GURPS(3rd) FALLOUT energy weapons

[Sad Spaceman]

I'm running a Fallout game in 3rd Ed, Yes I did find the PDF out there for this but all I can find is the 4th Ed version so I've had to adapt a little. For those familiar with Fallout, the two main energy weapons are laser or plasma. I going with laser as the TL 8 technology and plasma will be TL 9.

I don't feel the standard laser fits well for Fallout with impaling damage and ignoring DR on successive shots and the like but what to do as an alternative? For the plasma weapons I was thinking, 3x on criticals maybe? I want the weapons to function as they do in the video game but different enough that there is a difference between lasers and plasma. Any suggestions?

[Dead Monky]

You could make lasers inflict cutting damage so you get effects similar to the critical/bloody mess deaths of Fallout and Fallout 2: the enemies would get cut in half. You could use them to cut off limbs and the like instead of just burning holes in people.

Plasmas you could also make easier to dodge since in Fallout 3 and New Vegas the bolts travel slowly enough that the shots are fairly easy to sidestep. You could even create a weapon mod/tweak players could find/make/buy that would lessen the effect. Like the accelerator mod in New Vegas.

[Jonas]

Originally Posted by Sad Spaceman

I'm running a Fallout game in 3rd Ed, Yes I did find the PDF out there for this but all I can find is the 4th Ed version so I've had to adapt a little. For those familiar with Fallout, the two main energy weapons are laser or plasma. I going with laser as the TL 8 technology and plasma will be TL 9.

I don't feel the standard laser fits well for Fallout with impaling damage and ignoring DR on successive shots and the like but what to do as an alternative? For the plasma weapons I was thinking, 3x on criticals maybe? I want the weapons to function as they do in the video game but different enough that there is a difference between lasers and plasma. Any suggestions?

I'd strongly suggest ignoring any sort of hard conversion between Fallout the CRPG and "Fallout" the Pen and Paper RPG and merely going off the spirit of the game instead with any changes made as needed to actually be playable.

[Sad Spaceman]

Thats what I was going for Jonas. A solution that is in the spirit of the game rather than a pure conversion. I thought it would be nice to give players some choices but I didn't want energy weapons to be so mundane that they just guns with brights lights for effect. I want balance with as many player options as possible but real options not fluff