Equipment

There are a great variety of weapons, armor and equipment out in the verse that characters can obtain. Each piece of equipment you give a character comes with particular weaknesses and advantages, so choose carefully and think about how you want your character to develop. There are several things to take into account when picking equipment for your character. The first is the characteristics of the specific pieces of equipment available to your character, different weapons and armor benefit more or less from different combinations of skills and strengths.

When checking out different pieces of gear in the Gear Index, each piece will have several characteristics, some specific to the item, some specific to the type of item it is, and some general to all gear.

Qualities

Most Gear has a number of Qualities, these are either descriptions of special abilities equipment confers or keywords to describe some of the gear’s capabilities. The meaning of each quality can be found in the Gear Index.

Weight & Carrying Capacity

All gear has a certain weight, a character can carry an amount of weight equal to their (Strength + Endurance + Athletics Ranks) *10. If a character is carrying more than their max carrying capacity, their encumbrance increases by 2 and a character can never carry more than twice their maximum carrying capacity.

Price

The price of item in credits. Keep in mind that this is the price most merchants will buy the item at from the players. Outside of character creation, prices will usually be two to four times the price described in the gear index, depending on the rarity and availability of the item in the place its being purchased.

Mods

Most items can be modified to better suit the owner’s needs. Modifying an item usually requires a crafter of some sort, the modification in question and sometime of work. The modifications available for each item are described in the Gear Index under the entry for each base piece of gear. Items can fit a certain number of modifications which varies based on the base item. Rare items that can fit extra modifications can also be given out by the GM or purchased during character creation. However, they are far more costly and harder to find than the regular versions.

Weapons

Sometimes, even if a character is skilled at guile and has amazing social skills, a peaceful solution to conflict simply won’t be in the cards. In those cases, characters will be forced to draw their weapons and resolve the situation through other means. After the Blackout, the abundance of Feral and Rim Worlds, the cramped spaces within ships, facilities and space stations and the proliferation of reactive plating in armor has led to a renaissance in ancient melee weapons, so it's not uncommon to see pirate and mercenary crews sporting longsword and scraped together plate style armor alongside advanced shield generators and laser rifles.

Just like all other equipment, Weaponry has specific characteristics to consider when picking what is best for a character.

Size

Weapons have a size category which can be one handed, two handed or heavy. This affects how many action points the weapon takes to use and what the character can hold while having it equipped. For example, a character would be unable to hold a two-handed weapon and a shield at the same time. All Bulky weapons are considered two-handed.

Some weapons may have more than one size type, which means the character can chose to wield the weapon one or two handed, having two slightly different profiles that correspond with how they are being wielded.

Attack

All weapons will have an attack section which determines what Attribute + Skill combination is used hit enemies with this weapon as part of an Attack Test. alternatively, some weapons may give you a choice of two or more combinations depending on the situation.

Damage

This section indicates how many dice are rolled, upon a successful hit, to determine the amount of damage the weapon deals to an enemy as part of a Damage Test. In some cases, this section might say Strength, which means you check your character’s strength attribute and roll a number of dice depending on that

Clip & Ammunition

If the weapon uses any type of ammunition, the clip size and specific ammunition type used will be in this section.

Range

This section is comprised of two parts, minimum and maximum effective range. Using a weapon under its minimum effective range will have a -2 modifier on their attack test. Likewise, ranged weapons can be fired up to twice their maximum effective range, but doing so will also have a -2 modifier on the attack test.

Armor & Clothing

At any given time, each character is able to equip a single set of clothing and a single set of armor, as well as a few other accessories. Just like any other gear, Armor & Clothing will have some specific traits.

Armor Value (AV)

Some sets of clothing and most armor offers some degree of protection to the wearer, which is represented by its Armor Value. Whenever a damage test is rolled against the character, the test’s results are compared to the Armor Value of the character. The difference between Damage Test and the Armor Value determines the direct damage dealt to the character.

The Armor Value of clothes and armor is not cumulative. Armor Value from Shields is cumulative but only benefits the character if they are being attacked on their front arc and does not degrade unless the Shield is broken. Similarly, Armor Value granted by training or other abilities does not degrade.

Damage Resistance (DR)

Most armor offers something called Damage Resistance. These are extra, temporary HP that the armor offers the wearer when it’s in top shape. Whenever a character takes damage, that damage will be first allocated to the gear’s Damage Resistance and only once that is gone, hurt the character themselves.

Whenever Armor undergoes emergency repairs on the field, any armor damage they repair over the maximum is converted to damage resistance up to the maximum amount allowed by the armor.

As opposed to Armor Value, Damage Resistance is cumulative from all pieces of gear the character has equipped. If a character has any Natural Damage Resistance, it recovers when they take a long rest

Encumbrance

Armor, how much you are carrying and some gear will add encumbrance to a character, this represents the difficulty moving or performing certain tasks when Gear is too heavy or restrictive. Encumbrance works on a scale and the effects depend on the total encumbrance a character has. You can check the effects of encumbrance in the following table.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6+

Max Passive Evasion: 5

Max Passive Evasion: 4

Max Passive Evasion: 3. -1 Modifier on Sneak, Athletics and Evasion tests. -5ft Running speed

Max Passive Evasion: 2. -1 Modifier on Sneak, Athletics and Evasion tests. -10ft Running speed

Max Passive Evasion: 1. -2 Modifier on Sneak, Athletics and Evasion tests. -15ft Running speed

Max Passive Evasion: 1. -2 Modifier on Sneak, Athletics and Evasion tests. -20ft Running speed

Max Passive Evasion: 1. -3 Modifier on Sneak, Athletics and Evasion tests. -25ft Running speed

Equipment Damage

Sometimes gear will receive damage due to various factors, from an enemy Equipment Break maneuver to the character taking damage, or simply GM criteria.

Characters need to test on the gear damage table in the following circumstances;

  • A specific piece of gear takes damage due to a failed Skill Challenge

  • A specific piece of gear will be damaged if struck by a successful Equipment Break combat maneuver.

  • The GM determines the equipment would be damaged.

  • Optional Rule: Equipment may be damaged whenever a character is struck by a critical hit

When targeted by an Equipment Break maneuver, the Enemy character must perform a strength test, if they match or beat the difficulty required to break a piece of gear, they then roll in the corresponding Equipment damage table.

When a piece of gear receives a result of 3+ on the damage table it is considered Damaged. Each result of in the damage table also has instructions as to how the damage must be repaired. If a damaged weapon or piece of gear is damaged again before being repaired, it is now Broken. Broken gear cannot be used or repaired in the field and needs a full day for repairs.

Equipment Damage Tables

Ranged Weapon Difficulty 2
D6 Effect Repair
1-2 Misfire!
Weapon fires in a random direction determined by a d6, striking the first target in the shot's path.		 N/A
3-4 Jam!
Weapon cannot fire.		 Perform two full reloads on the weapon (does not consume ammunition).
5 Bent
Attacks with this weapon have Major Disadvantage.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test and 1 hour of work.
6 Badly Damaged
Attacks with this weapon have Major Disadvantage.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test; 1 Material, Component (for Firearms), or Advanced Component (for Tech Weapons); and 4 hours of work.
Melee Weapon Difficulty 3
D6 Effect Repair
1-2 Dropped
Drop weapon within 5 feet in a direction determined by the GM.		 N/A
3-4 Warped
Attacks with this weapon are made at Disadvantage.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test and 1 hour of work.
5 Bent
Attacks with this weapon have Major Disadvantage.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test and 1 hour of work.
6 Badly Damaged
Attacks with this weapon have Major Disadvantage.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test, 1 Material or Advanced Component (for Tech Weapons), and 4 hours of work.
Explosives Difficulty 2
D6 Effect Repair
1-2 Unstable
Weapon will explode in 6 seconds or at this initiative count next round, with +1 Blast range.		 N/A
3-5 Dead Fuse
Weapon may not be used.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test and 1 hour of work.
6 Damaged Casing
Weapon loses any Blast or Template qualities.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test, 1 Component and 1 hour of work.
Rig Difficulty 2
D6 Effect Repair
1-2 Discharge
Wielder takes d6 Shock damage.		 N/A
3-4 Bluescreen
Rig may not be used.		 Difficulty (3) Datacrafting test and 1 hour of work.
5 Dead Battery
Rig may not be used.		 Consume 1 Power Cell.
6 Badly Damaged
Rig may not be used.		 Difficulty (2) Mechacrafting test, Difficulty (3) Datacrafting test, 1 Advanced Component, and 4 hours of work.
Light/Medium Armor & Shields Difficulty 3
D6 Effect Repair
1-2 Heavy Blow
Target is knocked down and Stunned(1).		 N/A
3-4 Warped
Gear gains +1 Encumbrance		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test and 1 hour of work.
5 Shredded
Loses d6 maximum AV		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test, 1 Material, and 1 hour of work.
6 Badly Damaged
Cannot be used until repaired.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test, 2 Materials, and 4 hours of work.
Heavy/Powered Armor Difficulty 4
D6 Effect Repair
1-2 Heavy Blow
Target is knocked down and Stunned(1).		 N/A
3-4 Warped
Gear gains +1 Encumbrance		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test and 1 hour of work.
5 Shredded
Loses d6 maximum AV		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test, 1 Material or Advanced Component (for Powered Armor), and 1 hour of work.
6 Badly Damaged
Cannot be used until repaired.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test, 2 Materials or 2 Advanced Components, and 4 hours of work.
Prosthetic Implant Difficulty 3
D6 Effect Repair
1-2 Dead Battery
Implant cannot be used.		 Consume a Power Cell.
3-4 Fizzled
Implant can still be used but provides no special abilities.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting test and 1 hour of work.
5 Broken Servos
Implant cannot be used.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test, 2 Components, and 1 hour of work.
6 Badly Damaged
Implant cannot be used.		 Difficulty (3) Mechacrafting or Crafting test, 2 Components and 1 Advanced Component, and 4 hours of work.