Armoury

The following rules for buying and selling equipment are all optional. Depending on your location and situation, the GM may prefer to simply roleplay the group tracking down their sought-after gear, and narratively decide if it is available, what it costs, and if there are any Tests or narrative obstacles to secure it — such as strange barters, unsavoury favours, or intense haggling.

If your group would rather embrace chance and uncertainty in the markets of the Askellon Sector, they can use the following rules instead.

Availability

All equipment has an Availability: Common, Scarce, Rare, or Exotic.

• Common equipment can easily be found on almost all Imperial worlds and is assumed to always be readily available.
• Scarce and Rare equipment is less common, and you need to pass an Availability Test to find any in stock locally. The chance of passing the Test depends upon the specific type of world you find yourself on.
• Exotic items are so ancient or specialised that they are only available if the GM determines they are, or if you commission the item from a sanctioned artisan, or make it yourself, perhaps with an Endeavour.

Once you know an item’s Availability and the planet type you are seeking it out on, check against the following Table to see if it’s in stock. When trading aboard Space Stations and Voidships, you can normally use the worlds they orbit or travel between to determine which goods are available. If there is a percentage chance the item is in stock, make an Availability Test by rolling 1d100. If the result is equal to or lower than the percentage chance, the item is in stock! If you fail the Availability Test, you can either reroll when you arrive at a new planet, or you can try again one week later, provided the world has open trade routes for new goods to arrive.

Market Availability

(Warr's note: this could be adapted or replaced to fit factions as well, maybe scaling with influence?)

If an item is in stock, it’s up to the GM to determine how many are available. In general, Feral and Feudal Worlds have a single item in stock, Shrine and Agri-Worlds have 1d10 items, Hive and Forge Worlds have as many as the GM deems appropriate. These quantities are generally doubled for Common equipment, and halved for Rare equipment (rounding up).

Non-Standard Worlds

Note that the table presented here represents ‘standard’ Imperial worlds — such as they are. The GM is free to adjust the Availability of specific equipment to fit the world or even a specific city. For example, on Port Aquila stations, especially those under the purview of the Greater Askellon Trade Combine, hull-penetrating firearms are illegal. As a result, all ranged weapons are Exotic, but all melee weapons have their Availability reduced by one step. Meanwhile, the Agri-World of Kalto hosts a Mechanicus facility in the mountains, so characters in that part of the world treat market availability as if it were a Forge World.

Bargaining and Trading

Even within the strict confines of Imperial society, the allure of a good deal or a wicked con are hard to resist. After all, a couple of solars here or there can be the difference between a warm hab for a night or sleeping in a damp sump-drain. When buying equipment, there are two primary Skills to Test: Logic (Evaluation) and Rapport (Haggle).

Logic (Evaluation) is used to identify any Item Qualities or Flaws a piece of equipment might have. A successful Logic (Evaluation) Test can also tell you how much a piece of equipment is actually worth, regardless of what the seller claims.

Rapport (Haggle) is typically an Opposed Test. Haggling is common on all planets, and most goods are marked up to account for it. Winning a Rapport (Haggle) Test reduces the listed price by 5% per SL up to a maximum reduction of 20%. Failing an Opposed Rapport (Haggle) Test may leave the cost as it is, increase its cost by up to 10%, or the offended seller may refuse to sell to the Character at all.

Selling

Selling equipment uses the same method as purchasing it, but you pocket the Askels. You must check for the Availability of a buyer in your area in the same fashion as checking for in-stock items. You can then bargain and trade, using Logic (Evaluation) and Rapport (Haggle) Tests. Finally, you agree upon a price with your prospective buyer.

On some worlds commerce is more tightly controlled than others, but if it is not possible to find a trader with the proper Administratum or guild clearance, black markets for most goods are common. In either case, the base cost when selling a piece of equipment is half (rounded up) an item’s listed price.

Lowering the Price

If you can’t find a buyer, you can try lowering the price. Each time you halve (rounded up) the amount of money you are willing to accept, the Availability of a buyer increases by one step.

I Know a Guy

In certain situations the GM can rule that Influence — both personal or from a Patron — can be used to modify the Availability of an item by one step per level, or its cost by 10% per level.

Bartering

The Imperium is a vast machine with complicated and baroque logistic chains. Many of these are resolved with the exchange of goods on a supply and demand basis, rather than hard currency — a fact that financially-driven individuals, such as Rogue Traders, exploit to amass vast wealth. This is known as bartering, and can take place at any scale, from haggling merchants on the street, to vast trade fleets exchanging millions of tonnes of raw materials.

To resolve bartering of this type, compare the Availability of the items being traded against those being acquired. The barter ratio indicates how many ‘units’ must be traded, and how many ‘units’ of the other commodity are acquired in exchange. ‘Units’ are defined by checking the equipment list prices of both items and grouping them into packages of roughly equivalent value.

Even in the Imperium, where weapons may see service for hundreds or even thousands of years, not all wargear is made equal. A bolt pistol fabricated in the sacred confines of a Forge World by a cabal of Adeptus Mechanicus artisans is a vastly different creation than one bolted together in an unsanctioned underhive forge, the same goes for augmetic limb replacements, tools, or any other crafted item. This can be represented using the Item Qualities and Item Flaws rules presented here.

An Item Quality makes the piece of equipment function better, but more difficult to find. An Item Flaw makes it functionally worse, but easier to find.

Item Qualities

Each Item Quality doubles the piece of equipment’s listed price and reduces its Availability by one step. In general, if a piece of equipment has more Item Qualities than Flaws, it is regarded as high quality, and may suitably impress or cause covetous envy among observers.

• Lightweight
• Master-Crafted
• Ornamental
• Durable
  

Item Flaws

Each Item Flaw halves (rounded up) the piece of equipment’s listed price and improves its Availability by one step. Exotic equipment does not have its Availability modified due to Item Flaws — they are always prohibitively difficult to find, even poor quality examples. In general, if a piece of equipment has more Item Flaws than Qualities, it is regarded as poor quality and may incite derision or insults from others.

Many unscrupulous sellers attempt to conceal flaws in the items they sell. A successful Challenging (+0) Test with an appropriate Skill — such as Logic (INT), Awareness (PER), or Tech (INT)— reveals any Item Flaws a piece of equipment has.

• Bulky
• Shoddy
• Ugly
• Unreliable
• Xenotech (x)
  

Even the brawniest Feral worlder cannot carry a limitless amount of gear. To help you track how much you are carrying, all items are marked as weighing a number of Encumbrance points (sometimes abbreviated to ‘Enc’). Encumbrance is typically 0–3, where 0 is a trifling item that’s easily carried, and 3 represents something that’s a struggle to heft. The total Encumbrance of items you can carry without penalty is equal to your Strength Bonus + Toughness Bonus.

This chapter lists the Encumbrance of many items. For additional items you might find during your missions, your GM can extrapolate an Encumbrance value from the examples below.

Encumbrance Examples

Small Items

Common sense usually dictates the number of smaller items someone can carry before becoming Encumbered. As a rough guide, 10 small items of Encumbrance 0 are equivalent to Encumbrance 1.

Oversized Items

Certain large items have an Encumbrance of 4 or more. You may normally only carry one oversized object, and it likely requires both hands or a specialised harness.

Worn Items

Worn items which distribute their weight across your body, such as armour, clothing, and jewellery, reduce their Encumbrance by 1. This sometimes means they count as Encumbrance 0 when worn. Carried or wielded items such as weapons do not gain this benefit.

Overburdened

If you carry items with a total Encumbrance value that exceeds your Strength Bonus + Toughness Bonus, you gain the Overburdened Condition. While Overburdened, you have Disadvantage on all Agility Tests and your Speed is reduced one step (usually to Slow).

If you carry items with a total Encumbrance more than twice your Strength Bonus + Toughness Bonus, you gain the Restrained Condition  and cannot remove it until you reduce your Encumbrance.