The World of Shadows Weapon Design System

The weapons presented on nWoD p.169-170 are only the most basic types of weapon available
to an inhabitant of the World of Shadows. More advanced designs do exist, and it is for this
purpose that the Merits and Flaws given below are provided. These are applied to the weapon
as applicable to create new designs, to better suit the needs of the character. Note that these
do not represent any modifications that the character may have performed, they are factory-
built.

A Pair of Notes

Some of the Merits and Flaws below have an affect on the amount of ammunition that the
weapon can carry. All percentage modifiers are added together before being applied to the
base “Clip” size (round any fractions of bullets up). Also, the default assumption for the system
below is that a Merit or Flaw can be taken no more than once for any given weapon – any
exceptions to this rule will be noted in the Merit/Flaw as appropriate.

Merits

Merits are effects that improve the functioning of a weapon (although some do have negative
side-effects). Each of these has a dot cost which can effect the Resources cost of the weapon in
question.

Armour Piercing X (varies)

Effect: Armour is, to many of those who run the shadows, life. It is also vulnerable to weapons
that, by accident or design, have an easier time of cutting through ballistic fibre or slicing past
armour plates. A weapon with Armour Piercing reduces the soak of the wielder’s target by X,
where X is the number next to the Merit. This Merit has a cost of · for each two points of
Armour Piercing that the weapon has – but it is limited to the Damage of the weapon, and any
half-dots left over are lost. Note that this Merit cannot generally be applied to firearms, since it
is a function of the ammunition used in it.

Auto-Fire (··)

Effect: In the World of Shadows there are those who believe that too many bullets just isn’t
enough. A weapon that is autofire capable can fire large numbers of rounds with a single, long
pull of the trigger, letting the wielder use medium or long bursts (nWoD p.160) against his
opponents.

Burst-Fire (·)
Effect: The ability to fire more bullets at a single target increases the chance that at least one
of them will hit. A burst is a short spray of three bullets all aimed at the same target and this
Merit gives the ability to fire a short burst (nWoD p.160) to the weapon.

Component Weapon (· to ···)

Effect: Technology in the World of Shadows has led up some strange paths, one of which is the
so-called component weapon system. These usually comprise of a basic weapon frame and a
series of additional parts, and with the proper tools a component weapon can be switched
from a heavy pistol to a sub-machinegun in a matter of moments. For every · in this Merit that
the weapon has it has two forms (this includes the basic form). This Merit also grants its own
value in other Merits that all forms of the weapon must pick from.

Concealable (·)

Effect: While there are plenty within the World of Shadows who believe that bigger is better,
there are just as many who feel that small is beautiful, and in the dark future of the mid-
twenty-first century some people have applied this theory to weapons design. Whether as a
result of advanced polymer materials, discrete design or just plain luck, this item is far easier to
conceal than one would think, subtracting two dice from any attempt to locate the weapon on
the character (assuming he has taken at least basic pains to keep it discreet). A weapon with
this Merit cannot also take Looks Intimidating (see below).

Disassembles (· to ···)

Effect: The weapon can be broken down into two or more components that can be carried
and/or stored separately, for example: the classic sniper-rifle-in-a-brief case. Depending on the
level of this Merit and the Size of the weapon, the pieces can be large and obvious, or small,
easy to use and difficult to detect. At · this Merit simply allows the weapon to be broken into 2-
4 pieces for easy storage and transport – it takes about a minute to reassemble the weapon, or
about half that to take it apart. If the Merit is bought at ·· then it breaks into 3-5 pieces, but
they are designed to be easier and quicker to put together or take apart – the weapon takes
two turns for every point of Size it has to assemble, and half that to disassemble. Finally, if
bought at ··· the weapon comes apart into any number of pieces, all of which look completely
innocuous to the untrained eye, requiring a difficulty 3 Perception + Awareness check to
realise that they form a weapon when presented with all of the pieces (if half or less the
difficulty goes up to 5).

Extended Clip (·)

Effect: The amount of ammunition that the weapon can hold at once has been increased,
either by simply enlarging the clip or using a specialised packing system. This has the effect of
increasing the amount of ammo in the weapon by 50%. This Merit can be taken twice for any
appropriate, but the second purchase has a cost of ··.
Extended Range (·)

Effect: Either by lengthening the barrel or increasing the amount of powder used in the
weapon’s rounds the effective range of this weapon has been drastically increased, adding
25% to the base range of the weapon. This Merit can be taken twice for an appropriate
weapon, but the second purchase has a cost of ··.

Hyper-Velocity (··)

Effect: While many weapons in the World of Shadows have quite blistering rates of fire, recent
advances in technology have created firearms capable of spitting out vast streams of bullets in
the time it takes to blink. Also known as “HV” weapons, any firearm with this Merit doubles
the number of bullets it fires when burst- or auto-fire is used, adding an additional +1 to the
weapon’s damage on top of the normal bonus granted by the fire mode used. Unlike normal
auto- or burst-fire weapons, this +1 does count towards damage conversion due to armour
(see below).

Integral Modification (· to ···)

Effect: World of Shadows character will often modify the weapons they use from “stock”
condition, adding silencers, recoil compensation systems, laser-sights, and so on. This Merit
covers those weapons that have had such things built into their design from the start,
obviating the need to include them later. Each · of this Merit allows up to two such
modifications to be made to a weapon, provided they could normally be mounted on it. This
Merit specifically does not include the use of smartgun technology, which is covered in its own
Merit below.

Large Calibre (·)

Effect: The weapon with this Merit has been chambered to handle larger than usual ammo for
a weapon of its size. While this does increase the damage that it inflicts on its targets, it has
the side effect of reducing the amount of ammunition it can hold. The weapon gains an
additional +1 bonus to its Damage rating, but the amount of ammo it can hold is reduced by
25%

Looks Intimidating (·)

Effect: Either by design or accident this weapon just looks plain scary. Anyone brandishing it
will have a far easier time of holding someone’s attention than he would with a Streetline
Special. The weapon grants a +2 bonus to all intimidation attempts while it is brandished,
waved or pointed at the target. A weapon with this Merit cannot also be Concealable (see
above).

Smartgun (·)
Effect: In the World of Shadows some weapons are smart (sometimes smarter than their
owners). The smartgun contains a specialised set of gyroscopes, miniaturised sensors and
software that allows the gun to detect its orientation and feed that information to its wielder,
via a smartgun interface. This interface can be either hardware (through goggles) or cyberware
(through a smartlink implant), but the effect is the same – the weapon reduces range penalties
for attacking with it by 2. As an additional benefit, a smartgun used via smartlink will never
accidentally strike a bystander while using autofire (nWoD p.160).

Flaws

A Flaw is some design factor that reduces the functionality of a given weapon (although that is
not to say that they can’t have a beneficial effect). The Flaws listed below represent some of
those possible.

Fragile (·)

Effect: Some weapons are constructed to unusually fine tolerances and do not react well to the
rough-and-tumble action of street combat in the World of Shadows. At the end of every turn
that a weapon with this Flaw has been used in combat conditions, in a manner for which it was
not designed, roll a dice-pool equal in size to the number of turns that the weapon has been
used in this way without being adjusted. If even a single success comes up then the weapon’s
mechanisms have become misaligned, causing the first two successes on every attack made
with the weapon to be ignored until maintenance is performed.

Heavy (·)

Effect: The variety of weapons that in the World of Shadows can acquire and use would boggle
the mind, ranging as it does from tiny single-shot firearms that can be palmed to huge, tripod-
mounted machine-guns and more. This Flaw is more commonly applied to the latter, since
they have a high rate of fire and a large calibre, both of which combine to make the weapons
unwieldy. When the weapon is used in auto-fire mode without being properly braced or
mounted, the penalty to the character’s dice-pool for attacking multiple targets in a single
round is doubled. This weapon also increases the minimum Strength required to use it
properly by ·.

Limited Fire (·)

Effect: There are a multitude of various firearms in the World of Shadows, and not all of them
are equally capable. Some guns are unable to fire a single shot, for example (SMGs are the
most common of these), and a weapon with this Flaw has this disability, removing one mode
of fire from the weapon (i.e.: auto-fire, burst-fire or single shot) that the weapon would
otherwise be capable of using. This Flaw can be taken no more than twice on a weapon.

Reduced Clip (·)

Effect: While a large ammunition load-out is preferred by many in the World of Shadows, there
are some who feel that to be an extravagance, since if the first five bullets don’t take your
target down then the sixth is unlikely to matter. A weapon with this Flaw reduces the size of its
Clip by 50%. This Flaw can be taken twice for a given firearm, which reduces its Clip to 1,
regardless of any other considerations.

Reduced Range (·)

Effect: Whether by reason of a shortened barrel or just poor design, the effective range of this
firearm is drastically reduced, cutting its base range in half. The other range categories are
calculated from this smaller range as normal.

Requires Specialty (··)

Effect: Some weapons in the World of Shadows are so esoteric that they require specialist
training before they can be used safely (or even at all). If a character without the appropriate
Firearms or Weaponry specialty attempts to use a weapon with this Flaw then the first two
successes on any attack are removed. If this removal would turn the roll into a Dramatic Failure
then the character suffers from whatever consequences the GM deems appropriate.

Slow Reload X (· to ···)

Effect: Some weapons, particularly older (or even ancient) designs can take longer than a few
seconds to ready for firing after their ammunition has been depleted. A weapon with this Flaw
takes X+1 turns to reload, rather than the more usual 1, with X being between 1 and 3. For
every point of X this Flaw has a value of ·.

Small Calibre (·)

Effect: Not all firearms manufacturers believe in the adage that bigger bullets are better
bullets, and in fact some actively reduce the calibre of the weapons, relying on precision
accuracy to get the job done. The concomitant increase in ammunition capacity that this
provides is merely a happy side effect. Nevertheless, since the major effect of this change is to
reduce the damage of the weapon by 1 it is considered a Flaw – although the Clip increases by
25%.

Specialist Ammunition (·)

Effect: Some firearms that are in use in the World of Shadows are so new or even experimental
that the ammunition they require is not generally or easily available. Unusual calibres, careful
packing, strange materials, all of these can mean that the shiny new gun a character just
acquired becomes a real stone around his neck when it comes time to buy rounds for it. The
basic effect of this Flaw is that ammunition for the weapon adds an additional · to any
Resources cost, and any attempt to locate it through less-legal methods suffers a -2 dice-pool
modifier to the attempt to locate it.