Star Wars d20: weapon categories

[Agback]

G'day

I've just started in my first Star Wars d20 campaign. Our characters started off as natives of a backward planet (without space travel or publicly-known contact with off-worlders). I chose the feat 'Weapon Group: slugthrowers' so that I would be able to use the weapons that are most common in the setting.

In our first adventure we discovered that one government is secretly in contact with people from another planet, and is importing blaster weapons. We obtained some blaster pistols and blaster carbines. These I cannot use with proficiency, so I will not use them at all until I gain two levels and can gain another feat.

Why should 'slugthrowers' be one group while blaster pistols and blaster carbines are separate? I would have thought that the skills used to aim slugthrower pistols would be more like those used for blaster pistols than those used for slugthrower rifles.

Also, aren't lightsabers used in much the same way as bokken or fencing sabres? Shouldn't they be in a 'swords' group. Should swords really be in the same category as battleaxes? And shouldn't forcepikes be in the same category with pikes?

Regards,


Agback

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Slugthrowers ar a single group, because so few people use them, and they do much less damage than a typical blaster. Consider how many vastly different weapons are included in the "primitive" weapon proficiency.

As for lightsabers, and vibroweaons, they may look the same as some other weapons, but they have very different mechanisms for doing damage...

Vibro blades, well... vibrate... to cut more easily. You wouldn't need all the tricks to increase cutting damage that a "normal" swordsman would use.

Lightsabers, remember, don't have a "flat side", so you with it in any direction. Whereas swords can only cut when you hit somebody cleanly with one of the sharp sides.

Blades that cut more easily, however, make very very dangerous blades for the wielder. With a vibroblade or lightsaber, it would be extremely easy to cut yourself without trying. Imagine how much skill and training it took for Darth Maul to proficiently use that double-lightsaber without cutting himself in half. He must have been very lucky to make it through his training alive.

 

[hong]

Lightsabers, remember, don't have a "flat side", so you with it in any direction. Whereas swords can only cut when you hit somebody cleanly with one of the sharp sides.

Not to mention that, as the rulebook itself says, a lightsaber blade is weightless. This makes it hard to gauge where the blade actually is, unless you're familiar with it. Experience with normal swords wouldn't count.

 

[Aaron L]

Plus, just because you don't have proficiency with something doesn't mean you can't use it. You just take a -4 to hit, a good penalty, but far from making it unusable.