How would you stat a ray gun?

[Spinward Scout]

Let's say the players came across an artifact or two. One of those artifacts just happens to be a ray gun. Would you stat it out like a Star Wars blaster or more like a Men In Black alien pistol? In addition to burn/energy damage, it either has a "knock back"/inertial force effect or a "burn through" effect - just leaving a hole in the target. If it has the "burn through" effect, can it also cause damage to anything behind the target?

I'm thinking, basically, a low-energy PGMP in pistol form that doesn't cause a bad time for the shooter. Or maybe a handheld pulse laser.

What do you think?

 

[Blue Ghost]

"Take me to your leader..."

In 1950's scifi the ray gun is a kind of "pre-laser" heat ray, or a generic direct energy weapon (go read "The E Bomb", a great book through I forget the author's name).

From all the scifi movies I saw from the 50s and earlier, the ray gun rarely disintegrates, though it can, but more usually shoots animated light beams at a living target, and does something to the internal organs. Usually the weapon's effective or useful range is at Medium Range (band). I don't recall any aliens or brave space heroes using the Ray Gun at long range or beyond, though maybe they have.

I might give it the mass of a carbine … I'm not sure about ammo. Maybe it has a neutrino or "Higgs Boson" kind of aspect to it, and so it can be shunted by reflective or ablative armor, but not fully stopped, and maybe does something like 5D or 6D, but again halved if firing through armor. I would give it the same range modifiers for the Laser Pistol or Laser Carbine. Maybe they would cost twice as much as a L Carbine or L Rifle.

That's my take. So to speak.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Very Cool! I like the pulp sci-fi.

 

[robject]

I've done this sort of thing before. At one point, I wanted a "plasma gun" -- actually something similar *in purpose* to the PPG used in Babylon 5.

I've also ported the Gamma World weapons to Traveller(5), using an "adjusted" variant of GunMaker. And those things are clearly "Ray Guns" in just about every sense of the word -- blaster/disruptors with nasty heat damage ratings.

 

[ShapeShifter]

A la Flash Gordon (1936) with Buster Crabbe, it has a conelike ray of effect. Named PCs (those not necessarily with script immunity) get a save vs. death (say 5+ on 2D); mooks/henchmen/goons get no save. Damage to electronics or other apparatus blows it up or disables it; damage to a wall opens a hole big enough to crawl through, etc. For very big monsters or aliens or megafauna (like that encountered frequently on Mongo), it make take several zaps to bring them down.

 

[mike wightman]

I'd use FF&S to build it.