Surprising Errata

The rules for stunning weapons are a bit tricky in SWSE. It seems that somewhere along the line, someone decided they should work differently, and didn't change everything consistently.

Most of the blasters in the game have two damage ratings listed: one for 'real' damage and one for stun damage. So far, so good. When used on stun setting, first compare the damage rolled with the Damage Threshold (and if it beats it, move -2 steps down), then halve the damage and subtract it from the target's hit points. That's not too difficult.

However, in the errata, they make one significant change to this: instead of listing separate damage for the two types, weapons instead simply have a damage rating and an annotation "Yes" to indicate they have a stun mode. Pretty much everything else remains the same. That's also not too hard - in fact, it's a bit easier.

But where it gets wierd is this: all the weapons published after the Core Rulebook promptly ignore the errata, and go back to having two different damage codes for the two modes.

So I'm confused. Did they try the errata and find they didn't like it? Did they simply forget that they'd changed that? Or did the change cause so much confusion that they quietly abandoned it?

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For what it's worth, I would instead prefer the following:

Weapons have a single damage rating. Some weapons have a single fixed mode (normal, stun, ion), while some can switch between them, though at any time a weapon can only be in one of the three modes.

When firing in stun mode:

1. Roll an attack vs Fortitude (not Reflex!)
2. On a hit, move the target -1 step down the Condition Track.
3. Roll damage, and divide by 2. (Remember to round fractions down.)
4. Subtract the (halved) damage from the target's hit points. If reduced to 0 hit points, the target is knocked unconscious.
5. Compare the (halved) damage with the Damage Threshold. If it is higher, move a further -1 step down the Condition Track.

(Ion weapons, when used against vehicles, droids, or cyborgs, work exactly like stun weapons. When used against organic creatures ignore step 2 above.)

This of course introduces a slightly oddity to the rules, in that almost all attacks target Reflex where this one attacks Fortitude, but I think it's a small enough discrepancy to ignore in favour of speed. (Plus, SWSE probably puts too much emphasis on Reflex, so applying stuff to the other defences is A Good Thing.) In trade, however, it gives a guaranteed effect for a successful stun attack, where currently there's likely to be no meaningful effect, and once you've halved the damage it actually works (almost) exactly like a normal attack - the only slight difference being that a normal attack can kill where a stun attack merely stuns.

There are a couple of other nits I wish to pick with the weapon rules, but that's another rant...