[Kelly Pedersen]

My proposed solutions to these issues:

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

where the system begins to struggle is when you start wanting to apply a particular enhancement to several different types of weapons.

This one is probably the simplest one - it's essentially a Modular Ability (thanks to Bruno for first pointing that out to me - before that, I was trying to get more complicated with my solutions to this issue). Some people have suggested simply using an appropriately-modified Cosmic Modular Ability pool, but I think this is a case where using the rules in Powers for a new type of Modular Ability is appropriate. I'd price Modular Ability: Item Enhancement at 5 points per slot, and 5 points per point. I priced it that way because I'd say "enhancements allowable on items" is a reasonably lengthy list but not "nearly everying", while I assumed that rearranging a "slot" was simply a matter of picking up a new item, justifying the expensive per-point cost. You can use trait limitations to limit the number of enhancements that can be applied to the items you pick up. For example, "only Armor Divisor (2)" is probably worth at least -50%. In fact, I'd say that you could probably justify another level of the Trait-Limited limitation, putting "Only a single, non-flexible advantage or enhancement" at -60%. Limiting the category of items the Modular Ability can be applied to would be a separate limitation. "Only weapons" sounds like -5%, "Only ranged weapons" like -10%, "Only guns" -20%, "Only submachine guns" -30%, and "Only Tommy guns" -40%.

So, for example, if you wanted to make every gun you picked up have +1 Acc, and gain an armor divisor of 2, you'd calculate what the highest damage gun in your setting was (for this case, we'll assume 4d+4 pi++), and calculate the cost of putting Armor Divisor 2 and Accurate +1 on it (24 points, in this case). The base cost for the Modular Ability will therefore be 125 points (5 points for 1 slot, plus 120 points for 24 points in the slot). However, the limitations mentioned above apply: -50% for a fairly limited trait list, and -20% for only applying to guns. The limitations total -70%, for a final value of 38 points.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

The system also has problems modeling improvements to weapons that are not already modeled with enhancements and limitations.

This one's tougher. My best thought is to use the "Trading Points for Money" rules, on Basic p. 26, and combine it with the above Modular Ability suggestion. Basically, buy enough "money" with points to pay the increased cost of the most expensive item you want to enhance, put that into the Modular Ability, and then limit it appropriately. For example, if you determine that making the most expensive item you want to enhance into Very Fine would happen to cost an amount equal to the campaign starting wealth, you'd pay 55 points for one slot of the modular ability (5 points for one slot, plus 10 points in the slot), then limit it.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Finally, the system doesn't handle enchantment very well - you might be able to Afflict someone with the ability to give a sword an armor divisor, but how do you set it up so that the sword gives that ability to anyone who picks it up?

This one is also somewhat complicated. My best thought here is that you'll have to build an Affliction that gives the item to be enchanted an Affliction that it uses to give anyone who picks it up the enhanced damage.