Murder-Hobo Control - Looted Equipment

What is a "Murder Hobo"?

It is a trope seen in pretty much every RPG, be it table-top or electronic. In a nutshell, it's the "kill them and take their stuff" mentality. Players tend to start seeing the world in dollar (or gold, crown, credit, insert currency here) signs. Just laid low a group of bandits? Strip 'em bare and sell the stuff later on down the road. Enemies become a lucrative business for the players, whether it makes thematic sense or not.

Is it really a problem that needs addressing?

That depends largely on you as a GM and on your players. Murder-hoboing is often seen as breaking immersion, or otherwise acting contrary to the accepted conceit of the game. Take standard fantasy - how do you reconcile a Paladin with what amounts to desecration of corpses for monetary gain? If things like that don't bother you or your players, then game on. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but this post isn't really geared towards you.

The Road So Far

I've gone through many, many iterations of this - each time refining it to be closer and closer to the motto of Savage Worlds: Fast, Furious, Fun. I did not want to slow the game down in search of greater verisimilitude, but at the same time I didn't want to constantly be making on the fly determinations of what players are actually able to acquire.

The Beginning

At the core, I wanted to use Savage Rifts' Technical Difficulties setting rule. It's an easy way to represent various levels of quality for similar gear. I'd love to take credit for the idea, but I actually saw it on the Savage Rifts Facebook group. Each level of Technical Difficulty adds a penalty (-1, -2, -4), a repair time, and a repair cost (0%, 20%, or 40% of book value).

Initially, I had players roll on the Technical Difficulties table for any item they wanted to pick up from a body.

I also wanted to incorporate the idea that a thug blasted by a Glitter Boy is not going to have nearly as functional equipment as the thug with a laser hole through the head. I called this Overkill.

This originally manifested as adding to the Technical Difficulty roll based on wounds past incapacitation. Then, because I really didn't understand the concept of "Fast, Furious, Fun", I decided that if the total was 7 or higher (off the table), the player would draw a card per point over. So, say they rolled a 5 with 3 points of Overkill - a total of 8. They'd draw two cards. If it was a 2, 3, or 4 of Clubs, the item was destroyed.

Yeah, I know, even I shudder when I think of that convoluted mess.

Iteration - Improvement!

Then, I settled on a more streamlined mechanic - do away with the roll altogether, and just draw a card. Starting with Spades, if it was a face card or a non-face card of a previous suite (2 of Spades through 10 of Spades OR J of Hearts to A of Hearts, for example), it was, in order, No Effect, Glitch, Serious Problem, Severe Failure, or Destroyed.

For Overkill, I changed from every wound over to every other wound over incapacitation causing a point of Overkill. Rather than add to a roll, however, it simply shifted the results to a worse effect. Severe Failure became Destroyed, Serious Problem became Severe Failure, etc.

A buddy of mine then made the suggestion to have Overkill draw extra cards, but pick the worst. This made for an interesting mechanic where bennies could be used to remove low cards, potentially drastically improving the results.

As you can probably notice, still a bit of clunk to it. If I draw a 10 of Hearts, is that a Glitch or a Serious Problem? Dangit, time to check the chart again. As for the Overkill change suggested by my friend, while interesting, would ultimately slow the game to a crawl. Got ten extras with at least armor and a weapon? That's twenty draws before Overkill is brought in. Granted, for something like that I'd probably abstract it to a draw per item type (all of one type of armor on one draw, all of one type of pistol on another draw, etc), but still - clunky.

Sweet Compromise

The current rendition is a simple card draw per item. On a Spade, it's fine (No Effect). On a Heart, it has a Glitch. And so on.

Overkill is still 1 point per 2 wounds past Incapacitation, but it has returned to moving the effect down one level. It is also an Optional rule as it does require more record keeping.

Jokers are always No Effect, regardless of Overkill, and Spades can never be reduced past a Severe Failure. I toyed with this for a while, but decided that there should always be a chance of recovering the item, albeit in about the worst condition possible.

Once the result is known, after the effects of Overkill have been applied, a player may spend a bennie to move the result back up by one.

Even if there's been 25 points of Overkill (50 wounds over Incapacitation), a Spade will always be a Severe Failure, a Joker will always be No Effect. If any other card is drawn, the item is Destroyed unless a player spends a bennie, in which case it now has an Severe Failure.

The Ubiquitous Example

Noble the Glitter Boy pilot blasts a Coalition Grunt with his Boom Gun. Let's say that he did average damage, 32. The Grunt gets no armor due to the AP 25 of the Boom Gun, which leaves him with a Toughness of 7. That leaves 25 damage, which resolves to six wounds. The 1st Incapacitates the Grunt, leaving five wounds over.

The Grunt has on armor, a rifle, and a pistol. Noble draws a card for each: 10D, 6S, and 10C.

If we don't use the Overkill rules, then we're done - the armor has a Serious Problem (-2, 20% value to fix), the rifle is fine, and the pistol has a Severe Failure (-4, 40% value to fix).

If we do use the Overkill rules, then those five unresolved wounds become two Overkill points - the armor is now Destroyed (Serious Problem =1=> Severe Failure =2=> Destroyed), the rifle acquires a Serious Problem (Fine =1=> Glitch =2=> Serious Problem), and the pistol is destroyed (Severe Failure =1=> Destroyed =2=> Destroyed).

Noble would've liked to have recovered the armor, as it is worth the most, but it's also hard to offload due to the obvious Coalition markings. He knows a guy, though, who could do it. So, he spends a bennie and brings the armor from Destroyed to Severe Failure.
It won't be worth nearly as much, but he should be able to get about 2250 credits for it. If he can scrounge up 18000 credits in parts (unlikely as he's hurting for credits), he can repair it and sell it for 22500, getting 4500 back in profit.

Savage Rifts and Weapons

First, let's start with the good. Combat is, as advertised, Fast, Furious, and Fun. Combat tends to be more "deadly", in that characters can and will be incapacitated relatively quickly. On the up side, however, incapacitated does not necessarily equal dead. Possibly just maimed, or otherwise marked, but not necessarily dead.

One thing is certain, however - the current release that we backers have needs some TLC. It looks like some sections, and even some weapons (since that's the focus of this post) were designed one way, and then forgotten when another design choice changed how the weapon actually interacted in away completely different from the intent.

For example, let's look at the Portable Rocket Launcher. It has an AP of 20 and does 6d6 damage. The mounted version has the same AP, with 7d6 damage.

Okay, so the PRL ignores pretty much any armor value, ever. The highest armor in the game that I've seen so far is on the Glitter Boy, at +18. What is supposed to be the pinnacle of personal powered armor is useless against a bazooka.

Surely the missiles are just as insane ... wait, they're not?

Vehicle Missile Launchers (VMLs)
VML:Mini - 5d6, AP 6
VML:Light - 6d6, AP 8
VML:Med - 8d6, AP 15
VML:Large - 10d6, AP 20

So, the closest we get to equivalent AP is the large missile launcher. For damage, we're looking at the light launcher.

A theory was proposed that the PRL was put in when they were doing armor like in Hell on Earth, where apparently tanks are running around with +100 armor as standard. When the changed how they were handling armor, they didn't update the PRL.

I think it's an even simpler transcription error. When looking at the text about missiles, the player's guide describes AP missiles over HE (HE being the default). AP missiles lose 2 damage dice, but gain +5 AP. If you look at a medium missile, it has a default statline of 8d6 AP 15. An AP medium missile would be 6d6 AP 20. There's other issues, but most of it can be chalked up to not paying attention when transcribing the data.

Still, I think its a problem that a Glitter Boy is at serious threat from a bazooka. I'll probably swap the medium missile for a light missile and give it the same treatment (4d6, AP 13) - painful, and can possibly take out GB, but less likely. An even less likely one-shot would be an AP mini-missile (3d6, AP 11).

That said, let's break down the categories:

Ammunition and E-Clips

My biggest issue with ammo and e-clips is the overall simplification. I get that it makes things more "Fast, Furious, and Fun", but the way they handle it is that an e-clip is rated based on total shots, not total energy. For example, let's say I have a laser pistol with 20 shots and an ion rifle with 20 shots. I can use the same e-clip between either of them (at least, that's how I read it - the alternative is that e-clips are per weapon, which is just counter to the source material of e-clips being universal). However, I could not use the same e-clip in a laser pistol that has a capacity of 10 shots. That needs a 10 shot e-clip.

This comes into play when pricing new e-clips and recharging them - the cost of recharge is the number of shots * 100 credits, and a new clip is double the recharge cost. So there's a definitive difference between a 20 shot e-clip (2000 to recharge, 4000 new) and a 10 shot e-clip (1000 to charge, 2000 new).

Grenades

Overall, grenades are grenades. Throw 'em, shoot 'em, get them over there somehow and they go boom - preferably amidst the enemy.
One oddity, however, is with the middle to entries, both Fragmentation (as opposed to Armor Piercing or Plasma).

The first one is 3d6 damage, LBT, 550 credits.
The second is 3d8 damage, MBT, 750 credits.

Not sure if the blast templates got switched or it was intended to have a larger blast for less credits. The difference in damage is at most 6 and on average 2, which doesn't really account for a smaller blast radius. I'll probably be swapping them.

Ion Weapons

Apparently in Savage Rifts, ion weapons act sort of like shotguns - +2 to hit due to spreading but loosing of damage at each range past short. Okay ... I can sort of dig that. It gives ion weapons a uniqueness beyond damage ratings, and I'm okay with that.

Lasers

Default weapon type in Savage Rifts, nothing especially special about them except that they provide +2 to vigor rolls to avoid bleeding out after incapacitation due to cauterizing the wound.

Particle Beams

Listed as a sub-set of lasers ... okay. Sure, why not. Supposedly they trade the range of a laser for extra punch, but in this case the "punch" is one increased die type and a straight bonus to damage.

If I recall my source material correctly, PBs were the premier anti-armor energy weapon type, typically used to take out giant robots, tanks, large supernatural creatures like dragons, etc.

As such, I would probably either trade the damage bonus for AP on a one to one basis, or simply double the AP. That would give the single PB example in the book (a pistol), an AP of either 4 or 5. That's enough to negate most of the armor bonus on most body armor, making PBs something to truly fear.

Plasma Weapons

Plasma ejectors are now large, unwieldy affairs, incurring a Snapfire quality.
Plasma engulfs the target completely, all at once, and so is treated as hitting the least protected area of the target. Not wearing a helmet? No armor bonus, then.
Plasma has a default 1 in 6 chance of igniting, causing 1d10 fire damage per round until doused.
Plasma is always Mega Damage.

So, big honking brute force weapons, and always effective (such as it is) against any target. I like it - it really cements its place as a squad heavy weapon.

Summary

Overall I like it, but it needs work. I have issues with how they handle ammo, and I think they need to tighten up some of the entries. Otherwise ...

• Lasers are your default, go-to weapon.
• Particle Beams are armor peelers (the way I have them set up).
• Ion weapons are energy shotguns.
• Plasma weapons are brute-force kick down the door heavy weapons.
• Grenades are grenades.