IVhorseman wrote:Alright so I made a few posts talking about cool weapons I use, and after playing a few practice games with the new chrome Brikarms sci-fi weapons pack, I've come up with some rules. Most of these are playtested, lots of these aren't. Some of it should look familiar, because I blatantly stole it from you and didn't give any credit. Eh. I also "forgot" to come up with any CP costs, but if you're playing with CP you probably aren't interested in strapping an undermounted flamethrower to your Volt-thrower anyways.
WEAPONS
The way I see it broken down, most weapontypes are represented by existing 2010 rules, with only a very few modifiers needed to represent it in the game, and at least attempt to balance it out. I've made a single new weapon template (a lightning-throwing Tesla Gun), a way to give weapons attachments and make combination weapons like gunblades, and a few modifiers to give weapons that extra spicy bit of flavor that can make games interesting, but with quick and simple rules.
The Tesla Cannon
UR:3
Range: 6"
Damage: 1d12 (electric)
2 hands
The Tesla cannon is, as you may imagine, anything that sends out some kind of electric discharge. It could be a volt-throwing plasma-caster of some sort, or simply LEGO Zeus's thunderbolts. Regardless, the damage dealt is off of the highly variable d12, and thus is applied as Electric Damage.
Electric Damage can arc from target to target with it's overkill damage, and when dealing with high damage rolls, it's likely for lightning to chain up to multiple targets. After vaporizing a target, electricity arcs to the nearest minifig or structure owned by any player. Lightning may occasionally strike a tree, but it will usually ground out unless there is something valuable to hit nearby. Besides, that would be boring where it could be funny instead. Electricity leaps as soon as it overcomes the armor roll of it's target one time, and can jump to any part of that creation as well, regardless of the conductivity of the materials. It may still only jump to one target at a time. Electric damage dealt in other ways, such as supernatural d12s, may be treated in the same manner.
EXAMPLE: Benny Is riding a tyrannosaurus rex (SL1, 1d10 armor), on a quest to hunt and kill Mummified Thomas Edison, who is armed with an electrostaff and is assuming his title of Pharaoh. On his turn, Edison zaps the T-rex with his tesla staff, dealing 8 damage! The T-rex rolls armor, and it's a 3. The remaining 5 damage is dealt to benny who, since he is touching the T-rex, is 0" away. The full damage is enough to overcome his 4 armor, and the Pharaoh goes onwards with the march on poor Nicola Tesla.
Bad guy 1 is about to test-fire his volt-thrower at Bad guy A, but these sweet dudes are in for a nasty surprise! He makes the skill roll with a critical and rolls overkill, and even makes a damage roll of 11. With his overkill roll of 4 bringing this up to 15, it's more than enough to fry bad guy A into a pile of ash! Electric damage bypasses Bad Guy 1's armor, and he is only 4" away! This leaves five damage to be dealt, and he too is shocked to death.
Larger versions of the Tesla Gun may employ this Siege Version:
UR: (WSx3)
Range: (WSx4)
Damage: WSd12 (electric)
Attachments
Rifles on the battlefield often attach anything from flashlights to bayonets, grenade launchers, and even underslung flamethrowers and shotguns to the ends of their barrels. As if Xzibit himself were there to put a machinegun on your machinegun (so you can run out of ammo while you run out of ammo, dawg), so too can you make swords with rifles in them behave under the brikwars stats.
Any combination weapon should cost as much as it would for both weapons, and one must specifically be designated the Primary weapon and it's Attachment. Primary weapons with attachments behave no differently (although are more prone to breaking from critical failures) than without, but the attached weapon will always be a size 1" version of whatever ranged weapon it is based off of, as well as requiring a full turn to reload (and ammunition for explosives!). Melee attachments may not be used to parry, and may be no larger than the weapon they are attached to; in other words, the primary weapon must always be larger. The melee attack's use and damage ratings are determined by measuring the entire weapon, and treating it as a melee weapon of that size, including angry inch attacks and movement penalties. A knife on the end of a rifle may be a hand weapon normally, but when attached to the end of a big enough rifle it can rival the reach of even the longest polearms!
EXAMPLES:
-Killzone's Original Helghast Assault Rifle uses an Autogun as it's primary weapon, and an undermounted shotgun as it's attachment.
-A double-bladed lightsaber is a heavy melee weapon as a primary, but with a second blade attached at the end, it may also be treated as if it were a 2-handed weapon. It may only parry with the smaller end, however.
-A gunblade would be a heavy weapon or handweapon as the primary (depending on size), with a pistol or rifle built into the weapon. Keep in mind that an undermount pistol only has 3" of range.
-A rifle with a wrench or other tool on the end of it may use the tool as if it were an attachment with an action. Talk about metal!
-Be creative. Flamethrowers on your launchers, slingshots embedded into your assault rifles, whatever. If you can build it, you can stat it!
Other Mods
Double-barreled Shotguns behave as shotguns of the appropriate size, but fire twice. May be fired one at a time or both in one turn, but the whole weapon must be reloaded after both shots are fired.
Scopes add +1d6" to the range of a weapon, but only while stationary and aiming. This value must be re-determined at the beginning of a minifig's turn if they continue to look through their scope, and they may only do so in one direction. Technically, Binoculars function as a scope for all line-of-sight style bonuses, but they cannot be used while attempting to aim any kind of weapon.
Silenced weapons are totally silent, and have half range. Attacks out of range are +1UR and -1 Damage for every inch out of range, which you'll be doing a lot. Only a hit will reveal the location of the assailant, and missed shots will keep all cover bonuses to stealth the user may have. However upon rolling a critical failure, the minifig loudly shouts "Damn, I missed!"
Carbines cover SMGs as well as rifles, and are simply treated as having the range of a size 1 weapon, but the damage, use rating, and handedness of the bastard version of a weapon.
Big-Ass weapons are the whole category of weapons that are "it's like this kind of gun/sword, but bigger." Most of this type of thought should be discouraged in favor of easier to remember stats, but should someone remain stubborn, or have largely outnumbered feces and a license for better arms, then go ahead and let them. Big-ass weapons have +1 to UR and +1 to damage. Though impractical, one may add +2 to each for bigger-ass guns and max out at +3, the biggest-ass weapons.
Cursed weapons and armor, once donned, can never be removed voluntarily until death. In addition, they deal 1d4 damage immediately upon pickup (subsiding once a 1 is rolled). Units starting with cursed weapons are assumed to have already shrugged this damage off. This 1d4 curse bonus damage is also applied towards every enemy who is successfully hit by the weapon. A cursed flamethrower may or may not be entirely broken.
Needler Just because I got one in the brikarms pack, we figured the needler's just a short-range weapon with a twist: when a critical is rolled for skill, there is a 1d10 explosion at the end of the target's next turn. Place a marker to keep track of this.
Warming up Some weapons, like the halo plasma pistol and most miniguns, take a full turn to warm up. This can be represented by overcharging the battery, spinning up the barrels, drawing dark energy from the ambient battle's lost souls, or whatever seems appropriate for the weapon. Regardless, it will cost one action. By doing so, they can spend the next turn damaging as if they were a full size larger than they were, without any carrying or movement penalties. A short-range weapon is treated as a long-range one, a long-range as a size 2 gun, and so on.
Missile Lock means that a minifig with homing rockets (or bullets in hard enough sci-fi) can make their skill roll before actually committing to a shot if they stop to aim, saving valuable rocket ammo for those especially hard to hit large rockets. If a minifig is piloting a vehicle that can arguably dodge the missile, they may attempt to use their stunt roll as if it were a parry. If successful, the missile is dodged, and if successful enough to make the weapon's use, the pilot may even pick the target through evasive maneuvering.
Monopods, bipods and turrets are surprisingly already covered in the rulebook, allowing gunners and minifigs to carry around and use size 2 weapons! Keep in mind that large sniper rifles requiring bipods can count as size 2 guns, and heavy machineguns as autoguns. Setting up takes a full turn, and carrying the weapon costs half of a minifig's move speed.
Some turrets can also be littered around the battlefield that are completely stationary, but can be mounted upon.
Ammunition Types
While I recommend against using any of these, for some games the type of projectile being fired might actually make a difference.
Energy Weapons covers a pretty broad spectrum, and should be avoided unless you deem it absolutely necessary to distinguish between small arms and laser rounds. If ever there was a frowny-faced rule, this is it. However, it's also not that bad. Energy weapons behave exactly like other ranged weapons, except that they are all parryable (and reflectable if the skill roll is high enough to make the combined parry AND use for the laser weapon), and deal 1d4 fire damage on a critical hit, potentially lighting it's targets ablaze. Any arguments about the reflective properties of materials should be hand-waved away in favor of awesome.
Solid Shell Weapons in that face should also largely be ignored, but is fast and hard enough to track at it's oh-so-subluminal speeds that they cannot be blocked or parried.
Plasma Weapons don't have anything special going on initially, but can be overcharged to deal double damage. However, it will explode (1d10) on the
end of it's next turn unless it is fired every single turn! It also explodes if the user critically fails their use roll.
Armor Piercing Rounds can be applied to any weapon, and do exactly what it sounds like they do. The shot ignores all armor a minifig is wearing, or any armor plating on a vehicle.
Abilities
I've also spent a while coming up with some sweet abilities, as well as compiling a bunch of the ones you guys had so I could tote em around for all to see. Many of these are untested except by sylvanius or Natalya.
Beserker: After any successful kill, the minifig flies into a beserk rage, and may take a free attack (including an angry inch) against a new target! This cannot chain off from charges, however.
Gun Kata: The minifig may treat ranged weapons as if they were melee weapons; they may use an angry inch, use two small arms against the same target simultaneously, and counter-attack with their guns. They still may not parry attacks, or use their guns as parts of charge attacks.
Shield Wall: When they are able to place their shield within touch of at least two other friendly shields, they may form a shield wall, automatically parrying any attacks coming from the direction of their shields. Shields on top blocking attacks from above must touch at least four other shields.
Grenadier: As either a standard action or as part of reloading an explosive weapon, grenadiers are able to generate one MkI explosive per turn. In addition, they may upgrade MkI explosives into MkII explosives as another full action. They may NOT share their grenades with others.
Have-at-you: The minifig may parry and riposte without penalty
Rogue:The rogue may steal an object from another minifig at a use rating of 5, and may also deal an extra 1d6 damage if they attack someone from full cover or from behind.
Sharpshooter/Sniper:When stationary and aiming, this minifig may elect to flip a coin instead of making a normal attack. On a heads, boom, headshot! a single brick element within range (including height and scope modifiers) is destroyed, usually a poor minifig's head. On a tails, the sniper misses, and must find another spot 5" away to try from. Snipers must also operate alone, and cannot use this ability within 6" of a friend or foe. Instead of destroying the brick, sharpshooters may also use their bullets or arrows for more precise manipulation of levers and buttons, and even perform "trick shooting."
Shield basher: Successful shoves push 2" and deal 1d6 damage, can push objects up to twice own size
Minion:These units are usually all the cannon fodder troops you need for filler on epic battles. They die after taking a single point of damage, but respawn either on the edge of the battlefield or a designated spawning zone.
Weapon Specialist: +1 skill for a certain kind of weapon, -2 for all others.
Last Stand: Upon death, minifig is allowed to remain alive and dying until the end of their next turn. They may not move, and may only spend an action.
I'll be back: Upon death, roll a d6. On a 6, the minifig arises on it's next turn. Roll only once per fig.
Duelist: May challenge opponents up to 12" away. May negate all cover and feces target to spend no actions that do not include them, but the enemy also gets a +1 bonus to hit.
And that's about it! I didn't include the Death Gun because I couldn't justify good siege stats for it, and jesus christ nobody needs something to do 5d20 damage to anything anyways. Let me know what you guys think, I'm open to suggestions!