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?

[Kerenshara]

Gunblades existed centuries ago. When your muzzle-loading single-shot pistol had shot its wad, you could keep fighting with what was usually a honking big bowie knife attached to the back side of the pistol. Since flintlock pistols were notoriously short-ranged even compared to todays pistols, you usually took your shot as you closed to melee distance. They were always a bit of an oddity, though, even when they were new.

As to the question about accuracy, it's a counter-balance on the end of the weapon. The problem is more with the difficulty of bringing the weapon onto target than anything about gas effects.

[Maelstrome]

there was a few gunblades statted up on one site for third edition. if you want to look at them i can post it.

in ff8 gunblades didnt actually shoot, they used gunpowder to send shockwaves from the explosion up the blade. i created that version for sr3 as well.not really sure how they could be converted as i dont play sr4 anymore.

as far as the gunblade that actually shoots. i wouldnt bother making special rules for it. most of that can be chalked up as "flavor text"

[Starmage21]

there was a few gunblades statted up on one site for third edition. if you want to look at them i can post it.

in ff8 gunblades didnt actually shoot, they used gunpowder to send shockwaves from the explosion up the blade. i created that version for sr3 as well.not really sure how they could be converted as i dont play sr4 anymore.

as far as the gunblade that actually shoots. i wouldnt bother making special rules for it. most of that can be chalked up as "flavor text"

Sounds like a poor man's vibro blade

[Maelstrome]

Sounds like a poor man's vibro blade

more like an uneconomical vibroblade. atleast with a normal vibro blade i dont have to buy charges for each time i hit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

[Apathy]

Who needs a gunblade when you can have a gunchainsaw?
and again...

[TBRMInsanity]

The bayonet came from the idea of a gun blade. You basically want a blade with a gun in it (granted a bayonet basically turns your rifle into a spear and not a blade). As stated above it is hard to design a gun-blade due to balance issues. With SR era nano-materials you could make a gun blade but I would treat it as a blade when used as a blade and a gun when used as a gun. My guess is that the weapon would look like a pistol with a Kish blade attacked under it (still giving enough room for the firing mechanism and barrel).

[Digital Heroin]

While we may be able to do it, we should feel morally obligated not to allow such lunacy. Also, a weapon that allows the potential to hit with a melee and/or ranged attack in one action is a wee bit broken.

[Marwynn]

I assumed that they were merely adding a firearm to a melee weapon a la the 'underbarrel weapon' from Arsenal. Instead of the gun barrel being perpendicular to the blade it's parallel to it.

The firearm of course only has half the normal ammo capacity and limited recoil mods, but still fairly cool. A Vibroknife with a Taser or Fichetti Security 600 is multi-purpose and cool (especially since the Fichetti still has 15c). The Sakura Fubuki's another good choice, though expensive.

For FF8 I'd go with the Ruger Super Warhawk.

And once you upgrade to the vibrosword you can maybe get away with an Ingram Smartgun X (expanded clip brings you to 40c, halved as an underbarrel weapon and you can Suppressive Fire for a phase--dual wielded that's two phases before you get to chop things up).

Of course this is really a gun with a sword sticking out on top.


On to the "Shots". If you guys want to allow it and it's cool to do so then I think it's fairly balanced considering the exoticness of it all. I'd rather it be treated as two-weapons-in-one, the appropriate firearm when shooting, and the Blade Knife/Sword skill when not. I'd then call shooting while hacking away an "interrupt" action using the next action of the character, and it's shooting in melee with the modifiers and a separate test.

[Earlydawn]

If I were going to allow this in my game, my player would have to have gunsmithing skill, and would require significant effort: a capable forge and equipment, special design software for his or her link, and lots of testing.

For something slightly more realistic, check out Blade's handguns in Blade 2 - basically automatic pistols with frame-integrated sharpened edges for close-combat. A little more realistic, IMO.

[DamienKnight]

While we may be able to do it, we should feel morally obligated not to allow such lunacy. Also, a weapon that allows the potential to hit with a melee and/or ranged attack in one action is a wee bit broken.

The rules I presented do not seem broken. Could you elaborate on the power issues you are seeing?

Lets stat it out for an example.

Blade part is +1 reach, one or two handed, uses blades skill, can specialize in GunBlade.
Damage as a sword, or as a mono sword for the mono version.

Gun part is simply a heavy pistol. For our example we will use 5DV -1AP.

Taking a character with a smartlink, 4 agility and 4 skill in both Blades and Exotic Ranged - Gunblade.
Attacking a security guard with a vest 6/4, who is weilding a baton in defense, with 3 agility and 3 clubs (well trained.)

Assuming our dastardly character is looking to kill the Guard, he will be using Regular Ammo (Explosive could damage his blade, a balancing factor).

Our hero attacks with a Slicing Shot. He rolls his Agility + skill = 8 dice, getting 3 successes (just above average).

The guard defense with 6 dice, and gets 2 successes. That is 1 net success for our gunblading hero. The slice works, and the guard must resist 4DV +1 success from the blade = 5 DV. with -1 AP, the guard rolls 3 body plus 3 armor, with 2 successes. The guard takes 3 points of damage and his armor degrades 1 point, now it is 5/3

Now the hero pulls the trigger mid swing. Does he pull it at the right time? He rolls his gunblade skill of 4, with +1 die because his melee attack had +1 success. He does not add agility to the dice because agility has already been factored in to the shot, and the gun follows the path of the blade, so the shot cannot hit anywhere the blade didn't swing. Also this is a shot in melee, with is a -2 penalty. If it was a really good swing, it could potentially be a very good shot.

Rolling his 3 dice, our hero gets 1 success. The guard rolls reaction (-1 because he already tried to dodge the blade) with 2 dice and gets no successes. The shot does Heavy Pistols 5DV +1 success -1AP, guard rolls body of 3 + ballistic armor(5) - 1AP = 7 dice. He again gets 2 successes, and takes 4 damage.

If our hero decided to instead use a normal Heavy Pistol with High Explosive rounds (because of no blade to worry about) using a smartlink, it wouldve gone more like:
4+4+2 = 10 dice, 3 successes. Defender dodges with 3 reaction, 1 success. Has to resist 7 DV with 5 armor.
Second shot = 10 dice, 3 successes. Defender doges with 2 reaction, no successes. Has to resist 8 DV with 4 armor.

Clearly the gunblade is not more powerful, it just provides a flashy alternative to gunning your opponents down.

[Kerenshara]

The bayonet came from the idea of a gun blade. You basically want a blade with a gun in it (granted a bayonet basically turns your rifle into a spear and not a blade).

Actually, to be much more precise, it turned your rifle into a simple pike. Rifle formations were derived from pike formations, and basic rifle and marching drill are nearly identical to similar parts of pike drill. It's a fine point, but I figured it might interest some people.

[McCummhail]

You can already make multiple attacks in one action by splitting dice pools.
Dual wielding pistols or dual wielding melee weapons already exists.
In this case you would be effectively dual-wielding a ranged and melee weapon together.

Split [AGIlity+(blades or exotic weapon, whichever is lower)] between the two attacks.

For Special Attacks like mentioned above, I can see Gunblade being a martial art style with special gunblade maneuvers available.

This would be in line with existing rules and reflect the training necessary to fight effectively with such a unique tool.

[Apathy]

Lets stat it out for an example.

Swinging a gunblade in this way would detract from the overall power of the swing - if for no other reason because you'd have an odd grip on the sword that would inhibit you from bringing your full strength to bare. At least one finger's not securely wrapped around the sword grip and is awkwardly resting on a trigger. Because of this the gunblade should have a damage rating either one or two less than that of a normal sword.

I would also think that trying to swing a sword with authority while simultaneously keeping your index finger in contact with the trigger but not squeezing is a bit more complicated than a normal sword grip. As such you would have a higher chance of glitches and critical glitches.

That said, I'd agree that it's not a game balance issue. We already take an unrealistic stance on the effectiveness of unarmed vs armed, and the effectiveness of melee weapons compared to firearms. If you want to give gunblades some extra lovin because they look cool nobody's going to bitch.

[edit]Just read McCummhail's post and agree with his suggestions instead of mine.

[Screaming Eagle]

It is my understanding they were short lived historically for a reason - they were unweildly weapons easily bested by carring a pistol and a sword.
It is hard to make the gun accurate to any degree and hard to keep the sword balanced leading to the more common "dagger on a gun" rather then "small gun on a sword". Granted super alloys FROM THE FUTURE probably get past most of this there will still be the issue of accidental discharge in melee. Possibally while parrying, resulting in "fun wounds". I advise against shooting yourself in the foot during a sword fight: it is a bad idea.
And of course smart link can get past this too.... hmm, I'm warming to the idea. Don't get me wrong I find it a bit too anime/steampunk for my games but its not as far a stretch as I was thinking. I can see a Sami with a love of history and a bit a metalurgy trying a few things out. I've (and I assume most people here) have seen weirder.

Hmm...

Probably assign either a penalty to both uses of the weapon, - 2 dice feels about right, or make it a "exotic weapon" skill flat out. I'd favour the exotic skill for ease of play, too bad we ditched those skill defaulting trees from first ed. eh? (*slaps self in the face repeatedly*)

I don't know the rules for "shooting in melee" but most of the shooting while swinging/stabbing stuff could probably be done with a few points tossed at martial arts and a GM who has an open mind on the matter. Please note that firing will most likely decrease the impact of your sword blow as per: the laws of physics. Of course this doesn't really matter if you just cut him in half with a flachette burst. Fun times.

[McCummhail]

Everyone knows that GUNLANCES
are far better than GUNBLADES.

Gunlances are more feasible (bayonets prove this point)
and it makes dislodging your weapon that much easier!

Dispense with this puny gunblade nonsense and go for the gold!

@DamienKnight:
I am trying to figure out how the "Stabbing Shot" would actually bypass armor.
Aren't FFVIII gunblades designed with the gun effectively on the back the blade's tang?
For the stab shot to work in the manner you want, the barrel would have to be the tang. Is this the intention?

[DamienKnight]

Everyone knows that GUNLANCES
are far better than GUNBLADES.

Gunlances are more feasible (bayonets prove this point)
and it makes dislodging your weapon that much easier!

Dispense with this puny gunblade nonsense and go for the gold!

@DamienKnight:
I am trying to figure out how the "Stabbing Shot" would actually bypass armor.
Aren't FFVIII gunblades designed with the gun effectively on the back the blade's tang?
For the stab shot to work in the manner you want, the barrel would have to be the tang. Is this the intention?

Gunblades in FF do not actually shoot bullets. We are discussing a gun with the blade build as an underbarrel attachement, but which can follow special rules because the blade is directly touching the barrel.


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The stab shot would bypass armor because the user is not merely stabbing (that would not require a called shot) but stabbing with a slight downward pull, designed to cut armor slightly, making room for the shot, which is why the Stabbing shot imposes a -4 dice called shot penalty.

[McCummhail]

The stab shot would bypass armor because the user is not merely stabbing (that would not require a called shot) but stabbing with a slight downward pull, designed to cut armor slightly, making room for the shot, which is why the Stabbing shot imposes a -4 dice called shot penalty.

Thanks for the clarification.

I think that in this case, it would be best handled as a MA maneuver.
That is not something that could be easily reproduced without serious training.

If the barrel were in fact in the tang of the blade, you could just stab and shoot, which is much, much simpler, but opens up a whole new can of worms in regards to issues (such as stabbing too deep and rendering the bullet ineffectual, muzzle interfering with the stabbing point construction, etc).

[Kerenshara]

The stab shot would bypass armor because the user is not merely stabbing (that would not require a called shot) but stabbing with a slight downward pull, designed to cut armor slightly, making room for the shot, which is why the Stabbing shot imposes a -4 dice called shot penalty.

OK, you lost me right here.

Kevlar (now almost 40 years old) has a tensile strength considerably higher than steel. The reason soft armors are vulnerable to knives has nothing to do with any "weakness" of the material and everything to do with how that material is ASSEMBLED. It's a weave. That means that anything with a sufficiently sharp point is going to penetrate the armor and ease your way in as many of the threads part around the object. Yes, you WILL wind up cutting some fibers, but you've completely eliminated over 50% of the vest's strength - that part which derived from the threads parallel to the blade. But if you're swinging the blade, you're not just "cutting", because a lot of your damage is coming from the impact of the weapon itself. The traditional katana is somewhat unique compared to more typical Western weapons. Even curved horse-blades (scimitar and saber) are cutting more after the impact. I don't see that you're going to meaninfully defeat the armor with a swing such that the gun is helping in any real way.

[Digital Heroin]

The rules I presented do not seem broken. Could you elaborate on the power issues you are seeing?

Lets stat it out for an example.

[ Spoiler ]

Blade part is +1 reach, one or two handed, uses blades skill, can specialize in GunBlade.
Damage as a sword, or as a mono sword for the mono version.

Gun part is simply a heavy pistol. For our example we will use 5DV -1AP.

Taking a character with a smartlink, 4 agility and 4 skill in both Blades and Exotic Ranged - Gunblade.
Attacking a security guard with a vest 6/4, who is weilding a baton in defense, with 3 agility and 3 clubs (well trained.)

Assuming our dastardly character is looking to kill the Guard, he will be using Regular Ammo (Explosive could damage his blade, a balancing factor).

Our hero attacks with a Slicing Shot. He rolls his Agility + skill = 8 dice, getting 3 successes (just above average).

The guard defense with 6 dice, and gets 2 successes. That is 1 net success for our gunblading hero. The slice works, and the guard must resist 4DV +1 success from the blade = 5 DV. with -1 AP, the guard rolls 3 body plus 3 armor, with 2 successes. The guard takes 3 points of damage and his armor degrades 1 point, now it is 5/3

Now the hero pulls the trigger mid swing. Does he pull it at the right time? He rolls his gunblade skill of 4, with +1 die because his melee attack had +1 success. He does not add agility to the dice because agility has already been factored in to the shot, and the gun follows the path of the blade, so the shot cannot hit anywhere the blade didn't swing. Also this is a shot in melee, with is a -2 penalty. If it was a really good swing, it could potentially be a very good shot.

Rolling his 3 dice, our hero gets 1 success. The guard rolls reaction (-1 because he already tried to dodge the blade) with 2 dice and gets no successes. The shot does Heavy Pistols 5DV +1 success -1AP, guard rolls body of 3 + ballistic armor(5) - 1AP = 7 dice. He again gets 2 successes, and takes 4 damage.

If our hero decided to instead use a normal Heavy Pistol with High Explosive rounds (because of no blade to worry about) using a smartlink, it wouldve gone more like:
4+4+2 = 10 dice, 3 successes. Defender dodges with 3 reaction, 1 success. Has to resist 7 DV with 5 armor.
Second shot = 10 dice, 3 successes. Defender doges with 2 reaction, no successes. Has to resist 8 DV with 4 armor.

Clearly the gunblade is not more powerful, it just provides a flashy alternative to gunning your opponents down.

I have a twofold issue with this:

1. While you aren't applying Agility to both attacks, there is no splitting of dice pools involved, yet the wielder receives an action above and beyond the melee attack, when the action is beyond complex (given you're thinking both of hitting a vulnerable spot with a melee attack, which is a complex action itself, and of pulling the trigger at the right time).

Given your example by the existing rules for split actions, the character would receive only four dice on the initial attack, and five on the second (factoring in Shot in Melee, his Smartlink, and the bonus from his melee). By your proposed rules he receives twice the number of dice for his melee attack (as he doesn't have to split), and the same number for the pistol shot (the Smartlink wasn't factored in).

2. While there is a risk involved in your rules as proposed in becoming less accurate with the shot because of a bad swing, the opposite really needs to be examined. With these rules an excellent swordsman could reap benefit which would elevate even abysmal pistol skills. While risk/reward is all part of the game, this creates a lot of munch potential which may not have been intended at all. The weight is on melee, and it isn't unreasonable to make an Adept build, max out Blades (Gunblade) for 8 dice, add a couple of points of Improved Ability: Blades (Edged Weapons) for an easy ten dice, then buy Exotic Ranged Weapon (Gunblade) at one.

With an Agility of four you would be throwing 14 dice on the melee and half the time you'll be rolling five or more hits, which would elevate that meager 1 die (as the Smartlink contact lenses and Shot in Melee balance one another) to 6 dice half of the time.

Yes, you could be running into a monster gymnast who dodges and makes your rolls look feeble, but you wouldn't be hitting him half the time anyway.

I think the overwhelming issue I have (which both of the above factor into), as it stands, is you're getting something (in the form of actions and dice) for something unwieldy at best. The akward grip and focus on keeping your finger on the trigger have already been mentioned. If gunblades existed as proposed, I'd be running Gunblade-Fu Adepts all the time, because frankly I didn't go as broken as I could have with my example.

You can already make multiple attacks in one action by splitting dice pools.
Dual wielding pistols or dual wielding melee weapons already exists.
In this case you would be effectively dual-wielding a ranged and melee weapon together.

If this were a matter of splitting dice pools, I wouldn't have an issue with it at all, but the provided example and proposed rules, for the reasons I gave above, don't satisfy or come close to those rules.

[TBRMInsanity]

Actually, to be much more precise, it turned your rifle into a simple pike. Rifle formations were derived from pike formations, and basic rifle and marching drill are nearly identical to similar parts of pike drill. It's a fine point, but I figured it might interest some people.

I figured it was something like that. The first rifles had very slow fire rates and didn't work when wet. I would imagine being able to use your firearm as a pike would be handy (as most soldiers in that day would have been first trained in pike warfare). As the firearm evolved the pike side became less important as the firearm side became more reliable and deadly.

[McAllister]

First point; don't put a goddamn trigger on your fraggin gunblade, build that slotter triggerless and use your bleeding PAN to activate the thing.

Second point; With a semi-automatic gun, one can attack twice, using one weapons, with two full dice pools. The slash'n'shoot attacks twice, but the second pool is pretty gimped, because instead of applying Agility, you're applying net hits and eating a penalty for firing in combat besides. I see it as a very expensive step towards equalizing melee with ranged, I never did understand why melee is a complex action.

Third point; I don't like the stab'n'shoot bypassing armor; particularly, I don't like the idea that the maneuver requires you to stab'n'cut a hole into which you then shoot. And besides, if you're looking to bypass the armor of some trog you just stabbed, coat your blade with a neurotoxin.

[Snow_Fox]

RL people have tried gun blades over the centuries and anything more than a bayonet is a mess making the weapon too darn unweildy, that's why they never stick. It looks cool for the nasty threatening toy, but it is fraught wityh problems for use, not the least of which is-holster.

[TBRMInsanity]

I think a more reliable pistol melee weapon would be hardened grips on a pare of pistols to make them into more effective clubs (like in Equilibrium). You would need a very simple firing mechanism in the firearm though as using it as a melee weapon does put stress on the weapon.

[McCummhail]

Gunlance
Lance: Reach 2 Damage (STR/2)+2 AP 0
Gun: Damage 6P AP –2 Mode SS RC -1 Ammo 6(cy) Range: as Hvy Pistol
Special: 2-handed, due to bulk, 'untrained' users suffer -1 dp to attacks,
Both gun and lance may be used in tandem in melee by splitting your dice pool as per multiple target rules (SR4A, p.158).
(Melee stats reflect spear, Ranged stats reflect Warhawk with weighted barrel)

Gunlance Maneuvers: (must be learned as MA maneuvers)
Stick'n'Shot:
The practitioner of this technique uses a stab to pin an opponent in place for subsequent fire.
Net successes on the Lance melee attack impose a dice pool penalty to defense tests against subsequent gun attacks in the same round.

etc.

I doubt that the one handed use as in the picture is possible in anything other than an anime/wuxia style game, so I made it a 2-handed apparatus. I think this is more feasible than a gunblade.