Firearms and Ammunition

[ThamiorLianodel]

I'm currently about to GM a heroic SciFi campaign using the Hero System (my first attempt at it, too). I just have a bit of an issue with firearms/ammunition.

From my current perspective, I think that I should build firearm stats using a 1-clip charges limitation. I just have a question of how to handle the ammunition. I know that special ammunition can be created like a weapon through point costs (as I've seen in Star Hero), so would I just build it like any other equipment, not taking into account that it requires a firearm? Also, how would you handle the cost of such items should the players attempt to purchase more (whether standard or special)?

[ghost-angel]

One method to ammo types could be to treat each Ammo Type as a Naked Advantage applied to the Weapone Type it's meant for. You're standard Gun could be a 2D6 RKA, load in Armor Piercing rounds and it's a 2D6 AP RKA, the AP aspect is a 1-clip charge Naked Advantage applied to the Gun so you track that ammo seperately.

As for costing - if you charge points carrying lots of ammo types gets expensive fast. If you treat it like Equipment then the build is mostly superfluous but can be helpful. Just write down you have 1 clip of this, 2 clips of that, et cetera...

[ThamiorLianodel]

Ah... I hadn't noticed the Maked Advantage. Thanks. that would give me a few good ways of going about it.

As for total cost, I'm not going to bother with it. I thought about it, and it would just modify the efective points of the equipment as a whole. I just had an issue with the costs of individual parts, as I'm thinking of using a simple conversion rate for the cost of a weapon (either linear, as in x points costs y units of money, or possibly something a bit more complex).

Thanks!

[ghost-angel]

No problem. A suggestion on monetary costs:

Make it arbitrary based on the frequency you want any given item to appear in the game world. If you want armor piercing rounds to be fairly common make them a low price, and likewise if you want explosive rounds to be extremely rare give them a high monetary cost.

I recommend not basing Monetary Cost on Point Cost in any way at all.

[ThamiorLianodel]

Hm... I was planning on using it as a basis. More powerful or rare items being less available, and thus more expensive. Still not a strict rule, I would of course adjust according to each case. There would be a lot of other factors to take into acount.

Edit: One question about the example gun: Would you build that with a 1-clip, x-charges limitation?

[ghost-angel]

Edit: One question about the example gun: Would you build that with a 1-clip, x-charges limitation?
Yes.

[Sean Waters]

Depending on how you want to do it (in hero there is almost always more than one way) you could also build different types of ammunition as a multipower with various changes/clips attacked to each slot - and a note that changing slots types requires changing clips.

Mind you if th eplayers are not actually paying points for the different types of ammo, I'd be inclined to cost the base ammo type them apply a multiplier to special ammo types - non standard ammo always copsts a LOT more than its pure utility value.

[ThamiorLianodel]

I'll look into that, too. It would definitely be good for a character spending points on equipment.

I'll also take that into account for the cost. It would be a specialty item, in adition to utility, availability, and so on.

[prestidigitator]

I ran a very brief Sci-Fi game a while back in which I developed a whole library of my own weapons. I believe I based the cost of a typical weapon (a fixed multiplier) on the Real Cost of the weapon's, "standard," attack with four standard-sized clips (I figured that was a decent average for the number of clips a character would be likely to carry). I then based the cost of the ammo (a different fixed multiplier) on the Real Cost of the attack (using the appropriate Power for that ammo) with one Charge (-2); the cost of a clip would then be the cost of each, "round" (whether that was a physical round or a certain amount of energy or whatever) times the size of the clip.

It seemed to work pretty well, and did give a nice price range for various weapons (with and without Charges) once I figured out good values for the multipliers. Oh, I might add that I didn't round up or down during the calculation of Active Points and Real Cost; I waited until I had a final currency cost for the item, which gave better granularity.