Re: [HOE] Junkman stuff

["Kai Tave" <kaitave@harborside.com>]

>If I were a junker, and dead set on building an EMP gun, heres what I would
>do: design a weapon using the rules for wind damage, and then treat it like
>all the other EMP weapons in the rules (the cyborgs' lighting cannons, and
>the shock attack of Combine Gremlins are what come to mind).

Well, you have a whole host of different effects that you could use though.
I mean, which one do you choose?  The cyborg Lightning Gun, or a Doomsayer's
EMP miracle, or the M-40 Ripper's side-effect...

But that's just me.  I'm picky that way, so I likely WILL end up making my
own power, just because I'm a neat freak.

  Basically,
>each time a computer or what have you is hit, it has to take a stun test,
>with a TN equal to the damage caused.  I realize that this makes this EMP
>gun only good against things with vigor traits, and therefore useless for
>blowing the spark plugs in some guys car, but hey, you can still fry
>automatons and cyborgs, and isn't that the important thing?


Eh.  Kinda sorta.  It's not really a true EMP then, and if you're only gonna
have something that affects things with Vigor traits, why beat around the
bush?  Just make a plasma weapon that'll destroy ANYTHING you need
destroyed.  Cars, computers, small woodland animals, the works.

>On a related note, I think the inablity to damage organics would be a minor
>side effect, not a major one.  It is certainly inconvenient, but not life
>threatening, especially when you can just build another gun for killing
>regular folks.


Well yeah, but it DOES force you to build an entirely different gun.  I
mean, let's face it...the weapon, as proposed, works mostly against Combine
mechanical forces and not much else.  While that's certainly a useful thing
to have, I think that it's fair to say that such forces are going to
comprise the minority, not the majority, of any opposition PC's will
encounter.  Throckmorton doesn't usually let his automatons stray too far
from Denver; the bulk of the Combine forces the PC's will encounter will be
Black Hats.  And then we have road gangs, hostile mutants, raiders,
abominations...I think having a weapon that only affects mechanical devices
in a post-apocalyptic world qualifies itself as having a major drawback.
But again, that's just me.

--Kai Tave