Gear Traits
Most gear is just gear. A sword is a sword — it enables your weapon Maneuvers, changes damage to Injury, and provides reach advantages. It doesn’t need anything more than a description and whatever narrative permission makes sense. The difference between a knife and a greatsword is mostly tactical. A zwiehander is less useful in a closet.
Some gear is special — a master-forged blade with an edge that never dulls, a bow with wheels and loops that give it astonishing range and penetration, an ancient staff that hums with bound arcane power. These items have Traits — properties that make them mechanically distinct from ordinary equipment.
Gear Traits come in two forms: rated and unrated.
Unrated Gear Traits
An unrated Trait is essentially a simple Conceit — a quality the gear has that a skilled user can leverage. A Sharp sword, a Sturdy staff, a Balanced crossbow. The quality is real, but taking advantage of it requires skill and a roll.
When you use gear with an unrated Trait, you may attempt a free-action Boost to leverage that quality on a relevant roll. This doesn’t use your turn — it’s the natural advantage of superior equipment in capable hands. Roll for the Boost as usual; success adds to your action, failure means you couldn’t capitalize on it this time.
The catch is the possibility of a fumble: if you’re rolling three or more dice, Extreme Failure is possible. A Sharp sword in the hands of someone just skilled enough to be dangerous — EL 3 or 4 — is exactly the situation where fumbles happen. You know enough to try leveraging that razor edge, but not enough to do it safely every time — too much sword for the swordsman, so to speak.
At very low skill — EL 1 or 2 — you’re rolling so few dice that Extremes are impossible. You can’t really leverage the Trait effectively, but you also won’t hurt yourself with it except as the GM’s narrative explanation of something that would have happened anyway. You’re too inexperienced to be truly dangerous to anyone, including yourself.
At high skill, the Boost is almost automatic and the fumble odds are negligible. The Sharp edge is just part of your technique — you don’t think about it any more than a master carpenter thinks about the keenness of a well-honed chisel as anything other than a resource he uses and maintains.
Examples of unrated Gear Traits:
- Sharp — the edge or point is exceptional. Free-action Boost on attacks where the edge matters.
- Balanced — the weapon handles beautifully. Free-action Boost on any finesse action with it.
- Sturdy — the item is exceptionally well-made. Free-action Boost on resistance rolls where the item absorbs punishment.
Note that a really skillful opponent will notice you leaning on techniques that leverage that Sharp edge, and maybe be able to use that to their own advantage. Everything has a price.
Rated Gear Traits
A rated Trait has a number attached, and that number represents contingent points that activate automatically under the right conditions — no roll required. Think of them as a pre-rolled Wager built into the item. The points are just there, waiting for a successful action to deliver them.
A Sharp 1 blade adds 1 contingent point of damage to every successful hit. You don’t roll for them, you don’t dedicate them from your EL, and they neither reduce nor increase your chance to hit. They’re the weapon’s contribution, not yours.
The danger: on an Extreme Failure, those contingent points are part of the catastrophe. They activate — but not the way you intended. A Sharp 1 sword fumble doesn’t just mean you dropped your weapon. It means that point of dedicated cutting power went somewhere wrong, like into your foot. The higher the rating, the worse the failure mode.
Rated Traits follow the same rules as Wagered points: they only activate on a successful action. If you miss entirely, the contingent points don’t fire. But if you hit by even 1 point of effect, the full contingent value lands on top.
Examples of rated Gear Traits:
- Sharp 2 — 2 contingent points of damage on successful hits.
- Penetrating 1 — 1 contingent point that bypasses armor on successful hits.
- Fortified 2 — 2 contingent points added to successful resistance rolls when the item is relevant. A shield, a suit of armor, a warded amulet.
Guns generally have Rated Traits; if you miss, you missed. If you hit, the damage might be considerable.
Yes, it is still possible to be “just grazed” by a halberd (or a shotgun) if you roll well to resist. You managed to minimize the alngle of attack, or got mostly behind some cover before it hit, or armor deflected some, etc.
Combining Traits
A truly exceptional item might have both rated and unrated Traits. A master-forged sword might be Sharp 1 (rated — always a little extra bite) and Balanced (unrated — a skilled user can leverage the handling for a free-action Boost). The rated points are automatic; the unrated Boost requires a roll.
An item can also have multiple rated Traits. A Sharp 1, Flaming 2 sword delivers 1 contingent point of cutting damage and 2 contingent points of fire damage on every successful hit, subject to the narrative — a target Immune to Fire won’t care about the Flaming, but the Sharp might still bite.
And on a fumble, you’re holding a sharp thing that’s also on fire. Choose your weapons carefully.