Gadgets And Gear

[Steve Long]

Here’s our back-cover text describing G&G:

 

AN ARSENAL OF GADGETS

 

Superheroes (and villains!) are famous for the super-science gadgets they use — everything from blaster pistols, to flying platforms, to armored capes, to super-handcuffs... and more. Gadgets And Gear brings you thousands of such amazing devices for Champions! It includes:

 

—Weapons: Hundreds of super-weapons, ranging from blasters and lasers to trick arrows, arsenals of “theme” weaponry, restraint and capture devices, and more.

 

—Defenses: With so many super-tech weapons in the hands of villains, heroes need a way to protect themselves! Gadgets And Gear includes powered armor suits and devices, force field gadgets, and other equipment to keep your character safe and sound.

 

—Movement Gadgets: To get to the scene of the crime, heroes need glider capes, rocket flyers, teleportation webs, flight rings, and other ways to travel.

 

—Sensory And Communications Gear: When a hero needs to keep in touch with his teammates, or find his foes, Gadgets And Gear has wrist-radios, x-ray vision goggles, infrared lenses for his mask, and more.

 

No matter how high-tech your villains, or how clever your gadgeteer characters, Gadgets And Gear has just what they need!

 

 

 

ISBN: 1-58366-031-3

SKU: DOJHERO210

Price: $26.99 US

 

You can buy this book in our Online Store.

You can buy this PDF in our Online Store.

[Steve Long]

Re: Gadgets And Gear

 

Here’s a copy of ghost-angel’s review of X. Feel free to post other reviews, or links to them, if you like!

 

The Upside:

 

Gadgets And Gear is a collection of example Power builds focused around making various pieces of equipment. While it would be easy enough simply say "Add The Focus Limitation To Any Power" in the other example builds books Hero has put out, sometimes there's more to it. And sometimes it's just to have a collection of prebuilt gadgets to help.

 

Chapter One - Super-Weapons. This chapter breaks down into several different categories of weapons available to the modern superhero or supervillain. First the ever popular and classic Blasters. These are basically builds of various damage causing weapons from Pulson Weapons, Heat Rays, Vari-Blasters and simple Lasers (and we can't forget the classic Disintegrator Ray). Everything in part one is designed to cause direct damage. Part Two is Gas Weapons, Fear Gas, Knockout Gas, Gas Guns are all here. Part Three is melee weapons, because sometimes you just need to hit them really hard. Almost a dozen weapons of various kinds from electrified whips to tricked out billy clubs. Mind Affecting Weapons includes hypnotic musical instruments, mind reading head bands and the like. Muscle-Powered Range Weapons is similar to melee weapons, with several commonly seen weapons. Dropped marbles, half a dozen types of grenades, two examples of how to build a Super Bow And Arrow for archer types (with twenty-one trick arrow builds), hurled lightning (my personal favorite from this section), among others. Restraining Weapons includes Power Negators, various nets, paralysis darts, capture foam to mention just a few. Theme Weaponry can provide all kinds of fun, toy weapons, candy weapons, a Halloween arsenal and another favorite in th book the Combat Yo-Yo. Miscellaneous Weapons includes a few dozen other types of things you can use in combat to subdue or otherwise defeat your enemies. From various power gauntlets, shrink rays, mini-missiles, hologram projectors, and trick umbrella's to name only a few.

 

Taking up almost half the book this chapter should provide Powered Armor and Gadgeteer Supers with enough ideas to keep their enemies on their toes.

 

Chapter Two - Defensive Gadgets. This chapter is divided into two parts, Powered Armor and More Defensive Gadgets.

 

The Powered Armor section isn't just a collection of things that go into a Powered Armor character, after all an enterprising Player could use any device in the book that way. Instead is provides a short How To Build Powered Armor section, while not a complete source book in itself, it is useful to anyone looking to create such an archetype. Starting by dividing Powered Armor into five sub-sections: Helmet, Chestplate, Gauntlets, Boots, and External Modules. There's a guidelines table of how many Active Points worth of Powers a typical Powered Armor device might carry based on it's type, Full Armor, Heavy Exoskeleton and Light Exoskeleton. The Point totals for all the Powers include using either the Only In Hero ID Limitation of the Obvious Inaccessible Limitation as the most common representations of the build. First up are Basics, a collection of Powers that any given Power Armor might have, from the armor plating itself, Life Support, Communications, and finally Power. Helmet Systems is short, a defensive power and more Sensory options. Chestplate systems include some offensive weaponry, defensive abilities (like hologram projectors or smoke screens), and other similar options. Gauntlet systems contains mostly offensive abilities, but a few other useful tools are included. Boot systems contain a few movement powers, your typical flight and running, and Rocket Skates! External Module systems is more weaponry that attaches to the armor, shoulder mounted or arm mounted weapons and the like, this is where weapons from Chapter One might be added on if you need more ideas. Each section comes with a table to generate a random suite of Powers to create a quick suit of Powered Armor. Good for the GM if he needs some enemies quickly, good for the Player if they're stuck on ideas or having trouble choosing. It's an excellent short guide to creating a Powered Armor character for either a Champions game or for a Star Hero game that features such things.

 

The rest of the chapter is dedicated to some general defensive type equipment. Concealment And Stealth Devices is several builds for Stealth Suits. Force Field devices, a number of ways of creating defenses. Helmets with both protection and other functions. And some Miscellaneous defensive equipment, the most interesting part here is the Questionite Shield, a very good interpretation of Captain America's Shield in Hero System terms.

 

Chapter Three - Movement Gadgets. This chapter is a collection of various ways to move around. Copterpacks, Jetpacks, Teleportation Discs, Lineguns. Almost every form of Movement Power in Hero is represented here (missing is Extra-Dimensional Movement). A good collection of ways to get around without buying a Vehicle.

 

Chapter Four - Sensory And Communications Gadgets. Split into two parts. Sensory Gadgets provide ways of using Enhanced Perception, and a few other devices. The Spy-Sphere is a good example of building autonomous gadgets the Character controls. Communications Gadgets provide a number of ways to build communications devices using the Hero System, one of the most interesting is building one as a Computer. Most of these are good for Modern or Cyberpunk style games as well, and the more advanced builds excellent for Star Hero games.

 

Chapter Five - Costume Based Gadgets. This chapter is gadgets built into various pieces of clothing. Starting with the Costume itself for various effects, such as Biker Leathers and the Distracting Costume. Arm attachments provide to types of arm-wings. Belts provides a few options, but the most useful build is the Utility Belt, complete with thirty-three gadgets of varying types - enough to make any Adam West Batman lover happy. Boots provide a few things you can do with footwear. Capes gives a number of ideas to make the cape a useful item instead of just looking cool. Gloves And Gauntlets provides a few more uses for gloves, all of them some form of attack. Masks provides only two ideas for this ever present superhero costume bit, a defensive mask and a sensory mask.

 

Chapter Six - Miscellaneous Gadgets. The last chapter provides a number of gadgets that don't fit well into any one category. Booster Pills, Cosmic Gems, Power Staffs, and a few other similar devices. Some of these are simply alternate Special Effects or methods for using a lot of the other builds, or Powers from the UMTIL Superpowers Database in a gadget like device.

 

The Downside:

 

A few of the gadgets are repeated in the book, but not so many it became an exercise in redundancy.

 

Considering the universal nature of the Hero System, this particular book could have included a section on adapting any of the gadgets to other genres. Several of them would work well in a Star Hero game and more than a few would fit into a Fantasy Hero game.

 

The Otherside:

 

Just because the books says it's Gadgets for Superheroes doesn't mean it can't be used elsewhere. Change a few Special Effects and Names and you can create Magic Force Bracers, various Science-Fiction Equipment, Cyberpunk add on Cyberwear and strange Pulp Villain Doomsday Weapons. Almost all of the builds come with a "Realistic" option to make it less Super-centric and more accessible to other genres.

 

For Powered Armor Players who are looking for some ideas that they might not have seen before, or simply more ideas, this is a great book to pick up.

[Sketchpad]

Re: Gadgets And Gear

 

Here's my old review:

To call Gadgets and Gear a sourcebook on gadgets would be limiting the scope of the book. Not only do we see over 300 gadgets detailed out in Hero builds, but we also get some advice on tweaking the devices in such ways to change their power level or offer alternate builds. Ever wanted to play a brooding avenger of the night but weren’t sure what to give him in his utility belt? Well, page 130 can answer some of those questions and expand upon it. How about wanting to pit your players against the perilous Professor Squid … but then you’re not sure how you could make those nifty cyber-tentacles of his. Looks like you could use page 65. This book has all the staples of comic books and then some.

 

Like a few of their other books, Gadgets and Gear is broken into chapters that tie the equipment within them together by a common theme. For example, Chapter One starts with various blasters and rayguns, good for both heroes and those pesky agents of Argent or Viper. It then delves into gas weaponry, like fear gas and knockout gas, and melee weapons, like billy clubs and questionite claws. In the middle of the chapter, I easily found some of my favorite gadgets: trick arrows, boomerangs and the infamous glue gun. Finally, the chapter closes with two great sections: Theme weaponry and miscellaneous weaponry that didn’t fit in other areas. It’s here that you’ll find some gems like the Halloween arsenal, combat yo-yo, acid squirter and combat gauntlets (not unlike a certain space-faring specter weilds).

 

The second chapter deals with defensive gadgets, though most of the chapter deals with components for one of the most well like archetypes: powered armor users. Mr. Long did his homework in this chapter, showing builds of familiar components that any comic book fan should recognize. Does anyone remember a certain ferrous-shelled hero zooming about in rocket skates? Well Mr. Long did on page 88. Detailing everything life support systems to gauntlets to even the chest-mounted floodlight, it’s all here and more. Looking beyond the powered armor elements, I was glad to see familiar elements like the questionite skeleton and questionite shield made it into the chapter.

 

Chapter Three brings us a bevy of devices that can help our heroes (and villains) move a bit quicker or in odd environments. Every wants a flight ring, right? Well, look for the stats on page 105, save up some points and your hero could be flying with the best of them! This chapter brings us such wacky gadgets as mechano-stilts and drill gauntlets, and also gives us the infamous panic ring that’s used by so many mastermind villains these days.

 

Though it’s one of the smaller chapters, Chapter Four serves up some great sensory and communication gizmos. Need a mutant scanner for your angst-driven mutant team to fear? Look on page 115 for some great ideas on that. How about a communicator for your hero team? There are two in this chapter. To my surprise, Mr. Long even inserted the stats for a flare gun, much like a family-team of supers have used in the past.

 

Chapter Five has got to be one of my favorite chapters of the book. Within it, the ideas of costume-based gadgets are found and it’s a great mix. From the bizarre, like a porcupine-based costume, to the exotic, like the distracting costume, and even the ultra-modern, like the bikerwear costume, it’s all here. But it not only covers the costumes themselves, but some of the elements of costumes as well. Want a domino mask that allows you to switch through the various light spectrums? It’s on page 139. How about a belt that can change your size? Got that as well.

 

Lastly, in Chapter Six, we see some of the odder and more powerful weapons that couldn’t fit into the other categories. Here you’ll find some great examples of how well the Hero System can create any power build seen in comics. I’ve always been a fan of an emerald, ring-bearing hero and I was happy to see a build that could easily be tweaked to represent this.

 

In all, I would say that this is a great book and a very good resource for anyone taking the foray into superhero gadgets, even if it’s not within the Hero System. With a great index, a nice, wrap-around cover by James Ryman, excellent chapter separators and notes throughout the entire book, I would say that Gadgets and Gear is a great investment for the superhero gamer at large.