Not only can nukes not take out your average wall in one shot, but I just realized today that my azimuth artillery laser can't even take out a freaking lightbulb with max damage at low levels!
Light fixtures in Starfinder have hardness 3 and 10 hit points. At low levels your basic artillery laser caps at 10 damage and only ignores 1 hardness.
You need two accurate shots to take out a lightbulb...with a heavy weapon.
Strange galaxy.
What other strange incongruities have you noticed in Starfinder?
But it isn't an ordinary light bulb, it's a space light bulb!
But in all seriousness it is future or magic tech. It would make sense that it would be more durable. They are not even made of glass but a substance with glass like properties made from upbs.
Yeah had similar problems with a airlock last session. My players found an abandon ship and wanted to check it out. The airlocks were closed and power of. So one of them tryed to cut the airlock open with his laser weapon - problem an normal airlock has 160 hp and a hardness of 35...
I finally said they burn two batteries but then they managed to cut the locking mechanism. ;)
By-the-way the "normal" Starship bulkhead has 2400 hp & 35 hardness oO
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The “Artillery Laser” subgroup of weapons are phenomenally misnamed. The meaning has changed overtime, there are also pedantic nuances between British and American English and some technical distinctions between military branches, but the modern usage in all cases pretty much agrees on one major point: artillery are not a small arms. (Which is another thing that bugs me: longarms [e.g., rifles] are one type of small arm; Starfinder uses the term “small arm” for what should be called sidearms.)
Artillery are things like canon, howitzers, mortars, rockets... Again, professionals will quibble about whether or not a particular weapon system is artillery or not, but no one ever would count a rifle as artillery.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The “Artillery Laser” subgroup of weapons are phenomenally misnamed. The meaning has changed overtime, there are also pedantic nuances between British and American English and some technical distinctions between military branches, but the modern usage in all cases pretty much agrees on one major point: artillery are not a small arms. (Which is another thing that bugs me: longarms [e.g., rifles] are one type of small arm; Starfinder uses the term “small arm” for what should be called sidearms.)
Artillery are things like canon, howitzers, mortars, rockets... Again, professionals will quibble about whether or not a particular weapon system is artillery or not, but no one ever would count a rifle as artillery.
Naming conventions are weird. You're assuming the artillery laser is being described as artillery, but you know how humans are. They'd name a laser that if its job was taking out artillery. If artillery lasers weren't awful at that, it would even be reasonable to do so.
You're definitely right about the sidearms issue. I had a hilarious conversation in-game two sessions ago as my Skittermander spent half an hour trying to get the quartermaster to issue him a "sidearm" - she had no idea what that word meant and kept bringing him more and more powerful weapons in confusion. He eventually stormed out when she brought him a black hole grenade.
Artillery are things like canon, howitzers, mortars, rockets... Again, professionals will quibble about whether or not a particular weapon system is artillery or not, but no one ever would count a rifle as artillery.
But isn't that why the artillery laser is categorized under heavy weapons and not long arms? This is the same category that has cannons, missile launchers, and other massive weapons.
Anyway, I would assume, considering its statistics, that the light fixture is more than an every day lightbulb and is probably intended to be modeled as something more massive.
I always felt like objects in this game have too much health, for the most part. So I like to apply this rule whenever I want something of this situation to make more sense.
Certain attacks are especially strong against some objects. In such cases, attacks deal double their normal damage and might ignore the object’s hardness
Nukes can knock walls down 3ft. thick walls and 1st level artillery lasers can destroy light fixtures more easily now :D
|
|
But isn't that why the artillery laser is categorized under heavy weapons and not long arms? This is the same category that has cannons, missile launchers, and other massive weapons.
That's not much of a help, since the game's Heavy Weapon category is a mish-mosh of man-potable weapons, crew-served weapon systems, and all sorts of other things. Most of which only Bulk 2, putting them in the same approximate size/weight class as rifles and shotguns.
The "Artillery Lasers" seem to be more akin to a light machine gun or squad automatic weapon than any kind of artillery. Something with more dakka than the rifles issued to the rest of the squad, but not so heavy as to require multiple men to crew it.
It's probably easiest just to think of the weapon classifications as being nothing other than pure game mechanics. Otherwise, you'll go mad.
But isn't that why the artillery laser is categorized under heavy weapons and not long arms? This is the same category that has cannons, missile launchers, and other massive weapons.That's not much of a help, since the game's Heavy Weapon category is a mish-mosh of man-potable weapons, crew-served weapon systems, and all sorts of other things. Most of which only Bulk 2, putting them in the same approximate size/weight class as rifles and shotguns.
The "Artillery Lasers" seem to be more akin to a light machine gun or squad automatic weapon than any kind of artillery. Something with more dakka than the rifles issued to the rest of the squad, but not so heavy as to require multiple men to crew it.
It's probably easiest just to think of the weapon classifications as being nothing other than pure game mechanics. Otherwise, you'll go mad.
Bulk, from what I remember, is really an arbitrary amount of weight or "10 pounds," and going off of the pictures in the book, even the 2d10 light machine gun is actually a 6 barrel gatling gun. Heavy weapons are intended, according to the game, to be modeled as massive military grade weapons, which is why they have strength requirements to effectively wield.
Plus, this is the same game where dreadnoughts can be 8,000 tons, so the idea of PCs comically wielding oversized cannon-like weapons isn't really a stretch.
|
|
Oh, I’m fully on-board with having the heroes running around with comically large guns and powered armor straight out of Rifts!
I’m just not going to bother worrying about how such things would be classified in real life.
The phrase “man portable” means something quite different when the Player Characters could be a Human, an Elf, a Vesk, an Ogre, and a Pixie.
Oh, I’m fully on-board with having the heroes running around with comically large guns and powered armor straight out of Rifts!
I’m just not going to bother worrying about how such things would be classified in real life.
The phrase “man portable” means something quite different when the Player Characters could be a Human, an Elf, a Vesk, an Ogre, and a Pixie.
Yeah, it wouldn't be worth applying real life classifications to Starfinder weapons, other than maybe what the game intends. Including the fact that weapon sizes are nearly meaningless outside of the CR, since a medium sized combatant array should have, more or less, the same damage values with ranged attacks compared to another equal leveled enemy, even if it's a 100' high warmachine with cannons the size of a large bus.
Not only can nukes not take out your average wall in one shot, but I just realized today that my azimuth artillery laser can't even take out a freaking lightbulb with max damage at low levels!
Light fixtures in Starfinder have hardness 3 and 10 hit points. At low levels your basic artillery laser caps at 10 damage and only ignores 1 hardness.
You need two accurate shots to take out a lightbulb...with a heavy weapon.
Strange galaxy.
What other strange incongruities have you noticed in Starfinder?
When you are building stuff that is surrounded by harsh vacuum building your walls and fixtures sturdy enough to prevent accidental breaching by some chuckle head with a basic infantry weapon may not be that unusual.
It's for reasons like this I'm building my own rules for destructible terrain and cover.
Feels silly that the wooden table you hide behind is more or less immune to the man portable anti-tank weapon your soldier carriers.
Hmm, maybe if a weapon's minimum damage beats the hardness of your cover, you don't have cover from that weapon.
I'm not going to add this myself, but it's fun to think about.
It doesn't matter where they're hiding behind the table.
IF YOU ERASE THE TABLE!!!!
*sounds of massive plasma cannon charging up*
Depends how you think of cover. In the case of being behind a table, or really any other solid object, I see the AC bonus as the opponent not knowing where to shoot to hit the target. It doesn't matter if your projectile can penetrate the table, if you still missed the hostile by 6 inches.
That's concealment, not cover. Your "cover" might still grant that even if you don't get an AC bonus.
If they made the penetrating property such that it could shoot through cover, that would have been interesting.
I actually wrote up some homebrew feats to improve penetrating weapon's ability to destroy cover. I'll see if I can dig up the link. :)
Edit: Here you go! :)
|
|
Cover grants an +4 AC bonus, it wouldn’t be hard to house rule that the Penetrating Weapon Property either halves or outright negates that... It will change the priorities of your characters – PC and NPC alike – when selecting weapons, but as long as everyone knows this rule is in pace it shouldn’t be too disruptive.
Strictly going by the rules as written, you need to reduce an object to 0 HP before it will stop providing cover and Penetrating does help in this regard. The Broken Condition doesn’t explicitly address what happens to an object being used as cover, however it does state that when armor is Broken “the bonuses it grants to AC are halved,” and if “the item is a tool or a piece of cybertech or biotech that provides a bonus to ability checks, saving throws, skill checks, or speed (including new movement speeds), those bonuses are halved, rounding down.” I think it’s safe to save that an object being used as cover should be treated the same way: with its AC bonus being reduced when it’s broken.
This reminds me of a book series where the power sources of the newly-developed aircraft turn out to be light fixtures from a previous, more magical civilisation. It starts here.
I’m still waiting for a table-top game that accurately models the Knziti Lesson: A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive.
I wouldn't count on it, since this either means:
1. PCs do not have access to starships
2. PCs do have access to planet busting weapons
:)
Well to be fair, if a nuke can't break a wall, then I'm pretty sure it would take an exploding star to bust a planet.
I honestly have a lot of gripes with the 3.5 way of handling objects.
Seeing it show up in every d20 iteration since is exasperating.
Never minding the apparent durability of your standard cardboard box. In this sort of setting the sheer variety of materials and there properties is absolutely staggering and this system has proven to me time and time again how woefully inadequate and often time consuming to represent.
Most object interactions come down to "dont bother" or "roll dice at it till the gm gives up".
Part of what i want to do with the rules for my game is imcentivize my players into think abou cover as more than line of sight.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I’m still waiting for a table-top game that accurately models the Knziti Lesson: A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive.
I wouldn't count on it, since this either means:
1. PCs do not have access to starships
2. PCs do have access to planet busting weapons
:)
This is why I hate settings where ships moving at FTL speeds (or significant fractions of c) are capable of interacting with the normal universe. I’ve done the math in the past and using it’s sublight engines, a bog-standard TIE/ln Fighter from Star Wars impacts at speed with kinetic energy the equivalent of the Nagasaki “Fat Man” bomb... Why bother building DeathStar doomsday weapons, just strap some engines onto a big rock.
Starfinder wisely avoids this. Interstellar travel is done via an alternate dimension using the same standard sublight engines you use in regular space, and the speed seems to max out at less than 1% of c.
A little late, but it turns out the Line quality pierces through objects if it beats the hardness of said object.
So yeah, if your weapon inflicts at least 36 damage and has enough range with the Line qualilty, you can shoot through a starship's bulk head, penetrate every wall, and pierce through the back of the ship; still able to hit a creature.
Hitpoints are defined by "per inch of thickness", and pieces of glass and metal that make up light fixtures (at least non-space ones) are not usually an inch thick.
I'm not aware of any rule that says "object less than an inch of thickness are treated as being 1 inch thick", but if there is, it's a dumb rule, because the same rule would also make it impossible to rip aluminum foil in half with your hands.
Hitpoints are defined by "per inch of thickness", and pieces of glass and metal that make up light fixtures (at least non-space ones) are not usually an inch thick.
I'm not aware of any rule that says "object less than an inch of thickness are treated as being 1 inch thick", but if there is, it's a dumb rule, because the same rule would also make it impossible to rip aluminum foil in half with your hands.
Glass has a hardness of 1 and 1 hit point per inch of thickness. The light fixture in no way seems to be modeled after a regular lightbulb, as it's probably a structure in its own right (like a street light).
Tin foil would probably have a non-existent item level, if even that much. It probably wouldn't even have hardness or hit points.