E M E R A L D C I T Y C H R O N I C L E S
GAMEPLAY: PERMUTATIONS: HOUSE RULES: ATTRIBUTES & ABILITIES ERRATA
CRAFTS
Making things is a cornerstone of humanity. One could argue that craftsmanship, above all other skills, is what separated humans from animals in the dawn of civilization. And besides that, stuff is pretty cool. Everyone loves stuff. Characters use a very straightforward method for creating objects.
There are 3 item rarity categories, of armor, weapons, vehicles or other:
Common items - Have no significant differences then something you’d find in a store; these are pedestrian, salable products of average, unnotable quality. Granted these items may only be unnotable mechanically. Whether a flashy european luxury car is more notable than your basic American pick-up truck might be a matter of debate, but those differences are managed by price, and in our game that means a level of the Resources background. Anything that can be purchased in a retail sense, without special preparation or extra mechanical advantage in game, from armor, weapons and vehilcles, as well as phones, computers and standard security gadgets is bought with Resources.
Uncommon items - Finer than their more commonplace counterparts and as such are worth more. When an Uncommon item is created, staff will assign an additional monetary value to the item based on the creator’s story, no greater than twice the base item’s value. Aside from being an even finer, luxury version of an item however, in some cases there is no systematic difference between Common and Uncommon, (just a bump in Resources needed to purchase) where in the case of weapons or armor, there could be. For example, an illegal automatic weapon is considered uncommon, as is a weapon clean of serial numbers and unregistered. For armor, full riot gear (level 5 armor) is considered uncommon. Those who can craft uncommon items in this manner are often sought after.
STATISTICALLY CRAFTED
To understand the statistics and limitations of usable equipment in the Dark Seattle, please see the Equipment page as well for stats and guidelines.
Rare items - A rare item is based on a common item, with the value of an uncommon item, and is so exceptional that it has a bonus to its use. The bonus to use will never exceed the potency of about an extra die. Armor, for instance, might be able to soak an extra level of damage, or give less of a dexterity penalty to the wearer, or be easier to conceal by one step, as all of these factors are generally about a die to one of the checks relevant to its use. All Rare items require Rare components. Staff is encouraged to make these rare componet quests meaningful and difficult. Rare items automatically evoke the Toreador curse when viewed, and it's possible they may have other supernatural 'flavor' as well, something that is extra-normal about the item, such as an eerie feeling one gets around a mystical brooch, or a blade that seems to almost drink the very blood of those it slays. This flavor has no additional mechanical effect, it is simply the mark of something crafted so well that there is something otherworldly about it.
Rare Stuff: Can't I just Buy It? No, but you can quest for it. When obtaining a Rare item through means other than Crafting, the above system will still be utilized, however Staff will substitute appropriate stats to the method you are using to acquire these items. Streetwise, Politics, and Larceny are all common choices. In the case of acquiring a rare item without crafting it, the 'quest' you must undertake usually comes at the end rather than the beginning.
System: To create an item, you roll (generally, though die pools may vary) your character's Dexterity + Crafts (a Specialty will likely apply) with difficulty based on the item rarity: Commmon, diff 4, Uncommon, diff 6, Rare, diff 8. The number of successes required are: Common, 5, Uncommon, 15, Rare, 25
As an example, if someone wished to make a Rare Sword, they would first need to collect rare metals or story equivalent and then submit a downtime and the storytellers would roll their Dex + Crafts difficulty 8, for the four weeks of the monthly downtime. If they achieve 25 successes, they have a shiny new sword. If they don't achieve that in the first set of rolls, the player can submit another downtime for another four rolls the next month until they accumulate enough successes. Willpower may not be spent on this check as it represents a vast input of time.
Crafting Time: It takes as long as it takes to accumulate those successes, which might mean a couple of downtimes or more, depending on how the dice fall.
Multiple Projects: Your character can only have ONE project going, but that project can have a number of like objects equal to your ability with Common, or Uncommon, and Rare items can only ever be produced one at a time. But with crafts 5 you could create as many as 5 common or uncommon items per month.
Crafting with Technology & Computers: For crafting unique technology (custom laptops, cell phones, network-enabled devices, anything not store-bought etc.) the crafter will need to make both a Technology roll (usually Intelligence +Technology) for the physical hardware of the device and a computers roll (Int+Computers) for the software. The number of successes on either must be beaten by an opposing roll to be 'hacked'.
Copying Software: Software (Operating systems or Apps) may be 'copied and pasted' to other devices if a special device is created to do so (we'll call it a 'boot loader') that device needs but a software (computers) and a hardware (technology) roll to create. The quality of the software it can transfer is limited by the hardware and software (int+Computers) successes gained to create the boot loader device.
Quick and Dirty Hacking: Doing anything with technology or computers 'on the fly', not in a workshop where time is not an issue is generally a Wits+Computers or Technology check.
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Technology hacking (hardware hacks) are somewhat obvious. They usually involve partially dissasembling a device and re-wireing an object, attaching another device, or other obvious deconstructions of the initial device, etc.
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Software hacks are less obvious, but can often be higher difficulty because of the vast number of operating systems, security encryptions and coding languages out there.
HOBBY TALENT / PROFESSIONAL SKILL / EXPERT KNOWLEDGE
Each Ability catagory has a 'catch-all' ability for an number of trained abilities not covered in the core list, and some examples of what that might be. Please note that these abilities will be used for mundane Talents, Skills and Abilities only, and may never be used for supernatural abilities or knowledges, such as lores.