Gunblade, It CAN be done! Options

[DamienKnight]

I would like to preface this post by saying, I am not a Final Fantasy fanboy. I always thought Gunblades were kind of rediculous, and would not really work.

But then a character in the group Cloud and I GM fervently requested special Gunblade rules, and we spent some time mulling over it and came up with this.

First, a gunblade is unique from a bayonet mounted weapon because the blade and the barrel are so close... exactly next to each other in fact. This reduces the accuracy of the gun dramatically, but gunblades arent for sniping.

Slicing Shot: A character can swing with a gunblade, and pull the trigger during the swing. Even if the swing misses, the bullet may hit. Character makes a melee attack test using his Blade skill (possibly specialized in Gunblade). The net successes on the Melee contest are applied to a shooting test. This means that if the attacker missed by 4 successes, the shot would be made with a -4 die penalty. The ranged test would have the ranged attack in melee penalty applied (-2 die, possibly compensated with Martial Arts Styles or Adept Centering). The ranged test would be made with the characters Exotic Ranged Weapon - Gunblade skill alone, and would not include agility. (agility has already been applied to the Melee test). Successes are applied as usual for ranged attacks (defend can dodge with reaction. This counts as a seperate attack from the melee attack, so it is a second application of their Reaction to dodge, which may or may not result in a -1 die for dodge. Extra successes stage up damage).

Stabbing Shot: A character can make a stab attack with their blade, counting as a called shot, as they attempt to pierce the target's armor for an unblocked shot. If the attacker succeeds in a Melee called shot attack, then they pull the trigger and get a free attack with their gun's base damage. If the blade attack pierced the defender's armor (base damage > armor rating) then the shot can ignore armor. If the blade attack did not pierce the defender's armor (did stun damage) then the gun attack is resisted with armor as normal.

Regular Shot: The character can make a shot with the Gunblade without making a melee attack. Because of the blade's close proximity to the barrel, the bullet's trajectory is thrown off, causing a penatly to the ranged attack. This is expressed with a -1 die penalty per range increment, regardless of Vision Magnification/Scope. This -1 die penalty per range increment can also be compensated by Adept centering.

For a gunblade to work according to these rules, the blade must not be curved, as that would either block the bullet, or curve away from the barrel, defeating the Blade/Gun synergy.

Let us know your thoughts. Issues that seem arguable to us:

When making a Slicing Shot, should successes on the shooting test stage up damage as normal, or should only the gun's base damage be applied?

When making a Slicing Shot, should a physically damaging slice cause armor penetration for a shooting attack?

When making a Regular shot, is -1 die per range increment realistic? I know that a simple bayonet in Real Life affects the long range accuracy of a Rifle, and that bayonet's are kept at a certain distance from the barrel to reduce this accuracy problem. This accuracy problem is party due to the weight of the bayonet, but on a fixed bayonet, this is compensated for. But does a blade being built into the barrel within millimeter's of the opening cause a drag on the spinning bullet? We have asked this question on Wikipedia's discussion page on Rifling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rifling

Should any uncompensated recoil on the shot (ie. a double barrel or burst gunblade) reduce the DV of the Blade attack, or perhaps reduce dice for you Melee attack?