Gear and Attack

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Lord Specineff13
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Lord Specineff13 »

I would change that specific Attack there to not have the Weapon flaw, as the Gear ability means that it can be separated from the character already.

That particular Gear would improve a character's existing Attack ability by 2 ranks or give them the Attack ability at 2 ranks if they had it at zero ranks before. That means that all their attacks are at DX3 before any specific Perks and Flaws are applied.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Chris Brady »

Wait, what?
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Clay »

He’s saying that since Gear implies a focus, you are technically breaking the rules by giving it the Weapon Flaw.

But unlike Focus or Vehicle, or whatnot, you’re not getting a significant kickback for buying Gear. You’re not getting Ability points like Focus, nor are you getting free Levels in Abilities like Vehicle or Transformation. It mainly exists to organize your character sheet.

...so I wouldn’t be stickler for it in this case.

Otherwise, Specineff’s just reiterating this Gear will give you DX3, sans any other bonuses from Abilities/Perks/etc.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Chris Brady »

But Gear isn't always a weapon. It can be a power suit, that doesn't fall under the Mecha classification. Like Shadowman's Power Suit could be?
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The Reddest Mage
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by The Reddest Mage »

Chris Brady wrote:But Gear isn't always a weapon. It can be a power suit, that doesn't fall under the Mecha classification. Like Shadowman's Power Suit could be?
That's right, Gear doesn't necessarily have to be a Weapon. I think the point is that, whether it represents a weapon or not, the Gear Ability in and of itself automatically reflects that it is a separate item that can be disarmed, dropped, left at home, etc. The Weapon Flaw, though it's called "Weapon," is just a way of saying that a specific attack from the Attack Ability isn't some innate technique but is instead an item that can be disarmed, dropped, left at home, etc. The Gear, Vehicle, Focus, Weapon, etc. Abilities/Weaknesses/Flaws all basically do the same thing, they just have slightly different pros and cons for their method of doing it.

If you had an item that wasn't a weapon, you could build it as Gear (which unlike the other methods let's you assign Weaknesses as well as Abilities to it).

Or you could take the Abilities innately and slap on the Focus Weakness to get some more Ability points back.

Alternatively, if you'd rather get a reduction to the Endurance Cost (or get a free Perk and still keep the Endurance Cost at 0), rather than the Weapon Flaw if the item isn't itself a weapon you could just instead slap on the Requirement: Must Have Whatever Item (-5) Flaw in place of the Weapon Flaw.

But that Flaw would only apply to one Ability though, whereas the Focus Weakness can apply to multiple Abilities. So if the item in question grants more than just one Ability, or one that doesn't need a reduction to Endurance Cost, it would be better to use the Focus Weakness rather than a Flaw like Requirement or Weapon, or just build it using Gear.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Chris Brady »

...This is seriously more confusing than it should be.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Sabersonic »

Well I have a little quicky inquiry that, though not relevant, just might be important enough to ask.

Let's just say that someone, either a player or a GM, decides to use the Gear Attribute to craft a weapon rather than create a separate instance of the Attack Attribute. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, said character has a +1 Attack and +1 in Gear. Using the Attack Level guide by Edsel, said weapon is designed as your typical two-handed sword with a +3 Attack Ability with a -1 Awkward Size and -1 Slow Weaknesses, which gives said sword a total DX of 4 on its own. A very appropriate level for a large, two-handed sword.

However, due to Gear stacking their respective abilities and weaknesses onto the character that uses it, said item's DX increases to 5 simply because the character has an Attack Ability of +1. It would make sense if said weapon was suppose to be Dragon Slayer massive, but it wasn't.

One solution is to decrease the Sword Gear's Attack ability so that when added to that character's own Attack Ability, the total DX is 4. However, the base DX for said Sword Gear is 3 and in theory would make it rather awkward for another character borrowing said item to have a DX of 3 simply because said character doesn't have an Attack Ability. Or if a borrowing character had a higher Attack Ability than the original character that would, when using the Sword Gear, would give it a DX of 5 or even greater.

The only idea I could come up at the moment with is use the appropriate value of the Ineffective Flaw, along with the intentional DX in the Attack Variation section, so that the DX of the weapon does not change its DX value when wielded by any one character. Flawed, but that's all I could figure at the moment.

Anyone else have a (statistically better) approach to this issue?
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The Reddest Mage
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by The Reddest Mage »

If a sword is built as Gear with the Attack +3 Ability, it will always be a sword with the Attack +3 Ability. Its stats do not change regardless of who wields it. The only thing that changes between users is how good the person wielding it is.

So, if someone who is using Gear +3 (Attack +3) already has the Attack +3 Ability along with the Strong +3 Ability, they are going to be hitting people with a +9 bonus to their Damage Multiplier. However, some random guy with the Weak -2 Weaknesses who picks up the same sword will only have a +1 bonus to their Damage Multiplier.

The difference in damage isn't about any change in the sword, but the change in the user's own ability (or inability) at hitting things really hard or where it really hurts.

Also, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Gear has the default 1 Damage Multiplier that characters start out with, in the same way that they don't have the default 40 Health and Endurance that characters start out with either. If Gear is made up of Attack +3, then its bonus to a user's Damage Multiplier would be +3 rather than +4. At least that's how I believe it works.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by sniffycrab »

I shall now enlighten you all to a fact you seem to have forgotten. The attack ability is defined as "The Characters Knowledge and talent for dealing damage." So Bob with attack +2 Deals a base damage of x3 because he simply knows where to stick the sword point, bullet, boot, ect. to deal the most damage.

So Gear with attack means the Gear "Knows how to do the most Damage"A high tech gun that guides bullets to weak points or any "Magic" weapon might know where to hit to do the most damage or how to hit to do the most damage. Your basic mundane weapon does not "know" anything and should just be treated as perks and flaws to a character's attack.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Sabersonic »

But there's still the whole DX stacking issue to contend with, even if a Gear with Attack +X being as nonsensical as Gear with knowledge. That and, last I checked, gear with just attack variations don't really count towards the Gear Level.

Then again,I have been wrong before on that front...
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by The Reddest Mage »

sniffycrab wrote:I shall now enlighten you all to a fact you seem to have forgotten. The attack ability is defined as "The Characters Knowledge and talent for dealing damage." So Bob with attack +2 Deals a base damage of x3 because he simply knows where to stick the sword point, bullet, boot, ect. to deal the most damage.

So Gear with attack means the Gear "Knows how to do the most Damage"A high tech gun that guides bullets to weak points or any "Magic" weapon might know where to hit to do the most damage or how to hit to do the most damage. Your basic mundane weapon does not "know" anything and should just be treated as perks and flaws to a character's attack.
Mechanically speaking, Gear is just a collection of Abilities and maybe Weaknesses that give bonuses and penalties to the person who has the item equipped. In the case of Gear, having the Attack Ability does not necessarily mean that the item literally "knows how to do the most Damage." With Gear, the Attack Ability just means that the item deals more damage than than your average weapon would, perhaps because the blade is more deadly, or it has spikes on it, or the bullets it shoots cause really horrific wounds.

As another example, Gear that has the Knowledge (Computers) +3 Ability doesn't mean the Gear itself is knowledgeable about the subject or that it itself "has an interest or training in a particular area." It just means that the person using it has access to that Ability. Imagine a computer that granted the user the Knowledge (Computers) +3 that was so user-friendly, so simple, and had such an easy help tutorial and interface that even someone who had never touched a computer before could do some decent hacking while using it thanks to all of its on-screen guides and help menus.

As a rule of thumb, if you're talking about a Companion or Minion, then the Abilities and Weaknesses apply to the NPC. But for Gear, Abilities and Weaknesses are essentially just bonuses and penalties to the user reflecting what the gear was designed to do.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Chris Brady »

The big caveat is that Gear can be taken from you and used by someone else.

Thing is, I think it should work like Mecha/Vehicle in which it gives you double the points you invest in it for attributes.

Which leaves Focus as the odd man out.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Sabersonic »

Well, I've been wondering about my little issue of stacking DX with Attack-centric gears with an intentionally fixed DX level. I have half-baked two potential solutions.

1) A Unique Ability with the following notation: "Maximum DX"

2) A Unique Weakness with the following notation: "DX does not stack"

For the first solution, though it gives any character using the Gear a DX that adds to the character's own, there's an upper limit with the total point value being the same as the maximum DX the design is intended. For the second, it simply disallows any stacking of the DX with those of the character who uses it. Not sure about the level of the weakness, but I suspect that it would have to be at Level 2 under most cases unless the Attack Ability has only two levels, to which the Unique Flaw only has One Level.

I did mention that they were "Half-Baked".
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Clay »

The reason Gear doesn’t offer double points is because it doesn’t give much disadvantage. With both Transformation and Vehicle, the instances in which you can use them are limited. The vehicle can’t come with you into the dungeon. The transformation can’t be activated all the time.

Gear on the other hand is pretty much not worse for wear. It’s only real benefit to the character is book-keeping on the character sheet (and, potentially, passing the Gear around easily.) There’s the small issue of it potentially getting lost or broken...but not enough to grant double points for sure.

Also, Gear does not have a built-in 1 DX. That one DX always belongs to the character (who may or may not have a bigger/smaller number from Strong/Weak)

As for DX stacking, it’s probably better to skip on custom Weaknesses and just house rule that certain combinations can't be stacked. For example, human-scale Attack doesn’t stack with mecha-scale Attack.

I think there’s a case for things always stacking (because bad-asses are always bad-asses regardless if they’re piloting something or not), but that simple declaration makes it easy to understand when you might not stack it.
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Re: Gear and Attack

Post by Chris Brady »

You grab someone's 'Gear' and take it away, that's a pretty big disadvantage. They lose whatever abilities they've tied into it.
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