What Are Your Thoughts on Cinder Rifles?

[D'Panthra]

So last night, cinder rifles (From Fire Starters, Dawn of Flame Book 1, AP 13) unsurprisingly came up as a topic of discussion. Specifically the fact that Cinder Rifles are One-Handed Longarms. This of course opens up some interesting options when you factor in weapon specialization and they now become comparable to small arms for the purpose of free-hand utilization.

Some direct comparisons:
I am using base damage and damage type as the point of comparison to keep it as close to apples to apples as possible.

The base model cinder rifle is a 1d8 projectile longarm, the closest comparison in the CRB is the Hunting Rifle.

Hunting Rifle:
Lvl 1, 240 cr, 1d8 P, 90 ft, no crit, 6 rounds, 1 use, 1 bulk, analog

Truth-Sequence Cinder Rifle
Lvl 2, 700 cr, 1d8 P, 60 ft, Burn 1d4, 10 rounds, 1 use, 2 bulk, no special

So in this case, the two-handed rifle is one level lower, costs 66% less, shoots 50% farther, has the same base damage, holds 40% less ammo and has half the weight.

Comparitively, the one-handed rifle is one level higher, costs 190% more, has 33% less range, has the same base damage, holds 67% more ammo and weights twice as much.

The differences appear to be on a reasonable scale at this level, so the question in my mind becomes, how much of an advantage, if any, is there to wielding a longarm with one hand?

A couple of things stand out to me.
The most obvious being the ability to threaten a square with a melee weapon while wielding and firing a longarm rather than a small arm. This doesn't mean you maintain a position in melee, but you can reduce safe paths of travel for NPCs if you stay at ranged. You can also have a longarm at the ready if you do melee, but the NPC retreats. No move action to draw and free action to drop your melee weapon, just so that you can fire at it.

The second thing that comes to mind is grappling/pinning. Between NPCs that grab and PCs that specialize in grappling (yes, the vocal majority on the forums seems to think this is difficult, but that is not what I have observed in 94 tables of GMing) this can change things. The grappler/pinner does not gain the grappled/pinned condition and only requires one hand. When you grapple/pin somebody, your opponent has the grappled/pinned condition until the end of your next turn unless they reverse or break the grapple/pin. This means that they are still grappled/pinned when you start and act on your next turn. You can do this with a longarm in hand that you can fire directly at them. They can't take an AoO on you, they take minuses against your whole party for that round and now you get a sweet shot at them. If they are flanked, you can full round them with a -4 to their AC vs your -4 to attacks, not accounting for any possible harrying fire, get 'em, wisp apply are anything else that might make this even easier.

What are your thoughts on one-handed longarms?

[BigNorseWolf]

Threatening: You can already do this with a bayonette

[HammerJack]

Additionally, flanking will not provide any benefit to rifle shots.

What you can do with a 1 handed rifle that you can't do with a bayonet is threaten with a reach weapon.

The other obvious reason you would want a free hand (besides using your weapon while holding onto a ladder, or other situation specific actions), would be to use a shield, if you're using COM plates material or some 3rd party/homebrew version, in your game.

[BigNorseWolf]

HammerJack wrote:

What you can do with a 1 handed rifle that you can't do with a bayonet is threaten with a reach weapon.
.

A taclash ?

[HammerJack]

Or a plasma lash, disintegrator lash, or neural lash, yes.

[Nerdy Canuck]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

HammerJack wrote:

What you can do with a 1 handed rifle that you can't do with a bayonet is threaten with a reach weapon.
.

A taclash ?

Can't use it with a two-handed longarm without a third hand - bayonet brackets specifically forbid Reach.

[Garretmander]

Are we sure the cinder rifles being one handed isn't a typo? I'd think there would be mention of something that strange in the weapon's description.

Edit: Especially since:

Longarms wrote:

Longarms are handheld, long-ranged weapons that must be held

and operated with two hands.

I don't think a table's column header is a more specific rule than 'weapon type: longarms'.

[Xenocrat]

I always thought it was an error, and the cost difference was just for the usually overvalued crit effect. The point of Saranrae inspired weapons is the fire damage, there’s zero reason thematically they would also be one handed.

[Pogiforce]

I feel like the crit effect would not be justified by the increased weight, cost, ilvl, and reduced range compared to similar weapons.its damage is the same, and it's worse in virtually every other way. There are small arms And grenades that are comparable to the crit effect in the same level range.

At that point if the gun wasn't one handed, there would be zero appeal as a player short of "OMG Sarenrae!!!" *spoons the gun at night, paints sarenrae's face on it*...

[Xenocrat]

It wouldn’t be justified, but it would be very on brand for Starfinder.

[Garretmander]

Pogiforce wrote:

I feel like the crit effect would not be justified by the increased weight, cost, ilvl, and reduced range compared to similar weapons.its damage is the same, and it's worse in virtually every other way. There are small arms And grenades that are comparable to the crit effect in the same level range.

At that point if the gun wasn't one handed, there would be zero appeal as a player short of "OMG Sarenrae!!!" *spoons the gun at night, paints sarenrae's face on it*...

I think you underestimate how much the system overestimates the value of crit effects.

The level 7 version has less range than the seeker rifle, but has nearly twice the magazine and a crit effect (I agree crit effects are less than stellar, but they add a disproportionate cost to weapons with them)

The level 11 version is a bit more expensive than the level 10 combat rifle, but it now has nearly the same range in addition to the crit effect and larger magazine. That's to be expected.

The level 15 version is quite a lot more expensive than the level 14 seeker rifle, and it's advantage in magazine size has mostly gone away. However, compare it to the level 15 gyrojet rifle (which has a crit effect) and it's noticably cheaper. It does about five less damage on average, and has a worse crit, but it is cheaper.

So, typically, a cinder rifle is an expensive way to get a few more shots and a burn crit. It's not going to be worth buying. Just like a lot of guns.

Now... if it's a one-handed longarm? It does a heck of a lot more. For a two armed race, it's a lot like buying a cybernetic arm. 24,750 Cr, and a minimum level of nine before anyone is willing to sell you one. eleven if you want to craft one. Only the level fifteen version is that much more expensive than the crit-less projectile equivalent.

Not to mention this would four armed races wield a long arm, a two handed melee weapon and a shield for free by level two...

No, I'm going to say there is no way in hell this isn't a typo.

[BigNorseWolf]

From the description here i thought they were supposed to be a mares leg

[Ravingdork]

Adding a bayonet on there so you can stab, shoot, AND manipulate things with a free hand without needing to play a multiarmed alien is pretty boss!

[Paranoid Android]

Just saw this thread, and I am the author of this section of the AP volume on Sarenrae and am pretty sure this was just a header-error marking the longarm as one-handed. I wanted to make some weapons that weren't currently in Starfinder that felt Sun-worship-worthy, and I hope you all enjoy them!

[Zwordsman]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

From the description here i thought they were supposed to be a mares leg

Honestly I would probably love that. Adding in some one handed Mares Leg kind of weapon. Mainly so folks who have to have one handed for abilities (Mechanics who don't have their thingy in their head, using it for abilities like amplfied glitch, or commanding a droid).

Or a biohacker who uses it, so they can pull an injection revolver when needed.

its just thematically very cool.
I would however expect less dice, less ammo for something that did that intentionally.
This is totally a good design space I think. Although there is that double barrel small arms that is basically a sawed off shotgun like thing (although I can't quite figure out how to use it effectively)

So it was a header mistake it sounds like.
Though until it gets corrected I suspect people will enjoy it!