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You can try looking at the Pathfinder rules for Bayonets as a starting point. You can think of those rules as a legacy or president. I copied and pasted the Pathfinder entry below.
Bayonet: Bayonets are close combat weapons designed to fit into the grooves or muzzles of crossbows and firearms. They allow you to make melee attacks with these weapons but render them temporarily useless as ranged weapons. Attaching or removing a bayonet is a move action.
Weapon stats were a nightmare to copy from on my tiny touch screen phone so please forgive me not adding them here. I recall it did 1d6 damage. I would rule it a 2 handed weapon on a rifle and one handed on a pistol(I would knock it down to a d4 on a pistol), not sure sure how feasible a bayonet on a pistol is. Don't think I ever saw that anywhere but the Fallout and Boarderlands video games. But I do know some fencing swords use a pistol grip.
I was very surprised the Pathfinder version prevents the weapon from shooting. After a little research I discovered old bayonets from long ago did prevent rifles from from shooting. I found modern Bayonets do allow shooting while mounted but decrease accuracy and make the rifle more of a nuisance to handle. Almost all engagements in the modern world are between forces so far apart, where a bayonet is not needed that the nuisance of handling a mounted bayonet makes actually mounting them extremely rare. You might want to consider a mounted bayonet as increasing the weapons bulk by one to represent the nuisance of the extra length and weight of the weapon with a mounted bayonet. Even if you don't think the weight matters, that extra length seems to matter a lot. The increased bulk can represent the extra care needed to ensure not hurting yourself, allies and the environment.
I suspect melee combat will still be extremely common in StarFinder. An always or frequently mounted bayonet could be much more useful in StarFinder. I would still suggest applying a penalty to the attack roll. With no rifle experience of my own, I would not want to guess if it should be - 1 or - 2, I suspect less than the penalty for shooting fully automatic. You could argue that future weapons can easily account for extra barrel vibrations from a mounted bayonet and maybe eliminate such, perhaps require a swift action to switch setting between mounted and unmounted mode, similar to the safety switch or incorporate it into that safety switch. I wonder if a laser or plasma gun would still have issues?
Rules-wise, the existence of bayonets in the game is going to swing the game further in favor of rifles since without bayonets people with rifles cannot threaten attacks in melee without using actions to switch weapons.
Also, one of the main advantages of one-handed melee weapons (vs. 2-handed melee weapons) is the fact that you can hold a pistol in your off hand and thus have a way of attacking at both melee and at range.
As such, I would rules-wise suggest not having bayonets.
If you gotta have bayonets though, you need to include drawbacks:
1. I would have bayonets be relatively expensive and low-damage; take a slashing or piercing operative weapon as a base-line for damage (which includes weapon specialization adding only 1/2 your level to damage) and add 20% to the cost and level of the bayonet weapon.
2. The bayonet should decrease the range of the rifle it is attached to. Maybe a bayonet could decrease the by 30ft (up to a maximum decrease of 1/2 the long-arm"s normal range).
3. Bayonets require exotic weapon proficiency, but I'd maybe give the proficiency to soldier right out of the gate. (maybe you could just include bayonets with advanced melee weapons, though? I dunno).
Thanks for the input guys, good points to consider. While I was fishing around for ideas, I stumbled across a post from someone hinting at the existence of a bayonet weapon in the Dead Suns AP. I don't own it so I don't know the details but I'm thinking about picking it up now just to check out the rules for it.
It's an artifact, not very generalizable.
You can try looking at the Pathfinder rules for Bayonets as a starting point. You can think of those rules as a legacy or president. I copied and pasted the Pathfinder entry below.
Bayonet: Bayonets are close combat weapons designed to fit into the grooves or muzzles of crossbows and firearms. They allow you to make melee attacks with these weapons but render them temporarily useless as ranged weapons. Attaching or removing a bayonet is a move action.
Weapon stats were a nightmare to copy from on my tiny touch screen phone so please forgive me not adding them here. I recall it did 1d6 damage. I would rule it a 2 handed weapon on a rifle and one handed on a pistol(I would knock it down to a d4 on a pistol), not sure sure how feasible a bayonet on a pistol is. Don't think I ever saw that anywhere but the Fallout and Boarderlands video games. But I do know some fencing swords use a pistol grip.
I was very surprised the Pathfinder version prevents the weapon from shooting. After a little research I discovered old bayonets from long ago did prevent rifles from from shooting. I found modern Bayonets do allow shooting while mounted but decrease accuracy and make the rifle more of a nuisance to handle. Almost all engagements in the modern world are between forces so far apart, where a bayonet is not needed that the nuisance of handling a mounted bayonet makes actually mounting them extremely rare. You might want to consider a mounted bayonet as increasing the weapons bulk by one to represent the nuisance of the extra length and weight of the weapon with a mounted bayonet. Even if you don't think the weight matters, that extra length seems to matter a lot. The increased bulk can represent the extra care needed to ensure not hurting yourself, allies and the environment.
I suspect melee combat will still be extremely common in StarFinder. An always or frequently mounted bayonet could be much more useful in StarFinder. I would still suggest applying a penalty to the attack roll. With no rifle...
Prior to the invention of rotating cylinders for pistols, some of them were made with a blade attached. Some made in 1836 were Navy issue.
https://ancestryguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Antique-Gun-Firearm-Geo rge-Elgin-Cutlass-Pistol-Morrill-Mosman-and-Blair-Percussion-010-4000x2667. jpgIn keeping with the KISS principle, I'd just say that any projectile longarm can accept a bayonet, hitting with the bayonet is the same as a spear of appropriate level. Modern bayonets are not as heavy and unwieldy as those from the Renaissance, so I wouldn't give a penalty to hit with the longarm.
But, that's just me.
Based by the modern implementation (ring bayonet), rather than the Pathfinder implementation (plug bayonet), I'd go with the following:
Bayonet Mount
This weapon modification allows the attachment of a knife (survival knife, tactical knife, etc.) underneath the barrel of a longarm as a full-round action. While attached, the weapon can be fired as normal, but with a -2* penalty, or used for melee attacks (using normal damage for the attached knife). While attached, the knife loses the operative special property.
Level 2, Cost 400 cr
*- it throws off the balance more than you may expect
I'm not sure why I could have an integrated energy weapon blade (so it doesn't throw off the balance).
I mean, we have energy blade weapons already, seems like it'd be a perfect option to have on your longarm so that at the flip of a switch your gun stops firing bullets and instead a laser blade comes out of the barrel.
I would like to point out that no one has mentioned having penalties when wielding your longarm as a melee weapon. They are not designed to be used that way and adding a bayonet while making it capable does not make it as effective/weildy as a dedicated spear. I would expect that a longarm with a bayonet to have a pretty hefty penalty to melee attacks unless it was a specific weapon specially designed for that purpose.
There is a reason most modern militarys don't even issue bayonets. They aren't a very good option.
I would like to point out that no one has mentioned having penalties when wielding your longarm as a melee weapon. They are not designed to be used that way and adding a bayonet while making it capable does not make it as effective/weildy as a dedicated spear. I would expect that a longarm with a bayonet to have a pretty hefty penalty to melee attacks unless it was a specific weapon specially designed for that purpose.
There is a reason most modern militarys don't even issue bayonets. They aren't a very good option.
I may be mistaken, but if memory serves that's largely down to two reasons. The first is that melee engagements are quite rare in modern warfare (and as it turns out, they aren't nearly as rare in starfinder) and also that modern rifles are a lot shorter than muskets, and as such adding a knife to the end of the barrel just gives you a very unwieldy knife, instead of an awkward spear. That last bit might still very much be an issue in starfinder, becouse according to some folks who know fighting (I think I got this stuff off of Matt Easton at scholla gladiatoria on youtube). If you've got modern-day rifle sized weapons, its apparently considered better to just use the knife as-is and use the rifle as a parrying stick of some sort, on account of the short gun with the knife on not realy extending your reach beyond what you'd get out of a one-handed knife (holding anything two-handed reduces the reach you'd have with that weapon, and bayonetted rifles tend to be too unwieldy to reliably use one-handed)
I'd suggest taking this all with a hefty pinch of salt though, most of this is half-remembered stuff I got off of youtube vids.
What do you mean range is equal to original weapon?
Did you mean reach? There probably shouldn't be any reach one handed weapons allowed, because you're kind of giving too much to ranged combatants at that point. They would have a melee weapon to threaten, reach, and a ranged combat for when it's usually optimal without really having to choose.
Other than that I think it's pretty reasonable.
I don't believe there are currently any weapons that have reach that are 1 handed basic melee weapons, but that doesn't mean the possibility for there to be one in the future doesn't exist.
You should always future proof things so you don't get unexpectedly powerful results.
It's as simple as saying "Due to not being designed for use with reach weapons, any weapons attached are denied the reach quality (if present) due to unwieldiness."
From game balance POV, bayonets should give a penalty to fire the gun. Just penalties to melee attacks is mot enough. You could make no melee attacks ever, snd still be better with a bayonet compared to a normal gun (threat range, flanking, etc)
Bayonets don't make it harder to fire a gun in real life and they shouldn't in the game either. It would just be money. It's not that unbalanced either. Someone using a gun with a bayonet would still provoke for making a ranged attack, and someone in Starfinder with natural weapons or unarmed strike can still flank or provide flanking while using a gun even if they don't have a bayonet.
If you're really concerned about it, make "Bayonet Expert" a feat you have to take if you want to be able to flank and take opportunity attacks with your bayonet. I really don't think that's necessary though, and since that's something they should really be able to do anyway the feat should also do something else on top of that, like your ranged attacks not provoking from your target if you're shooting them from within their threatened area. (They would still of course provoke from allies of the target).
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There is a reason most modern militarys don't even issue bayonets. They aren't a very good option.
I'm unaware of any modern military that doesn't issue bayonets to its land combat branches as standard. Hell, plenty of modern militaries will also issue them to limited elements of their naval and air forces too. Knives are one of the most useful tools humanity has ever invented, soldiers need to do all sorts of things with knives. Your basic everyday tasks like cutting ropes or opening boxes, more unique utility tasks like blazing trails or digging up booby traps, and, yeah, occasionally you gotta stab someone.
The U.S. Army still issues the M9 Phrobis III bayonet as standard since the 1980s; the U.S. Marine Corps has issued the OKC-3S bayonet since 2003; the British Army and Corps of Royal Marines are both issued the British L3A1 bayonet; Germany issues the KCB-70 bayonet (and two others whose model numbers escape me) to the Bundeswehr Heer and Marine... and darn near every other nation in NATO uses one of the above, manufactured locally and issued under a different name.
The People's Republic of China, Russian Federation, and Islamic Republic of Iran all use some variation of the 6Kh5 bayonet developed for the AK-74, although plenty of rear echelon elements in these forces can still be found using honest-to-Mikhail AK-47s and the various bayonets that went with it.
The AK-47 is, as we all know, almost as common as sand in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Bayonets can be found as well, although I hesitate to call them "standard issue" since the fighting forces in these places are anything but standardized. But, really, its a knife with a ring welded onto it. It's not exactly high technology.
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Bayonets will probably always be a part of the fighting man's kit:
∙ Given: The soldier will always need to have some kind of longarm (ranged weapons let you Do Unto Others before he can do unto you, making them long aids in aiming, etc.);
∙ Given: The soldier will always going to have some kind of knife (even if its just a utility tool 99.999% of the time);
∙ Given: The soldier will always use mass produced equipment;
∙ Given: Designing a knife that can be readily attached to a rifle is beneath simple for any civilization that has basic machine tools;
∙ Assumption: It doesn't add anything significant to the cost.
∙ Assumption: Bayonets have a significant morale impact. They make the user feel more confident and they intimidate the enemy.
◦ Conclusion: Bayonets aren't ever going to disappear.