Effort Types of Different Weapons in Warp Shell

question
#1

Hello everyone! I’ve been interested in trying to run solo sci-fi lately using ICRPG (Starfinder is very intimidating), and I’m unsure if the Pulse Rifle, Particle Cannon, Blaster, and Chem Rail use magic/energy effort or if they use gun effort. On a different note, when something (like the Ion Grenade Sling or the Great Sword in Alfhiem) says to do ultimate damage, do you roll Effort (I presume magic/energy in the ion grenade case and weapons in the Great Sword case) + Ultimate or just Ultimate? Thank you!

#2

It’s up to you to decide. The important thing is to remain consistent.

#3

I usually rule that the blaster and blast rifle do a standard D8 gun damage, while a particle canon, pulse rifle, and Chemrail that use power/energy cells do D10 magic/energy damage. But feel free to make it your own.

If the ion grenade does Ultimate damage, simply roll a D12 when it explodes. You’d only get D12 plus D12 if the roll to throw the grenade close (using Dex) is a crit. However, if you throw all six, then you’d roll 6D12! Hope that helps!!!

#4

That’s true! Thank you!

#5

Those types make sense! Also, thank you for explaining ultimate damage to me! I think it’s a cool possibility that you can explode them all at the same time and do that much damage. As a side note, If you weren’t throwing a grenade, and just placing it and running away, would you still roll, perhaps just to see if you get a critical?

#6

Absolutely. I might rule that no roll is required in that moment of the fiction — placing it and running away — but for sure the player could roll to see if the explosion is a crit. On the other hand, in a more stressful situation, I might call for the player to roll to see if the grenade can be placed precisely, or rigged into a trap, as the enemies are bearing down.

Do what makes sense at you table and in the moment of the fiction. ICRPG is a great toolkit in terms of your DM toolbox.

#7

When it’s not mentioned I do GUN damage. For a weapon doing ULTIMATE damage, I roll 1d12, and 2d12 if he CRIT

Hey man your the GM, you never do wrong :joy:

#9

Thank you for that advice! It’s cool that ICRPG is very flexible.

#10

NOTE: Reposted because forgot to reply
That might work well! It might be nice to be able to expand into loot that does more damage later on. Ultimate damage like that makes sense. Thank you! Would you add your Ultimate bonus to that roll though?

#11

Ultimate effort can be as base damage if mentioned, or be add to a roll when Crit.

Buy feel free to do it your way
After doing some games you will take the beat, and that will become more natural.

#12

I’m sorry, I miscommunicated. Since when you make a character, you can put points to boost your Ultimate effort, when you deal ultimate damage, do you add your ultimate bonus, or a different one? As an example, if I have +1 Ultimate effort and +2 Weapon effort, and I use a Great Sword, which one would I add?

#13

Different GMs apply different answers to this. I, for absolute clarity, land on applying the bonus of the effort type being rolled. Others will say “weapon” if it’s a weapon, or pick the best.

#14

Thank you! I’ll have to think about which one I do, though I’m leaning towards pick the best since it’s more of a compromise.

#15

For my part I use the bonus related to the die. If I use a 1d8 effort (WEAPONS & TOOL) a take is bonus. But If a use a weapon that do ENERGY DMG (the D10) I use the D10 bonus. And if I have bonus in WEAPON and ULTIMATE effort and I do a Crit I use both dice AND bonus

I wish a explain it well :blush:
Happy to help

#16

That makes sense! I might do it that way then.Thank you!

#17

I started playing using a somewhat hacked Warp Shell and have been agonizing over whether to use ENERGY or GUN effort for sci-fi weapons. My first instinct was to just use GUN as its obvious, but the “plasma” weapons in the Sci-Fi loot table of the master edition were “magical”, which I thought referred to ENERGY so I started to tinker with this more.
This is my current system:

  • ULTIMATE = Big explosives
  • ENERGY = Pulse, Particle, Plasma, Laser, Ion, EMP, Electricity
  • WEAPON = melee weapons without energy properties
  • GUN = Everything else like blasters, blast rifles and chainguns

This has worked for me so far, but things like the Chem Rail doing “another” GUN damage die makes me rethink that Ion should be GUN instead of ENERGY. But then again the bandolier grenades are Ion grenades and they do ULTIMATE. :dizzy_face: