Heya,

Just picked up Gadgets and Gear. Awesome book. The Gene-Lock was something I have put on a weapon that I don't particularly want my party using.

They just fought the Morgukai from the Hunters and Force Users Adversary deck, and they just looted the incredibly powerful Morgukai Cortosis Staff. 8 Dmg, Breach

They aren't yet at the point in the campaign where I really want them using this weapon or one like it, so it's going to be Gene-Locked. However, I just know the mechanic in the party is gonna try and remove it, and after searching for any rules or difficulty on removing it I came up empty.

I dont want to be that guy that says "You can't remove it."

So what do you suggest for a Mechanics check? I want it to take quite a few hours and be insanely difficult.

Attachments are supposed to be possible to remove easily as long as you have adequate tools and a few minutes. The purpose of the Gene-Lock is more to prevent someone grabbing it up and shooting at you in the middle of a fight, not to prevent anyone other than you from ever using it.

That said, there is the Self-Destruct mod option. If that is installed, I would make it an Easy check, upgraded once. On a Despair result, KABOOM!

Alternatively, you could have this come to bite the players later on. The Morgukai aren't to be messed with, and if somebody sees you with one of their staffs and you're not one of them, word spreads fast. Or you could have some trader make them a killer deal on it.

I know it's sometimes easier said than done, but do not let your players fight something with a weapon you're not prepared to let them have, unless you have a good lore reason why they can't have it.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Attachments are supposed to be possible to remove easily as long as you have adequate tools and a few minutes. The purpose of the Gene-Lock is more to prevent someone grabbing it up and shooting at you in the middle of a fight, not to prevent anyone other than you from ever using it.

That said, there is the Self-Destruct mod option. If that is installed, I would make it an Easy check, upgraded once. On a Despair result, KABOOM!

16 minutes ago, GameboyAK said:

Alternatively, you could have this come to bite the players later on. The Morgukai aren't to be messed with, and if somebody sees you with one of their staffs and you're not one of them, word spreads fast. Or you could have some trader make them a killer deal on it.

I know it's sometimes easier said than done, but do not let your players fight something with a weapon you're not prepared to let them have, unless you have a good lore reason why they can't have it.

The Morgukai will return later most likely, as he is still alive, just in their custody. No doubt when he gets the chance he will try to take it back.

Appreciate the replies, however, not really the help I was looking for I will be making it (homeruling it) pretty much permanent unless they do some fancy checks. So, any suggestions to that effect?

Just now, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Appreciate the replies, however, not really the help I was looking for I will be making it pretty much permanent unless they do some fancy checks. So, any suggestions to that effect?

That depends on the skill-level of your PC. Are they rolling YYYYG? YYG? G? I'd say probably Daunting with a couple upgrades, but when you aren't using something tied to RAW mechanics (haha pun) the difficulty is more about what you want/need it to be, rather than what it should be, per se.

1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That depends on the skill-level of your PC. Are they rolling YYYYG? YYG? G? I'd say probably Daunting with a couple upgrades, but when you aren't using something tied to RAW mechanics (haha pun) the difficulty is more about what you want/need it to be, rather than what it should be, per se.

Good point. Right now, the mechanic is probably rolling YYG. Daunting with some upgrades might be the plan, I don't mind if the weapon gets destroyed, I just think I made a mistake having it in play to begin with. The player who plans on using it is a brawn 5 Nautolan with 3 ranks in Melee. I dont want him one shotting people. Not this early at least.

You could argue that this is an opposed Mechanics check. While attachments might normally be quite easy to remove, in this case the mechanic who installed the Gene Lock took precautions to make it difficult to remove.

So either use the Mechanics skill of the Morgukai they took it from or of some made up Morgukai weapons Smith if the weapon's owner isn't good enough at Mechanics...

You're trying to bypass a lock. That's just lockpicking. Which falls under skulduggery, with a difficulty depening on how good/expensive a lock it is. And after that you can just remove it without a check like any attachement.

Maybe I'd make it a Mechanics check instead of Skulduggery, but using Cunning instead of Intellect.