Wednesday, May 25, 2016

MOAR POWER!!!

So, I was reviewing Mutant Future's listed power sources (page 117 of the revised edition) and a thought occurred to me. What if I used a Power Beltpack or Power Backpack with a "powerful energy weapon?" Conversely, the question of, what happens if I use a Minifusion Cell or Plutonium Clip in an energy weapon that isn't classified as a "powerful energy weapon?" As a caveat, I think I'm going to ignore some things in favor of playability, like can a Minifusion Cell even fit into a weapon it's not made for, since the notation for the power sources table mentions using any of the power sources for "a non-discharged item" (we'll get back to that in a bit). The only thing I am concerned about is that Plutonium Clips see less used for "powerful energy weapons" (though they are) and more for 'radiation spewing weapons.' However, since we still have the note about "non-discharged items", I'm gonna roll with it.

The Power Sources table lists the years of use for each power source, even those typically used to power discharged weapons. This gives us an approximate value of how much energy each power source contains. So going by this, we'd probably see options like this:
Power Source Energy Weapon Powerful Energy Weapon Radiation Weapon
Power Clip 10 1 0
Power Beltpack 25 2 1
Power Backpack 50 5 2-3
Minifusion Cell 80 10 10
Plutonium Clip 160 10 10
Radioactive Battery 330 40 20

NOTES:
1. Radioactive Battery is included mostly for S&G, but also because it gives a rough idea of how many shots androids, cyborgs, and robots would have available.
2. Energy Weapons refers to those weapons listed as being powered by Power clip/Beltpack/Backpack.
3. Powerful Energy Weapons refers to those weapons listed as being powered by a Minifusion Cell.
4. Radiation Weapons refers to those weapons listed as being powered by a Plutonium Clip.
5. The low number of shots available to "powerful energy weapons" makes for an interesting use of low power treasures, in other words, giving the PCs a powerful weapon with only a few shots left, early on in the game.
6. With using Minifusion Cells and Plutonium Clips in standard energy weapons, I might include a chance of the weapon exploding when fired, probably something simple, like rolling a Natural 1 on an attack roll, or some other fumble type mechanism.

Non-Discharged Items
Before my thoughts on alternate power usage in energy weapons, I was actually looking at the power sources and how they'd work in powering robots. Let's face it, in the Post Apocalypse, there's still crazy tinkers, (mad) scientists, whack-jobs, (crazed) inventors and the like who think making robots would be useful, and not all of them are going to have access to a Radioactive Battery. Now sure, I could just say, each type of power source can be used to power a android/cyborg/robot for the listed amount of time, but is that really the case? Also, what happens if the robot maker decided to use several of the same power sources (like, say, five Minifusion Cells) to power the robot?

ADDENDUM
Note #5 inspires this quick table for how many shots are left in that Power Source (roll 1d6) [Of course, one could always roll 1d10 for most power sources.]:
Roll Shots Remaining (based on base capacity of Power clip/Beltpack/Backpack, Minifusion Cells and Plutonium Clips use the first number)
1   1/2/5
2   2/5/10
3   4/10/20
4   5/12/25
5   9/20/40
6   10/25/50

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