[Solar System] How does the Secret of Equipment work?

[Klaus_Welten]

So, in the PDF I read:

The character possesses a rated piece of
equipment, represented by a freely
preserved Effect. (If the character creates
the equipment himself, he has to create the
Effect as well with a suitable Ability check.)
The Effect level determines how many
ratings the equipment has; the player
creating the equipment may choose one of
these while the Story Guide allocates the
rest. The equipment may be damaged or
destroyed by attacking the Effect normally.

What's that do?

[Klaus_Welten]

I'm feeling unloved. :-(

[Courage75]

So, in the PDF I read:

The character possesses a rated piece of
equipment, represented by a freely
preserved Effect. (If the character creates
the equipment himself, he has to create the
Effect as well with a suitable Ability check.)
The Effect level determines how many
ratings the equipment has; the player
creating the equipment may choose one of
these while the Story Guide allocates the
rest. The equipment may be damaged or
destroyed by attacking the Effect normally.

What's that do?

I don't have the rules with me right now, but this is my understanding:

Basically, it means that the character has some piece of equipment or gear that operates as an Effect indefinitely, or until destroyed. It could be a specific gun, motorcycle or spaceship, depending on the fiction. It could be a sword, a suit of armour or a magic staff. It could even be a sacred document/text or even intellectual property rights (e.g. a patent). What it actually does depends on what the SG determines it does, unless the character made the equipment himself. For example, the SG might determine that a suit of armour with an Effect of 4(V) might provide Protection against any Vigour Harm equal to or less than 4. If the character made it, the player might decide that one of those 4(V) is actually a bonus die to any Heraldry (R) checks rather than all being Protection against Vigour Harm.

In addition, because the Effect is equipment it can be attacked directly. Successful attacks reduce the Effect and can even destroy it. With a suit of armour, it is obvious how this can be attacked. However, with intangible equipment, such as intellectual property rights, these could only be attacked through special means (such as a successful Litigation (R) check).

Am I on the right track here?

[Eero Tuovinen]

What that version of the Secret does (there are several versions of how to do equipment floating around) is that it provides the character with the benefits of possessing equipment ratings, special bonuses described in more detail on page 62 of SS. As the Secret describes, one piece of equipment gains him ratings equal to the Effect value of the piece of equipment; a 4-level piece has four ratings and so on. The rest of that verbiage in the Secret essentially just tells you how to treat the piece of equipment in its dual role as an Effect and equipment rating depository.

What equipment ratings themselves do is slightly complex, but it's explained in the book. The simple key concept is that they allow you to improve your Ability check results or lower those of an opponent in conflict, thus improving your chances.

[Klaus_Welten]

Thanks to you both, guys. ^_^

[Klaus_Welten]

It seems I cannot edit my posts, so I double post. :-(
A couple of new doubts arose in my mind:

1) How do you determine the value of a piece of equipment bought with a Secret at character creation?
2) Can an item "act" on its own? For example, if I'm in a parallel action and there fore not defending against my opponent's stab, can my armor "parry" for me?

Thanks for your attention and answers.

[Eero Tuovinen]

If your character makes a piece of equipment himself with a craft skill, or buys it from the open market with a suitable ability, then you just set the quality of the item to the Ability check. If the item does not originate from an Ability check, the Story Guide gets to set the quality to whatever value makes sense. Default is normal (2), or great (3) if the item is established as high in quality.

As for equipment acting on its own, the default assumption is that most of the time it does not, but if it does, you can use the normal rules for how Effects act in conflict - equipment is fundamentally just a permanent sort of Effect that has more detail to it than most things.

It is also easy to create a Secret that allows a piece of equipment to act on its own by using its equipment ratings, which are already a suitable matrix for Ability ratings. The new TSoY book has this, for example:

Crew Imbuement
The crew of the ship can make Ability checks independently to support the character or do things for him. Their Ability level is equal to an applicable equipment rating (which cannot be further modified for this purpose by other Secrets), and they use the character’s own Pools. Cost: 1 Ability-appropriate Pool per check.

(Imbuements are Secrets specifically embedded into equipment instead of learned by a character; the new book has somewhat improved rules on that sort of thing.)