Availability codes are hugely inconsistent. Page 11 is illegal. On pages 12-15, almost everything's legal. On page 16, things start being illegal again. Things are consistently inconsistent throughout the entire weapons section.
I've been playing since 4th edition, and it's always been like that. Things are typically sorted per weapon category, and then alphabetically. You are complaining about something that's been that way for decades.
I might not have been clear about my complaint, which was not about alphabetizing lists.
I'll back up. I've been playing since 2E. The early editions (1E-3E) categorized weapons broadly. Small bladed weapon vs. large bladed weapon vs. blunt weapon vs. projectile vs. pistol vs. rifle vs. automatic, and so on. Very granular, like everything in the early editions.
4E and 5E simplified things into legal, restricted, and forbidden. The logic behind the categorization largely mirrored the 1E-3E logic. Small blades (knives) are legal. Large blades (swords, axes) are restricted. Tasers are legal. All pistols are restricted unless they have a silencer, in which case they're forbidden. One can quibble but I think the legalities are reasonably consistent.
6E makes some significant changes. I'll start with the core rulebook. Silencers went from being forbidden to completely legal. Melee weapons - large and small - are now all totally legal. Proudly carry that katana like it's Neo-Tokyo. (Monofilament whips are the exception.)
Hold-outs are now legal. A significant number of weapons went from being forbidden in 5E to Licensed (if that's the expression) in 6E, including weapons with grenade launchers (Ares Alpha, Yamaha Raiden) to machine guns (including RPG HMG)! 6E doesn't really draw the line at Illegal until you get to sniper rifles and assault cannons.
That's all in the core rulebook. Significant changes, but okay, new edition new rules. But now let's see if that logic follows through to
Firing Squad:
- Many melee weapons now need a License, including all Heritage melee weapons
- Some weapons which seem functionally identical (Cougar Collapsible Staff/Spear vs. Dassault Alpenstock) have different legalities
- The Colt Special Agent light pistol is legal and doesn't need a license
- Some HMGs are Licensed (like in the core book), some are now Illegal
- Arrows need a License but bows are legal (the reverse of the core book)
This is the inconsistency I'm talking about. Chandra is giving the writers the benefit of the doubt by saying, "The legality of the Heritage Line must be intentional." To me it suggests that different sections had different writers and that no single person (an editor, perhaps) read everything and considered it all together, and not just within
Firing Squad itself but also between the core rulebook and
Firing Squad.
There are a bunch of "Exotic" weapons that look normal. Combat Boots, Tonfa, Tactical Gladius, Urban Tomahawk, ... I think its done so someone with Exotic Weapons wouldn't have to pick up the Close Combat skill to have a Unarmed/Knife/Sword/Club/Axe option. Just a guess.
An interesting thought. My counter-argument would be that Exotic Weapons are not defaultable, so you can't use them untrained. The rule book's description of the skill is, "Some weapons are not like any other, and you need particular training to use them." None of that logic seems to apply to Hobbes' excellent list, which includes footwear, a club, a sword, and a hatchet. I think the Exotic skill is being assigned much too frequently and should be reserved for entanglement weapons (whips, chains) and the real oddballs (like the Charybdis or, presumably, the Scylla, which currently has a weapon type of 'Scylla').