Melee Weapons

Despite the relentless march of science, melee weapons are still useful adjuncts on the field of battle. They are silent, cheap, often easily concealed, and much more reliably murderous than firearms or plasma weaponry. It’s easy to miss a moving target in the adrenaline-fueled chaos of a firefight. It’s much harder to go astray with a monoblade knife in your fist.

Shock

Many melee weapons have a Shock trait representing the danger they pose to an ill-armoured opponent. Shock damage represents the inevitable cuts, bruises, exhaustion, and terror of close combat.
Shock damage is only inflicted on a melee target if the hit roll fails, and it only applies if the target has an AC equal or less than that listed for the Shock. Shock damage always includes the wielder’s attribute modifier and any bonus damage granted by weapon mods, foci, advanced tech, or other damage bonuses. An actual hit with a weapon never does less damage than Shock would otherwise inflict; if the user somehow rolls less damage, use the Shock damage instead.
Thus, if you had a Strength score of 14 and were swinging an oversized alien battle axe at a target with AC 13, you would inflict 3 points of damage on a miss; 2 from the weapon’s Shock, plus 1 from your Strength modifier. If you hit, you’d do at least 3 points.

Redesigning Weapons

The stats given below cover most common melee weapon variants in the sector, but almost every model of weapon has a small/medium/large version either available to the discerning shopper or the crafty designer. Use the damage/shock differences between the size variants in the primitive, molecular and energetic categories as a guide, and work with the GM to retool a possible melee weapon to your specifications. The market cost of these niche weapon variants tends to be somewhat higher, due to their increased rarity.

( ) - Encumbrance values marked within brackets state the encumbrance value when that object is worn.
/Cha - Certain kinds of melee weapon are often used as status symbols amongst the sector's nobility, and in such 'formal' combat situations skill checks can be rolled using the wielder's charisma modifier instead of strength or dexterity. A victory in such a roll may not mean that you actually would have won the match had you met your opponent on the street and fought to the death, but it does mean that you came out of the fight looking the most poised and stylish. In order to qualify for such status, a suitably fancy melee weapon will usually cost much more than its basic functional model.
# - Some encumbrance entries are marked with a hashmark. These objects can be conveniently packed together in a smaller, more portable package. Three such objects can be packed together as a single encumbrance item.

Types of Melee Weapons

Primitive

“Primitive” weaponry, a category which also encompasses certain ranged weapons, includes any weaponry which is primarily powered by the user's own muscles. Despite the prevalence of projectile and energy weapons on the Reach's various battlefields, and the fact that primitive weapons have very limited effectiveness on certain modern types of armour, there are advantages to be had for those who train in the use of these archaic tools.
Primitive melee weapons may not be as powerful as their more-advanced descendants. However, their simplicity of use gives a further +1 to hit for characters with at least Significant training in the relevant weapon. Additionally, they are easy to construct; cheap to build or buy; require very little maintenance; and are more easily overlooked by modern weapon detection methods.

Molecular

Molecular weaponry describes any weapon made using advanced methods and materials designed to affect targets on a molecular level: usually either blades with mono-molecular edges (i.e. "Monoblades"), or blunt weapons that - on impact - vibrate and disrupt a target's molecular structure (i.e. "Vibrocoshes"). These weapons became popular after advances in powered armour made certain foes impenetrable to conventional blades and bullets.
The structure of molecular weapons is very precise compared with their primitive cousins. They aren't fragile, but even a few microscopic elements out-of-place is enough to dull its molecular-level effects. To keep them good, molecular weapons require a slot in a technician/metalsmith's Maintenance score - though since the process of maintaining them is quite simple up to six molecular weapons can be maintained with just a single slot. Any appropriate TL4 toolkit or workshop will have the tools required to maintain molecular weapons. Without this regular maintenance, molecular weapons become recategorised as 'primitive' after 24 hours of frequent use.

Monoblades: Mono-molecular bladed weapons are sharp enough to cut through almost any solid material. At the wielder's choice, made after the attack roll, they may choose to add +1 to either their attack roll, damage roll, or shock threshold to reflect the edge's unmatched ability to cut through armour, flesh and cover.

Vibrocoshes: Vibrational weapons are internally composed so as to disrupt molecular vibrations on impact with the target. As such, these weapons give either a +2 to damage or +2 to shock threshold each round, decided by the wielder after making their attack roll.

Energetic

Energetic melee weapons are designed to enhance their impact using some kind of additional energy source; usually either kinetic, electrical or heat - each of which comes with its own specialised effects as described below. Energetic weapons require a power cell type A in order to operate their energetic functions, though such power cells tend to be kept fully drip-charged using the wielder's movement and body heat - and so do not often need replaced.

Kinetic: Kinetic weapons deal their damage through storing and then bursting large amounts of vibrational energy into their target. This may exhaust targets, or knock them across the battlefield, but at the very least their structural makeup - designed to disperse force across the target's body instead of applying it through the impact point - means that these weapons may always inflict non-lethal damage.

Electric: Electric weapons have low base damage, but have a high shock threshold and are capable of massive hits when they connect properly. Whenever an electric weapon rolls maximum on their damage roll, roll damage again and add the unmodified result to the damage total. Keep rolling until either a roll results in less-than-maximum damage, or until damage has been rolled four times in total - whichever comes first.

Heat: Heat weapons use a superheated microfilament or similar to burn targets - which can cause either increased trauma or increased penetration depending on wielder's technique. Before rolling, users may choose to suffer -1 to their attack roll but gain +1 to damage, or vice-versa. Also, the rare target hit for maximum damage must make a Physical Effects saving throw or be set On Fire (1d6, Fleeting). Heat weapons, regardless of their damage result, always deal a minimum damage of 1 on a successful hit (not including skill/attribute bonuses).