The Baton is the universal symbol of authority—and resistance—in the crowded corridors of the Starfall Galaxy. From the magnetic-lock belts of Station Security to the hidden pockets of street urchins in the Lower Decks, this simple bludgeon is a tool of order and chaos alike.
The Baton is a Simple Melee Weapon in the Club group. It is favored for its Agile trait, allowing for rapid follow-up strikes, and its non-lethal default application makes it ideal for capture missions or urban skirmishes where collateral damage is penalized.
"Respect the stick," the old Station Wardens say. In a galaxy awash with plasma repeaters and singularity grenades, the Baton remains the most common way to say "no" without blowing a hole in the hull.
Manufactured by the millions in automated orbital foundries, standard batons are dense rods of polymer or recycled plasteel. They are the primary armament for Station Sec, guild enforcers, and debt collectors who need to extract payments from living targets. Out in the Frontier, "mag-batons" are popular—heavy iron rods fitted with magnetic locking grips so they can't be disarmed in a zero-G scuffle.
Culturally, the Baton occupies a unique space: it is the weapon of "Low Law." If a guard draws a laser pistol, you're an enemy of the state; if they draw a baton, you're just a nuisance. Conversely, for the criminal element, carrying a baton signals a willingness to bruise rather than kill, often earning a strange form of respect in the brutal etiquette of the under-city.
Baton Weapon 0+
Source Player Core pg. 264
Price 2c; Damage 1d6 Blugeoning, Bulk L
Hands 1; Upgrades 1
Category Simple
Group shock
Type Melee; Category Simple; Group Club
This reinforced rod is commonly made from metal alloys and designed to strike and parry incoming blows.
Critical Specialization Effects
Certain feats, class features, weapon runes, and other effects can grant you additional benefits when you make a Strike with certain weapons and get a critical success. This is called a critical specialization effect. The exact effect depends on which weapon group your weapon belongs to, as listed below. You can always decide not to add the critical specialization effect of your weapon.
Club You knock the target away from you up to 10 feet (you choose the distance). This is forced movement.
Non-Combat Applications
Percussive Maintenance: Mechanics and engineers frequently use heavy batons to unstick rusted airlock gears, realign casing panels, or "reset" glitching droid servos with a measured whack.
Structural Sounding: Scavengers tap batons against bulkheads to listen for hollow spaces, identifying hidden compartments or dangerous hull fatigue before cutting.
Signaling: In the deafening roar of a factory floor or the silence of a vacuum (via conduction), rhythmic tapping on floor plates serves as a primitive but effective Morse code.
Societal Impact
The Baton has shaped the "bruise economy" of Starfall's megacities. Because they are cheap and non-lethal, they allow syndicates to enforce territory without triggering full-scale military purges. In high-society, ceremonial batons made of rare rift-glass are carried by diplomats to signify their authority to "enforce peace," a subtle threat wrapped in elegance.
Adventure Hooks
The Peacemaker's Key: The party finds a battered Tactical Baton embedded in a wall. unscrewing the pommel reveals a cryptographic key for a high-security vault on a rival faction's station.
Riot Control: A local guild hires the party to quell a labor uprising using only non-lethal batons. The catch: the "rioters" are infected with a rage-inducing bio-agent, and a single lethal mistake could cause a PR massacre.
The Duel of Rods: A dispute with a stubborn NPC captain can only be settled by "The Law of the Iron," a traditional first-blood duel using standard batons atop a moving hover-train.
Whether used to enforce the law or break it, the Baton proves that in the Starfall Galaxy, simple kinetic force is a universal language.
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