10 questions from a GC new to spycraft

[Abyss]

Hey everyone. I'm 5 sessions in to my first spycraft 2.0 game (played a bit of first ed a few years ago, but no 2.0). I think the system is fantastic and has rules for just about every situation you can think of, but because of this me and the players are finding the learning curve quite high. I've compiled a list of things that I'm quite confused about, if anyone could shed some light on them it would be a great help.

1. I'll start with a relatively simple one: Who controls the player's contacts/personal lieutenants etc? Is it the players or the GC?

2. How do you utilise feats suck as 'Old School' (targeting characters sharing base classes) when NPCs are generally designed to be classless?

3. Can someone explain the Hacker class ability 'Custom Ware' to me. The Hacker in my team has taken a pretty decent (Power Rating 3) laptop with his personal possessions; as the ability lets you load up any computer with your 'personal software' could he theoretically use the ability on his own laptop (thus making it considerably better)? Doesn't seem to make much sense to me. I'm presuming the skill is designed for increasing the power rating of computers bought with gear picks at the start of missions, but some clarifications would be greatly appreciated.

4. Are you supposed to give NPCs gear based on their 'possessions' (the sub-attribute of wealth)? I'm slightly confused as you can also adjust the NPCs xp by changing their 'equipment'?

5. I'm slightly confused about the Disposition system. It says in the book that all NPCs start off at neutral, but surely some NPCs should be naturally friendly or unfriendly towards the PCs? I'm probably just misinterpreting the rules with this.

The rest of the questions relate to gear:

6. Which category of gear do Kits fall into (i.e. Tradecraft, resource etc)? I'm presuming none of them, in which case does that mean that the characters can only take them as personal possessions?

7. Just to confirm, as armor possesses a damage save bonus, does that mean that a save must be made every time the armor soaks up damage to prevent it from breaking (thus potentially meaning it could be destroyed after just one attack)?

8. And to settle a debate I had with one of my players, am I right in assuming that taking the same gadget multiple times does not enable you to create a gadget where the effects stack - i.e taking a caliber one 'Attack' gadget twice and placing it in the same housing means you have a gadget that can hit 2 seperate attacks at 1d6 damage each rather than a single 2d6 attack? I'm presuming this is the case as
otherwise there would be no point in taking a gadget such as Skill Check on caliber 5 (giving you a skill check of 20) when instead you could exchange the calliber 5 pick for two calliber 3s and combine them for a Skill check of 24...

9. Something I'm slightly confused about is the 'Damage Reduction' gadget. It says that you recieve DR equal to the power rating, but on the picks table there is only an entry for it at callibers 2 and 4 (bringing a power rating equal to the calliber). Does this mean you cannot take the item at calliber 3 (granting you 3 points of DR)? If so, could someone explain to me the rationale behind it - I can't get my head around why a non-descript super-science gadget can be designed to give you a damage reduction of 2 or 4 but not 3... especially when it seems so logical for the DR to go up by 1 point per calliber. Or am I just missing the point of the item here? 

10. When a player requests an additional set of ammo, does that take 1 weapon pick? If so, do higher calliber weapons need higher calliber ammo? And how much ammo do they get?

For anyone referring me to a page in the book, please be aware that I currently only have a copy of the first printing (although I'll be ordering the second print pretty soon).

Thanks for your help.

[Gatac]

Welcome to the board! Let's see if I can clear up some of your questions. First off, make sure you have the errata. The gear chapter in particular is much clearer in the errataed version and has a few changes in there, so when I refer you to that, use the errata instead of the book there.

1) The GC.

2) Old School has been errataed to answer exactly this question. Don't know the change off-hand, but I think it works off class abilities and/or feats now.

3) He can apply this to a computer in his Possessions, but the effect is lost after the mission ends.

4) I'm not 100% sure, but I think the NPC's Wealth is only applied towards his Lifestyle rating. Gear should be bought seperately.

5) GC's judgement call. Surely, atleast the PC's Agency folks are more favorably inclined to them, for example. It's just the random guy on the street with no prior exposure who starts out as Neutral.

6) None, as you suspect, but that means they can be taken with a Gear Pick of any category. It's a good option to use that Tradecraft Gear Pick I always seem to have left after gearing up.

7) I'm not sure if the book explicitly says this, but I've never met anyone who plays it this way. Some things (acid) explicitly damage your gear, otherwise leave it alone. Might be a houserule if you want to make things deadlier, though.

Again, not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain that the same gadgets in one housing don't stack - only the best effect counts. (They could build multiple Attacks that do different damage types into one housing, though.)

9) *shrug* Don't know.

10) Check out the weapon addon tables. It lists how much an additional load of ammo of a certain type costs in Addon points, Common Items and Cash.

If you have more questions, ask away!

Gatac

[spinningdice]

EDITED after consulting Gatac's post above.

1. Player (EDIT: it does actually just refer to it as an NPC with no special special exemptions to put it under player control - so I think Gatac's right on this one. However I'll continue to leave it the player though retain GC fiat to take over their actions at any point)

2. That's been errated:
“Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus with all Charisma-based checks targeting characters that share at least 1 class ability or 3 feats with you if their Career/Threat level is less than or equal to the mission’s threat Level.”

3. Custom 'Ware has no limitations, think of it more as temporary overclocking and just knowing how to get the best of his personal
- However you should also be aware (from errata):
The computer targeted by the Hacker’s machine custom ‘ware ability is also considered to be running security software with a Power Rating equal to the computer’s Power Rating. This software does not count against the maximum total software that may run on the system (see the Spycraft 2.0 Rulebook, page 221)

4. I'm not sure about that one, I tend to just ignore the Wealth rating unless it's a special NPC.

5. All NPC's should probably start at neutral, they'll still act as appropriate. Your Control will give you your briefing regardless of whether she likes you or not. Note Villains are immune to these rules as well (see errata for more in-depth explanations).

6. Any, you can use a Weapon pick to take a kit if you so desire.

7. No - The armour only uses its damage save if specifically targeted.

8. EDIT: My previous answer was wrong. It specifically says that only 1 mechanism can be active at once, at the start of the gadgets chapter - though as an option taking the same gadget again can be used to just increase the battery life.

9. Don't know - it only occurs on the even levels, maybe there's some reason but I'm not aware of it.

10. An additional set of ammo takes an amount of add-on picks or common items. There is a table but I'm not sure it's in the 1st printing. For most weapons an additional loadout of ammo costs 1 add-on (some weapons come with free add-ons (or upgrades, they're the same thing) for more you can spend 1 gear pick for 2xcaliber add-ons).

[Bill Whitmore]

In regards to NPC Wealth:  One thing I have seen it affect is the cost to bribe that character.  It costs considerably more to bribe someone with wealth score of X than a wealth score of I.

I can't remember if this was in the book or not, but I DO use it for lifestyle and spending cash, if I need to know how much spending cash a character has available.

[Abyss]

Thanks guys, very helpfull answers. This thread along with reading the errata has cleared up most things for me. As I got different answers for question 1, I reckon I'll do PC controlled personal lietenants and GC controlled contacts - that seems to make sense to me.

Still a couple of things though:

Question 4 still confuses me. It says in the book that you should split the NPCs wealth between lifestyle, possessions and spending cash. The only point of possessions is to get gear, so I don't understand whether I should mainly be using 'possessions' or 'equipment' to give them gear. But it's not a major issue I guess.

The section in the errata on Disposition cleared up a lot of things for me. One of the things that confused me in the first place was that you can only shift a single NPC by 2 grades per mission (and yet there are 9 dispositions), I'm presuming that the dispositions above 'friendly' and below 'unfriendly' are only reserved for characters who recur from mission to mission?

With regard to question 8, just spoke to one the players who brought up a good point: If someone were to buy two seperate Damage Reduction gadgets at PR 2 (representing two entirely different forms of damage reducing clothing for example), would they effectively have 4 points of DR (i.e. the effects of the gadgets stacking), or would it still be considered DR2 no matter how many seperate times it was chosen at calliber 2?

Also, there was another question I forgot to mention in my first post: Regarding the 'tough' NPC quality, are the extra damage saves after the first one fails done at a reset DC, or does the damage linger from the first failed save (i.e. a character who fails a damage save at DC15 after taking 10 points of damage, then takes an additional 6 points of damage and has to roll above DC18 for the second save)?

Thanks once again for help.

[Toccata]

Usually DR doesn't stack unless specifically stated (such as with the Soldier class ability), especially when it comes from multiple instances of the same source.

And I can't give you an official answer about the tough quality, but I retain the accumulated damage. Last Monday was actually the first time I had it come up and it took a lot of hits to slog through Tough III even while keeping the accumulated damage. Nearly all of the npcs in question were beyond the point where they even had a chance succeed at a damage save before dropping.

I think my players will be packing flamethrowers at the slightest hint of ghouls from this point on

[Bill Whitmore]

I don't have the book (or the pdf) in front of me so I don't remember for sure, but I was pretty sure that the NPCs damage reset after the failed save.  I'll check back in here after I get home tonight and have access to the book.  If no one has verified this by then, I'll post my findings here.

[Krensky]

A literal interpretation of the rules on page 332 of the main book says that the DC resets.

[Toccata]

I read the part about "NPCs and animals with the tough quality must fail 2 or more
Damage saves before these effects occur (see page 451)." as applying to that part too.

I could be wrong, of course, but that was seems to granular to me.

[edit]I mean, 5 xp is pretty cheap for something that is almost as good as the explorer's gamebreaker.

[Krensky]

As I said, literal.  Since under the success part it says that damage accumulates until a failure.  So, by that and a strict reading, when the Tough NPC fails, the accumulated damage is lost.  Whether that's the intention, I don't know.

[Bill Whitmore]

What Krensky said is how I read it, too.

[Gentry]

As do I, initially growing out of a conversation (read:  table argument) over vehicular damage saves.  The reset after a failed damage save is the standard for our gang now.

[Morgenstern]

Reset after failed save is design intent. less bookkeeping and smaller numbers all the way around.

[Agent 333]

Plus it makes the tough quality mean something more than "This takes exactly one more hit to die, even if that hit does 1 damage".

[Bill Whitmore]

As do I, initially growing out of a conversation (read:  table argument) over vehicular damage saves.  The reset after a failed damage save is the standard for our gang now.

Per the normal rules, vehicles (and really any non-NPC objects) do not accumulated damage.

Under vehicle damage on page 290 of Second Printing: All standard Damage save rules apply to vehicles (see page 224 for details).

Under damage saves on page 224 of Second Printing: When an item’s Damage save is successful, the item may suffer scratches, dings, and other cosmetic flaws, but the attack has no mechanical effect. Unlike damage inflicted to standard NPCs (see page 331), damage inflicted to items does not linger

I know some people have house rules that allow objects to accumulate damage, I just want to make sure that people reading a thread about being new to Spycraft know the distinction.