EL-16HFE BLASTER RIFLE



Model: BlasTech Industries EL-16HFE Blaster Rifle
Type: Blaster rifle
Scale: Character
Skill: Blasters: blaster rifle
Ammo: 100
Cost: 1,550 (power packs: 25)
-Burst Fire Mode: 500
-Light Stock: 200
-Barrel Extension: 400
-Aftermarket Scope: 300
Availability: 1, X
Fire Rate: 1
Range: 3-30/100/300m
Damage: 6D

GAME NOTES:

This weapon has aftermarket parts that can be purchased to upgrade its abilities as follows, and prices for these are listed above.

-Burst Fire Mode: The EL-16HFE was designed as a single fire blaster.  However, due to its connection to the standard EL-16 blaster rifle, it has room for modification that would stutter each blaster bolt to make a three-shot burst at the expense of some of the damaging power of the bolt.  If done, the EL-16HFE will have a Fire Rate of 3 per attack action, but damage dice will be reduced to 5D+1.  Each three-shot burst still only takes 1 ammo per burst.

-Light Stock (Reduced Recoil): Light stock allowing sustained fire with less recoil, grants +2 Fire Control bonus.

-Barrel Extension (Improved Range): This upgrade allows the blaster bolt to retain cohesion longer once released from the weapon, which allows it to maintain its strength and power to deal damage over a longer distance before dissipating and losing said strength.  Range becomes 4-40/120/400m.

-Aftermarket Scope (Dual Zoom): Macroscope that can toggle between 2 magnification levels while zooming.  This item grants the EL-16HFE an improved version of its standard scope, where the user can see up to the standard x1 range (300m) or up to x2 range (600m).



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DESCRIPTION:

Steady, sturdy, and built for medium to long-range combat distances, the EL-16HFE was the preferred blaster rifle among fighters with the Resistance.  The EL-16HFE blaster rifle was a blaster rifle manufactured by BlasTech Industries. Used by the New Republic, the EL-16HFE was the Heavy Field Edition of the smaller EL-16 blaster, though it was outdated surplus by the time of the Resistance's fight against the First Order thirty years after the Battle of Endor. Poe Dameron used a modified EL-16HFE blaster rifle during the attack on the village Tuanul on Jakku. It, alongside the smaller version, were later used during the Battle of Crait.



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GAME DESIGN NOTES:



The EL-16HFE in Star Wars Battlefront II was a single fire blaster rifle, requiring the player to pull the trigger repeatedly.  However, if you landed your shots just right, it packed the most punch per shot more than any of the other weapons available to the Assault class.  It also had pretty good range and accuracy if you prefer some ranged shooting with your Assault class.  Personally, I gravitated more towards the CR-2 and close quarter stuff, but I can see the value in a weapon like this.

When converting the damage for this one, it came out to 6D.  It could have been 5D+1 with a three-shot burst, but in the game this weapon does not have automatic fire, so i didn't give it that.  At 6D, this feels right, to match the punch it has in the game, and also to me seems to fill a nitch that is lacking in Star Wars D6.  There are only a few blasters that have 6D-ish damage that I remember, and those always seemed like some kind of specialty item, like the Thunderer Heavy Blaster Pistol.  Except,  don't remember seeing very many 6D blaster rifles.  And you'd think there would be.  With smaller rare specialty items like the Thunderer being out there, you'd think there would be a larger, more common rilfe sized weapon with 6D punch.

So in the end that was how this weapon turned out, and I like how it fills that niche of a blaster rifle with some needed punch.  Also, with the increased cost compared to other blaster rifles, it fits that the New Republic in the new canon would at first want something better than the blasters the Rebellion used during the Galactic Civil War, only to dump them during the disarmament in part due to their more expensive cost.



Star Wars Battlefront II Conversions

Before getting into the long-winded explanation of converting weapons from Battlefront II from their game stats, I also wanted to add quickly that I am pulling the lore for these weapons from wherever I can find it, as some of these weapons don't have much said about them.  If the info contradicts anywhere, my apologies, take and leave what you wish for your games.  That now said....

I've been playing this game a bit now, it's fun, and I was inspired to take the weapon statistics in the game, and use them to make some conversions for rpggamer.org in case anyone wanted to use these weapons in their games, or if they already exist, then these write-ups could be used as alternatives.  For example, in the case of the A280 blaster rifle, it is supposed to be a very modular and modifiable blaster rifle, and it will already have some of these variants listed here as they are in the game.  If GMs/players do not like these conversions, or feel they need to choose between one version or the other, it's ok to change these conversions as desired, or pass on them all together as your group sees fit.

Weapons in Battlefront II have four stats we can use to convert to D6 rules: Cooling Power, Range, Rate Of Fire, and Damage, and each of these ranks between 1 to 10.  To figure these out, we'll do them backwards, from Damage to Cooling Power, as Damage is the easiest to convert.

DAMAGE:  To figure out these weapons' D6 damage dice, I take the Damage rank, convert it to be 3D at rank 1 (because 3D is the most common low end I remember ever seeing for blasters in Star Wars D6) and 6D at rank 10 (as 6D was the most common damage dice I remember seeing for more powerful single-fire blasters before getting into blasters that have rapid fire).  For the ranks in between, just apply pips as Star Wars D6 commonly does (rank 1=3D, rank 2=3D+1, rank 3=3D+2, rank 4=4D, etc).  This conversion gives the blaster's (or other weapon's) base damage for a single shot before accounting for any rapid fire from the Rate Of Fire stat.

RATE OF FIRE (ROF):  This is also simple and straightforward.  ROF rank 1 is a single shot.  Any weapons with this rank are single-fire and need multiple actions to fire more shots, as per the Star Wars D6 rules for multiple actions.  For every rank beyond 1, this counts as an extra shot fired from the weapon with each attack.  To represent this, we make it as simple as possible, and look at Star Wars D6's rules for combined actions and fire-linked weapons.  Every rank past 1 will add +1 pip to the damage.  So a weapon with rank 4 Damage and rank 5 ROF does 5D+1 damage in D6 rules (4D base damage per single shot, but it does 5 shots per attack, so that damage is +4 pips, totaling at 5D+1).  This means the weapons' ammo magazine will also be decreased this many shots for every attack action the player makes.  GMs/players could have their weapon have a single-fire option to toggle between these fire options if they wish to conserve ammo (if they even keep track of ammo, more on that below).

RANGE: To figure out range, we take the Range rank, multiply this by 10, and the resulting number is the weapon's short range (Rank number x10, in meters).  Medium range is this times 2 (Rank number x10, then x2, in meters), and long range will be times four (Range rank x10, then x4, in meters).  As of this writing, my intention is to go ahead and make this part of the conversion a simple formula applied to all of these weapons for the sake of expediency.  This may not fit every weapon, and I may make exceptions where needed with weapons that have unique features and qualities.  The reason for this simple approach isn't because of laziness, it's more because....well, I was just looking at the blasters in my Star Wars D6 rulebook for ideas and comparisons, and though there are similar traits to some blaster types (pistols, carbines, rifles, repeating blasters, etc), their ranges still seem a bit mixed up between the different types.  I suppose this was done for variety.

A simpler approach to Range is to look at the weapons presented in the Star Wars D6 rulebook, pick the weapon that most fits the weapon being converted here, and use that range for the converted weapon.  This is up to GM discretion.

NOTE!: Everything stated above for Range is my attempt to just keep it simple.  While using the weapons in the Star Wars D6 Rulebook as general examples of weapons and weapon types (blaster pistols, blaster rifles, etc), the method I would prefer to use to convert range would involve using the ranked stats from the game as a modifier to the ranges of the generalized weapons listed in the Star Wars D6 Rulebook.  As to how to do that, I am not sure yet.  Every time I look at it, it gets complicated, and seems like it will have to be on a case by case basis depending on the weapon.

COOLING POWER (CONVERTED TO AMMO):  This trait is probably the most difficult to figure out.  In Battlefront II, weapons do not have ammunition, as they all seem to have a nearly unlimited power supply.  Instead, they have to cool down after firing so many shots (much like the Mass Effect game series did after the first game in the series).  With how blasters in D6 have very high ammo in their stats, many GMs/players often don't even bother keeping track of their ammo and act as though their blasters have unlimited ammo.  Going in favor of D6 rules having ammo, we can use "Cooling Power" to convert into a number for ammo.

The "simple" method here would be to compare these weapons to a similar weapon in the Star Wars D6 rulebook, and use the same ammo, such as: Hold-Out Blasters have ammo of 6 (or something under 10); Sporting Blasters, ammo of 50; Blaster Pistols, ammo of 100; Heavy Blaster Pistols, ammo of 25 (as they sacrifice ammo for the power boost to damage); Blaster Rifles, Blaster Carbines, and Sporting Blaster Rifles all have ammo of 100; Light Repeating Blasters, ammo of 25; Heavy Repeating Blasters, ammo of "unlimited" if plugged to a power source (fusion generator, see Star Wars Sourcebook for purchase options), otherwise they have ammo of 50.

NOTE!: Weapons that have higher damage with multiple shots to simplify rapid fire, every "1" from ammo will supply the power to this "rapid fire burst" when applying the collective damage dice for that weapons attack (Example: an E-Web does 8D damage, some sources say this damage has 8-10 shots in it, but there's no need to break this down into single shots for ammo consumption, and every use of the E-Web's 8D damage counts as a single attack, which counts as "1" from its ammo (if using a portable ammo magazine and not a fusion generator)).  If GMs/players want their rapid fire weapons to have a single fire option, first they figure out how much damage the single fire shot does.  Then, every "pip" between that lower damage and the full damage counts as a single "shot".  This total number of "pips" between single fire damage and rapid fire full damage is used to multiply the weapon's ammo to figure out how much ammo there is for single fire shots.  Just keep track of how many shots the rapid fire option takes of using this altered ammo number.

As an example, let's use the E-Web.  The E-Web does 8D damage.  If the E-Web fires 10 shots per attack, and each shot counts as a "pip" for fire-linking and combined actions rules, then -9 pips reduces this 8D damage to 5D damage per shot.  This also means the E-Web's ammo (if using a portable ammo magazine instead of  fusion generator) would be x10 as well if using single fire as an option now, and rapid fire would still consume 10 ammo when doing 8D damage.



So, as always, if GMs/players do not like the these conversion results, feel free to change these up as desired.  Some general guidelines to go by that I used for these conversions include....

-Blaster Pistols are average strength (3D-4D), shorter ranged than most bigger blasters (120m), ammo around 100.
-Hold-Out Blaster Pistols tend to be the weakest pistols (3D-ish), shortest ranged (12m), little ammo (6), but easily concealable due to very small size.
-Sporting Blaster Pistols tend to still be weak (3D+), have better ammo (50) and range (60m) than Hold-Out Blasters, but not quite as good as normal Blaster Pistols.
-Heavy Blaster Pistols are stronger (4D-5D), but shorter ranged (50m, more short ranged than normal Pistols), and less ammo (25) than normal Blaster Pistols.
-Blaster Rifles are stronger than Blaster Pistols (4D-5D), have much better range (300m), but similar ammo (100).
-Sporting Blaster Rifles are described as generally the same as rilfes, but a bit smaller.  However, the example given seems more like damage similar to a pistol (4D+) with the range and ammo of a rifle (slighty better range at 350m).
-Blaster Carbines are as strong as rifles (4D-5D) but have slightly less range than Rifles (250m).
-Targeting Blaster Rifles are effectively blaster sniper rilfes, with similar strength to Blaster Rifles (5D+) and better range (Blaster Rifle range x2 to x4 on average).
-Repeating Blasters are generally stronger than Rifles (6D-8D due to rapid fire) and simalarly ranged or better.
-Light Repeating Blasters are stronger than Rifles (6D+, rapid fire), have Rifle ranges (300m), and can be carried.
-Heavy Repeating Blasters are stronger still (7D-8D+, rapid fire), usually have better ranges than Rifles (500m), usually need tri-pods to be fired without penalty, usually found in weapons emplacements for vehicles/bunkers/etc, and may need a second person to carry a power source like a fusion generator for "unlimited ammo" (otherwise hey have their own ammo, which will probably be cumbersome, and have ammo between 25-50 or more).  While these blasters are heavy and cumbersome, there are some cases where they can be portable, due to unique designs, modifications, or the carrier being exceptionally big and strong.

There are also some exceptions to these weapon types. For instance, any hard corp fan of Star Wars D6 probably remembers the Thunderer Heavy Blaster Pistol in Gundark's Fantastic Technology guide, a heavy blaster pistol that does 6D+2 damage with each single shot it fires, only having ammo for 25 shots, and though it is described as a heavy blaster pistol, its size would have it closer to a blaster carbine.  If any of Battlefront II's weapons and gear seem unique like this, I hope I will give them the attention they require.

An example of this kind of weapon is the A280 blaster rifle.  This blaster in the game has a ROF rank of 4, implying it does four shots per attack.  But it obviously has a three-shot burst in game play, and even says so in the weapon's description.  Since the gap between shots and damage is only 1 pip, it's easy enough to add this into the damage and be done with it, as all three shots combine together for a single damage dice code.  But some weapons may wind up being trickier than this as i go into these conversions.