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Okay, so I've played through both Kotor I and II about 3 or 4 times, and in neither of them do i see any reason why one would chose to arm an NPC (or oneself) with a blaster rifle of some sort. The damage on them is often times less than that of a pistol, and you can't use two.

When you hold a double bladed melee weapon, it shows that you do damge with your off hand. At first I assumed this would also be the case for a rifle, possibly giving you 2 attacks instead of just the one. Makes sense, right?

Could someone please tell me what I'm missing here? Do I get 2 attacks with a rifle and I'm just not seeing it, or is my damage multiplied or some other factor I'm not seeing making me miss out on using a blaster rifle???

Nope. It's just that rifles are better for Sniper Shot since they usually have a better range. And HK can pretty much only handle a rifle, so he should get one.

From what I understand from other posts (although I've not researched it) they don't get to use either. Soooo.... that means no attack/defense bonuses AND no extra attack round.

Somebody PLEASE tell me this isn't right!!

The short answer is, a blaster rifle can never compare to 2 blaster pistols. If you take the 2-weapon fighting feats and Rapid Shot, you will easily outgun a rifle every time.

Now, the long answer: In a previous post I mentioned the Zersium Rifle and the Mandalorian Disintegrator. The latter of these is a blaster pistol of horrifying power (actually a disruptor, fully upgradeable, base damage of 2-16). To put this in perspective, I gave Mira a pair of these with the best upgrades I could manufacture (Mandalorian Chamber MkIII and Pure Rylith Power Cell, and scope). She had these weapons when I faced off against Hanharr on Malachor V. She beat Hanharr without healing. The damage is quite sick. I forget the exact damage but I think it's a max of 61 damage or so. Per pistol.

That's all well and good, but what about a regular blaster pistol? Well, your average blaster pistol does more than 50% the damage of an average blaster rifle. Mandalorian and Arkanian blasters do more, but they have their own rifle variants as well. So 2 of blaster pistols will average much higher damage than a rifle. You can give T3, HK-47, and Mandalore the required feats without any real problems to allow them to dual wield. Ultimately, this is the better choice if you want to use them for combat.

I guess Blaster Rifle is then only useful for reserve weapons if the player has no two-weapon fighting, and for the time until HK gets the required feats.

One word. FEATS.

Don't be dissing the rifles. They've actually got uses. First off, they're more accurate. Sencondly, they have a longer range. Finally, to reach your full potential with two blasters, you gotta spend 3 feats on 2 wepaon fighting. Feats that could be spent on regen or conditioning. If you're gonna have 2 weapon fighting anyway, then yes, pistols are awsome. Atton is a shining example of this. On the other hand, consider HK. HK has Assassin protocols. He can hit baddies from 28m away and leave them with 10 health or so. They run closer and you can forget about it because T3 can finish the job leaving HK free to goat the next baddie into coming closer. Anyway, I'm not dissing pistols. They're great. Carth from KOTOR 1 kicked some major butt. If you really wanna do some damage then go for it. I just think rifles are better for tactical reasons.

PS. Mandalore = King of Mandalorian Heavy Repeater. You could make him into a incredibly decent melee fighter but why do it when you've got a lightsaber and all he's got is a sword. In all honesty, if you just pump him with dexterity, give him a shield, and give him the pride of using a mandalorian weapon then he could kill baddies faster than a guardian with the strength of a rancor... and because he's so far back, he never gets hit.

Problem is that Mandalore is stuck with that damn armor of his, which doesn't allow Dexterity bonuses of ANY kind.

Unless the game's bugged or the description is wrong then I'm pretty sure repeating blaster rifles get two shots don't they? That means that one decent repeater matches the damage of two pistols but is even more acurate.

I don't think they give another attack, they just do more damage than your average blaster, and mostly have a 20-20 threat, I believe.

I have never actually used ranged weapons to any extent but having read their desciptions I thought they might give another attack:

Repeating Blaster: "This weapon allows the user to fire more quickly than usual..."

Mandalorian Heavy Repeater: "The only thing better than a big blaster, aparrently, is one that shoots faster."

If theses descriptions don't actually mean you get an extra shot then it's a bloody disgrace and apologies should be forthcoming from the developers

Repeating rifles are basically just rifles. They have nothing special on them. On KotOR 1 I think they should give repeating rifles an edge, but here they don't even require another feat anymore. So, I think it's fine as it is. Maybe give rifles a slightly bigger edge over pistols to make it worth using them.

And I agree that HK is probably better with rifles than pistols. Using rifles gives the advantage of him already having some feats for it, and being able to give him other feats than blaster focus and two-weapon fighting. Surely, once the other feats are chosen, you might switch him to pistols. But that's only when he reaches really high levels.

[QUOTE=Ergophobia]Problem is that Mandalore is stuck with that damn armor of his, which doesn't allow Dexterity bonuses of ANY kind.[/QUOTE]

Dex bonuses to hit are not affected by armor. Defense bonuses from dex are though. I am pretty sure reflex saves are not affected either. Not the same as 3rd ed DnD.

I'm pretty sure all dex bonuses are neglected. Look at the character sheet. It says DEX bonus: 0, even when Mandalore has 12.

Nah, that's just to Defense. You're still getting the bonus to attack. It's a visual bug. Happened in Neverwinter Nights as well.

This is from a page back, but the issue of why blaster rifles should ever be used over other ranged weapons still seems unresolved.

As Ergophobia pointed out in the second post, I do believe blaster rifles are the only ranged weapons with a threat range of 19-20 instead of 20-20. This translates into a 10% chance to score a thread instead of just 5%.
With Master Sniper Shot, 19-20 threat range is amplified into 15-20... a 30% chance to score a Threat. If you're already hitting consistently, your Threats will also consistently become Critical Hits, thereby increasing your average damage output significantly.

So the bottomline is, if you have a character who concentrates on the Sniper Shot feat tree, you can dole out decent damage at very good range, while also freeing up feats for other uses (by not taking any levels of Dueling or Two-Weapon Fighting). The Attack bonuses on most rifles aren't bad either.

Not necessarily the best way to go, but for characters with a slow feat progression, there's an option to consider.
Also, it may be "in-character" for someone using a feat called "Sniper Shot" to use a rifle with a long range and a scope.

Edit: Warden is right, armor only limits your Dexterity Modifier bonus to Defense... it doesn't stop your Dex Modifier from adding to ranged attack rolls.