Well of Souls Forums

A signature weapon isn't a stat or a skill, so we'll purchase it as an Attribute. If it were a natural attack, we'd just go on ahead and buy the Weapon attribute. But it isn't, it's a gun, and therefore, an Item. But how many points do we spend on it? IDK, let's find out. Essentially, we're creating a character sheet for our weapon. Fortunately, it's non-living so it doesn't have stats (Body, Soul, Mind) and doesn't have skills. (If an item were to grant skills to the user though, we could purchase skills for it.)

So, the Item is a weapon, so we get the Weapon attribute for it (page 60.) I see you've decided on lvl 5 weapon with lvl 8 range... Umm, a standard issue Rifle is a lvl 6 weapon. And your 8 range means it can fire 100,000 km (and it's using projectiles to boot. That's a tad un-realistic.) I assume you want the weapon to be more accurate than the standard issue thing, but just increasing the range isn't nessicarily the best way to do it. (Range 4 means it's good out to 6.2 miles! or 10 km.)

So we want it to be high-powered, we'll assign a high Weapon level (Let's go with 7) and long range (I think Range 4 good, but let's push it to 5. 100 km sniper! 62 miles :O) The weapon may be good to that extreme distance, but can you even SEE that far? With a Scope, you can! Add it as a feature. We now have:

Item - Sniper Rifle
Weapon 7 {14pts}
Range 5 {5pts}
Feature:Telescopic Scope{1pts}

But that's just a long range gun. How do we make it accurate? By adding Weapon Variables! Add Accurate 3 {3pts} (This bonus to hit is the same as increasing your base stats by 9!) Looking through the other variables, we see nothing else makes much sense except for Piercing and Penetrating. Piercing is the ability to punch through Force Fields (used in Outsider, but primarily only on space ships.) and penetrating in the ability to punch through Armor. We like that, so we'll get it. Standard infantry armor offers 24 points of protection, and piercing negates 4 points of armor per level. So if we want to completely negate standard infantry armor (and punch a big hole in vehicles!) we'll need to get 6 points of Penetrating. We now have:

Item - Sniper Rifle
Weapon 7 {14pts}
Range 5 {5pts}
Feature:Telescopic Scope{1pts}
Accurate 3 (+3 hit) {3pts}
Penetrating 6 (Ignore 24 points of Armor) {6pts}

But doesn't this thing have drawbacks? You bet! Let's look at Weapon Restrictions.
I see you've decided it uses both hands and has "Accelerating Ammunition" for a total of -4pts. Sounds good to me, let's add it. (Why add Accelerating Ammunition as a Restriction and not a Defect? There's no point difference, but we use Defects for when things don't work the way they are supposed to. Restrictions are for when they work as they're intended, but there's a drawback. In this case, the drawback being the rounds take some time to get up to speed.) It seems to me like a sniper rifle would take a while between shots, to line up the target, load a new round, all that jazz. Let's add Restriction: Activation -1 (for reference, this is the same amount of "activation" as is required to use a modern hand grenade.)

Item - Sniper Rifle {12 points total}
Weapon 7 {14pts}
Range 5 {5pts}
Feature:Telescopic Scope{1pts}
Accurate 3 (+3 hit) {3pts}
Penetrating 6 (Ignore 24 points of Armor) {6pts}
Restriction: Hands {-1pts}
Restriction: Activation 1 {-1pts}
Restriction: Accelerating Ammunition {-3pts}

Add up the points and divide it by two. That's how many points your character has to spend to get this signature weapon. (12 pts total for my version) If you want to lower the point value, consider dropping the range or penetration.

Body: 6 / Mind: 4 / Soul: 5 (150 pts)

Base Combat Value: 7
Damage Multiplier:5
Health Points: 80
Shock Value: 16
Energy Points: 46

Attributes: (55)
Heightened Awareness, Lvl 2 (4 pts) [+ 2 Mind]
Attack Combat Mastery (ranged), Lvl 2 (20 Pts) [+ 2 Ranged Combat value]
Ranged Attack, Lvl 4 (12 pts) [+4 Ranged Combat value]
Tough, Lvl 3 (6 pts) [+15 health]
Companion (3 pts) [See Bottum]

Social recluse (-4 pts)
Emotionally fragile (-4 pts)
Caregiver (-3pts)

Thermal Imaging Goggles {3 pts}
Supersense (infrared), Lvl 3 (6 pts)

Laser Pistol {5 pts}
Item, 1/2 cost
Lvl 4 Weapon, 8 pts
Lvl 2 Range, 100m, 2 pts

A-83 Aramaki Marksman's rifle {11 points total}
Weapon 7 {14pts}
Range 3 {3pts}
Feature:Telescopic Scope{1pts}
Accurate 3 (+3 hit) {3pts}
Penetrating 6 (Ignore 24 points of Armor) {6pts}
Restriction: Hands {-1pts}
Restriction: Activation 1 {-1pts}
Restriction: Accelerating Ammunition {-3pts}

The six year old daughter of one of a pair of spacers. Harold took up the banner of getting her through this after he found her amidst the rubble of the port, lost and alone, her parents presumably dead.

Stats:
Body: 2 / Mind: 3 / Soul: 4 (90 pts)