23d Century Personal Weapons

Melee Weapons

Weapon Notes

Binary Chemical Propellant Slugthrowers employ an explosive reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to propel bullets to hypersonic speeds. The ammunition itself is caseless, embedded into a hydride, which is then vaproized and combined with oxygen from a separate cannister to produce the necessary explosion.

BCP slughtrowers cannot penetrate AG shielding of any strength.

Railguns use artificial gravity fields to compress carbon gas from a cannister(or, in the case of the 90mm Man-Portable Artillery System, a nucleosynthesis reactor) into solid, hyperdense monomolecular carbon projectiles, which are then boosted to the speed of light by a second AG field compressed to infinite mass, energy and gravity by an infinite-mass compression device, or infinity driver.

The end result is a hyperdense mass travelling at the speed of light and packing tremendous kinetic energy—equivalent to that of 1.8 megatons of TNT in the case of a 2.5mm slug—most of which is expended in penetrating the target’s AG shielding.

Railguns superheat with continous use, owing to the action of the infinity driver compressing gravity to infinity with each shot; each group of ten shots(30 shots for the Browning M2, M3, M6, Gatling 25 and 90mm MPARs, five shots for the Lil’ Bang, the TAC-12 and the Barrett DSH)increases the Malfunction chance by one increment—Ver.(18) goes down to Ver.(Crit), Ver.(Crit)goes down to Ver., Ver. goes down to Crit., Crit. goes down to 15+ , 15+ decreasing two points with every group fired—until the Malfunction chance is reduced to 3 or less, when it automatically malfunctions, inflicting 5 dice burn damage to the weapon hand(s), as it melts to useless slag.

Railguns also cause 2d of burn damage(cumulative) to the weapon hand(s) with each group fired; AG shielding does not protect against this burn damage(the weapon being held too close for the shielding to do any good), though physical armor does.

Railguns are the only weapons guranteed to punch through AG shielding with any degree of reliability. Those railguns with a Rcl. Of 0 use the following rule when on autofire: All rounds in the group count as a single round for purposes of damage and armor/shield penetration; e.g., five deuce and a halves from a Browning M2 hitting a target are treated a single 6dx10(5) attack instead of five separate 12d(5) attacks.

Laser Cutters and Laser Lances are the primary melee weapons of the 23d century, used in close-quarters combat. Physical armor protects at one-fifth its DR, AG shielding bending the cohrent graser beam harmlessly away from its intended victim.

The technique for using either a cutter or a lance against someone wearing AG shielding is to slip the emitter through the shield—since the AG field is useless against extremely low(less than 5 yards/second)as well as extremely high(186,000 miles/second or greater)velocity, hyperdense masses—then activate the cutter/lance.

Both are considered fencing weapons; anyone using either Parries with two-thirds his skill in the laser cutter/lance. Moreover, the Precognitive Parry skill(CI143)can be used with the laser lance, the incoming bullet being burned up by the lance’s graser beam on a successful Parry, a critical success deflecting the bullet back towards its firer.