the easiest. Pretty much only the Rocketpod really lives here, with the Slug Rifle coming to visit during the early game. I think the Rocketpod is great as-is. There’s room to design another gun that could also share this niche with the Rocketpod, but I don’t want to do that right now. I’m happy here.
Near-range weapons:
The Energy Rifle and Slug Rifle are really the foundation of the game. They’re a baseline I don’t want to mess with.
At the moment, I don’t see much of a role for the Heavy MG. It starts out with the ability to shoot close when the E-Cannon doesn’t, but you can get many more Kills by fast-switching to your ‘nades. Being able to upgrade to a d10 instead of a d6 at Close range just doesn’t offset the huge difference between d100 and 3d10 at Near range.
Now, if we buff the Heavy MG, it’ll step on the toes of the baseline rifles. And, already, 3d10 is nothing to sneeze at. So, instead, let’s subtly nerf the E-Cannon:
>> Change E-Cannon damage to “0/d6 | 2d10/d100 | -/-“.
The E-Cannon is still king of the battlefield, but now the Heavy MG has a small leg up. For characters with high FA and low NFA, having to use NFA to transition out of Far range can be tough; the Heavy MG gives you the ability to keep using your attacks to move.
Close-range weapons:
A lot of weapons occupy this space, so there’s a lot to tweak here. For me, the Flame-Gun, Shotgun, and Grenades really stand out. In contrast, think the PowerClaw and PowerBlade are rather on the weak side and could use an upgrade.
The PowerClaw is cool, but I think it’s only trivially better than vanilla Hand-to-Hand or just using your rifle to fight (going from d10 to 2d6 is, on average, only worth 1.5 Kills — the smallest difference for any of the “steps”). Grenades do more damage, can be used from Near, and add a special effect that’s occasionally harmful and occasionally very good. So, I want to buff up the PowerClaw:
>> Change PowerClaw damage to “d10/2d10 | (close combat only)”.
So, now the Lieutenant has a close-combat weapon comparable to Grenades. Seems pretty fair to me.
Of course, we just stole the PowerBlade’s niche. And the PowerBlade was rather weak to begin with. Its damage is comparable to the Shotgun or Grenades, but it has neither range nor special ability. No matter how you statted it, making it yet another quick-draw melee weapon would conflict with the PowerClaw. Plus, I like the image of the PowerBlade being such a big thing that it definitely isn’t a piece of equipment you can just whip out in five seconds. We can get a lot out of it by bumping up the category, though:
>> Change PowerBlade damage to “2d6/3d10 | (close combat only)”.
Yes, the PowerBlade hits harder than a shotgun to the face. That’s intentional. I’m imagining this weapon as a ChainSword or super-charged energy katana or whatever, so being able to cleave through hordes of enemies just feels right. That 3d10 kinda scares me, because I’ve just created another high-end weapon out of one that decidedly wasn’t before, but I think that little bit of discomfort means I’m doing the right thing here.
Finally, we have the trusty Sidearm. I think it’s a great weapon as written. The Shotgun is obviously stronger, but you get the Sidearm early, so it has its own niche. However, since we’ve just made the PowerClaw stronger,
>> The SideArms gains the description “[Can automatically switch to this weapon]“.
This right here is actually the tweak I think could be the most game-breaking. Being able to juggle weapons easily is quite potent. Still, with the PowerClaw improved the way it is, so a quick-draw Sidearm doesn’t really conflict with anything. I think Grenades are easily just as versatile and potent, so I’m not too worried about Sidearm-happy Sergeants stealing the show. And I just have a soft spot for pistols… again, it just kinda feels right.
Cleaning up loose ends:
Notice that the Flame-Gun is unchanged, and still clearly just a little bit superior to the PowerBlade. I think it’s a stronger weapon than the Shotgun, too — this is because d10 to 2d6 is a pretty small upgrade. The E-Cannon and Heavy MG still stand out over the regular rifles, too, in my opinion. And I’m worried about the temptation to overdo combinations like Flame-Gun / Rocketpod.
The way I approach the fiction, the biggest, ass-kicking-est weapons are big, they’re awesome, they’re… “heavy to carry and hard to run with”. So, let’s formalize something that likely already exists as an informal constraint derived from the narrative for many groups:
>> The Flame-Gun, E-Cannon, Heavy MG, and Rocketpod are “Heavy weapons”. You may only carry one “Heavy weapon”.
What does this rule affect? In most cases, you kinda have to pick one range to really specialize in. The PowerBlade becomes a nice companion for the E-Cannon or Rocketpod, which is something I can live with. I figure most characters will still want a powerful Near-range weapon, but now the full-upgraded Energy Rifle offers a nice non-”Heavy” alternative as well.
Having that additional category around might be helpful if you want to expand the weapons later, too. No new guns for today, though.
The main thing for me was to crank up the desirability of a few of the weapons — chiefly the PowerClaw, PowerBlade, and Heavy MG — that I thought were kinda languishing because other options looked tastier. I think I’ve succeeded without overdoing it too much.
– Alex