I had an idea, inspired by both this thread and a Spiderman novel that I read once:

Alright, so the runners are hired to go and "liberate" a prototype from an Ares research lab; the prototype is a weapon that looks like a bazooka with a glandular problem and is a prototype energy weapon that has several settings next to the battery gauge: Standard, Pencil-cutter, Heavy Blast, Street Sweeper, and the final setting: Leave No Evidence.

The battery has 50 charges, and if the runners decide that they want to fire the weapon:
The Standard setting is an energy blast that acts like a normal shot: it does 8P damage and has a AP of half-Impact armor; it takes one charge from the battery.

The Pencil-cutter is a thin energy beam that, while somewhat difficult to use in combat, can cut through barriers with great ease, doing 30P damage per meter section of the barrier every combat turn to a barrier, which means that a 2-1/2 meter troll could cut himself a doorway in concrete in about half a minute. It takes 1 charge every 2 combat turns.

The Heavy Blast is an overpowered Standard Blast; it takes 2 charges from the battery and does 18P damage and takes two combat turns to charge.

The Streetsweeper is the shotgun mode for the gun, and does 6P damage to any targets within 5 meters of each other at 20 meters. It takes 2 charges and 2 combat turns to charge.

Leave No Evidence combines the power of the pencil-cutter with the blast of the Heavy Blast and the area of the Street Sweeper: it does 40P damage to anything caught within the blast area--a 35 degree cone--and takes 20 charges and 4 combat turns to fully charge. Additionally, the character must roll 1d6: on a roll of 1 or 6, the gun has fried itself and the internal components have fused, rendering the gun useless. Johnson will not be happy.


~*~

Whaddaya think? BTW, the Spidy book in question was the Time's Arrow trilogy from a few years back; supposedly the gun could "shoot through a '57 Chevy lengthwise".

OKay so you have a BFG. And.....?

It was an idea--one that I can't use at the moment--for a run against Ares; steal the prototype BFG and, if they decide to see what "Leave No Evidence" does... ^_^ well, they have that available.

Besides, as a BFG, it looks like it would be a nice toy... and, if I ever do get around to doing a run with this, I would definitely make the security sufficient to the point where they would have to use it to escape.

Plus, I had to get the idea out of my head before I went even more nuts than I already am, and some critique on the BFG would let me know if the rise in my II (Insanity Index) was worth it.

So? Critiques on the BFG and the potential run set around it?

My players are currently having problems with street gangs arming themselves with "toastmasters" from a mysterious supplier. The idea is ripped off from the Superman comics, just after his death.

Pencil-cutter needs a better name. Sculptor, chisel, blowtorch; all better names IMO. You also need to add more crunch to this setting because right now it looks like the best option for anything - 30P for half a charge? How exactly is it hard to use in combat?

Range.

Seriously. The pencil cutter sounds very much like a cutting beam and should have a very limited range, say 1-5 meters.

yea, it becomes a very good close combat weapon though.

personally it seems too high tech for the setting.

I found a weapon in a list of 1001 scifi weapons that I thought was perfect. Basically it is a dispossible gun that was effectively a sheild around your hand, and a stack of claymores. They have no aimming to them. They are just a type of scattergun. You threw them away after one use (it alll went off together). Everything in front was shredded.

You would give these to gangers. Those that survived their first few fights were given something better that could actually reload. They were designed with third world countries militia armies in mind. Why give a reusable valuable gun to somebody that isn't probably going to survive anyway?