The Clothes Make the Man
Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2017 7:15 pm
So a lot of modern games have a sort of "oh crap" resource that allows characters to excel in emergencies by spending a point of something or other that gives instant power (e.g. a reroll, reversing the die result, avoiding damage, or so forth).
In PROJECT HAMMER (it actually has a sort of formal working title now, but I like all-caps), that's not a character-specific thing.
Characters have the ability to Strain their Gear. This includes their personal gear, stuff they've acquired in their travels, and so forth. Straining gear does three things:
• It lets you use it without any penalty from existing damage.
• It provides twice the normal bonus (e.g. double damage, twice as many possible attacks, double Action Roll bonus)
• It immediately damages the gear by one point.
Gear goes on a scale from 1-5 points. The first two points of damage have no mechanical effect. The third gives a -5 penalty to any test with the gear, and the fourth gives a -10 penalty (this is a relatively minor penalty, but means you still use low-tier gear). The fifth point of damage destroys all gear, unless it is personal gear, in which case it becomes inoperable. Characters can only carry five things of gear, so if you intend to get more you're going to be fine sacrificing old gear. In addition to being damaged via strain, critical failures also damage gear.
Gear maintenance is a tricky thing. Rather than rests, PROJECT HAMMER has downtime. Healing and such happens in real time whenever the characters get a breather, but downtime represents a solid block of resting time.
Short downtime grants two maintenance tests. This is an Intellect test, and benefits from skills and maintenance-specific gear (you can strain gear to undo the strain of other gear, which feels like an early 00's internet meme). A character who is resting to heal gets one maintenance test or no tests.
There are a couple issues I see with the Strain mechanic. The first is that gear's qualities are not typically impacted by Strain, which would be a downside, though qualities are designed to be mostly scalar with the gear's effect or provide a bonus that is valuable enough that it is generally applicable (like armor piercing, which typically is worth more than a corresponding batch of damage when the character would Strain). The second is that the system is added complication.
There are a few interesting things that come out as a result. Strain double's a weapon's rate of fire, allowing any ranged weapon to gain bonus hits during a skirmish (and, therefore, give a reason for a character with a weapon that'd normally be better for taking marksman actions to skirmish). Strain also serves as a tangible way for armor to degrade, as armor does not normally have any mechanism for doing so. Strain increases gear turnover, but also makes low-grade gear valuable, and makes finding gear for the non-personal slot more worthwhile.
Thoughts?
In PROJECT HAMMER (it actually has a sort of formal working title now, but I like all-caps), that's not a character-specific thing.
Characters have the ability to Strain their Gear. This includes their personal gear, stuff they've acquired in their travels, and so forth. Straining gear does three things:
• It lets you use it without any penalty from existing damage.
• It provides twice the normal bonus (e.g. double damage, twice as many possible attacks, double Action Roll bonus)
• It immediately damages the gear by one point.
Gear goes on a scale from 1-5 points. The first two points of damage have no mechanical effect. The third gives a -5 penalty to any test with the gear, and the fourth gives a -10 penalty (this is a relatively minor penalty, but means you still use low-tier gear). The fifth point of damage destroys all gear, unless it is personal gear, in which case it becomes inoperable. Characters can only carry five things of gear, so if you intend to get more you're going to be fine sacrificing old gear. In addition to being damaged via strain, critical failures also damage gear.
Gear maintenance is a tricky thing. Rather than rests, PROJECT HAMMER has downtime. Healing and such happens in real time whenever the characters get a breather, but downtime represents a solid block of resting time.
Short downtime grants two maintenance tests. This is an Intellect test, and benefits from skills and maintenance-specific gear (you can strain gear to undo the strain of other gear, which feels like an early 00's internet meme). A character who is resting to heal gets one maintenance test or no tests.
There are a couple issues I see with the Strain mechanic. The first is that gear's qualities are not typically impacted by Strain, which would be a downside, though qualities are designed to be mostly scalar with the gear's effect or provide a bonus that is valuable enough that it is generally applicable (like armor piercing, which typically is worth more than a corresponding batch of damage when the character would Strain). The second is that the system is added complication.
There are a few interesting things that come out as a result. Strain double's a weapon's rate of fire, allowing any ranged weapon to gain bonus hits during a skirmish (and, therefore, give a reason for a character with a weapon that'd normally be better for taking marksman actions to skirmish). Strain also serves as a tangible way for armor to degrade, as armor does not normally have any mechanism for doing so. Strain increases gear turnover, but also makes low-grade gear valuable, and makes finding gear for the non-personal slot more worthwhile.
Thoughts?