How can a TL4 person use TL12 devices

[Crzyraccoon]

So I plan on making an TL12 weapon that was once belong to a long lost alien civilization and is now discovered by the new people from a TL4 society that will can be used with the melee weapon skill but will require technology skills to unlock new powerful abilities abilities, but what will adventurers need exactly to uncover them or if the the weapon itself could teach them its bits.

I've read B478-479 but and just want some more input and hear stories if you ever done or played this.

The PCs will have get -8 on their DX rolls and it will be IMPOSSIBLE for them on their IQ roll.

[Rysith]

As mentioned in High-tech, you as the GM can rule that the tech level penalties for DX-based usage are unfamiliarity penalties, which seems reasonable in this case. It may be a sword (or a club, or a spear, or whatever) made of ultracomposites, and it might have weird balance compared to the TL4 swords that your characters are used to, but it's still a sword and you still swing it to cut people. That deals with the DX penalty, and lets them use it, though not to it's full capacities.

For learning the more advanced functions, I can see two possibilities:
1) It uses a skill separate from the melee skill, like beam weapon(TL12) to fire lasers. The PCs would have to learn it through some means, which would be very difficult in a 'realistic' campaign.
2) It just requires the PCs to know of the capability ("push this control to enable vibroblade mode"), which probably doesn't need a skill (though possibly a Technique to use it properly). The difficulty there is that TL4 characters wouldn't have a reason to even think that there were controls to be manipulated.

One option, especially if this device was intended for use by less-advanced people, would be to build in a simple AI with the teaching skill. I'd also probably introduce something like a "By Rote" technique that let the characters offset the IQ TL penalty without being TL12 themselves, but without any ability to refine, develop, or use the skills in other contexts - the device is teaching them how to fire and maintain a muon cannon, but not the underlying theories or background that a TL12 person would have, probably including what muons are. That's not very adventurey, though.

Another option would be to go adventuring into other TL12 areas in search of the knowledge of how to use this device. Raiding libraries, vaults, etc. Lots of potential for adventure there, and could even be combined with the AI idea if the one in the device came damaged but they could enhance it by hunting down and installing what were essentially tutorial modules for it.

One thing that I'd be careful with is that a TL12 weapon is going to massively outshine a TL4 weapon if it's any use at all[1] - a hyperdense sword will basically ignore TL4 armor, for example. You'll need to pay attention to not only making sure that the weapon doesn't trivialize challenges, but also that it doesn't cause whichever character is using it to outshine the other characters. I'd feel like in order to pull this off, you're going to have to severely limit the circumstances when it can be used (through limited charges, dangerous side effects, or whatever), make it the /center/ of the campaign (with powering it up, fending off people who want it, dealing with it's side effects, and so on), and make sure that it's use is spread out among your entire party (or have multiple of them, maybe as weaker devices that can be combined or something) so that everyone gets a chance to play with the future-toy.

[1] A TL12 disintegration pistol makes a lousy club, for example, but a laser rifle made out of superalloy probably makes a decent one assuming that that doesn't misalign the lenses or whatever.

[whswhs]

The skill Broadsword is not Broadsword/TL (indeed, no melee weapon skills have a TL qualifier, not even Force Sword or Force Whip). Therefore it takes no penalties at all. I suppose it might be a puzzle for a TL4 person to figure out how to activate a force sword, but that wouldn't be a skill modifier, just IQ or luck or narrative description.

[Flyndaran]

That allows the entertaining misuse or under-use of ultra tech. Like using an adjustable light saber as a combo bread slicer and toaster.
Or primitive robot as a porter rather than understanding its use as a calculating assistant.

[Nereidalbel]

As far as hitting people with it goes, it's a sword. If you use familiarity penalties, that's all that should really apply.

As for the tech parts, buttons and switches allow for experimentation. Somebody with Wild Talent would be useful for figuring things out, too.

[DangerousThing]

This is a TL frigging 12 weapon. At TL 12, toasters are smarter than unmodified humans. A weapon might have been made to teach it's user.

I'd play the AI as being frustrated at these humans all the time. "I have the power to destroy a planet and you're using me to hit people over the head. And this gives me such a ringing in my right audio receptor." Something like Marvin without being quite so depressed.

[Flyndaran]

TL 12 humans aren't remotely human. With thousands of years of genetic engineering and teaching technology behind them, they would make us look like upright monkeys.

[Crzyraccoon]

Originally Posted by Rysith

As mentioned in High-tech, you as the GM can rule that the tech level penalties for DX-based usage are unfamiliarity penalties, which seems reasonable in this case. It may be a sword (or a club, or a spear, or whatever) made of ultracomposites, and it might have weird balance compared to the TL4 swords that your characters are used to, but it's still a sword and you still swing it to cut people. That deals with the DX penalty, and lets them use it, though not to it's full capacities.

For learning the more advanced functions, I can see two possibilities:
1) It uses a skill separate from the melee skill, like beam weapon(TL12) to fire lasers. The PCs would have to learn it through some means, which would be very difficult in a 'realistic' campaign.
2) It just requires the PCs to know of the capability ("push this control to enable vibroblade mode"), which probably doesn't need a skill (though possibly a Technique to use it properly). The difficulty there is that TL4 characters wouldn't have a reason to even think that there were controls to be manipulated.

One option, especially if this device was intended for use by less-advanced people, would be to build in a simple AI with the teaching skill. I'd also probably introduce something like a "By Rote" technique that let the characters offset the IQ TL penalty without being TL12 themselves, but without any ability to refine, develop, or use the skills in other contexts - the device is teaching them how to fire and maintain a muon cannon, but not the underlying theories or background that a TL12 person would have, probably including what muons are. That's not very adventurey, though.

*Another option would be to go adventuring into other TL12 areas in search of the knowledge of how to use this device. Raiding libraries, vaults, etc. Lots of potential for adventure there, and could even be combined with the AI idea if the one in the device came damaged but they could enhance it by hunting down and installing what were essentially tutorial modules for it.

**One thing that I'd be careful with is that a TL12 weapon is going to massively outshine a TL4 weapon if it's any use at all[1] - a hyperdense sword will basically ignore TL4 armor, for example. You'll need to pay attention to not only making sure that the weapon doesn't trivialize challenges, but also that it doesn't cause whichever character is using it to outshine the other characters. I'd feel like in order to pull this off, you're going to have to severely limit the circumstances when it can be used (through limited charges, dangerous side effects, or whatever), make it the /center/ of the campaign (with powering it up, fending off people who want it, dealing with it's side effects, and so on), and make sure that it's use is spread out among your entire party (or have multiple of them, maybe as weaker devices that can be combined or something) so that everyone gets a chance to play with the future-toy.

***[1] A TL12 disintegration pistol makes a lousy club, for example, but a laser rifle made out of superalloy probably makes a decent one assuming that that doesn't misalign the lenses or whatever.

*Well they are going to be going to adventure the lost civilizations, they could find missing and/or enhancing parts that can upgrade it.

**This is my BIGGEST fear, while it will be cool, it will be hard to have other discovers to be just as cool, this weapon will not be the center but a major part of the campaign, I also don't want one that can have it and outshine the other PCs. While I'll try to limit its powers and have drawbacks, I will have social disadvantages like enemies.

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

This is a TL frigging 12 weapon. At TL 12, toasters are smarter than unmodified humans. A weapon might have been made to teach it's user.

I'd play the AI as being frustrated at these humans all the time. "I have the power to destroy a planet and you're using me to hit people over the head. And this gives me such a ringing in my right audio receptor." Something like Marvin without being quite so depressed.

Even if the AI would speak such think, it would be speaking in a language not known to the new TL4 people, so if there is an AI, they would have to understand its language first


An interesting idea I come up with is that the AI could have suffered amnesia/reboot and would learn the customs and language of the new people. This would be cool that the AI would be able to talk to the PCs with and understand their culture but not able to teach them how to use all its functions or the history of the aliens as it believe that it was never created by such thinks.

[The Colonel]

Perhaps over influenced by Ian M Banks, I tend to think of TL12 weapons as likely to be NPCs ... or at least possessed of some kind of AI.

[LemmingLord]

Gm fiat. If the device was meant to work like a sword as well as a camera, then let someone who is familiar with swords use it as a sword without any more penalty you would apply to a sword of a slightly different balance; but they don't have any possibility of using the camera feature as a camera... though they may take lots of pictures accidentally.... I would describe that with "when you pull your weapon from your rope loop you hear a sound as if rocks were clacked together."