Part 5 - Equipment and Resources

Equipment

Most equipment that your Protagonist will buy, find or use does not require any special rules – if you have the equipment, and it is in working order then you can use it (possibly with a skill or stat test) to do things. Some items that are poorly made or worn-out may incur a penalty (see the box nearby).

Obtaining equipment can be as simple as purchasing it in a store (assuming such commerce exists in the game setting); alternatively, it can involve scrounging around trying to piece together usable items from junk.

Buying Equipment

The table below gives some indicative prices for equipment. It also shows the normal range of available financial wealth that is typical for individuals at different strata of society (as defined by the Permanent Resources rating, see Detailed Description: Resources, page 18).

What does the Resources Rating Mean?

Medieval Age

TODO

Jazz Age

TODO

Modern Age

Rating	Resources	Financial Assets, Income and Cash-at-Hand
0	Penury	$0	no assets
1-4	Poor	$20k/annum	cheap car, rented apartment
5-8	Average	$50k/annum	ok car, mortgaged home
9-12	Above Average	$100k/annum	good car, part-mortgaged home
13-16	Well Off	$150k/annum	multiple cars, paid-off home
17-18	Rich	$200k/annum	multiple luxury cars, several homes
19	Very Rich	$500k/annum	several prestige cars, mansions
20+	Super Rich	$1m/annum+	sky is the limit

Some representative costs:

• Average living expenses for a single person (excluding rent): $1100/month
• Renting a 1-bedroom apartment in a large city: $3000/month
• Renting a 1-bedroom apartment in a small city or town: $1000/month
• Buying a 3-bedroom house in a large city: $500k-$1m
• Buying a 3-bedroom house in a small city or town: $100k-$400k
• Meal at a quality restaurant: $75
• Takeout meal: $13
• Public transport pass: $100/month
• New (non-prestige-brand) car: $20k
• Prestige-brand car: $55k
• Single-engine plane: $50k-$100k
• Private jet: $1m-$90m

Future Age

Rating and What the Rating Represents

• 0 No ownership of any item of value or function. Penury. Near starvation.
• 1-4 Owns only basic and valueless items; barely enough to eke out a basic life. Always hungry.
• 5-8 Owns a sparse collection of valuable or useful items, some in terrible condition. Sometimes hungry.
• 9-12 Owns a modest cache of valuable, useful items. Usually has basic food.
• 13-16 Owns a fair stock of low-grade valuable items. Occasional access to superior food.
• 17-18 Owns an impressive collection of useful gear; considered wealthy / well-resourced. Regular access to superior food
• 19 The envy of most people; owns numerous sought-after items of impressive function. Access to the best food and beverages.
• 20+ Access to unparalleled quantities of valuable or useful items. A stockpile of wealth. Choice of any available food, in any quantity.

Scrounging

Some items that the Protagonists want to obtain might not be easy to obtain – either because they are restricted in some way, especially scarce, or illegal. Alternatively, the items might be available, but priced such that the Protagonist simply can’t afford them. In such situations, the only recourse might be to scrounge around to see if the items can be ‘liberated’ from somewhere. This might involve sifting through discarded items to find pieces that are good enough to function as needed, and perhaps lashing them together to make more complex equipment.

If a Protagonist wants to obtain a resource that isn’t available to them via simple means, there are two ways:

1. By rummaging through the stockpile of belongings that constitute his or her personal ‘resources’, or

2. Searching the environment to try to locate an abandoned or unclaimed supply of that resource.

Each of these methods uses a different game mechanic.

The former is a use of the Protagonist’s Resources rating, while the latter is a use of his or her Search skill.

In both cases, the difficulty of the test to locate a usable item depends on the scarcity of the item being sought, as well as:

• For rummaging the resource pool – whether the item is small enough to realistically be carried around from place to place.
• For scavenging whether the location being searched is a likely or unlikely place for such resources to have been stored or abandoned.

The results of a test can indicate that an item has been discovered, or describe utter failure of the search/rummaging. However even if the roll is successful there is no guarantee that the resource discovered will be in good condition – the discovered item might be heavily worn or maybe even utter junk (see box nearby).

Pre-Loved Items and Spoiled Goods

>> Junk
Not all equipment the Protagonists will encounter in the game world are in pristine condition. Indeed, some pieces of equipment they find is damaged, poorly maintained, or just badly made. If your Protagonist is stuck with a junk piece of gear, it fumbles not just on a failed roll with matching numbers, but also on any roll higher than 95. A junk item also incurs a −20% penalty to every use of it.
>> Heavily Worn Items
Some of the items which the Protagonist finds aren’t junk but have seen considerable previous use and be heavily worn out. Items like this work alright but are at the risk of becoming junk every time the Protagonist puts them into service. After each use the Protagonist must make a Luck roll. On failure, the worn item has turned into junk (as per above). It’s up to the Game Moderator exactly when a perfectly normal pristine item has had so much wear-and-tear that it qualifies as being considered Heavily Worn. This should only happen to equipment or devices that have received considerable ‘on screen’ use, or which were purloined from a source which is likely to have heavily over-used it.
>> Spoiled and Potentially Dangerous Consumables
If the Protagonist is searching for a type of consumable resource (e.g., water, food) and gains a less-than-perfect outcome, it is possible that some quantity of the resource has been found but in a spoiled condition that may be potentially dangerous to use/ingest. The Game Moderator will need to interpret what this means in the context of the resource type, and whether the spoiling is obvious or requires a skill test to detect. - Ingesting spoiled food or water is treated as an exposure to poison (see POISON AND DISEASE on page 57). The default toxicity is (Speed 1D4 hours; Lethality 2%), but the Game Moderator can vary this to fit the situation. - Administering spoiled pharmaceuticals can be considered as per food and water (if the original medicine was something relatively minor), or as per the failure of a Pharmacy roll during administration of a dangerous drug (Poison; Speed 1D6 hours; Lethality 5%). - Attempting to use other “spoiled” consumables (e.g., gasoline or weapon ammo) usually results in them being inert and useless, although the Game Moderator might decide they result in dangerous situations for the users (explosions, damage to weapons, vehicles, etc.)

Resource Categories and Scarcity

As an abstraction, the scarcity of a resource in the game setting can be rated on the following scale (from least to most scarce):

• Abundant: The resource is virtually everywhere; the average person probably has at least some of it at any given time.
• Uncommon: The resource isn’t something that you’d just stumble upon accidentally but if you put concerted effort into it, you would probably find some.
• Hard to Get: The resource is in short supply or is somehow heavily regulated; most people don’t have ready access to it at all but if you have special access or know the right people, you can probably get some.
• Very Hard to Get: The resource is absent from all the common places and even people with special access find it a significant challenge to track some down. Don’t be surprised if you can’t get any at all.
• Impossible to Get: Stockpiles of this resource simply don’t exist; people that are especially resourceful might have been prudent enough to snare some for their personal supply, but that’s it.

The scarcity rating of a resource affects a Protagonist’s attempt to either scavenge from the environment (using the Search skill) or rummage through their personal “resource stash” to find it. The table below summarizes the effects of scarcity.

Scarcity	Consumable Resources (marked ©)		Non-Consumable Resources
Effect on Search Tests	Effect on Resources Tests	Effect on Search Tests	Effect on Resources Tests
Abundant	No test required; search is automatically successful.	On successful Resources test, a full ‘unit’ of the resource is found in Protagonist’s collection, in perfect condition.	No test required; search is automatically successful.	On successful Resources test, a pristine version of the item is found in Protagonist’s collection.
Uncommon	May be found with a standard Search test.	On successful Resources test, some quantity of the resource is found. If the test is a standard success and the die roll is 20 or less, the discovery is half a ‘unit’. A critical success or a standard success with die roll 21+ discovers a full ‘unit’	May be found with a standard Search test.	On successful Resources test, some form of the item is found. If the test is a standard success and the die roll is 20 or less, the item is heavily worn A critical success or a standard success with die roll 21+ discovers a pristine item.
Hard to Get	May be found with a Search test modified by -20. If the test is a standard success and the die roll is 10 or less, a spoiled and potentially dangerous version is unearthed. A critical success or a standard success with die roll 11+ finds a safe supply.	Resources tests are made at half the effective Resources rating. If the test is a standard success and the die roll is 20 or less, a spoiled and potentially dangerous version is unearthed. A standard success with a roll of 21+ yields a safe resource but only half a ‘unit’. Only if the test was a critical success, is a full ‘unit’ of perfectly safe resource discovered.	May be found with a Search test modified by -20. If the test is a standard success and the die roll is 10 or less, a junk version of the resource is found. A critical success or a standard success with die roll 11+ finds a pristine version of the resource.	Resources tests are made at half the effective Resources rating. If the test is a standard success and the die roll is 20 or less, a junk version of the resource is found. A standard success with a die roll 21+ finds a heavily worn version. Only if the test was a critical success, is a pristine version of the resource discovered.
Very Hard to Get	May only be found with successes on both a Luck roll and a Search test at -40. If the Search test is a standard success and the die roll is 10 or less, a spoiled and potentially dangerous version is unearthed. A critical success on Search or a standard success with die roll 11+ finds a safe supply.	Resources tests are made at quarter the effective Resources rating. If the test is a standard success and the die roll is 20 or less, a spoiled and potentially dangerous version is unearthed. A standard success with a roll of 21+ yields a safe resource but only half a ‘unit’. Only if the roll was 01, is a full ‘unit’ of perfectly safe resource discovered.	May only be found with successes on both a Luck roll and a Search test at -40. If the Search test is a standard success and the die roll is 10 or less, a junk version is unearthed instead. A standard success on Search with die roll 11+ finds a heavily worn version. A critical success on Search finds a pristine version.	Resources tests are made at quarter the effective Resources rating. If the test is a standard success and the die roll is 20 or less, a junk version of the resource is found. A standard success with a die roll 21+ finds a heavily worn version. Only if the roll was 01, is a pristine version of the resource discovered.
Impossible to Get	No test required; search automatically fails.	Resources tests are made at quarter the effective Resources rating. Any test that is not a critical success fails to find the item in the Protagonist’s collection in any quantity or quality. Critical rolls locate spoiled and potentially dangerous stocks unless the roll was 01, in which case a further Luck roll is made: failure indicates a half ‘unit’ of safe resource; success a full ‘unit’ of safe resource.	No test required; search automatically fails.	Resources tests are made at quarter the effective Resources rating. Any test that is not a critical success fails to find the item in the Protagonist’s collection in any form. Critical rolls locate junk versions unless the roll was 01, in which case a further Luck roll is made: failure indicates heavily worn items; success indicates pristine.

The Fine Art of Jury-Rigging

Protagonists may often find themselves faced with an inability to track down the exact equipment or devices that they really need to get something done. No amount of scrounging or rummaging through each person’s resources pool will track down the obscure item they need. What can a Protagonist group do in that situation? One option is to devise a plan to hunt down a collection of less-scarce component items and cobble together some kind of hodge-podge out of the parts. This is the fine art of jury-rigging.

In Cthulhu Eternal, all attempts to build these kinds of lash-ups are governed by Craft skill specializations or Technology Use (at the GM’s discretion).

The players should describe exactly what they plan to construct and what components they hope to use. Ideally there should be some kind of logic or rationale behind why such items might come together in the way imagined, but ultimately it is up to you as Game Moderator to decide whether the planned jury-rigged device has any chance of working.

Once the plan is made, choose a scarcity for each component parts – hopefully somewhat better than the scarcity of the original item – and the Protagonists can venture forth (or rummage around their resource pools) to see if they can find all the pieces they need. Once they have each part, one or more skill tests will be needed to successfully assemble the final item or device.

At best, a lash-up created in this way qualities as a ‘heavily worn’ version of the real item or device. If any discovery rolls along the way yielded up sub-standard parts, or the skill rolls were only marginally successful, you might decide the lash-up is barely-functional ‘junk’ (see PRE-LOVED ITEMS AND SPOILED GOODS on page 62).