Small Guns how would I build that they are hard to notice and find if hidden on the person?

[dmjalund]

theres a difference between a can-gun (in the example) and a cane-sword

 

you have to pull the sword out of the cane to use it, making it obvious during use

 

the gun remains in the cane and with a little bit of misdirection, the fact the cane is also a gun can remain hidden for a significant period.

[Brian Stanfield]

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

The difference between an IAF and an OAF is that with inaccessible focus I can use the power without people realizing it is being use.   So with the cane gun I can appear to be holding the cane and fire without people being automatically able to know what is happening.  With a sword cane I have to draw the sword from the cane at which time everyone realizes that I am about to attack.   With the gun cane even when I am pointing it directly at someone there is no indication of what it is, or what it does.  With the sword cane once I draw it everyone knows what it is. 

 

28 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

theres a difference between a can-gun (in the example) and a cane-sword

 

you have to pull the sword out of the cane to use it, making it obvious during use

 

the gun remains in the cane and with a little bit of misdirection, the fact the cane is also a gun can remain hidden for a significant period.

 

I think maybe that the "inobviousness" of the weapon (either cane gun, cane sword, or anything else) will depend on the part of the rule that requires the player to define how the weapon may be detected. They may both require visual observation of the weapon being used. The sword would be more than obvious once drawn, but in all honesty seeing someone point a cane at another person, hearing a *bang* and seeing the person fall to the ground bleeding, would pretty much be a dead giveaway that the cane is not normal. Perhaps misdirection may affect detection with a performance role or something, but it would really only be a matter of time as I witness several gunshots coinciding with a raised cane. If I saw Gyges (or Bilbo, or Frodo if you prefer) put his hand to his finger and adjust his ring, only to see him go invisible, it would be an IAF (or maybe even an IIF). But since the cat is out of the bag as to what his ring does, it will no longer be inobvious to me. If I spread the word to my teammates that Gyges has a magic ring, or that Charlie Chaplin has a cane gun, it's inobviosness would be lost, even though the weapon still retains the quality of being inobvious to anyone else who hasn't met the conditions to detect the weapon. 

 

As has been shown, the rule is intentionally fluid, so it really amounts to the GM and the player coming to an agreement on how it fits into game terms for the particular campaign being played.

 

(Sorry, I'm trying to give emphasis to my points by using italics, but this philistine font won't really allow italics to show up very easily. Anyone know how to change the font?)

[Duke Bushido]

I don't know hiw to change the font, I'm afraid, but let me share with you what we used to do back when manuscripts were typed onto paper, put into an envelope, and mailed physically to your publisher:

 

_this_.  Surely you have noticed just how _much_ I do this.  That's what it means: it was letting the typesttera know that _this_ word or phrase was to be set in italics. 

 

I'm not sure when that stopped being. Ommon knowledge, but I know that at leas up until Windows 95, if you did that in a Word document it would automatically italicized it.  My new machine doesn't.  At this point though, it's a habit I've had for pushing fifty years, so it's likely to continue.

[Brian Stanfield]

3 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

I don't know hiw to change the font, I'm afraid, but let me share with you what we used to do back when manuscripts were typed onto paper, put into an envelope, and mailed physically to your publisher:

 

_this_.  Surely you have noticed just how _much_ I do this.  That's what it means: it was letting the typesttera know that _this_ word or phrase was to be set in italics. 

 

I'm not sure when that stopped being. Ommon knowledge, but I know that at leas up until Windows 95, if you did that in a Word document it would automatically italicized it.  My new machine doesn't.  At this point though, it's a habit I've had for pushing fifty years, so it's likely to continue.

 

That's really funny. I didn't learn that until I was doing my Masters degree in history. I was told that I didn't have to underline book titles, etc., and should use italics instead since that's what the underline indicated to the printer in the first place. It was an eye-opening moment for me. I may have to start underlining too.

[LoneWolf]

What really defines how a focus functions is the person buying the power.  The cane gun is a perfect example of this as it could be built both ways.  If the bullet comes out of the bottom of the cane and it is aimed like a rifle that would probably be defined as an OAF.  On the other hand if the gun is built into the handle and I can fire it while seeming to use to walk that would probably be an IAF.  In the first case anyone seeing me is not going to have a hard time figuring out what I am doing and where the bullet came from.  In the second case people may know the general direction the sound came from, but will not automatically know I am the one that shot the person. 

 

In the Hero System special effect is everything.  You can have two identical power look completely different from each other.  My 2d6 RKA OAF, with 16 charges could be six shooter from the old west, or a blaster rifle from star wars.  Saying a particular weapon has to be this is almost contrary to the spirit of the rules.

[Brian Stanfield]

58 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

What really defines how a focus functions is the person buying the power.  The cane gun is a perfect example of this as it could be built both ways.  If the bullet comes out of the bottom of the cane and it is aimed like a rifle that would probably be defined as an OAF.  On the other hand if the gun is built into the handle and I can fire it while seeming to use to walk that would probably be an IAF.  In the first case anyone seeing me is not going to have a hard time figuring out what I am doing and where the bullet came from.  In the second case people may know the general direction the sound came from, but will not automatically know I am the one that shot the person. 

 

In the Hero System special effect is everything.  You can have two identical power look completely different from each other.  My 2d6 RKA OAF, with 16 charges could be six shooter from the old west, or a blaster rifle from star wars.  Saying a particular weapon has to be this is almost contrary to the spirit of the rules.

 

True, but the point I was trying to make is that you’re required to explain how the weapon will be detected. Whatever you choose the special effect to be, you must still define what will render it “obvious.” Once detected, as explained in the rules, it will no longer be IAF but rather OAF. No points change hands, just that the bonuses for IAF are lost once detected.

[Beast]

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

What really defines how a focus functions is the person buying the power.  The cane gun is a perfect example of this as it could be built both ways.  If the bullet comes out of the bottom of the cane and it is aimed like a rifle that would probably be defined as an OAF.  On the other hand if the gun is built into the handle and I can fire it while seeming to use to walk that would probably be an IAF.  In the first case anyone seeing me is not going to have a hard time figuring out what I am doing and where the bullet came from.  In the second case people may know the general direction the sound came from, but will not automatically know I am the one that shot the person. 

 

In the Hero System special effect is everything.  You can have two identical power look completely different from each other.  My 2d6 RKA OAF, with 16 charges could be six shooter from the old west, or a blaster rifle from star wars.  Saying a particular weapon has to be this is almost contrary to the spirit of the rules.

that gun in the handle will really be "shooting from the hip"
the smoke will still be a big give away along with a short ,short barrel you will have a decent muzzel flash
I'd say anybody's sightline  that was no more that 30 degreea off of you will see it
I would suggest smoking big smokey cigars and lots of flashy bling to aid in your concealment roll

[LoneWolf]

No reason you can’t have a built in silencer and flash suppressor.   Depending on the campaign you don’t even need to use gun powder.  In a science fiction or super heroic campaign my cane gun could use magnetics instead of gun powder.  Or it could be a needle pistol that uses compressed air. 

 

The video earlier in the post was a perfect example of what I am talking about.  Build in a silencer on that brief case and that is a perfect example of an IAF. 

 

Again it really comes down to special effect and how the person building it wants to define the power.

[massey]

Yes, the explanation of how you want it to function is more important than the real world description of what it is.  And add to that, often our limitations are only approximations of how we want things to function.

 

Remember the scene from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome where he leaves all his weapons before entering Bartertown?  He drops off like twenty different guns.  Then, of course, he's still got another one hidden on him, because he's awesome.  There are several ways to represent this.  In the film, we don't actually see them perform any kind of search on Max.  It could be that his big show of dropping off all the other guns fooled them (Acting roll, or maybe a Presence Attack combined with a Concealment roll).  They were so stunned by how many weapons he was carrying (and his apparent honesty at turning them in) that they just didn't think about looking for more.  Alternatively, it's possible that Max "bought" the weapon as an IAF.

 

IAF, where the description of the power is that people just don't find it.  It's similar to the OIF "object of opportunity" idea.  8D6 Energy Blast, "thrown rock", OIF object of opportunity.  Because for this character, there's always a rock or something around that you can throw.  He's difficult to disarm because he can always grab a thing that just happens to be nearby (because that's why he paid points for the power), and he can throw that for damage.  With IAF, the player wants the character to always have a concealed weapon that the guards just miss for some reason.  Whether they just always do a crappy search, or its made of special materials, or he has a super-secret place to hide it, in narrative terms he's always got that backup weapon that nobody knew about.  Hence he buys it IAF.

 

Now that doesn't mean that every concealed weapon must be purchased that way -- it is a way to do things as opposed to the way.  After all, you could just buy it with no limitation at all.  Or you could buy it OAF (it's still clearly a gun) and just try to sneak around with it by other means.

[Christopher]

On 12/3/2018 at 6:46 PM, massey said:

Remember the scene from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome where he leaves all his weapons before entering Bartertown?  He drops off like twenty different guns.  Then, of course, he's still got another one hidden on him, because he's awesome.

This is how they explained that in SGA:

Especially where Ronon ask "How many do you need?" indicates he has a lot of them. Way past the 5 point doubling rule and propably into IIF territory.
Inobvious because they are hidden.
Inaccesible because you need around 1 minute of search and take to "get them all".

[Christopher]

And jsut like that, I remembered an answer. APG II 115, "Expanded Focus rules".

" Te standard rules for building Foci (6E1 376-80) work well for nearly all campaigns and characters. However, some games use gadgetry so frequently that a more detailed system for defning how Foci function in game terms is desireable. Tis section of APG2 expands the rules for building Foci, making it possible for characters to precisely defne every important aspect of their weapons and devices."

Basically you get to build the Focus Limitation like you would Charges or Trigger. And it is pratically designed for Heroic games.

The default focus " has a Concealment modifer of +5 (making it roughly equal in size to a rifle or shotgun)"

There is a whole size table to replace the Concealment modifier from +11 down to +0
Small pistols are +2

Knives and Grenades +1

Coins and hte like +0

[Mark Perron]

If you look at the perception modifiers for small objects you will find inherent modifiers.