I don't like warriors. Too narrow-minded, no subtlety. And worse, they fight for hopeless causes. Honor? Huh! Honor's killed millions of people, it hasn't saved a single one.
Equipment lists often have sub-standard or even useless gear in them from the player's point of view. I mean, that's fine. The biggest culprit is probably the D&D 3.X/PF armor list, but these things would logically exist in the world. Not everyone is going to have access to the best stuff, and they'd have to make due with brigandine, chain mail, half-plate, or what have you. It's helpful for the GM too: they can give enemies worse gear to soften an encounter. Shadowrun is no different, and has lots of gear a runner might not have much use for, but an NPC might.
This sub-standard gear usually has some justification for its existence, even if it's nothing a PC would touch. Corporate execs might want a light or hold-out pistol because of the weight or style, or because they can just directly get APDS ammo from their corporation's armory. A ganger might buy a vibro knife instead of a cougar fineblade for its intimidating thrum when it's turned on, or they might carry around a rattan stick because their daily itinerary is mostly filled with harassing shop clerks for protection money.
This sub-standard gear usually has some justification for its existence, even if it's nothing a PC would touch. Corporate execs might want a light or hold-out pistol because of the weight or style, or because they can just directly get APDS ammo from their corporation's armory. A ganger might buy a vibro knife instead of a cougar fineblade for its intimidating thrum when it's turned on, or they might carry around a rattan stick because their daily itinerary is mostly filled with harassing shop clerks for protection money.
But I do have a limit. I understand that Shadowrun may even have its fill of dumb hipster shit in it, but it's really rare that you find a piece of gear that utterly can't justify its existence beyond the consumer being pretty stupid. This is where the AUG-CSL comes in.
Real life does have modular weaponry that uses the same pieces to build weapons with multiple functionalities. Shadowrun isn't really set up for this in its mechanics, so we have this thing. It's a weapon "system" that can be rearranged into four different configurations: an assault rifle, a carbine rifle, an SMG and an LMG. My issues are numerous and my rage is immeasurable, but I'll try to list them here in no order.
One. While my local game has adapted skill groups that soften this problem, it's really super rare for people to take many weapon skills. It just doesn't come up. The Rifles skill is often useful for extreme range combat or assassination, but it's pretty rare someone has more than one of SMGs, Assault Rifles, and Heavy Weapons: They all do the same thing. They makes the bullet go super fast. The three weapon types do have differences I'm not going to go into here, but suffice to say that skill points are at a premium. Nobody has the room to learn a bunch of gun skills.
Real life does have modular weaponry that uses the same pieces to build weapons with multiple functionalities. Shadowrun isn't really set up for this in its mechanics, so we have this thing. It's a weapon "system" that can be rearranged into four different configurations: an assault rifle, a carbine rifle, an SMG and an LMG. My issues are numerous and my rage is immeasurable, but I'll try to list them here in no order.
One. While my local game has adapted skill groups that soften this problem, it's really super rare for people to take many weapon skills. It just doesn't come up. The Rifles skill is often useful for extreme range combat or assassination, but it's pretty rare someone has more than one of SMGs, Assault Rifles, and Heavy Weapons: They all do the same thing. They makes the bullet go super fast. The three weapon types do have differences I'm not going to go into here, but suffice to say that skill points are at a premium. Nobody has the room to learn a bunch of gun skills.
Two. Only one of the forms really has any value. The Carbine Rifle configuration is a rifle that can burst fire: It(and the HK G38, a virtually identical weapon to the AUG-CSL) is the only source of this capability outside of building your own weapon. The other three are just lackluster, common weapons in their category with no decent accessories. Their damage codes are competitive, thank god. In fact, they only differ in the following ways: their concealability rating, the skill it takes to use them, and their range. Basically, this means all you're doing is bolting more parts on to progressively increase the range of your weapon, something that's got a limited usefulness to begin with: a lot of your encounters are probably taking place inside fifty meters. That is, after all, about half a football field.
Three. It's expensive and hard to find. Not much to say here, it's twice the cost and harder to find than weapons which are far better than it. You also can't start the game with this piece of shit, despite it being a (almost) completely pointless weapon. Obviously this is to imply that this thing is some sort of rare proof of concept build or limited release, and that probably is what they were going for. That doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.
Four. Reconfiguring the weapon requires an assault rifles B/R check. It's a simple TN, four, but it still means this stupid thing has yet another skill requirement to get any use out of it. Of course, you can probably ask your fixer to configure it to Carbine Rifle then throw all the other parts away. The fact that you can take it apart probably has some level of use, but for that you have the SA Puzzler and the WW Infiltrator, which are even better at this purpose, cheaper, and easier to find.
So technically, this weapon might have an edge use case. If your GM is a real jerk and likes making custom firearms hard to get(I don't see the point) then it's your only source of a rifle that can burst. Even that's of an extremely limited use: This isn't a weapon you can start with, so by the time you can get this you can just get a sniper rifle. It's arguable which damage code would be better(14S sniper rifle vs. the 10D burst) but I lean toward the sniper rifle reflexively. Higher damage codes are usually better, and it's a third of the bullets fired: those special APDS assassinatin' bullets add up.
Oh, and the HK-G38 sucks too.
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