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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pax" data-source="post: 1693447" data-attributes="member: 6875">Logically, design-wise, a triple-blast "bang stick of doom" would need to have all three shells as close to the pole as possible.  And it COULD be made re-useable ... even multiple times in a single round.  Bear with me for a moment; I'll go through it all in as much detail as my brain can manage. ^_^  And for now, let's call this the "Bang Stick Plus", or BS+ (the acronym is NOT an unintentional pun, heh).  Visually, picture a good cattle-prod-like pole (in fact, a cattle prod would be the first "component" to use in manufacturing our BS+).  At the "business end", instead of a three-tined "trident"-like arrangement, picture a set of single-shot shotgun barrels, arranged much like three sticks of dynamite taped together around the end of the pole.  From the center of this, a slender metal bar protrudes maybe an inch - this is the trigger-bar; when the end of the BS+ is shoved against something, the trigger-bar is pushed into the central pole, which fires the weapon.  With a little work (and the right craft and knowledge skills), this could be built so that it has an "all-safe", "one at a time", and "kitchen sink" setting - in all-safe, it's like having the safety engaged on any normal firearm.  In "one at a time", punching someone once fires off one of the rounds, and sets the next one up to be fired (this way, you could Full Attack in melee with the weapon, and use each of the three shells for a single hit - potentially a very useful option!).  And "kitchen sink", of course, is "all or nothing" ... all three shells (or two, if one is a dud, not loaded, or has already been fired) fire at once.  Changing from one mode to another should take a move action, as the controls for same should be out at the "business end" of the BS+, just "behind" the shotgun barrels.  Re-useability comes from being able to re-chamber new shotgun rounds - but here, as a GM, I'd insist on each barrel being breech-loading, or maybe break-action - one shot each, a move action PER BARREL to reload.  Optimally (and munchkin-esque-ly), the cattle prod's ability to deliver shocks would be retained, and arranged to serve as a deterrent to the "just grab the stick" risk that such a weapon would impose.  Besides, keeping the heavy batteries in the handle end of our BS+ would help keep the whole balanced.  And balance is DEFINITELY going to be a problem, because even sawed off to barely the length of a 10-guage magnum shell ... with trigger, barrel, and mechanism to reload ... the business end is gonna have a LOt of HEAVY metal bits on it.  I'd call the whole thing an Exotic Weapon (keep in mind, I'm fairlynew to d20 Modern, and possibly am still thinking in irrelevant-to-d20M terms), if it's built with care, tested, redesigned, rebuilt, re-tested, [lather, rinse, repeat ... about ten times total].Mind you, this should be an EXPENSIVE process, fraught with no small risk of serious, maiming injury if the character (read: player) doesn't take a lot of even MORE-expensive safety precautions.And make sure there are a LOt of DIFFICULT rolls at high DCs.  Set it just out of reach of a Take 10, at the minimum, for each and every roll.  For at least some of them, make sure only a 15 or even a 20 will succeed.Inventing an entiely new firearm - one that WORKS as intended, no less - is not an easy task.  However, a "combat bangstick" like this, I can see being built to be mechanically sound.But I still have absolutely no idea if it could be made into a useful WEAPON, not against thinking, moving opponents.But ... those fish had better not look cross-eyed at the wielder of the BS+, wouldn't you agree?</blockquote>

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