As I said in a previous thread, the one below, I have thought of “specialized” equipment, that are better at specific tasks than Adventuring Gear, but less diverse. Essentially, they’d grant a +1 forward to relevant tasks when a use is expended, but you are constrained to tools available under the category, where Adventuring Gear pretty much lets you pull forth any immediately useful tool that you could feasible carry with you.
Examples (by Eric Nieudan) could be alchemical or gadgeteering gear, but I’m sure the enterprising player and GM can come up with many, many more.
Related to thieves, these might be interesting: Bundle of poisonous herbs, trapmakers kit and Burglary equipment.
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Alex Norris Introduced the following idea, which seems much better:
Specialist tools (3 uses, 1 weight, X coins)
Specialist tools are any tools or items that help you accomplish a specific type of tasks. When you buy specialist gear, describe it and pick one type of task it helps with (e.g. a skull key for lockpicking, a doctor’s bag for healing people, climbing gear, etc.). When you perform that task, you can mark off one use of your specialist tools to take +1.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/110330901807759406775/posts/Px85cCB3A2j
This strikes me as a good general item – you don’t need to make fifteen different types:
Specialist tools (3 uses, 1 weight, X coins)
Specialist tools are any tools or items that help you accomplish a specific task. When you buy specialist gear, describe it and pick one type of task it helps with (e.g. a skull key for lockpicking, a doctor’s bag for healing people, climbing gear, etc.). When you perform that task, you can mark off one use of your specialist tools to take +1.
Or something like that, anyway.
And BAM! Alex Norris took my idea at made it much, much better!
I still think that the Specialist Tools can be used in an effective but unconventional manner, but without the bonus, basically making it function like Adventuring Gear for that use.
You’d still get the bonus, most likely – fiction comes first, so whatever happens you still have [insert item here], and if that item can help with a situation you’re rolling for you should be able to mark off a use and take the +1.
Yeah, probably. Otherwise people would just use their adventuring gear anyway.
Updating main post…
Also, I think “Specialist tools are any tools or items that help you accomplish a specific task.” should be reworded to “Specialist tools are any tools or items that help you accomplish a specific range of tasks.”
I’d use type rather than range. Range gives too much wiggle room, type gives just enough.
I posted something about special thief tools before and like this idea.
Certain toolkits would, of course, be highly illegal.
Definitely, but that’s something else best left to the fiction rather than hardcoded into the rules!
of course
Locksmith’s tools wouldn’t be illegal, but highly suspicious 🙂