A "magical" gun?

[Anubissama]

So, a player of mine plays a minor talent character. He is a detective with psychometry.

To even the playfield, he would like to have a gun with special ammunition to combat the supernatural.

Here is what I have come up ith. First, he would create a stunt for his Investigation skill that allows him to role investigation to find out the Catch of the monster he is fighting. I'd set the difficulty of the role depending on how rare the mosnter is etc. This would allow him to create an aspect pertaining to him knowing the Catch of his opponent.

Then his gun would mechanically count as an IoP that cost him 1 refresh that has a spin on the SotC ability: All Creatures Are Equal Before God. Something like this,  "if you created an aspect about investigating the catch of a supernatural creature you can pay 1fp to activate this power. For the duration of the scene, your bullets count as the Catch to the supernatural beings power".

Now, this is how I imagine it to work mechanically. In-game this is explained as him investigating the catch and preparing the bullets beforehand. So the gun isn't really magical hence the "" in the title, it's just him doing prep work and paying a fp to activate it.

Is this a good way to frame it in the rules or am I overthinking this? Is it balanced or to op, not op enough?

[khadgar4606]

first he needs a aspect for both making his gun and ammo cuz normal contender dont gonna count for orgin bullets of his  then think about temp aspect of knowing what monster you fight

what i mean is your player gonna need aspect like amatour gun desisner to make the gun so its never broke again

[Quantus]

first he needs a aspect for both making his gun and ammo cuz normal contender dont gonna count for orgin bullets of his  then think about temp aspect of knowing what monster you fight

what i mean is your player gonna need aspect like amatour gun desisner to make the gun so its never broke again

Would they, when it's an Item of Power? He doesnt have to have personally made it or anything.

Also, I dont know that they'd need to buy the gun and bullets separately since there arent separate benefits.

[Anubissama]

Why would he need a "gun designer" aspect? People who make their own shells for shotguns don't know how to build a gun. They just have a set to make the shells.

I don't see it as too far fetched that he has bought some custom gun that is prepared to use bigger/homemade bullets, and he has some small workshop area where he makes the bullets he needs.

[Taran]

Most of what you're saying can be done without a stunt or power.

Declaring specific ammo is Resources declaration.  Or weapons, with a stunt.  Or craftsmanship without a stunt, if he makes his own ammo.

Lore already lets you declare whether or not you know a Catch.  Just have a stunt that lets him use Investigation instead of Lore.  As you said, the difficulty would be based on how rare the creature or the catch is. (and how easy it is to weaponize).   How do you weaponize True Love?  That's going to be a hard declaration so he'd better have a good explanation of how he got those kinds of bullets.

I don't think you should give him the SotC ability. That also negates mundane armour and it makes no sense that he should be able to do that.  Besides, a stunt that lets you declare that you know a catch should not give you ACaEBG.  He'd also have sink enough FPs to buy the power for that scene.   Or just have him spend refresh on an IoP but All Creatures Are Equal Before God is a weird power that people say costs anywhere from 2-5 refresh.

If he's a detective, give him lots of opportunities to find out the catch of his opponents(or let him declare it), then let him declare ammo (or build it in advance.)  No refresh required (except the Investigation stunt since, presumably, it's higher than his Lore.

[Quantus]

Depending on the game it might not be a big deal, but it might be worth taking some time to clarify what level of prior prep/investigation might be required.  If he will always need prep time in his own lab it is significantly more limited than if he could reasonable carry the reg's needed and put something together in the field, which is itself quite a bit more limited than the Holy Swords as printed.  Also clarify if the bullet is mimicking the Catch material or if the bullet is implied to actually contain whatever the Catch Material is, which would require him to actually be able to get some (Inherited Silver comes to mind as possibly being permanently out of some character's reach).

[Mr. Death]

Alternately, a Ritual (Crafting) specialty, with the bullets acting like potions.

[Quantus]

Alternately, a Ritual (Crafting) specialty, with the bullets acting like potions.

Hey, I like the sound of that!  It feels like a much better fit to custom "Magic Bullets" than an IoP would. 

I think the IoP would fit better with something that was versatile but not literally a single-use sort of item.  As an example, I had a character who's primary casting focus was a pair of gloves&rings rather than a staff.  Each finger had a ring with 13 gems that operated like a 5-digit base-13 combination lock, align any given stone as the active one on each finger, with a different focus effect for each combination of the gems.  Something like that which is self-contained but "tunable" to the catch of a given monster; another example of such is an old Tom Swift novel that featured a energy based "logic gun" (or something, it was an acronym) that had a dozen or so battery sized modules (labeled things like "Disperse", "Emit", "Concentrate")  that could be inserted in different orders to get different effects. 

[Taran]

I had an archer character with magical arrows that were potions from ritual.   It works well but it might be more refresh than he's willing to spend.   At least 3: ritual plus a stunt to move casting stats to guns(discipline), Lore(Investigation), conviction(craftsmanship)

[Anubissama]

Yes, he rather likes the idea of being a minor talent, so taking ritual might not be up his ally.

I think the aspect creation to use the gun power will always require two rolls at least. On investigation to find the Catch, and then depending on the catch a recourse or contacts roll, representing getting the bullets or ingredients to them.

I don't want to make a big deal out of actually making the bullets and using them. This is what the gun IoP status is for to cover. He paid 1 refresh to have it and pays one fp to active the ability after he already did at least two rolls to create the aspect. Not to mention that he has to make a stunt to use investigation as a lore role to find the Catch.

And the gun wouldn't go past armour unless the armour is catch dependent.