Equipment and Stock Locations

## Equipment

In order to allow both flexibility and simplicity, Dark Skylines uses an equipment generation system.

To begin, choose one of the following equipment categories:

* **Melee Weapons**: Hand-to-hand combat weapons, such as swords, knives, and clubs
* **Ranged Weapons**: Weapons capable of inflicting damage at a distance, such as pistols, rifles, flamethrowers, and bows
* **Protective Gear**: Equipment that protects a character from damage, such as armor or shields.
* **Non-combat** or **Miscellaneous Gear**: Equipment for use in non-combat challenges, such as lock-picks, a laptop, or a vehicle.

After you’ve chosen the item’s equipment type, you may choose qualities for the item from the associated list of bonuses. There are three types of qualities:

* **General Qualities**, which are things that impact how an item works or functions (Like an *Accurate* rifle or *Ballistic* armor)
* **Advanced qualities**, which change how an item appears or alters its value (like a *Nondescript* cell phone or a *Stylish* car), and which do not count toward the weapon's limit for General Qualities.
* **Negative Qualities** which impose penalties on an item's function.

Most items have limits on how many General Qualities they can have. These fall into basic categories.

* **Junk** items have no general qualities, and represent the lowest of trash items or things that can be bought for less than $50. They have a base cost of 1 for combat items and 0 for non-combat items.
* **Common** (base cost 1) items are Cheap, easily obtained, or improvised gear and have only one general quality. They have a base cost of 1.
* **Uncommon** (base cost 2) equipment has up to two general qualities. Under most circumstances, no item may have more than two qualities. They have a base cost of 2 for combat items and 1 for non-combat items.
* **Rare** equipment has more than two qualities, and cannot be gotten by normal means.

Characters cannot use two weapons or receive bonuses from anything but the weapon in their primary hand, unless they possess the Ambidextrous merit. For more information on the Ambidextrous merit, see **Chapter Five: Merits and Flaws, page 248**.

### Obtaining Equipment

If you want to try to obtain equipment during a downtime, you must expend a combination of temporary *Resources* and *Influences* dots to do obtain them. Combat equipment, vehicles, and specialized equipment usually has a base cost of 1 (to get a junk item). Non-combat, otherwise legal equipment generally doesn't have a base cost.

If you utilize at least 3 **Underworld** in the purchase of weapons, they receive the Advanced Quality *Untraceable*—the serial numbers are filed off or maybe the whole thing was 3D printed, making it much harder to be traced by mundane mortal investigation. Conversely, if you utilize at least 3 **Elite**, they receive the Advanced Quality *Legitimate* meaning it has ownership papers and is registered, meaning it is more likely to stand up to scrutiny to mortal authorities. Weapons purchased with only resources don't get either of these.

You may also expend a combination of a relevant *Crafts* skill and *Resources*, and using at least one dot in *Crafts*, to craft an item of the appropriate number of dots used. Dots in *Crafts* are not expended when used in a downtime and can be used multiple times in the same round of downtimes, unlike *Resources* which are expended after a single use. You may not use *Influence* to increase the number of dots going towards a crafted item. Different *Craft* skills that can be applied to the same equipment do not stack for the purposes of making that equipment. So *Crafts: Computers 3* and *Crafts: Motherboards 2* cannot be combined in the same downtime action to make a 5 point equipment.

You must have at least 3 dots in the appropriate *Crafts* skill in order to craft an Artisan equipment, and at least 5 dots to craft a Masterwork equipment, regardless of the number of dots of *Crafts* used for the equipment. You may purchase Artisan and Masterwork using dots for a guaranteed equipment with that quality, or you may instead opt for a check to remove the cost of the quality and risk unsuccessfully crafting that equipment on a failure. If you have at least *Crafts* 5 in the appropriate crafts you may obtain Artisan for free without a check.

Buying an equipment using *Influence* and *Resources* does not require the expenditure of a downtime aciton. However, making an equipment using *Crafts* expends a downtime action.

### Investing and Upgrading

If using *Resources* and *Influence* to purchase an equipment, and you lack the sufficient dots to purchase it, you may chose to instead invest in the equipment. This will allow you to save those dots expended for investing for purchasing that equipment in a later round of downtimes. For example, if you only have 3 resources and wish to purchase a 6 cost equipment, you can invest all 3 of your resources on one round of downtimes then use them the next round in on top of your rejuvenated resources to obtain a total of 6 and purchase the equipment.

If you have equipment you wish to upgrade, you may do so using, *Resources, Influence,* or an appropriate *Craft* skill, and paying for the upgrade. For example, if you have a common item with one quality, you may upgrade it to an uncommon item for the cost of the quality you wish to add, plus one for the cost of upgrading the equipment from common to uncommon. If you wish to add a quality without changing its rarity, you simply pay for the cost of the quality you add. This is treated the same as a crafting downtime.

### Melee Qualities

Melee Qualities
 Impaling
 Reach

## Stock Locations

The following rules are tweaks of the errata rules.

### Taking control of existing locations

Sometimes players can locate current locations that meet their need.

Players can invest toward taking control of one of these locations by investing influence/resources toward them. The player must invest influence/resource dots actions equal to the Stock location's rating to gain temporary control of it. Their control lasts for 1 month, unless:

A player who controls a stock location may also spend downtime actions to gain permanent control of the location. They must spend downtime actions equal to the stock locations rating. (This may require them to keep temporary control of the location until all downtimes are spent.)

### New Locations

Players can create new locations. Doing so requires additional investment, use of influence, and time. New locations are always standard stock locations and must be purchased dot-by-dot.

### Prestige Locations

Owning a Prestige location is a bit harder and requires maintenance. Once a player has control of a prestige location, they must invest 1 influence/resource action per month per dot of the location’s rating to maintain it. Every month without this investment will give the location a negative quality and on the third such negative quality the location will be lost and must be re-purchased normally.

A standard stock location can be upgraded to Prestige through a Complex Quest, at ST discretion.

### Iconic Locations

These locations are the most notable places in Caliburn. In general, these locations are owned by someone in a specific position and cannot be controlled by anyone else. Converting a location from Prestige to Iconic is only done at Narrator discretion. In addition to the normal influence/resource cost to maintain an iconic location, the controller of the location must also spend 1 downtime per month. If the investment isn’t made, they will lose access to the location’s qualities but not necessarily lose control of the location—but it’s likely those around them will oust them from the position that gives them control.