Here's an idea on how to make loots more interesting for your players and grasp better feeling of what character's influence is.

It's valuables. Cash, precious metals and stones, jewelery, treasures and more exotic kinds of stuff that people keep mostly as condensed wealth.

Normal way to handle them in DH2 is to allow to trade them with commerce skill according to RAW. You, GM, give this piece of wealth an availability type, a buyer and there you go - it can be exchanged for anything.

But this isn't always logical or fair. Bartering is very random in this game. One trinket can be worth null or fortune, depending on a dice roll. What about currencies? They're usually stable and don't change their worth every five minutes. You can't expect someone to agree on exchanging 5 euros for 10 euros, you wouldn't certainly do it, would you?

That's why I think that there should be simpler rule for using valuables. Mechanically it works like this:

First of all, when does the "valuable" start and when it remains irrelevant? Basically it's a treasure. A suitcase filled with money, a golden idol, rare precious stone found on an exotic planet. It's not what was left of your wage at the end of the week, it's more than your Bar Mitzvah or Confimation cash presents. It's substantial and worth sinning for.

When character finds a trinket and evaluates it (if the currency is known to character it's automatic success on test, if it's unknown xeno precious stone, more difficult test is needed), game master tells him how big of a bonus he can add to his chosen Influence roll. Let's say the treasure is a pot of gold stolen from space leprechauns and the bonus is +10. Now it can be added to any influence test that character makes, but only once if succeeded (character buys whatever he wants to get with this gold). If the test was a failure, the gold is not expended.

But if character is far sighted businessman or woman, he or she can turn that cash straight into assets by investing, lending the money, buying some friends etc. The treasure is removed from equipment and the character receives influence points equal to the tens digit of it's influence bonus. In case of the pot o' gold - one influence point.

What do you think, chaps?

First of all, when does the "valuable" start and when it remains irrelevant? Basically it's a treasure. A suitcase filled with money, a golden idol, rare precious stone found on an exotic planet. It's not what was left of your wage at the end of the week, it's more than your Bar Mitzvah or Confimation cash presents. It's substantial and worth sinning for.

When character finds a trinket and evaluates it (if the currency is known to character it's automatic success on test, if it's unknown xeno precious stone, more difficult test is needed), game master tells him how big of a bonus he can add to his chosen Influence roll. Let's say the treasure is a pot of gold stolen from space leprechauns and the bonus is +10. Now it can be added to any influence test that character makes, but only once if succeeded (character buys whatever he wants to get with this gold). If the test was a failure, the gold is not expended.

But if character is far sighted businessman or woman, he or she can turn that cash straight into assets by investing, lending the money, buying some friends etc. The treasure is removed from equipment and the character receives influence points equal to the tens digit of it's influence bonus. In case of the pot o' gold - one influence point.

What do you think, chaps?

I like it. The first part is the same as just giving the item a rarity value, right?

You mean availability?

I like your idea a lot Commediante!

I am going to give it a try this weekend...

The default rule is that offering items in trade/barter/bribe adds a bonus to your Influence Test equal to the difference in Availability between the requisition and the offer, IIRC.

This is very similar to the default rule, except for being able to exchange items for Influence at 1/10th rate.

This would need to be a bit more restricted, or else you'd have PCs swapping every Scarce (-10) weapon they loot from a ganger for +1 Influence.

The default rule is that offering items in trade/barter/bribe adds a bonus to your Influence Test equal to the difference in Availability between the requisition and the offer, IIRC.

This is very similar to the default rule, except for being able to exchange items for Influence at 1/10th rate.

This would need to be a bit more restricted, or else you'd have PCs swapping every Scarce (-10) weapon they loot from a ganger for +1 Influence.

Nope and nope.

According to RAW you can exchange stuff only after successful Commerce test. Even without it it's quite tough to use: usually you wouldn't exchange rarer item for more common one.

Besides my rule doesn't apply to all items, just valuables like cash, precious stone, etc.

How did it go, Morbid?