Star Gate

[haiiro]

if you put p90s as d20 modern weapons doing say 2d8 of hit points, staff weapons at say 3d6 or such and the zat as the one-hit daze/two-hit kill, the above scene becomes reasonable IN GAME but remains ludicrous in show.

In our game, staff weapons do 6d6 -- an amount that somewhat changes the equation you mentioned above.

 

[swrushing]

In our game, staff weapons do 6d6 -- an amount that somewhat changes the equation you mentioned above.

cool. i bet if p90s also do 6d6 then that changes things even further.

 

[Khorod]

I don't know- the advantage of P90's was the autofire/rapid fire. The Staff Weapons seemed to have a more limited rate of fire and better damage.

Or at least that's how I interpreted what I saw on the magic box.

 

[swrushing]

I don't know- the advantage of P90's was the autofire/rapid fire. The Staff Weapons seemed to have a more limited rate of fire and better damage.

Or at least that's how I interpreted what I saw on the magic box.

There is an ep in season 5 where we see a live fire demo between "our best marksman" jaffa with staff weapon and Sam with her P90. They shoot at the jaffa target log at 60-70m. Jaffa shoots at the log when its stationary while Sam fire at it while its swinging.

Jaffa marksman hits 2 of 3 shots. Smouldering burns scorch on the outside of the log.

Sam's P90 hits soldily on one shot, then she rips the log to shreds with autofire, splitting it into multiple pieces. She then fires single shot and clips the rope the log is swining from in one shot.

Jack explains that the staff weapon is a weapon of terror, intended to oppress slave, while the p90 is a weapon of war intended to kill enemies and that the tactical advantages of that difference are why SG-1 has beaten the goa'uld time and time again in engagements.

I did not take from the scene (and others) that the staff weapon does anything like "a lot more damage" than a P90. I sure have seen writeups to this effect, like AEG which had originally the staff weapon doing 6d6 and the p90 doing 1d10+1. Heck, they even had the staff weapon more accurate at ranges of 60-70m, which made alot more sense as to how they could be so far off when the mechanics writing guy admitted he hadn't seen most of the eps including the live fire demo one. That also explained the "clips" the original staff weapon had in their official writeup.

FWIW...

My "games interpretaion" of the weapons was fairly simple...

They are not "balanced weapons". The P90 is superior
The p90 is more accurate at range than the staff weapon.
The p90 is more lethal than the staff weapon, particularly on autofire hose'em down mode.
Both are equally incapacitating, the staff weapon dropping one with painful burns while the p90 pretty much just kills you (penetrating) and this makes sense from a concept of "oppressing slaves" vs "killing enemies" point of view.
Staff weapons have no ammo concerns while p90s do, especially when using autofire a lot.

So, I ended up giving p90s and staff weapons similar save DCs (27 vs 28) and the staff weapon was treated as "fire" for armor purposes instead of bullets but the net result was a hit from either was likely to drop you. Autofire gave the shooter good chance of multiple hits when done at close range, even in rather unskilled (like say early daniel hosing down jaffa) hands.

So far it has worked fine.

Since getting shot by a p90 and a staff weapon is nothing to sneeze at, no wall of hit points to work thru (you usually go down), i dont get a zat imbalance issue with having zats cause stun (made save) or unconsciousness (failed save) on one hit. They aren't "quicker to drop the enemy" just "they wont kill him." Oh and, if you make the save a only get stunned for 1-10 rounds from the zat, I allow you to spend a hero pt to delay the stun for one round, enabling the heroic "get zatted, but somehow manage to P90 hose down the jaffa who zatted you before you go down" we see jack do at the end of season 4.

 

[Roudi]

Very interesting insight, swrushing.

It seems that the d20 Modern hit point system is inappropriate for Stargate weapons damages. The "damage save" system seems to work. A vitality/wound points system might also work.

 

[HellHound]

Honestly, the d20 Modern hit point system is generally inappropriate for most firearms damage systems, in my opinion.

What we did for our campaign is give the one core class (combining all six of the modern classes) 1 hit point per level after level 1. But that is neither here nor there, and belongs in House Rules instead of d20 games.