MD of laser blades beside knives

[Tor]

New West gave us 4D6 for the Wilk's Laser Knife, it made me wonder how much MD other shapes of laser blade might do.

HU2p98-99 under 'High-Tech Melee Weapons' happens to mention an Energy Axe (11-20) an Energy Knife (47-55) and an Energy Sword (95-00).

The axe specifically mentions a "laser blade" springs forth. Although "laser" is not similarly specified for the Knife/Sword, I figure for simplicity we could just assume the same idea is meant for all.

The energy knife in HU does 3D6 damage, so that is like you would do a 1/3 increase to calculate the MD. I don't know how to apply that to 5D6 though, which is how much an axe or sword does. Maybe "one extra die" would be easier, in which case 6D6 for either?

Aliens Unlimited Revised 175 has an 'energy melee weapons' section but it seems different. The damage is not the same, it's higher for knives and lower average for swords/axes. Axes are not weaker than swords too. It can't keep consistent either. Starts off saying 'no blades' then says energy blade is 'in place of or around' and nothing about if being laser or not.

Page 8 says to use point to point, which wouldn't result in an Energy Knife doing what a Wilk's Laser Knife does. It also says normal weapons can parry them. I don't know if you can parry a Wilk's Laser Knife, though it says you can't parry with it.

[ShadowLogan]

Rifts in general has a few other energy blade weapons, though they may not be laser.
-Rifts Merc Ops has the Wilk's Laser Sword.
-Mercenaries has a few with the Naruni PA/Bots (one is just energy per the text, the other plasma so both may be plasma given the Naruni's heavy use of plasma technology)
-TW Light Blade (lasers are light).
-SA2's Minatour PA's axe is plasma
-Kittani do have those plasma weapons, but that is definitely not a laser and works differently and examples are found in several books.

[drewkitty ~..~]

What I would do is take all the descriptive text about energy melee weapons and toss the word "Laser" out of them and replace the word 'Plasma' into the holes left by taking out the word 'laser' to take out the stupidness in the text.

That is the simplest way to make ..."Laser blades"... 'not stupid.'

[glitterboy2098]

the Heroes Unlimited ones are more like the lightsabers of starwars. which are basicaly 'laser swords', and many scifi games uses 'laser sword' to describe their copies of the lightsaber trope.

like a lightsaber the energy melee weapons of HU have a visable, physical, yet energy, blade, and can stop objects.

by comparison the wilks weapons are a more literal laser weapon.. their cutting system is a set of cutting lasers engineered and aimed to converge so they destructively cancel out each others beams at a certain point. the lasers are all but silent and invisible too.