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<blockquote data-quote="TheHirumaChico" data-source="post: 8284789" data-attributes="member: 7022501">Hi again.&nbsp; I was kitting out some of my bad guys for my next session, who will be elite mercenaries.&nbsp; I was thinking it would be interesting to have some of the mercs be a heavy-weapons team, with a couple machine gunners and maybe a flame-thrower merc and a grenade launcher merc.&nbsp; However, in reviewing the firearms stats on p. 93 of NOW 1.2, I couldn't see any reason why the machine gunners would be any more interesting or different than a regular bunch of mercs with assault rifles.&nbsp; For example, an H&amp;K G3 assault rifle does 3d6+2 damage with a range increment of 18.&nbsp; Compare that with an M60 medium machine gun which does the same damage (3d6+2), has a range increment of 20, but weighs twice as much and costs nearly twice as much.&nbsp; And the M2HB Browning heavy machine gun makes even less sense, doing only 3d6 damage for a slightly improved range increment of 22, but weighing 7 times more than the G3 and costing 2.3 times more.&nbsp; All three have the AUTO trait, so other than flavor/style, I see no practical reason to take a machine gun over the assault rifle.In a similar vein, I am not seeing a significant advantage in a frag grenade over a 9mm pistol in terms of damage output.&nbsp; I recognize the benefit of BURST and that the attack is vs. VITAL DEFENSE, but 2d6 damage seems rather inconsequential given typical NPC/player character health totals and body armor/soak.&nbsp; I can always house-rule it to be higher, but I was just trying to get a better understanding why the damage ranges are so narrow for these rather different weapons.&nbsp; A machine gun is only 1d6 more damage than a pistol and is also 1d6 more than a grenade.I'm also thinking that in this day and age, the thermobaric weapon is the likely successor to the flamethrower, so any suggestions on what those stats might look like would be appreciated.&nbsp; Here is a Wikipedia link to one used by the Russian Spetsnaz:&nbsp; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPO-A_Shmel" target="_blank">RPO-A Shmel - Wikipedia</a>Thanks for reading.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheHirumaChico, post: 8284789, member: 7022501"] Hi again. I was kitting out some of my bad guys for my next session, who will be elite mercenaries. I was thinking it would be interesting to have some of the mercs be a heavy-weapons team, with a couple machine gunners and maybe a flame-thrower merc and a grenade launcher merc. However, in reviewing the firearms stats on p. 93 of NOW 1.2, I couldn't see any reason why the machine gunners would be any more interesting or different than a regular bunch of mercs with assault rifles. For example, an H&K G3 assault rifle does 3d6+2 damage with a range increment of 18. Compare that with an M60 medium machine gun which does the same damage (3d6+2), has a range increment of 20, but weighs twice as much and costs nearly twice as much. And the M2HB Browning heavy machine gun makes even less sense, doing only 3d6 damage for a slightly improved range increment of 22, but weighing 7 times more than the G3 and costing 2.3 times more. All three have the AUTO trait, so other than flavor/style, I see no practical reason to take a machine gun over the assault rifle. In a similar vein, I am not seeing a significant advantage in a frag grenade over a 9mm pistol in terms of damage output. I recognize the benefit of BURST and that the attack is vs. VITAL DEFENSE, but 2d6 damage seems rather inconsequential given typical NPC/player character health totals and body armor/soak. I can always house-rule it to be higher, but I was just trying to get a better understanding why the damage ranges are so narrow for these rather different weapons. A machine gun is only 1d6 more damage than a pistol and is also 1d6 more than a grenade. I'm also thinking that in this day and age, the thermobaric weapon is the likely successor to the flamethrower, so any suggestions on what those stats might look like would be appreciated. Here is a Wikipedia link to one used by the Russian Spetsnaz: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPO-A_Shmel"]RPO-A Shmel - Wikipedia[/URL] Thanks for reading. [/QUOTE]

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