Crafting Super Tech

[Mateus Luz]

I am the Storyguide of a Mission Impossible style TC. My players are going to get their hands on a special weapon, not big deal, just have a few more tags that was expected and maybe a gift, not sure yet. But I want to make sure the weapon makes sense in the rules.

While I understand how to do all the stuff for creating a super science one doubt came to my mind, there is one thing that makes little sense, the Maximum Bonus Tags.

Lets say I want to build a Laser canon with 7 tags (Ranged: Medium 1, Mounted, Tactical Sight 1, Incendiary 2, Heavy 1, I didn’t add quality tag as I would use the enhancement for that end), it would be possible to buy with the Loaded edge, but it should be invented by a non-billionaire. Is that impossible as a rank 5 item have no more than 5 tags?

And a Rank 1 item has just one tag? It’s like inventing a super tech weapon that is a cheap knife.

Can I buy tags instead of Edges/Gifts?

TL/DR: How many tags can a Super Weapon have?

Answer: The number of tags is correct, but you can add Edges And Gifts that can grant tags if needed. Also you don’t need to add Quality / Maneuverable tags, as they use the enhancements.

[BrilliantRain]

I’m also a little unclear on what the limits are for super items. The core book says that “When crafting items of Rank 3 and above, the player should choose between the maximum number of Enhancements or Edges.” But it doesn’t say what the limits should be for the non-maximum category.

And Flaws are a bit confusing. Do they only show up as an aspect of failed rolls? Should items usually have a Flaw, even if they’re stuff you got as part of an Edge? Can you use Flaws to lower the effective Rank of an item or make it easier to build or pack more powers on an item?

[Mateus Luz]

Well, I got my answer in Discord, and I kind of have my theory on your answers.

Let’s call the Edge dots by a single letter (A for 1, B for 2, etc), so it becomes a quicker (and I don’t need to check the book), also let’s ignore the tags, they should be always equal to the rank.
Rank 1 and 2 are straightforward, 2e+A and 3e+B.
Rank 3 must be or good in enhancements or in edges, so you have 2 options, 4e+A or 2e+C, but also there is a intermediary (combination) 3e+B (like a rank 2, but with an extra tag).
Rank 4 follows the same idea, a optimal Enhancement and a optimal Edge and some intermediary, 5e+A, 4e+B, 3e+C and 2e+D
Finally Rank 5 have the most combinations, 6E+A, 5E+B, 4e+C, 3e+D and 2e+E
Thats probably what they mean by “When crafting items of Rank 3 and above, the player should choose between the maximum number of Enhancements or Edges. The Storyguide may allow a combination of both, though the total number of dots shouldn’t exceed the Enhancement rating for that Rank.” The sum of the rank of enhancement and the sum of rank of edge is never higher than the maximum enhancement.

About the flaws, there is a paragraph in page 92 that says when you get an Artifact, it must have same number of dots of flaws as its rank.
My suggestion is, make a combination of Built in Complication, Limited Resources, and Password protected, as they can work to make your artifact look like a prototype of restricted use (and don’t restrict much of your game).
You can reforge it to remove the flaws latter, if you have enough ranks in Science, as it is reasonably easier to do that instead of building one from scratch.

[BrilliantRain]

What was the answer you got in discord?

[Mateus Luz]

What was the answer you got in discord?

I edited on my first post.

but basically you have that number of tags in addition to any tag you gain from edges.
Also, Quality and Maneuverable are useless as they are replaced by the enhancement of the Super Science.