Connecting multiple guns for additional damage

[flatline]

KillerCyborg's thread about connecting 2 weapons got me thinking about this, and it's not the first time (I, myself, posted the L-40 a while ago which was merely 2 L-20's mounted together in the same frame).

In real life, damage isn't linear. No amount of small arms can be rigged up to do damage like M1 Abrams main gun, yet if we mount 3 Kittanni pulse lasers to the same frame, we have, at worst, a 12lb rifle that does as more damage when bursting than the iconic Boom Gun.

If three people hit with the same target, the damage is additive, so if one person hits with three weapons, it's intuitive that the damage should still be additive, but it kind of ruins the setting if any weapon can, in multiples, achieve arbitrarily high damage levels.

Anyone have any thoughts on how this type of thing should be handled?

[eliakon]

KillerCyborg's thread about connecting 2 weapons got me thinking about this, and it's not the first time (I, myself, posted the L-40 a while ago which was merely 2 L-20's mounted together in the same frame).

In real life, damage isn't linear. No amount of small arms can be rigged up to do damage like M1 Abrams main gun, yet if we mount 3 Kittanni pulse lasers to the same frame, we have, at worst, a 12lb rifle that does as more damage when bursting than the iconic Boom Gun.

If three people hit with the same target, the damage is additive, so if one person hits with three weapons, it's intuitive that the damage should still be additive, but it kind of ruins the setting if any weapon can, in multiples, achieve arbitrarily high damage levels.

Anyone have any thoughts on how this type of thing should be handled?

One solution is to use the burst rules (3 guns does x2 damage. 6 guns does x3 damage)
The other is that you will need to use a lot of Rule Zero, or simply be willing to accept that it is possible to make mini-guns that do GD

[Alrik Vas]

2 ways: either make each successive weapon add only 25% of its damage or...

Give armor damage reduction and handle each bullet/rail gun round as a separate damage instance.

[Mack]

There is a canon example of mating two weapons together: in Mercenaries, one of the NPCs combined a W-457 with a WI-GL4, which is described as a big, heavy weapon.

Also, there's nothing to really prevent us from going bigger: mount 4 Boomguns on a 40-ton tank chassis.

[Alrik Vas]

They mounted 2 on the newest Devastator. Why not?

[say652]

NG Heavy Plasma Cannon over a Grenade Launcher was always a dream weapon.
I guess for additional fire power I would add a Silver plated Vibro Bayonet and a Forcefield Generator in the stock.

[Nekira Sudacne]

KillerCyborg's thread about connecting 2 weapons got me thinking about this, and it's not the first time (I, myself, posted the L-40 a while ago which was merely 2 L-20's mounted together in the same frame).

In real life, damage isn't linear. No amount of small arms can be rigged up to do damage like M1 Abrams main gun, yet if we mount 3 Kittanni pulse lasers to the same frame, we have, at worst, a 12lb rifle that does as more damage when bursting than the iconic Boom Gun.

If three people hit with the same target, the damage is additive, so if one person hits with three weapons, it's intuitive that the damage should still be additive, but it kind of ruins the setting if any weapon can, in multiples, achieve arbitrarily high damage levels.

Anyone have any thoughts on how this type of thing should be handled?

I've noticed that most Dual-mounted turrets are either straight additive or a precentage, depending on how powerful they were in the first place. a light laser dual-turret that does 3d6 damage single usually does 6d6 for a double shot, while mid-range ones do something like 4d6 or 5d6 single but 1d4*10 or 1d4*10+10 for dual. This generally scales upwards until you get to the "fire main cannon" level in starships where a battleship that has twin main guns do twice as much damage if both guns hit the same target, but with the caviat that only other very large ships CAN be hit by both beams.

[say652]

This requires some pally mix.

I am Piloting my Custom built Robot power category, I budgeted in the whole 18 concealed weapon arms all equipped with, Cutter Weapons Utility Palm and Multi Weapon System Forearm weapon.
+27 Attacks.
Next Attack I fire all 18 Forearm Weapons, The 36 palm laser tentacles, the Four Main Arms Palm weapon, Three Eye Particle Beams and the Bionic Fire Breath all at the same Target.

Please explain why rolling and totalling Damage for each Weapon System into that monstrously AWESOME "take 6800mdc"
Is not the proper way to deal the damage dealt?

[Alrik Vas]

It's proper, Say. By the rules. He's suggesting that machine gun fire won't slag a tank no matter how many shoot at it.

[flatline]

And yet the regional powers don't take advantage of this phenomenon when manufacturing weapons for their own forces?

This is where I think it's damaging to the setting.

[SpiritInterface]

Do you mean weapons like this?

http://www.arsenalfirearms.com/products ... rel-pistol

http://www.gilboa-rifle.com/Gilboa-Firearms/page23/

[eliakon]

This requires some pally mix.

I am Piloting my Custom built Robot power category, I budgeted in the whole 18 concealed weapon arms all equipped with, Cutter Weapons Utility Palm and Multi Weapon System Forearm weapon.
+27 Attacks.
Next Attack I fire all 18 Forearm Weapons, The 36 palm laser tentacles, the Four Main Arms Palm weapon, Three Eye Particle Beams and the Bionic Fire Breath all at the same Target.

Please explain why rolling and totalling Damage for each Weapon System into that monstrously AWESOME "take 6800mdc"
Is not the proper way to deal the damage dealt?

Because first off that is 62 attack rolls not 1, each of which has to hit or miss on its own?
After that sure, add up the damage. But its a robot making 62 attacks, not a single combi-weapon of 62 cannons connected together so that they are all aimed and fired at the same target and doing 6,800 mdc per shot. Which is why it is different that what is being talked about here.

[Library Ogre]

One rule I like out of Savage Worlds is the Double Tap... spend 2 rounds of ammo to get a +1 to hit and damage. It's a bit more abstract, but it shows that if you've got the bigger footprint, as it were, you're more likely to get a good hit.

(Though, given how things work in Palladium, I'd love to see energy distribution rules for nuclear power supplies... how often has someone suggested something close to "Just hook up 70,000 rifles to a nuclear power supply and shoot for 20 years!")

[flatline]

One rule I like out of Savage Worlds is the Double Tap... spend 2 rounds of ammo to get a +1 to hit and damage. It's a bit more abstract, but it shows that if you've got the bigger footprint, as it were, you're more likely to get a good hit.

(Though, given how things work in Palladium, I'd love to see energy distribution rules for nuclear power supplies... how often has someone suggested something close to "Just hook up 70,000 rifles to a nuclear power supply and shoot for 20 years!")

In my house rules, there are no small reactors (nothing less than 1m x 1m x 1m) and all reactors had a power rating.

--flatline

[Alrik Vas]

Well, flatline, if we're talking about your house rules, that's one thing. If we want to discuss whether or not multiple guns on the same mount do their individual damage, by RAW they tend to, with a few listed exceptions.

Though a lot of the time, they mount weapons next to each other on robots and power armor and explicitly state (because reasons) that you can't fire them together...

[Tor]

I'd think it'd take some kinda expensive super-advanced software to fire these high-tech weapons in unison or else it'd always be an option.

[taalismn]

This requires some pally mix.

I am Piloting my Custom built Robot power category, I budgeted in the whole 18 concealed weapon arms all equipped with, Cutter Weapons Utility Palm and Multi Weapon System Forearm weapon.
+27 Attacks.
Next Attack I fire all 18 Forearm Weapons, The 36 palm laser tentacles, the Four Main Arms Palm weapon, Three Eye Particle Beams and the Bionic Fire Breath all at the same Target.

Please explain why rolling and totalling Damage for each Weapon System into that monstrously AWESOME "take 6800mdc"
Is not the proper way to deal the damage dealt?

Realistically this guy either overheats or overloads. As a GM I MIGHT allow such a massive attack for $#!* and giggles, but I'd rule the guy just temporarily drained his power source(unless he's got a reactor the size of an aircraft carrier's) or he's blown a few fuses and is spending the next few minutes attending to a systems engineering board full of red lights.

[Nightmask]

This requires some pally mix.

I am Piloting my Custom built Robot power category, I budgeted in the whole 18 concealed weapon arms all equipped with, Cutter Weapons Utility Palm and Multi Weapon System Forearm weapon.
+27 Attacks.
Next Attack I fire all 18 Forearm Weapons, The 36 palm laser tentacles, the Four Main Arms Palm weapon, Three Eye Particle Beams and the Bionic Fire Breath all at the same Target.

Please explain why rolling and totalling Damage for each Weapon System into that monstrously AWESOME "take 6800mdc"
Is not the proper way to deal the damage dealt?

Realistically this guy either overheats or overloads. As a GM I MIGHT allow such a massive attack for $#!* and giggles, but I'd rule the guy just temporarily drained his power source(unless he's got a reactor the size of an aircraft carrier's) or he's blown a few fuses and is spending the next few minutes attending to a systems engineering board full of red lights.

Pretty much, you'd need 18 dedicated power supplies and all the duplication of all relevant electronics in order to pile 18 energy weapons into something and fire them all at once. It's not impossible but you'd be paying a LOT for all those nuclear power cores or spending a lot of effort running around victimizing people to scavenge the ones they've got (really have to imagine open season on Skelebots for their compact power cores, but you'd need new ones pretty much yearly since they don't have a long lifespan).

[flatline]

Here's an interesting specimen of a triple barrelled revolver

Similarly, do a google image search for multi barrel revolver and scroll down the images to get an idea of what people have already done. You'll see derringers with 2, 3, and 4 barrels, flint lock pistols with 7 barrels, shotguns with 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 barrels. Recently, a 2 barrelled version of the 1911 (as seen in the new James Bond film, as I understand it). And lots of other stuff (16 barrelled flintlock? I'm not sure what that thing is).

The third image on this page has 24 barrels.

I would assume that anyone with a machine shop on Rifts Earth could probably produce equivalent SDC firearms, especially considering that most of these are break action (you have to reload each barrel by hand). Heck, with access to the spell Iron Wood, you could make most of these guns out of wood and then "harden" them to withstand the stresses involved.

If you have access to enchanted bullets, that's 2d6MD per barrel.

TK conversion has always been a favorite of mine, so assuming you can convert each barrel, here are some configurations that lend themselves to easy dice rolls (bursts do 2x damage, use 3 shots per barrel, and are only available if you're converting a rifle for some reason). When adding constants to adjust the average, feel free to round up instead of down as I've done for the first couple.

1 barrel: 2d4 (avg 5) Note: roughly equivalent to 1d6 + 1 (avg 4.5) or 1d8 (avg 4.5)
2 barrel: 4d4 (avg 10) Note: roughly equivalent to 3d6 (avg 10.5)
3 barrels: 6d4 (avg 15). Note: roughly equivalent to 4d6+1 (avg 15)
5 barrels: 10d4 (avg 25). Note: equivalent to 1d4x10, roughly equivalent to 7d6 (avg 24.5)
7 barrels: 14d4 (avg 35). Note: equivalent to 1d6x10, roughly equivalent to 6d10 + 2 (avg 35)

If you took a cylinder the diameter of a 12-guage shotgun and bored 7 holes for .22 rounds (maybe recess the holes inside a single larger hole so that to casual inspection the barrel still looks like a regular shotgun barrel), you could make a TW weapon that looks like a regular 12 gauge, but shoots 7 TK rifles in parallel doing 1d6x10MD per (7 round) shot, 2d6x10MD per (21 round) burst.

Just food for thought.

[Killer Cyborg]

The term seems to be "Volley Gun."
Personally, I like the Nordenfelt Gun, which I've researched before, and think that'd do something pretty cool with the right ammo.

If you want overkill, you could go for the Vandenburgh gun, which had up to 121 barrels and fired .50 caliber bullets (not BMG, of course).
So... make a new version with magic ammo, and you can do 242d6 MD per attack (for one attack).
Call it the "Front 242."

[Jefffar]

In a more realistic gaming model, more barrels/more shots equals more chances to hit rather than a strict increase in damage.

Recon is probably the best of the Palladium Games in this, with each attack giving you a set number of chances to hit, and each hit being counted separately against the target.

[RockJock]

I am of the mind that large numbers of guns/barrels would have overheating issuesand such. That being said, a 2-4 barrel laser rifle contraption as a pintle mount should not be a huge issue.

[guardiandashi]

In a more realistic gaming model, more barrels/more shots equals more chances to hit rather than a strict increase in damage.

Recon is probably the best of the Palladium Games in this, with each attack giving you a set number of chances to hit, and each hit being counted separately against the target.

the star wars game had a fairly simple model for additional weapons /barrels and how it worked.

in essence each doubling gave you a +1 on damage and hit probability.

so say you have a gun that does 4d6 damage
2 strapped together (fire linked) it now does 5d6
4 does 6d6
8 does 7d6
16 does 8d6
32 does 9d6
etc.

needless to say that puts a fairly hard limit on the accuracy bonuses and damage before further upgrades become not feasible.

for volley fire it works the same way.
1 weapon has base accuracy
2 weapons fired as a volley do base damage with a +1 (or specified) bonus to hit.
4 weapons gets a +2 bonus to hit
8 weapons gets a +3 bonus
16 weapons get a +4 bonus
32 weapons get a +5 bonus
etc.

now usually depending on how you set the array you get the damage bonus OR the accuracy bonus not both at the same time, because you are either trying to focus all the hits on the same point, OR trying to saturate all the locations they COULD be at one time, to get both bonuses in an array would be rather sick on the incrementation.
basically
1 for base
4 for +1/+1
16 for +2/+2
64 for +3/+3
256 for +4/+4
1024 for +5/+5
etc.

[Jefffar]

Interesting approach.

A system like Recon is a tad more realistic, especially if you are using a damage soak style armour mechanic, but that system would play much faster.

IIRC D20 Modern also added to the damage when firing bursts, but not in a strictly linear fashion.

[smkeyes]

The term seems to be "Volley Gun."
Personally, I like the Nordenfelt Gun, which I've researched before, and think that'd do something pretty cool with the right ammo.

If you want overkill, you could go for the Vandenburgh gun, which had up to 121 barrels and fired .50 caliber bullets (not BMG, of course).
So... make a new version with magic ammo, and you can do 242d6 MD per attack (for one attack).
Call it the "Front 242."

not unless your target was exceptionally large. At most you will hit a man sized target with one or two of the barrels at most. They where made and designed for when infantry faced each other in lines of battle so you would hit more targets. Just like with canister or grape shot from a cannon of that age. Only the Volley Gun was cheaper to build but took longer to load than a standard cannon of the age.

[Killer Cyborg]

The term seems to be "Volley Gun."
Personally, I like the Nordenfelt Gun, which I've researched before, and think that'd do something pretty cool with the right ammo.

If you want overkill, you could go for the Vandenburgh gun, which had up to 121 barrels and fired .50 caliber bullets (not BMG, of course).
So... make a new version with magic ammo, and you can do 242d6 MD per attack (for one attack).
Call it the "Front 242."

not unless your target was exceptionally large. At most you will hit a man sized target with one or two of the barrels at most. They where made and designed for when infantry faced each other in lines of battle so you would hit more targets. Just like with canister or grape shot from a cannon of that age. Only the Volley Gun was cheaper to build but took longer to load than a standard cannon of the age.

I'm guessing you didn't read the links.

All the barrels were parallel and since they fired at the same time, anything in front of the gun would have been swept away, but those outside the relatively narrow lane of fire would have been safe. Cannon of the day could fire canister, basically a tin can filled with iron balls: like a giant shotgun shell. A cannon with canister rounds could spray a large area with projectiles, much more effective than the narrow volley of bullets produced by the Vandenburgh Gun.

[flatline]

Oops! I forgot to include an evaluation of efficiency.

Tk weapons average 5MD per PPE invested which is pretty good.
For comparison, using Sub-Particle Acceleration to recharge a Wilk's Pulse Laser Rifle yields 3.75MD/PPE for single shots, 3.5MD/PPE if you're shooting bursts.

Another way of looking at that is that the 7 parallel tk rifles cost 7 PPE to do 1d6x10 whereas the Wilk's costs 10 PPE for a 1d6x10 burst.

[Mack]

Oops! I forgot to include an evaluation of efficiency.

Tk weapons average 5MD per PPE invested which is pretty good.
For comparison, using Sub-Particle Acceleration to recharge a Wilk's Pulse Laser Rifle yields 3.75MD/PPE for single shots, 3.5MD/PPE if you're shooting bursts.

Another way of looking at that is that the 7 parallel tk rifles cost 7 PPE to do 1d6x10 whereas the Wilk's costs 10 PPE for a 1d6x10 burst.

I wouldn't lean too heavily on the TK gun examples in RUE. They don't follow the TW rules and are all over the place.

TK machinegun - 0.333 PPE / shot should be 10.9 PPE / shot
TK Revolver - 3 PPE / shot should be 3.3 PPE / shot (close enough!)
TK Sniper Rifle - 6.4 PPE / shot should be 32.5 PPE / shot
TK Submachinegun - 0.5 PPE / shot should be 14 PPE / shot

I've never been able to duplicate the math used to create these examples. (The machinegun should need 360 carats of Opal to get down to 0.333 PPE / shot, but then none of the other values match.)

Now, I like them, but they've got a heavy dose of GM fiat within them.

[flatline]

I was just going by the TK examples in the Book of Magic that do 2d4MD and can be recharged 1 PPE per shot.

The TW rules in RUE are totally terrible. I would never use them in my game.

[flatline]

Okay, curiosity got the better of me and I pulled RUE out of the closet. Apparently I never looked at the TK weapons given as example.

TK-machine-gun: 15MD/PPE, 6MD/PPE 5-rnd burst, 4.2MD/PPE 10-rnd burst, 6.75MD/PPE 20-rnd burst
TK-Revolver: 2.333MD/PPE
TK-Sniper-Rifle: 2.1875MD/PPE
TK-Submachine-Gun: 5MD/PPE single shot, 2MD/PPE 5-rnd burst, 2.1MD/PPE 10-rnd burst and 20-rnd burst

You weren't kidding, they're all over the place!

Even more interesting is that there's a note at the bottom of page 138 that indicates that all the weapons from the BoM are still canon!

[Mack]

I don't mind keeping the BoM ones as canon, but I find it irritating that the RUE ones don't follow the rules that immediately precede them. The TW creation rules are already tough to decipher for a lot of folks and having examples that don't adhere to them doesn't make it any easier.

[flatline]

I don't mind keeping the BoM ones as canon, but I find it irritating that the RUE ones don't follow the rules that immediately precede them. The TW creation rules are already tough to decipher for a lot of folks and having examples that don't adhere to them doesn't make it any easier.

I'd be a lot cooler with the RUE TW rules if adding additional stones didn't reduce construction time AND lower the activation cost. There should have been hard limits on how much the activation could be reduced (if at all). I would rather have seen enhanced effects (damage, duration, range, whatever) instead of reduced cost.

[SpiritInterface]

They sort of cover this in D-bee of North America with the Malvoren. they can act as a battle computer and "link" weapons together so that they aim and fire at the same target at the same time. the "linked" weapons do normal full damage.

[Alrik Vas]

I don't mind keeping the BoM ones as canon, but I find it irritating that the RUE ones don't follow the rules that immediately precede them. The TW creation rules are already tough to decipher for a lot of folks and having examples that don't adhere to them doesn't make it any easier.

I'd be a lot cooler with the RUE TW rules if adding additional stones didn't reduce construction time AND lower the activation cost. There should have been hard limits on how much the activation could be reduced (if at all). I would rather have seen enhanced effects (damage, duration, range, whatever) instead of reduced cost.

That's basically what I do, so they have to balance cost with all those other factors. It makes for some interesting builds.

Though the best TW invention to date wasn't a weapon or super item. It's a cup with Create Water and Cure Minor Disorders. Basically a never ending cup of coffee.

[Mack]

Though the best TW invention to date wasn't a weapon or super item. It's a cup with Create Water and Cure Minor Disorders. Basically a never ending cup of coffee.

Reminds me of a TW blanket I was toying around with. It combined Sleep, Heal Wounds, and Circle of Fire to give the user a warm, snuggly, content feeling so they can easily drift off to sleep. It wouldn't actually force a person to sleep or cure anything (just soothe the day's aches and pains) but the effect lasted for a few hours.

[flatline]

So to take this in a slightly different direction:

Get a bag of slingshot ammo (steel balls roughly 8mm in diameter) and enchant them with Enchant Weapon: Minor. If I remember the spell correctly, this should give you 48 enchanted (reusable) metal balls that will do 2d6MD in a slingshot.

Now take these metal balls and use them to load your own 000 Buck shells for a shot gun (6 magic steel balls per shell). Presumably, if all 6 hit, that's 12d6MD per shotgun shell. In a double-barreled shotgun, that could be as much as 24d6MD per double shot.

Naturally, this all depends on an agreeable GM. If I were the GM, I would not assume that all the shot hits the target, but I'm not sure how I'd determine the number of steel balls that actually hit. Probably make it dependent on range and the size of the target.

[eliakon]

So to take this in a slightly different direction:

Get a bag of slingshot ammo (steel balls roughly 8mm in diameter) and enchant them with Enchant Weapon: Minor. If I remember the spell correctly, this should give you 48 enchanted (reusable) metal balls that will do 2d6MD in a slingshot.

Now take these metal balls and use them to load your own 000 Buck shells for a shot gun (6 magic steel balls per shell). Presumably, if all 6 hit, that's 12d6MD per shotgun shell. In a double-barreled shotgun, that could be as much as 24d6MD per double shot.

Naturally, this all depends on an agreeable GM. If I were the GM, I would not assume that all the shot hits the target, but I'm not sure how I'd determine the number of steel balls that actually hit. Probably make it dependent on range and the size of the target.

And then make it a belt fed quad barrel machine gun and you can do some light Giga-Damage....

Its stuff like this which is why Rule Zero was invented methinks.

[Killer Cyborg]

So to take this in a slightly different direction:

Get a bag of slingshot ammo (steel balls roughly 8mm in diameter) and enchant them with Enchant Weapon: Minor. If I remember the spell correctly, this should give you 48 enchanted (reusable) metal balls that will do 2d6MD in a slingshot.

Now take these metal balls and use them to load your own 000 Buck shells for a shot gun (6 magic steel balls per shell). Presumably, if all 6 hit, that's 12d6MD per shotgun shell. In a double-barreled shotgun, that could be as much as 24d6MD per double shot.

Naturally, this all depends on an agreeable GM. If I were the GM, I would not assume that all the shot hits the target, but I'm not sure how I'd determine the number of steel balls that actually hit. Probably make it dependent on range and the size of the target.

That begs for a paintball gun.

Or a claymore mine.

[flatline]

So to take this in a slightly different direction:

Get a bag of slingshot ammo (steel balls roughly 8mm in diameter) and enchant them with Enchant Weapon: Minor. If I remember the spell correctly, this should give you 48 enchanted (reusable) metal balls that will do 2d6MD in a slingshot.

Now take these metal balls and use them to load your own 000 Buck shells for a shot gun (6 magic steel balls per shell). Presumably, if all 6 hit, that's 12d6MD per shotgun shell. In a double-barreled shotgun, that could be as much as 24d6MD per double shot.

Naturally, this all depends on an agreeable GM. If I were the GM, I would not assume that all the shot hits the target, but I'm not sure how I'd determine the number of steel balls that actually hit. Probably make it dependent on range and the size of the target.

And then make it a belt fed quad barrel machine gun and you can do some light Giga-Damage....

Its stuff like this which is why Rule Zero was invented methinks.

We had a bag of enchanted slingshot ammo at one point, but it was a low powered campaign, so we would never have allowed making shotgun shells with it unless each shell had a single steel ball in it (about right for a 20-gauge, extremely low kick shell, actually), but in that case, you're better off just enchanting the ammo to get 72 2d6 shells instead of 48 2d6 shells. This is only effective if you're allowed to stack many steel balls in the same attack.

[flatline]

So to take this in a slightly different direction:

Get a bag of slingshot ammo (steel balls roughly 8mm in diameter) and enchant them with Enchant Weapon: Minor. If I remember the spell correctly, this should give you 48 enchanted (reusable) metal balls that will do 2d6MD in a slingshot.

Now take these metal balls and use them to load your own 000 Buck shells for a shot gun (6 magic steel balls per shell). Presumably, if all 6 hit, that's 12d6MD per shotgun shell. In a double-barreled shotgun, that could be as much as 24d6MD per double shot.

Naturally, this all depends on an agreeable GM. If I were the GM, I would not assume that all the shot hits the target, but I'm not sure how I'd determine the number of steel balls that actually hit. Probably make it dependent on range and the size of the target.

That begs for a paintball gun.

Or a claymore mine.

We never did this, but a player once designed brass knuckles with 20 holes bored for .22lr shells. There was a plate on rails right behind the shells with pins aligned with the shell rims (.22 is a rim-fire cartridge). When you removed a shim to allow the plate to slide and punch something, all 20 shells would fire doing, assuming the GM allowed stacking, 2d6x20MD in a single punch.

We talked about this sort of thing, but almost never attempted any stacking in game. I think the only stacking I remember was a triple barreled tk rifle (tk mg?) made for a Titan. We felt that stacking ruined the game.

[Nekira Sudacne]

So to take this in a slightly different direction:

Get a bag of slingshot ammo (steel balls roughly 8mm in diameter) and enchant them with Enchant Weapon: Minor. If I remember the spell correctly, this should give you 48 enchanted (reusable) metal balls that will do 2d6MD in a slingshot.

Now take these metal balls and use them to load your own 000 Buck shells for a shot gun (6 magic steel balls per shell). Presumably, if all 6 hit, that's 12d6MD per shotgun shell. In a double-barreled shotgun, that could be as much as 24d6MD per double shot.

Naturally, this all depends on an agreeable GM. If I were the GM, I would not assume that all the shot hits the target, but I'm not sure how I'd determine the number of steel balls that actually hit. Probably make it dependent on range and the size of the target.

Lets just go all out. Anyone want to build a variant of the TK machinegun that uses spheres of annilation instead of TK rounds

[eliakon]

So to take this in a slightly different direction:

Get a bag of slingshot ammo (steel balls roughly 8mm in diameter) and enchant them with Enchant Weapon: Minor. If I remember the spell correctly, this should give you 48 enchanted (reusable) metal balls that will do 2d6MD in a slingshot.

Now take these metal balls and use them to load your own 000 Buck shells for a shot gun (6 magic steel balls per shell). Presumably, if all 6 hit, that's 12d6MD per shotgun shell. In a double-barreled shotgun, that could be as much as 24d6MD per double shot.

Naturally, this all depends on an agreeable GM. If I were the GM, I would not assume that all the shot hits the target, but I'm not sure how I'd determine the number of steel balls that actually hit. Probably make it dependent on range and the size of the target.

Lets just go all out. Anyone want to build a variant of the TK machinegun that uses spheres of annilation instead of TK rounds

Hmmmm....
TW G-60 Machine Gun 3d6x10 GD in two bursts per action.

[dragonfett]

So to take this in a slightly different direction:

Get a bag of slingshot ammo (steel balls roughly 8mm in diameter) and enchant them with Enchant Weapon: Minor. If I remember the spell correctly, this should give you 48 enchanted (reusable) metal balls that will do 2d6MD in a slingshot.

Now take these metal balls and use them to load your own 000 Buck shells for a shot gun (6 magic steel balls per shell). Presumably, if all 6 hit, that's 12d6MD per shotgun shell. In a double-barreled shotgun, that could be as much as 24d6MD per double shot.

Naturally, this all depends on an agreeable GM. If I were the GM, I would not assume that all the shot hits the target, but I'm not sure how I'd determine the number of steel balls that actually hit. Probably make it dependent on range and the size of the target.

Lets just go all out. Anyone want to build a variant of the TK machinegun that uses spheres of annilation instead of TK rounds

I will start working on that.

[dragonfett]

This is what I have so far for what I am calling my TK Grenade Launcher.

TK Grenade Launcher
Mega-Damage: 4d6x10 MD per shot to a 25' blast radius
Effective Range: 1000' (double at ley lines)
Bonus to Strike: None
Device Level: 5
PPE Construction Cost: 1147
Spell Chains Needed
Primary Spell: Telekinesis (8)
Secondary Spells: Annihilate (600), Energy Bolt (5), Meteor (75)
Physical Requirements: 30 carats of Opals (500 credits each, 15000 credits total), 1 carat of Red Zircon (2000 credits), 1 carat of Lapis Lazuli (5000 credits), 1 carat of Onyx (1000 credits), 1 WI-GL4 Revolving Grenade Launcher (50000 credits)
Duration of Charge: Holds 6 TK Grenades until fired.
Recharge: 58 PPE per TK Grenade
Max Capacity: 6 TK Grenades
Construction Time: 23 Hours
Black Market Cost: 250,000 credits

So what does everyone think?

[Alrik Vas]

doesn't annihilation do a much more silly amount of damage to a similar radius?

[Mack]

Duration of Charge: Holds 6 TK Grenades until fired.

What are you using to hold the charge? I didn't see any Diamonds/Emeralds listed.



And here's my contribution (which would never pass a halfway sane GM):

TK Machinegun of Munchie Annihilation
Single Shot: 2D4x100 MD to the target, plus 4D6x10 MD to a 10ft radius
Burst of Five: 4D4x100 MD to the target, plus 8D6x10 MD to a 10ft radius
Burst of Ten: 4D6x100MD to the target, plus 12D6x10 MD to a 10ft radius
Burst of Twenty: (1D6+1)x1,000MD to the target, plus 24D6x10 MD to a 10ft radius
Range is 1,600 feet

Device Level 1 (to take advantage of the rules)
Primary Spell: Telekinesis
Secondary Spells: Annihilate, Power Bolt, and Barrage
Gems: 160.75 carats of Opal, 1 carat Lapis Lazuli, 1 carat Turquoise
Activation: each shot uses 2 PPE (yes, only two)
Payload: 60 shots stored in 6 carats of Diamonds
Construction: Only 40 PPE and 4 hours
Build Cost: 176,015 credits

Truth is, Annihilate should be the primary spell, but the result is less fun.

[dragonfett]

doesn't annihilation do a much more silly amount of damage to a similar radius?

Annihilate does 2d4 x 100 MDC if it hits the target directly, and 4d6 x 10 MDC to everything in a 10' radius. I added Meteor to the secondary spell chain and took the average of the blast radius of the two spells (10 + 40 = 50/2 = 25).

Mack, I didn't add any diamonds because none of the TW guns in the RUE, and they all hold their charges. I was about to say something about you not listing any diamonds or emeralds in yours, but then I realized it was not placed with the physical requirements but with duration.

The reason I didn't see a reason to add diamonds and emeralds is because I was not adding in a PPE storage feature.

[Mack]

Well, as we noted earlier the TW examples in RUE don't follow the rules listed in RUE. Go figure.

[dragonfett]

Rereading the rules in the RUE, it seems clear to me that diamonds and emeralds are ONLY supposed to store PPE and not the magic charges that the TW guns shoot.

P.P.E. Storage. A Techno-Wizard device can store extra P.P.E. for future Activation Costs if it has an Activation Charge. P.P.E. Storage inflicts a penalty of 1% to the Device Construction Modifier, per point of P.P.E. the device can store, due to the extra complexity involved, and each P.P.E. point the Techno-Wizard wishes to store adds 1% to the P.P.E. Construction Cost.

Moreover, if the device itself is able to store its own P.P.E., the device can be made to function even for a non-psychic/non-mage, if the Techno-Wizard wants it to, at no addition cost.

If you wish to incorporate P.P.E. Storage, most likely it will be P.P.E. Storage for all of the Functions of the device to draw upon. As an option, you may wish to create P.P.E. Storage usable only by one or a few of the devices Functions. In this case, just add up the P.P.E. Construction Costs for those functions when determining the cost.

P.P.E. is stored for the purpose of powering the device, not for the practitioner of magic's personal use, although this P.P.E. can be siphoned back out at a rate of 10 P.P.E. per attack/action (twice as fast for a Techno-Wizard). A Techno-Wizard device built specifically for the purpose of P.P.E. storage, using the Talisman or Energy Sphere spells, would be more appropriate for a practitioner of magic's P.P.E. batter. Note: An Emerald can hold up to 10 P.P.E. per carat, while a Diamond can hold up to 20 P.P.E. per carat. See the Gem TW Reference List for more information on the gems (diamonds and emeralds) required to store P.P.E.

If TW weapons DID require diamonds/emeralds to hold the charges, a 5th level Techno-Wizard would be taking a -18% to -32% penalty to just to make the TW guns from the RUE which would drop his base percentage to build it from 88% down to 56% to 70%.

Furthermore, it also raises the P.P.E. Construction Cost, which also increases the P.P.E. Activation Cost, which would increase the amount of P.P.E. you would need to store, which would increase the P.P.E. Construction cost, which... well you can see where this is going right?

[Nightmask]

And yet the regional powers don't take advantage of this phenomenon when manufacturing weapons for their own forces?

This is where I think it's damaging to the setting.

You know, there might be an expense issue for why they don't put these multiple-paired weapons into vehicles or power armor. It might require too much expense to built in the robust power systems required to fire say a dozen of the same laser rifle at once as a mounted Gatling Gun. Too much cost building in the extra power supplies and the like compared to just fielding more troops since one hit and your super-dozen Gatling laser is gone but your dozen single-armed guys only lost two guys leaving ten still attacking. Too many eggs in one basket. So it works for small mercenary groups because they need the concentrated firepower but larger groups and militaries are better off the conventional way.