BCZ Retrospective IV: New Equipment Traits.

Chapter 1 of BCZ has three main goals: To give more tools for the less powerful PC builds, To allow a greater variety of PC builds and, lastly, to mechanically represent PC concepts that didn't have rules support in the core book. While the robots always took priority, these goals were also present at the character scale.

I bring this up because all abilities address (or attempt to address) one or more of those issues at face value, Equipment Traits have the secondary effect of contributing greatly to the utility of Resources-based builds. Each new gadget added to the rules makes Resources more of a power stat.

The game has less Equipment than it does General Traits because, in theory, Resources can make you like Batman - with enough preptime and money, you don't need other Skills and Traits. BCZ only adds 9 new Equipment Traits, which is a good amount but not remotely close to enough for a Resources Ubermensch to take over and dominate Intermissions.

Let's have a look at the new devices in the inventory.

Call System
This is a handy way to access proxies, which are large and cumbersome by nature, to let you use them in situations where you usually wouldn't be able to. It is not a super amazing effect though, so it's cheap. A bit of Errata: This should say 'Specialist', because you can take it multiple times.

Nanomedical Vest
Intermission combat veterans know that pilots often feel like they are made of wet tissue paper. Even when they wear protective body armor, it feelsl ike upgrading from toilet paper to aluminium foil. The Nanomedical Vest helps by buying combatants another turn in the fight... Sometimes! Maybe. Only if the dice don't hate them. Okay, it is not all that great, but it is cheap so there. Maybe it should have been a guaranteed pass but have been more expensive? It would probably be more flavorful that way than as it is now, where it sometimes helps you and sometimes doesn't.

Portable Barrier
So 5 Defense is a very good bonus... But if you take an Action to set it up you're probably taking more than 5 during that setup Turn, therefore making it rather pointless. The problem here is that making this a free action would turn this Trait into 15-30 CP worth of defense for 5 CP, which is kind of silly. Perhaps this should have been a free action with a duration of one turn? Or maybe make it like Absolute Barrier and absorb a number of damage points (5? 10?) before it expires? I feel like this one was a decent idea that wasn't well implemented.

Tracking Device and Smart Manacles
When your game revolves around simple effects that can be described however you want, you have a problem when you have to coming up with special items. Equipment need to make more sense as, well, Equipment than as General Traits... Yet they must remain fairly simple, as if they were General Traits! Both of these Traits make a lot more sense as items than they do as, say, magic or other supernatural talents, so that goal was met here. There is one unfortunate problem with both of them, and it is that, mechanically, neither technically does anything. I somehow forgot to write what it means to be tracking or to restrain someone, as if the name and the flavor text were all you needed. How far can you track someone and how detailed is the information? What kind of actions are the manacles preventing? These get a one star rating and a frowning face for their review.

Smoke Bomb
This is like the opposite of I was Here all Along, but cheaper because it is generally less useful to get out of trouble than it is to conveniently be at the right place at the right time. This and Live Another Day are the game's Get Out of Jail Free cards, though both work in different circumstances and cost different resources or need different Skills. I like Smoke Bomb. It is good. 

Performance Enhancer
What's cool about this Trait is that it adds an easy Advantage to many Miracles, for those of you that want to exploit Expanded Miracles. It is pretty straightforward, honestly. Though, in hindsight, this could have been an Advantage to all Tests just to make it useable in more builds.

Speed Booster
This Trait should've been in the core book. It is a simple effect that doesn't need much elaboration and even has an equivalent in the Mecha section's Overbooster. So um... That's all there is to say about it, really. Next!

Self-Destructing Note
And now for the star of the show: As if Electronics wasn't strong enough already, now it comes with the funniest way to kill somebody in the game. This Trait is hilariously lethal once you've sufficiently jacked your Electronics Tests. Remember how I mentioned Team Player and Leadership during the last post? Yeah, with the power of TEAMWORK you can create a bomb with a DN of 30+ that must be resisted with a naked Willpower Test. This should probably be weaker, but honestly it is difficult enough to use (you have to physically access the device and make sure the intended target is the one who reads it) to compensate for the power level. Also, it is funny. I love it.

Next: New Anomalies.

Gimmick Out.