Gear, Redux
I have been thinking a lot about my rules for gear lately. I’m not entirely sure I like what I have come up with so far.
Today, I’m just going to ramble, so bear with me.
Gear Rating to Determine Price
So far, I have gear with a rating, just like skills. This was originally intended to determine the cost of the item to purchase. I know that I haven’t talked about prices in Halo yet, that’s because the characters are assumed to be a part of the military, and are given what they need.
However, I’m not sure I like that idea. After spending more time with Technoir, I have grown to really like the way it handles costs. You pay for each Tag the item has. For Halo, that could easily be changed to pay for each Stunt and Aspect.
Gear Rating to Modify Skill Roll
Another thing that gear rating did was modify the skill roll with using the gear. This was done with the assumption that not having the necessary tools would be akin to a constant compel of -2, having low quality gear was a -1, and high-quality gear was worth a +1.
It’s good in theory. However, I’m not really that keen on modifying every roll. Having the right piece of gear will let you roll without a penalty. If it’s high-quality, than it will have a stunt that says as much, thus giving you the +1 (or a “negative stunt” for a -1 to the roll).
Vehicles
Ok, so now that gear is no longer given a rating, how does that impact vehicles? In several ways, to be sure.
Since we no longer have ratings for things, vehicles are nothing more than a large collection of stunts and aspects. For example, if the vehicle has armour, that’s a stunt (Heavy Armour [-2] Reduce all incoming stress by 2), or if it’s durable, that’s also a stunt (Durable [-1] The vehicle has an additional mild physical consequence).
Mounted weapons are treated like a collection of stunts, just like a normal weapon. For example, the wraith tank has a Hull-Mounted Plasma Cannon [-3] (Rapid Fire, Medium Range (reduce range penalties by 2), Heavy Weapon (+2 stress), Gunner Operated (requires a dedicated gunner, not usable by pilot)).
Weapon Example
Let’s take a look at the Magnum Pistol, favored sidearm of the UNSC.
Magnum Pistol
- Reliable Sidearm
- Weak Scope (When you don’t move zones, reduce range penalties by 1, and deal +1 stress)
That’s pretty much it. One Stunt and one Aspect.
What about a more complex weapon? How about the plasma sword?
Plasma Sword
- Concealable Energy Weapon
- Nasty deadly (+2 physical stress)
- Armour Piercing (ignore 1-point of targets armour, and the target must take at least one physical stress)
Armour Example
Elite Armour
- Signifies Rank
- Medium Armour [-2] (Reduce physical stress taken by 2 points)
- Protective (Armour has 2 physical stress boxes)
So here we have a nice piece of medium armour. Reduces all incoming stress by 2, and have 2 stress boxes to absorb damage. Remember, all stress is eliminated after a conflict, so those two extra boxes will be coming in handy a lot.
Vehicle Example
And now the moment I’ve been dreading for a while. Statting up a vehicle. I’m going to do an easy vehicle, the Ghost
Ghost
- Fast-attack recon vehicle
- Open-topped
- Speedy (+1 to all Drive rolls)
- Booster (+2 to Drive rolls when Sprinting (this stacks with Speedy))
- Plasma cannon [-3] (Rapid Fire, Heavy Weapon (+2 stress), Strafe (instead of the +2 stress, make an attack against every target in a zone), Medium Range (Reduce range penalties by 2, but -1 for attacks in the same zone))
- Armour Plating [-2] (reduce stress taken by 1, and add 2 additional stress boxes)
So 7 stunts is all it takes to represent the Ghost.
Closing Thoghts
I think this is better overall. Gear is now nothing more than “containers” for Stunts and Aspects. I think it is a more elegant solution than having Ratings in addition to Stuns and Aspects.
What do y’all think? Is this a better way of doing it?
