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Anyone got advice on a good gun class for a mage?

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SlowDeck

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« Reply #15 on: <04-30-14/1336:47> »
Grenade launchers are good...
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Xenon

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« Reply #16 on: <04-30-14/1352:04> »
Grenade launchers are good...
You need to invest into heavy weapon skill for that
And they are not very... subtle.

SlowDeck

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« Reply #17 on: <04-30-14/1356:12> »
Eh. My philosophy is that if you have to shoot someone and you're the mage, then things have probably reached the point where subtle is no longer an option. And bombarding guards with flashbangs when they're trying to chase you does a lot for potentially letting you get away.
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #18 on: <04-30-14/1403:18> »
You do NOT want to fire grenade launchers if your dicepool is bad. The scatter is big enough that likely you'll kill one of your teammates.
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Achsin

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« Reply #19 on: <04-30-14/1415:32> »
For Pistols or Longarms(shotguns) the issue for your character will probably be more about concealability vs stopping power than accuracy.

With your Agility 2 and skill 4 you're not very likely to hit the accuracy limit on even the most inaccurate shotgun very often (you can even throw on a Laser Sight if you feel you need to) so the added accuracy of the pistol isn't going to make a difference, but the loss of stopping power will. It might be worth looking into using a Burst Fire capable shotgun. With just a Shock Pad you are able to fire a single 3 round burst without recoil, which with flechette ammo is going to impose at least a -3 penalty to their dodge pool (you can go up to -10 with a "long burst" and wide setting, though you might want some extra recoil compensators) you'll have a fairly good chance of hitting them. Especially when you throw in 2 Take Aim actions to reset the recoil. Being able to switch over to a Sniper/Sporting Rifle can also be useful on occasion (especially if your targets don't know that you are shooting them).

As far as pistols go, if you only have rank 2 then you're going to have a hard time hitting things. You could go exclusively for tasers both for their legality and the fact that they should only require a touch attack to hit, so +2 dice and success on a tie, which will help you out a bit. If you decide to pick up Pistols instead of Longarms because of the concealability (and bump the rank up to 4 or whatever) you'll still have a hard time hitting things. Hold-Outs have the same damage code and range as a Light pistol, with more concealability in exchange for a much smaller magazine size (which might make a difference) and lower accuracy (which as mentioned earlier doesn't make much of a difference for you, or get a gun with an internal smartlink as you can't throw on a Laser Sight) so I'd recommend picking Hold-Outs over the Light Pistols and carrying one all the time (though again, the Taser will likely help you hold your own better in combat). The Heavy Pistols have better range, capacity, damage and AP than the Hold-Outs but are much less concealable so you might want one of them as well for when you want to go "all out" in combat (or one of the BF capable pistols).

I agree with ve4grm that with your strength score, unarmed combat is next to pointless without shock gloves or touch spells. Unless you are routinely put into situations where the +4 dice that you can get from blocking is useful. 2 or 3P damage when you manage to land a blow with 6 dice isn't going to do much for you. 8S(e) or spell effects that either negate a decent portion of armor or ignore it completely with 8 dice (and success on tie) attacks are more likely to accomplish something useful. I don't think that you would gain enough from switching to blades to make it worth it, though clubs could be useful with the stun weapons for the same reasons as the shock gloves.

Throwing weapons or Bows are pretty useless for you, they will do much less damage than even the weakest Hold-out and (in the case of throwing weapons) have worse range than a Taser (14m vs 20). Crossbows could also be useful but unless you are going for them because of flavor reasons they don't have much going for them over the other options.

Getting Automatics as everyone pointed out will give you a wide range of weapons for use in every situation, though they will be harder to conceal than the pistols (Even with a Lined Coat it isn't that hard to spot a Machine Pistol, assuming that the guard has Intuition 3 and Perception 3 he should be able to do it almost every time unless someone is actively hiding it, and at 1 die to work with isn't going to do much for you) and could lose some damage potential compared to longarms.