Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Yondalor]

Hi!

Last week I started running the Necessary Evil plot point campaign for my group, and since then the players have expressed an interest in creating magical arms and equipment in their hideout. One of the characters has Knowledge (Occult) and would like to use it to create magical equivalents to HeroKiller ammo, so I came up with the following: The villain has to have materials equal to half the value of the item to be created, and must spend time equal to the value of the item, divided by 10, in days working on it. At the end of the time, he must make a roll (Knowledge (Occult) in this case) to see if he was succesful.

Now, I need some help with the rules as the player in question would like to create HeroKiller javelins. With these rules, creating one javelin would take 200 days. How could I make the crafting times shorter without the dividing number being completely arbitrary?

That said, I'm still a little bit leery of using a crafting system in a supervillain game. From our discussions I've understood that at least one player is intent on using it with his Filthy Rich edge to create an evil organisation with resources to rival Omega itself and steamroll over the V'sori. I think that just might unbalance the game a bit.

Then again, if that's what the players want, who am I to outright deny them?
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[Zadmar]

Weapons and ammo in NE have to be purchased through the black market at 10 times the normal price. This normally requires a Streetwise roll, with a critical failure attracting unwanted attention. In addition, HeroKiller bullets cost 20 times as much as regular ammo, so you're effectively multiplying the list price by 200.

I've not seen official stats for a javelin, but a spear costs $100, so a spear with a HeroKiller tip would cost $20,000 (assuming it were even allowed). Perhaps it would be better to price them as arrows, except thrown with a range of 3/6/12, that way they'd only cost $100 each (but with a 50% chance of breaking each time they were used).

I don't think it would be too unreasonable to let someone use Knowledge (Arcane Lore) or even Knowledge (Occult) instead of Streetwise, to represent them enchanting the weapons instead of buying them, but I'd be wary about giving them a discount as well, otherwise nobody will bother taking Streetwise.

What you could do is create a new edge for it. Perhaps base it on Mr Fix It, but use Knowledge (Arcane Lore) instead of Repair, and on a raise half the cost instead of the repair time.

[Mylon]

In general Savage Worlds is about adventuring. Getting into crafting turns the game from Fast Furious and Fun into Super Slow Spreadsheets.

That said, if your player is insistent, figure he turns into a basic laborer. He'll produce maybe $100/day worth of goods at d6 skill. Maybe 50% more each skill level beyond. So 150 at d8, 225 and d10, etc. He will need basic tools (About $500) to do this. If he pays for some quality tools (maybe $2000) he can further improve productivity. If you figure half of the cost of the spear is in materials, then divide the cost by half before determining working speed. If wounded his productivity drops by an entire skill die per wound and it prevents healing since he's not getting his bedrest!

So your herokiller spear costs $2,000, and working at a d10 lets him create one in roughly 5 days of working. But it costs $1000 in materials and $500 in startup.

Once the bad guys find out someone is running an illegal operation they're going to shut it down. And this could mean the loss of tools and materials! And this assumes the character is alerted to the raid and gets out before he gets captured too.

[ValhallaGH]

[Yondalor]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Let's see what we've got!

[Rÿche]

[tigerguy786]

[Yondalor]

Yeah, Invent and other stuff using power points was my first idea as well. Do you have any suggestions for the use of Knowledge(Chemistry), though? One character has it because the trappings of his Invent power required it, and he'd like to use it for other crafting as well. I'm thinking of allowing him to make Combat Drugs and Med Stimms, but what else could he do?
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[ValhallaGH]

Bombs, acids, drugs for street sale, medicines for the black market / help the citizens / help the resistance, and other non-super uses.
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[Yondalor]

Thanks for all the advice, guys! The session will start in half an hour, so I'll tell you later how it went.
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[steelbrok]

[Yondalor]

Thanks, steelbrok! I'll keep that in mind. We didn't get to test the crafting rules, as the players were more interested in other things tonight. The near-TPK we had at the end of Plot Point Two may also have contributed towards this result.
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