01. Equipment – When Is Equipment ‘Equipment’?

[MistWing]

Basically, I am curious what the ‘dividing line’ is between ‘equipment’ and ‘powers through a focus’. This is important since ‘equipment’ costs only 20% of what ‘powers through a focus’ costs.

 

Thanks

MistWing SilverTail

[Herolover]

Ummm...I am unsure where you get the 20% rule.

 

As for equipment in general it all depends upon what kind of campaign you are running. Very generally there are two types of campaigns: Heroic and Superheroic.

 

In Superheroic campaigns character must pay character points for any type of equipment that they have. So, if you make up GunBunny and GunBunny has a .45 automatic he must writeup the .45 automatic as a power and pay charcter points for it. He, as a standard rule, does not get to divide the points by 5 to find you how much it cost. This only goes for Vehicles and Bases.

 

In Heroic level campaigns, such as a sci-fi or fantasy campaign, characters spend money not character points to gain equipment. Generally speaking they also spend money to gain Bases and Vehicles, but I can see certain situations where a player would spend character points on them as well.

 

Generally in Super campaigns the character spends points for everything and in Heroic campaigns they have to spend very little points.

 

PS: Two notes here. In a heroic campaign if you had a character that never ever lost a piece of equipment you might allow him to spend points on the equipment and buy it that way to represent the fact he never lost it.

 

There is an obscure rule in 5e that if you pay points for a piece of equipment for every 5 extra points you spend you can double the number of that item. You spend points and buy a .45 automatic. 5 extra points gets you 2 guns. 10 extra points get you 4 guns etc.

[Lord Liaden]

I'm not quite sure where you get that 20% figure - if you could perhaps elaborate?

 

Most campaigns draw the line between "heroic" and "superheroic" campaigns. In the former (which usually feature lower-powered characters, more lethal combat and other rules from the 5E book recommended for games of that level), characters pay for "equipment" with money rather than Character Points, as is the case for most superheroic campaigns. However, that equipment is usually restricted to what's commonly available in the campaign setting: guns and radios in a modern campaign, or swords and riding animals in an historical or fantasy game. OTOH, most GMs require that uncommon exceptional items that PCs may have access to - magic spells, high-tech weapons, enchanted artifacts, cyberware - be bought with character points, whether or not they take the Focus Limitation and so could be classed as "equipment."

 

To some extent the reverse is true for superheroic campaigns. A GM may allow a hero to use an item that's commonly available to anyone, like a flashlight, cellphone etc. without buying it with Experience Points, as long as it's used occasionally. If the item is going to be part of the character's regular equipment on all adventures, though, many a GM will insist that the character use points to pay for it.

 

Does that seem clear?

[Killer Shrike]

There is no 20% rule on Equipment -- unless you mean Bases and Vehicles.

 

In a Heroic game Equipment costs money, in a Superheroic game Equipment cost points (if its useful -- dont go getting crazy and defining your wallet as an EDM to the "Junk in my Wallet" dimension).

[prestidigitator]

I am not sure if this is along the same line you are thinking of, but an power which is truely usable by anyone, and in fact does not really belong to one character (except that (s)he is the one who originally purchased it--and hasn't lost it yet) can buy the Independant Limitation (on top of Focus, if applicable). This may not be very appropriate for most things in a superheroic campaign, but I use it, for example, in heroic fantasy when a wizard wants to create a magical item. It is a hefty Limitation (-2), and thus makes creating something permenant and capable of being lost a lot cheaper than buying a whole power.

[Gary Ciaramella]

Perhaps he is talking about the equipment pool from Dark Champions?

[MistWing]

I got the 20% rule from an earlier (pre-Fred) older game. We had a player who had a starship and bought equipment (what he called an 'EVU') for use in that starship. He built the EVU and paid points/5 for it. I don't recall if he put the EVU in the ship (and incorrectly gained an additional divide by 5) or if he kept it seperate so as not to cause confusion (in which case, the divide by 5 is what he would normally have received since it's a part of the starship). I didn't recall this clearly until you started commenting on it and I reviewed the book. So, disregard the '20% rule' I mentioned.

 

I like Killer Strike's "Junk in my Wallet" comment. Maybe I'll make a pouch that has the same effect (I'm a Shape Shifter, so a pouch makes more sense to me)

 

Thanks for the input

MistWing SilverTail

[Killer Shrike]

Its Killer SHRIKE -- as in the bird

 

There is a write up somewhere in Fantasy HERO for a Bag of Holding type effect -- it would cover what you want perfectly in this case -- although, my point was to not get carried away defining every mundane thing as Equipment in a supers game....

[Dust Raven]

I'm not entirely sure what the question is, but since there are a lot of replies here...

 

There is no dividing line between "equipment" and "powers through a focus". When it comes right down to it, all equipment is, is powers through a focus (or sometimes Only In Hero ID or Restrainable). The terms are synonamous.

[MistWing]

> I'm not entirely sure what the question is, but since there

> are a lot of replies here...

 

The whole thing centered around a mis-conception of mine. I thought that when you made equipment, you took the points of the equipment and divided it by 5 to see how much you had to pay for it. This mis-conception was caused by the way that one of the players in my group made the equipment for his starship. He didn't want to get them confused, so he made the equipment on a seperate sheet and, to determine the cost to him, divided the result by 5. Mathematically, the whole thing worked out properly, but it did lead to my mis-understanding. BTW: He also declared that it was equipment on the starship so that it wouldn't appear that he was trying to pull a fast one.

 

And you have to admit, if equipment got the 'divide by 5' cost benefit, there would be a huge incentive to call 'powers through a focus', equipment

 

MistWing SilverTail

[MistWing]

> Its Killer SHRIKE -- as in the bird

 

Sorry. I really should pay more attention to what I read

 

 

> There is a write up somewhere in Fantasy HERO for a Bag of

> Holding type effect -- it would cover what you want

> perfectly in this case

 

Thanks. I'll check it out when I can

 

MistWing SilverTail

[BoloOfEarth]

I'm sure people are going to shout, "You can't do that!" but here goes anyway.

 

With infrequently used or relatively minor stuff, I've allowed players in my Champions game to pay for group things as equipment in some cases. Specifically, this applied to a Utility Belt (no, not in a Multipower) that all team members had. It included such things as a small parabolic microphone, mini-binoculars, disposable handcuffs, simple criminology equipment (something like +1 to Criminology), a mini camera, and stuff like that. The total cost, plus 15 points for 8 copies, was split among the six players, even if they didn't need or couldn't use all of the stuff. (It came out to 10 points each.)

 

This way, the exact effects are quantified and powers are paid for, but it doesn't cost the players an excessive amount of points for things they only use once in a while and have relatively little effect on goings-on.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by BoloOfEarth

I'm sure people are going to shout, "You can't do that!" but here goes anyway.

 

With infrequently used or relatively minor stuff, I've allowed players in my Champions game to pay for group things as equipment in some cases. Specifically, this applied to a Utility Belt (no, not in a Multipower) that all team members had. It included such things as a small parabolic microphone, mini-binoculars, disposable handcuffs, simple criminology equipment (something like +1 to Criminology), a mini camera, and stuff like that. The total cost, plus 15 points for 8 copies, was split among the six players, even if they didn't need or couldn't use all of the stuff. (It came out to 10 points each.)

 

This way, the exact effects are quantified and powers are paid for, but it doesn't cost the players an excessive amount of points for things they only use once in a while and have relatively little effect on goings-on.

My group just recently added this to our house rules so... I got your back Bolo.

[MistWing]

> I'm sure people are going to shout, "You can't do that!" but

> here goes anyway.

 

I see nothing wrong with this. Like you say, the things are minor things. And everyone gets the exact same thing, so no one is coming out ahead.

 

Personally, I would probably just give the equipment away for free, since they would be the group's 'Everyman Powers'. But your way works just fine.

 

MistWing SilverTail

[VictorVonDoom]

when you can "equip" it... or carry it on your person...