Weapons
While peace is Starfleet’s goal, means of self-defense are often necessary. Starfleet thus makes use of several types of weapons.
Weapons and other forms of attack, as well as the damage caused by hazards, have a few common elements determining the specifics of how they function. The key elements of a weapon of a weapon include:
WEAPON TYPE: Either melee or ranged, determining what kind of attack it allows you to make.
INJURIES: The type of injury the weapon inflicts. If the weapon has multiple options, all of them will be listed.
SEVERITY: The severity of the injuries the weapon inflicts. This is used to determine the cost of avoiding the injury, and the Difficulty of tasks to treat or heal the injury.
SIZE: Weapons will either be one-handed (1H) or two-handed (2H). A two-handed weapon can be used in one hand to make an attack, but the Difficulty increases by 1.
QUALITIES: Additional rules, providing additional restrictions or benefits to the weapon’s use.
Qualities
The following qualities alter the way the weapon functions: some in positive ways, others by applying restrictions:
ACCURATE: If you perform the Aim minor action before making an attack with this weapon, you may re-roll up to two d20s in your dice pool, rather than only one.
AREA: When you succeed at an attack, additional targets in the same zone may be hit by spending 1 Momentum for each additional target (Repeatable). This attack may Succeed at Cost.
CHARGE: If you perform the Prepare minor action before attacking with this weapon, you may add one of the following qualities to the attack: Area, Intense, or Piercing. If you choose Area, the attack’s severity is reduced by 1.
CUMBERSOME: You cannot attack with a cumbersome weapon unless you take the Prepare minor action on the same turn.
DEBILITATING: The Difficulty to treat or to heal injuries caused by this weapon is increased by 1.
GRENADE: You can attack a target at up to Medium range and have enough grenades for three separate attacks.
HIDDEN X: You can use a minor action to conceal this weapon. Any search for the weapon requires an Insight or Reason + Security task with a Difficulty of X.
INACCURATE: The weapon is imprecise and clumsy. You do not benefit from the Aim minor action when making an attack with this weapon.
INTENSE: When making an attack with this weapon, you may increase the severity by spending 1 Momentum, rather than 2 (Repeatable).
PIERCING: A successful attack with this weapon ignores the target's Protection rating.
Melee Weapons
Nearly every sentient species has developed weapons capable of breaking limbs or cutting flesh. Some of these weapons were culturally important and have remained in use even after that culture entered the wider interstellar community.
While not really equipment, every character has the means to make an unarmed attack, striking with fists, feet, knees, elbows, head, or otherwise using brute force without a weapon. Countless martial arts, such as Klingon mok’bara, Vulcan suus mahna, and Human styles like boxing or aikido, exist to allow individuals to hone their ability to disable foes without weapons.
Not a conventional weapon, but it’s not unknown for medics and doctors to try to defuse situations by sedating someone dangerous, using an anesthetic hypospray. Any character carrying a medkit is assumed to carry a hypospray that can be used in this way.
Bladed weapons such as a knife or dagger are useful as tools or for close combat situations. While projectile weapons and later energy weapons have surpassed the destructive power of hand weapons, developments over the centuries in materials science have given these weapons continued use in nearly every service as backup weapons or as tools.
Larger blades such as the Klingon mek’leth, the Andorian ushaan-tor, or various forms of sword, provide more of a symbolic use, but still are used ritually, in sports, or even in real combat, depending on the skill and inclination of the individual.
Heavy blades like the Klingon bat’leth, Jem’Hadar kar’takin, and the Vulcan lirpa see use in ritualized combat or in situations where hand-to-hand combat is almost assured.
Bludgeons, ranging from improvised blunt objects, to batons, cudgels, and maces—are a useful way of fending off aggressors or disabling enemies. This can also be used for any two-handed ranged weapon wielded as an impromptu club.
Improvised Attacks
Improvised attacks take the form of more mundane objects being used as weapons. You may need to create a trait to assemble an improvised weapon or set up a trap.
Once you have created the trait, the gamemaster should determine the type, injury, severity, size, and qualities of the attack, as well as any other limitations. The gamemaster should also determine what combination of attribute + department is used to make the attack.
TYPE: Melee or ranged, based on your intent. A poisoned hypospray is used at Reach, so it’s a melee attack, while a rockslide is ranged because it affects enemies at a distance.
INJURY: The gamemaster determines an appropriate Injury (and type of Injury) for the attack.
SEVERITY: The typical severity for unarmed attacks is 2. This may be increased if the attack has a Size of 2H, or if it is otherwise especially destructive or powerful.
SIZE: If the item used to make the attack is carried in one hand, the attack’s size is 1H. If it takes two hands to make the attack, then its size is 2H.
QUALITIES: All improvised attacks have the Cumbersome quality—they’re not as easy to use as a proper weapon. The gamemaster may determine the attack has other qualities, based on how it is used.
OTHER LIMITATIONS: The gamemaster may introduce other narrative limitations, particularly if the attack is potent. This may limit how often the attack can be used, or lingering consequences from the attack.
Weapons
Name Type Injury Severity Size Qualities Cost
Unarmed Strike Melee Stun 2 1H – –
Anesthetic Hypospray Melee Stun 3 1H Cumbersome, Intense Opportunity 1
Knife/Dagger Melee Deadly 2 1H Hidden 1 Opportunity 1
Blade Melee Deadly 3 1H – Opportunity 1
Heavy Blade Melee Deadly 3 2H Intense
Opportunity 1,
Escalation 1
Bludgeon Melee Stun, Deadly 3 1H – Opportunity 1
Phaser Type-1 Ranged Stun, Deadly 3 1H Charge, Hidden 1 Standard Issue
Phaser Type-2 Ranged Stun, Deadly 4 1H Charge Standard Issue
Phaser Type-3
(phaser rifle) Ranged Stun, Deadly 5 2H Accurate, Charge Opportunity 1,
Escalation 2
Pulse Grenade Ranged Stun, Deadly 4 1H Area, Grenade Opportunity 1,
Escalation 2
Andorian Plasma Rifle Ranged Deadly 4 2H Accurate, Intense Not Available
Phase Pistol Ranged Stun, Deadly 3 1H – Standard Issue
Particle Rifle Ranged Stun, Deadly 4 2H Accurate Standard Issue
Disruptor Pistol Ranged Deadly 4 1H Intense Not Available
Disruptor Rifle Ranged Deadly 5 2H Accurate, Intense Not Available
Jem’Hadar Plasma Pistol Ranged Deadly 4 1H Debilitating Not Available
Jem’Hadar Plasma Rifle Ranged Deadly 5 2H Accurate, Debilitating Not Available
Phasers
Developed in the mid-22nd century, the hand phaser was an outgrowth from research into focused particle streams for higher efficiency warp cores. Primitive phaser systems, such as the phase pistol, were refined into true phaser systems by the 23rd century. Hand phasers use a phased and modulated particle beam that can transmit incredible amounts of energy onto a target depending on the setting of the device and the frequency of the power modulation.
Starfleet hand phasers have multiple distinct settings ranging from heating an object or causing light burns, stunning a life-form through ‘shorting out’ its central nervous system, up to cutting through a target or entirely disintegrating it. All hand phasers use a high-energy density power cell as their power source, and are split into three categories that are dependent on their power storage capabilities.
At their lowest settings, all phasers are capable of long-term use, but at their highest settings a type-1 hand phaser may only have enough energy stored for a few seconds of use compared to the type-3 phaser rifle that may allow for a full minute or more of discharge at the highest settings. Hand phasers of the 23rd century typically only used a single particle emitter. By the 24th century, multiple emitters were in widespread use, allowing for redundancy and higher destructive potential at lower power emission settings.
The phaser type-1 is the smallest design, which is the most widely-used form of phaser distributed to personnel for self-defense.
Phaser type-2 refers to the larger form of hand phaser, carried by security personnel and Starfleet officers going into dangerous environments. Some versions used in the 23rd century are pistol grip attachments fitted to a phaser type-1. Type-2 phasers of the 24th century carry a design with a curved ergonomic grip.
Phaser type-3, or phaser rifles, are higher-powered weapons designed for hazardous situations and combat. In addition to a larger power supply, they have numerous targeting and beam-focusing systems that make them more accurate. They are issued to properly-trained personnel, and only when necessary.
Pulse Grenades work when a user selects a setting and a countdown timer. When the timer reaches zero, the grenade discharges its power cell at once in all directions. After discharge, the grenade’s components burn out, rendering them inert to prevent them being reused. Pulse grenades cover a number of similar technologies used throughout history—from the stun grenades used by United Earth MACO forces to photon grenades employed in the 24th century.
Early Energy Weapons
There are many types of hand weapons Starfleet crews can encounter traveling across the Federation, but the two most typically seen civilian weapons are derived from the Andorian plasma rifle and the 21st and early 22nd century Earth particle rifle. Andorian plasma rifles use similar principles to phasers used by Starfleet, with a particle beam as the primary effect. The particle beam is augmented by an encapsulated plasma discharge that causes thermal damage to a target. This means Andorian style plasma rifles are unable to cause a stun effect, and at best can knock a humanoid unconscious through pain.
Particle rifles and phase pistols were early forms of directed energy weapons used before the development of phasers. The most advanced designs of particle rifle were those produced for United Earth MACO forces in the 22nd century, while phase pistols were introduced in 2151 to replace the EM-33 plasma pistol.
Alien Energy Weapons
Like hand phasers, disruptors and plasma weapons typically use a high-density power cell to provide power, or an energy source of similar capacity. Pistols can be held in a single hand, while rifles tend to need the use of two hands to balance and aim. These weapons are typically less versatile than phasers, inflict significantly more damage.
Disruptor weapons rely on high energy particle discharges that burn or boil targets, and can disintegrate a target if enough energy is applied.
The plasma weapons used by the Dominion’s Jem’Hadar soldiers cause severe burns and death through thermal shock, and incorporate an anticoagulant that makes injuries harder to treat.