So, my Leech is building a saber-toothed tiger hull to ride around on. My group figures that it makes the most sense to treat the hull as a cohort in terms of mechanics.
However, we aren’t sure what the quality of such a cohort would be. Making a hull means crafting 3 tier 6 parts, 1 tier 5 part, and 2 tier 7 parts. That would give it a quality of at least 5, probably 6. However, rolling 5 or 6 dice is pretty ridiculous.
On the other hand, the hull is going to cost about 20 coin and 6 downtime actions to craft and inventing it will take another 18 or so downtime actions so treating it as an expert cohort (tier + 1) feels a bit underwhelming for the effort.
Thoughts?
Pin emoji.
I think that’s the full 4 dots of quality.
Well regardless of the requirements I am always in favor of the K.I.S.S. principle. I wouldn’t worry about the crafting part simply use linked clocks for each component and finish the final product as a normal cohort and let the fiction say its a mechanical beast.
In this way you alleviate the book keeping of a hull character and the rules already cover aquiring cohorts and their own levels of progression. Also making the cohort linked to the crew’s or character’s tier keeps in check the power balance. of the core rules.
John Potter a Component of this though is that John Harper​ did include specifically all of the pieces of building a hull as examples in the crafting section of the book. So ignoring the crafting seems to go against a thing that has explicit crafting components in the mechanics and fiction. The part that isn’t explained is how the hull then functions and performs afterwards (regarding quality etc).
A hull is more (or less) than the sum of its parts. The sensorium may by definition be a Tier 7 item due to its complexity and sophistication, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that the machine as a whole will operate on such a level.
As a cohort, a hull’s quality is going to depend on more than just how well it was built to begin with. It needs to be fueled and maintained. Even if it doesn’t see direct combat, there’s going to be wear and tear on parts just from moving around. Joints need to be properly lubricated, parts need to be replaced or repaired, lenses need to be polished. Your crew’s ability to provide the quality parts and materials needed to keep a hull in good working order depends on your crew’s tier, so it makes sense that like any other expert the hull’s quality will change with your crew tier. A tier one crew that somehow got their hands on a hull would be slapping filthy wagon wheel grease on its joints, rather than gently lubricating with a high-quality fish oil.
Also bear in mind that a cohort is more than just a quality level. By it’s very nature a hull is going to have the Loyalty and Tenacious edges, and access to edges and flaws taken from the Hull playbook (+1 to scale for your tiger-sized hull would be a good choice, for example) and the Smugglers’ “Like Part of the Family” special ability.
If I were you, I would make it a Tier+1 expert cohort, with one of the Hull playbook’s “Automaton” functions (To Guard… To Destroy… etc) as an “elite” function (+1d) as well as the Loyal and Tenacious edges automatically. Work out whether there is an edge/flaw based on the frame size chosen by your hull-builder, and then let him/her choose at least one other starting feature from the Hull playbook as an additional edge.
One last thing I would do is make this unique as a cohort that can be continually improved with further inventing/crafting projects, adding new features for the cost of a LTP rather than a crew advance.
As a massive downside to all this, replacing the hull should it be destroyed requires starting from scratch. No spending Tier+2 coin and a couple downtimes to replace it. It’s not like rounding up a new gang of toughs down at the docks, each hull is a unique and strange creation.
Yikes, sorry.
TLDR: A completed hull’s quality is going to be more dependent on maintenance than initial construction, and that’s going to be determined by your crew tier, so Tier+1 quality level that rises along with your crew tier makes sense.
That said, cohorts are more than a Quality number. Use edges and flaws to make your hull a unique and powerful cohort.
Thanks Mike Hoyer! That’s really great advice and thoughtful considerations
Seth Weinberg Thank you. I’m glad it’s been helpful. If you don’t mind me running my mouth a little further, you might consider making one or two components rewards for scores. It depends on how you want to pace your campaign of course, but gping out and finding and swiping a sensorium would save time and money (unless things go horribly wrong but what are the odds of that?) and more importantly be a great little adventure itself.
Yeah that’s a thought for sure. Both sensorium and soul vessel require rare components so I was thinking to have a score to get the components. But stealing the sensorium outright sounds like a nice ‘cheat.’
I like to put secret doors to objectives like that when I run scores where if they take the hard route maybe a part can be an extra reward.
Seth Weinberg sounds like a good excuse for another bold adventure.