Rules for Players Modifying Equipment

[psychoph]

I am about to run a conversion of the star wars universe in Heroes. I am having trouble trying to figure out how to run modifications of equipment and droids.

I was wondering if anyone had run into this problem and was looking for suggestions.

Right now I have that equipment has a body value and a DEF value which is equal to the active points /5 which is huge for laser cannons that are multipowers.

I want to represent that modifications are tricky business. In general I also want modifications to cause some sort of problem, quirks and the like. So far I have the idea to add a characteristic, or use the body characteristic. The character rolls their mechanics or electronics skill. Modifications alter the body or characteristic by 25%. A character can then lower this percentage by 5% for each 1 added to their skill roll. IE a 14- skill that wants to have no reduction of the characteristic has a 9- to roll.

Then based on the characteristic I would use the damage or quirks tables to determine what happens when the system that has been modified is used. The idea being that a modified system works some of the times but not all because it is modified. Anyone have any suggestions for other systems or modifications to this system?

[AnotherSkip]

Well you _are_ essentially forcing the characters to take up to a -5 for little benefit, an unknown percentage of success and the possiblity of pretty severe failure. Is this in order for them to get around a Gm contrived plot or are the players just trying to jack around with the balancing mechanics or is it an attempt at realism?

Frankly I would go with either Gm fiat on number of possible successes based upon results of rolls or something else rather than a chart/calculation heavy set of results.

[AnotherSkip]

Well you _are_ essentially forcing the characters to take up to a -5 for little benefit, an unknown percentage of success and the possiblity of pretty severe failure. Is this in order for them to get around a Gm contrived plot or are the players just trying to jack around with the balancing mechanics or is it an attempt at realism?

Frankly I would go with either Gm fiat on number of possible successes based upon results of rolls or something else rather than a chart/calculation heavy set of results.

[psychoph]

Essentially it is me trying to limit how much player characters can jack up equipment.

I really don't want characters modifying their quad lasers to do twice the amount of damage they normally would.

I also want to add a bit of a twist by making modified gadgets quirky.

I am also trying to make the engineers job, which we have a player in the game specifically devoted to engineering, interesting.

So it is three things. I am trying to limit the uber stuff that charactes can develop for themselves, add some realism, and add a general sense that messing with things gets you potential problems.

[Heroman]

Overall, just go with what would be realistic (yeh, a very relative term) for the technology. You cannot readily make a 8d6 blaster into a 12d6 blaster; the technology in the weapon just won't support it: if it did, the manufactures (who have ALOT more research and time than the PCs) would have done so already. A few potential thoughts:
1. Consider what is the cap of the weapon class/equipment class given technology. Maybe you would allow adding 4d6 to 8d6 blasters, making a +3 scanner to a +5, etc, but there should be a notable cap without making the iten overly bulky and potentially damaging to the structural integrity.
2. When damaged, add an activation. Maybe 18- to start, going down as it is hit, representing the fact that it is not as perfectly field tested and durable as the original. I would say, though, that after considerable use and work, this should no be done anymore.
3. Keep skill roll modifiers hidden. There are many factors when someone invents/alters which are best shown as modifiers to whatever skill rolls you impose. Do not tell them what modifier you have assigned. They will 'get a feel' for how well they think they have done by knowing what they roll, but will not know how close they got given difficulties which could arise.
4. Money and time. Alterations are not done overnight, at least not ones with any great level of success. There is more to enhancing damage level of weapons than adding a few capacitors. For a realistic invention development cycle, perhaps the use of quality labs for design, creation, and testing is required. Time could be reflected, as a start, in the active points being introduced to the item. This could place a burden of finances and time, making each creation more of an accomplishment.

All these things assume, of course, that players don't pay for equipment.

Just a few thoughts...

[psychoph]

Players aren't paying for equipment in the sense that it costs character points.

I am running equipment as they need to take the perk money in order to afford items. If they have the money perk then they get that dollar amount multiplied by a year or 2.

This money also pays for everything from vehicles and star ships to labs and such.

The time and money are essentials to me. I was planning on using the time rule which allows players to reduice the amount of time it takes to do stuff based on the tiem scale. Of course I could always limit the number of time reduction as well as state that certain things just can't be reduced.

I will also implement the idea of maximums for modifications. But I also want to kind of make modified items quirky. I think that was kind of a theme in the Star Wars movies and I want to kind of think of a system to bring that to life. Prefearably something that I can explain to a player if necessary.

[Captain Obvious]

I would make them keep real points constant. If they want their quad-lasers to do twice the damage of an unmodified quad-laser, then they need to come up with -1 in limitations to balance it, probably by adding activation rolls, burnout rolls, charges (most Star Wars tech doesn't seem to have charges normally), making them fragile foci, etc. This is actually a fair amount of book-keeping, but if they plan ahead and spend some time out-of-game working on it, the in-game disruption won't be too bad....

[Heroman]

I recently alted how I handled the 'Money' perk. It does reflect a yearly income, true, but this is an income for someone doing a specific job for a year. My take is that it reflects a 'fallback occupation' where they can earn that money if they take a break from their adventuring; normal game play has it's own financial rewards. I also allow people to take it as a 1 shot 'financial boon'. They get twice the amount listed as cold, hard cash immediately but nothing after that. In Heroic, especially a Sci-Fi world, money *is* CPs.

As far as equip mods, definately establish some natural quirks (lims) such as Activation (pretty high, though), Side Effects, etc, but make the total effects match how well the person made their roll. If someone spends 21 points in inventor skills and rolls well, their creations should be more reliable. Also, as it is used or the person has time to test, start reducing the quirks; Most stuff gets better as you field test.

[Herolover]

I think you are falling into a trap that is easy for Herogames to fall into. We get so worried about the points and how things are written up within the rules that we forget how simple some things can be.

1) I assume you are playing a heroic level campaign where the players pay money for buying equipment not points. This is just like any other game system.

2) So your players want to "modify" equipment. Rule #1 forget game mechanics. Can the equipment be modified? How hard is it to modify the equipment? These are questions that you as the GM are going to have to answer based upon the campaign setting (in this case Star Wars.)

You mention Droids so I will use that as an example. If the Droid is a PC or follower than yes, I would make the character pay points AND Money for any changes made in the character. It isn't fair for a Droid PC to be able to plop down extra money for increased STR when a normal player must pay points for it. (I would handle Cyberneticts this way as well, points AND money.)

Now if the droid is just a piece of equipment than I wouldn't worry about it. If you were playing a nomral modern campaign you wouldn't charge a player for adding hubcaps to his car right?

Now if a player wants to put a major gun in a small droid then that should be roleplayed out. Forget mechanics. I don't think this is the answer you want, but there really isn't a good answer for this question. As someone else pointed out just because something is built doesn't mean it should be modified or everyone would do it.