Universal Gadget

From UTRPG

This stunt is an extension of the Have a Thing stunt, patterned loosely on the Universal Gadget stunt from Spirit of the Century. It was originally created for James Trevelyan.

You always seem to have an arsenal of clever gadgets on your person. You have 3 build points to assign to equipment, creating up to 3 devices.

Build Costs:

Situation bonus (1bp)

The gadget gives you a +1 to a specific kind of skill check. You need not specify a single skill, but the application must be specific. For example, a sensor array might give you a +1 bonus on checks to find hidden people and objects, on rolls to avoid ambushes, and similar situations. This may be taken up to twice on a single gadget to increase the bonus to +2, but may not be taken multiple times to grant different situational bonuses.

Ranged effect (1bp)

This gadget allows you to perform a specific kind of task (as with situation bonus) at extended range. Actions that already have a range greater than 0 get their upper bounds extended by 1, and actions with a range of 0 get the range 0-1. In some cases this ability may not be taken, particularly if it doesn't make sense for the ability to be used at range or if this is severely unbalancing -- the table has the final decision.

Undetectable (1bp)

Skill checks to detect this gadget are at -2 (may be taken multiple times).

Transfer Aspect (1bp)

Has some special feature, modeled by applying an Aspect to the wielder. This Aspect can be tagged in addition to any allowed character Aspects.

Remote control (1bp)

May be monitored, triggered or controlled from a distance.

Autonomous (1bp)

The device is ambulatory, able to travel under its own power. This may be controlled using the Remote control ability, or the gadget may be programmable with a simple set of instructions.

Other abilities may be added to this list as necessary; most will cost 1bp.

You may change the bp assignment any time you have sufficient downtime. Roll Repair on the Time Track, against a base duration of one day plus the total bp of all gadgets you are modifying.

Example 1: James has two gadgets: an EM modulator that makes his weapon invisible (Undetectable, 1bp) and a surveillance bot (Remote control and situation bonus to Alertness, 2bp). He wants to modify a pressure suit to grant him the transfer aspect [Difficult to look straight at] (1bp), and will cannibalize his EM modulator for parts. The 2bp gadget is not being modified at all, so only the 1bp from the pressure suit counts toward the base duration. The base time is increased by one step to "a few days".

Example 2: James decides to upgrade his surveillance bot, making it Autonomous (+1bp). He uses some of the embedded circuits from the pressure suit for the upgrades and stashes the EM modulator in his workshop for future tinkering. Now the surveillance bot is a 3bp gadget, so the base time for these upgrades is a day + 3 steps = a few weeks.

You may also make changes on the fly, but this costs Fate points. If you don't want to take the time (or are unable) you can remove a feature from one gadget and add a feature to one gadget (the same one or a different one) at the cost of 1FP. This may be done as two actions in a scene. If you have a spare bp at the beginning of the scene (eg, you've already disabled one of your gadget abilities) then it only takes one action to add a feature to a gadget. Either way, the new features are permanent until you get a chance to change them (during downtime or by spending FP).