I started thinking about gear that gives flavor to roleplay, and baring the mechanic is great, but something that contributes to the narrative.

Simplest would be a jet pack. It gives an interesting touch to a piece of gear. Its iconic, its a personal vehicle, its a multi purpose interaction. Not like a blaster, point and shoot.

When speaking of Talents, I present the minion group droids from Far Horizons, MEDTECH MINI-MED. Who has an ability called Surgeon's aid, basically giving you the Surgeon Talent, per Mini-Med in the group no less

I would appreciate if people brainstorm with me about such gear... some items so far-

Pin/Ring - Something similar to the Rigger's signature vehicle talents.

Datapad/Computer - Code Breaker, Wheel and Deal...

Droid - Second Wind, Smooth Talker...

There's a sidebar in the equipment chapter called "Right Tool for the Job" (or something similar, away from my books currently). The crux of that sidebar is "if the PC has a piece of equipment that's well suited for the task at hand, give them a boost die." And really, for most equipment, a boost die is as far as things should go.

By and large, talents reflect what a character is innately good at, and allowing off-the-shelf gear to ape those talents demeans the value of the talents for the character that purchased them.

So you don't allow in your game attachments that provide Talents?

Attachments that provides talents are officially listed in the book, vetted and balanced by the people who made the system and found to be within acceptable limits. Making up lots of stuff that gives players talents for free leaves a bad taste in the mouth of any players who invested XP in those talents when they see everyone else just coughing up a few credits and becoming just as good as they are.

That could be said in regards to any homebrew. It is understandable to question something that wasn't tested and approved, but this kind of talent providing gear (mainly attachments) keeps popping up in supplements, and will probably keep appearing. I think mainly to supplement careers who want to bank on their "per rank talents" (for example) without expending into a career tree they don't want/like.

This also applies to a career A who wants to go into the trope of career B, without spending xp, just with gear. Like a thief who wants Code Breaker so he could play in "slicer".

So you don't allow in your game attachments that provide Talents?

Only the attachments. And the talents provided are ones that can very easily be picked up for 5 XP by a number of specializations, providing things like Brace, Point Blank Shot, and Sniper Shot in terms of talents.

Allowing gear to ape high-end (commonly not found until Row in most specs) or very specialized talents, like those found in the Rigger specialization will cause problems as it's invariably cheaper to purchase the equipment with credits than it is to buy into the appropriate spec (especially if it's a non-career spec) and spend the XP to acquire those talents.

Ok that a very reasonable argument.

What would you consider a fair exchange of credits for xp?

Lets say, a talent that to reach it costs 30 xp, that is about 3 commons sessions worth 10 xp each. Lets say that was 3 session job, worth 10,000 credits overall.

Should an item with this talent cost 30,000 credits? Sounds ok to me for an object, that is usually custom made or high end tech.

As a side note, Mini-Med droid costs 900 credits, and is rarity 3...

By and large, talents reflect what a character is innately good at, and allowing off-the-shelf gear to ape those talents demeans the value of the talents for the character that purchased them.

Hmm I don't entirely agree with that. items have encumbrance and these apes can only carry so many extra tools. Your character who has these talents can avoid using tools that would do his job for him, but carry other ones that do another job he can't do so well.

It allows you to round out what your character can do. Of course in a tense moment with no tools your character will shine at what talents they do have. But if things aren't too hot your character could be called to do another task if you had the right tools.

I know I must sound like I am talking in circles but really I think encumbrance is what balances this out.

And tools/gear can always be taken away or damaged so that they are non-functional.

Talents that the character has themselves, those are much harder to take away.

I guess I’m on the fence for this one. I can see it getting way out of hand if you allow too much gear that replicates too many talents, but I can also see where if everyone is being reasonable then encumbrance and money can balance that out.

YMMV.

YMMV.

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YMMV.

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Abbreviation for "Your Mileage May Vary"; as in, "different people might get different results from this".

Thanks, I just needed the context