The Gaming Den

I was looking to stat lasguns in d20/D&D. I mean, yeah there are laser guns in d20 Future, but they seem to work differently than the 'flashlights' of 40k. I have the basic ideas down, 3d6 fire, say 80-100' range (max? nothing past?).

But things like recharge rate on power packs, and the damage itself I dunno. I know they tend to do very little aside from when used in massed fire, but they tend to work on most things, if they 'hit', right? But in D&D fire resistance is really damn easy to get, so it makes me onder if this should be like half typless or something. Y'know, since lasers are super concentrated on a spot, or something.

And of course, we all know that D&D tends to overprice anything remotely useful, so I have little idea for cost. Shit, I know *that* would vary on the tech level of wherever, but you get me. I could see it costing 2k for the rifle itself, and a couple hundred per energy pack.

For recharging I'm thinking 1 shot/4 hours of sun, maybe. Maybe double/halve each if put next to a heat source, like fire.


So...

Lasgun
Damage: 3d6 fire | Range: 100' | Weight: 6 lbs | Cost: 2500 GP

Power Cell
Rounds: 30 | Weight: 1/2 lb
Special: If exposed to different energy sources, it can regain shots.
- Sun: 1 shot/2 hours
- Fire: 2 shot/1 hour, but has 1-in-20 chance of being ruined.
- Proper Recharging Station: 5 shots/hour.



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So yeah. Am I terribly off base here? Should I just not bother? I love the damn things, and would like to have a non-magical way of having pew-pew, since I <3 lasers.

Remember that adding a red-dot laser sight makes it count as twin-linked (Zing!)

It might be worth considering making it one of the following damage types:
-Piercing (just because. This also means the things that traditionally are immune to them will be, due to high DR)
-Light (it's one of those bullshit energy types that less than 20 things use)

Anyway, "but they tend to work on most things, if they 'hit', right?" is as far from the truth as you can get without catching the bus. In tabletop terms they are S3, which means if you have a Toughness of 7 or more (generally the realm of Monstrous Creatures here, maybe one Spess Mehrin hero) you are 100% immune to them. It also means they are completely unable to penetrate (or even glance) vehicles of Armour value 10 or above (ie all of them).

I'd say to make the charge packs hold 30 charges, make the weapons rapid fire (as in, you get a number of shots equal to your attacks, which can be modified by Rapid Shot or whatever) and have sunlight recharge one shot per hour. It has Light/Heat/Fire/Your Mum Resistance 10, and dealing any amount of Light/Heat/Fire/Your Mum damage to it (before Resistance) recharges one shot per round. Yes, this means if two lasguns shoot at each others' charge packs they can indefinitely (barring misses) keep each other at the same energy level, defying the laws of physics. Contact the Department of People who Give a Damn.

Hot-Shot Charger Packs contain one charge each and yet cost more. The reason is that they ignore energy resistance/damage reduction less than 30 and have a x3 critical.

(Alternatively, given the AP3 value of Hot Shots, scrub the resistance thing and just make them touch attacks)

Possibly you may even want the bigger, bulkier and cooler Hell Guns. They'd cost more, and have back packs that contain, say, 100 charges each (that recharge as above). They'd deal 3d8 or 5d6 damage and also ignore the energy resistance/DR (or touch attacks) as per hot-shots.

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You may wish to have some random rule for massed fire to represent a platoon of infantry all focusing their lasguns on one target to bring it down. This doesn't happen in the game but does happen in fiction (though just as often, it shrugs the shots off then slaughters the wielders). Possibly make them all delay so that they fire at the same time (some kind of test like a fixed DC Ref save? A penalty to hit?) and then count all the damage as coming from one source, either saying "add all your damage together" (so 10 guys count as one guy dealing 30d6) or a more moderate "each additional dood adds +1d6" (so 10 guys count as one guy dealing 12d6).

I hope this helps.

I'd make it Light Damage. Just like Lantern archons use.

Well, in Heroes of Battle, they do actually have rules for massed fire. In this case, it'd be concentrated fire (the other being like, long-ranged indirect shots).

Basically, you have the commander roll an attack (BAB + Int vs AC 20), and all your dudes fire at the indicated spot. For every 5 shooters, you add that die as bonus, usually d6 or d8 with bows (not sure for multi-dice weapon damage). The target gets to make a Reflex save (usually 15) that can be modified by shit like LOS, MW items, and a couple other bullshit things.

If you have a lot of low-level archers, that seems to be the ticket. Especially if they have Rapid Shot, since you basically double the damage dealt.


But yeah. I forgot about light as a damage, seeing as how nearly nothing uses it. Piercing has its advantages too, but it'd have to be ranged touch or something, to make it worth using over other weaponry.

Or something.

Yeah I wouldn't make the non-Hellguns/Hotshot ranged touch, because lasguns just don't ignore armour. Hellguns/Hotshot on the other hand, have AP 3, AKA "Space Marine Killers", so they could justify ignoring either armour or DR/ER.

Now, call me dumb here, but the few sun/light based spells and attacks I see are simply untyped damage (Sunburst, lantern Archons, etc) but...hrm. I do see they have the [Light] tag. That what you mean? Or is that usually only for shit like Darkness effects or whatever?

Meikle641 wrote:Now, call me dumb here, but the few sun/light based spells and attacks I see are simply untyped damage (Sunburst, lantern Archons, etc) but...hrm. I do see they have the [Light] tag. That what you mean? Or is that usually only for shit like Darkness effects or whatever?

Undead and "light-sensitive" creatures have a weakness to light.

There's a Teamwork Benefit in at least one book (PHB2?) that lets you represent massed fire with attack bonuses to everyone's shot. It's limited to groups of around 8 though.

Light of Lunia line does untyped (but hurts demons/devils/undead double).
Sunbeam does untyped damage (but hurts undead/fungi/mold/oozes/slimes/light-sensitives more, no mention of outsiders)
BoED light lines are untyped (no mods)
Wall of Moonlight is untyped, but does damage only to undead, evil (+/- outsiders), and clergy (or card-carrying members) of Heleniarr (regardless of alignment, lolz)
Blistering Radiance does fire typed damage.
Radiance dazzles... (really? a level 5 spell to Dazzle people?)
Crown of Brilliance damage (untyped) undead
Rejuvenating Light does Positive Energy damage (to undead only)


So yea, untyped would appear the way to go.

Also, 3d6 is really low for damage if you can't add anything to it. Otherwise, you're totally better with a composite longbow.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Also, 3d6 is really low for damage if you can't add anything to it. Otherwise, you're totally better with a composite longbow.

Well, unless I'm missing something huge, that's damage that bypasses DR (if we go typeless). That in itself is an advantage. Not a huge one, but one worth mentioning.

That said, I'll likely go with the fire damage, with the various features Koumei suggested.