How do y’all handle when a PC steals gear from a faction that is a higher tier than them?
Part of the reason that the PCs have reduced effect against such factions is because they have superior gear. Do the PCs just gain permanent access to higher quality gear? Does the quality benefit decrease as the PCs’ tier catches up to the tier of the group they robbed?
In my mind, the tier differential abstracts a lot of day-to-day details and averages differentiation and outliers. Not every lock or weapon or horse or thug in any faction is the same quality. Likewise, tier difference resulting in limited effect to bypass one lock doesn’t necessarily have to be about that lock in particular being special vs your lockpicks. Maybe the circumstances are more tense, higher stakes, more rushed, after more extensive or exhausting skullduggery than a similar action may be against a lower tier faction, etc. Or maybe it’s just a different sort of thing you’re not as automatic at handling but is not objectively trickier.
Additionally, scoundrels get to refresh their gear each score, which is another abstraction that overlooks things like wear and maintenance, resupply, cleaning, misplacement, shopping, getting stolen from, etc. that keeps characters’ as equipped as they need to be, which is, enough to not worry about it.
Considering those together, if a PC steals one or two things from a high-tier faction during a score, and it’s notably special, then here are some thoughts:
1) I’d be tempted to treat it as Fine or better like an asset acquired by a Downtime move, after a score or maybe two, the PC can still use it, but it’s no longer mechanically special. A lower tier crew just can’t really keep that nice a thing nice enough.
2) Maybe what you took already accounts for the coin from the score. When debts and expenses come due, crews likely sell what they don’t need, like that better-than-necessary dagger, padlock, or bird.
3) if a thing is notably special, then it likely will be missed, and a PC using it that shouldn’t have such a thing should attract attention. Nobody pays heed if your stuff suits your station, but something out of place is conspicuous. This is a great source of devil’s bargains, and also sort of the drawback of higher load.
4) even if a stolen thing is finer than the rest of the crew’s stuff, so are the Cutter’s weapons and the Slide’s wardrobe. Does the Slide share the finery to gussy up the Cutter? Not usually or it’d not remain finery long. When the Slide steals a fancy blade from the Unseen, it probably won’t be long before the Cutter ‘borrows’ it, probably trading him the dandy hat she lifted off the sentry that he can get better use out of anyway. Until the whole crew raises their level, a single finer-than-average thing probably eventually finds its way into the company of similar fine things per playbook, likely because that’s where it can stay appropriately appreciated and maintained enough to matter in the broader abstraction.
Oh, I forgot another thing. If scoundrels make a score or long-term project about stealing one extraordinary thing or a cache of a thing, then that could definitely allow them to basically narratively achieve a permanent addition to their individual playbook gear, or maybe a crew upgrade for that kind of gear, just like an appropriate score or project could result in having longer-term access to a boathouse or gang they didn’t have before.
Howdy!
During a job, I think a PC grabbing up a piece of higher tier gear is great thinking and solid way to mitigate the difference in tier with more powerful opponents. If you are not excited at the idea of every job turning into “who can we hit for better guns?”; here are some ways I’ve mitigated those benefits in my games:
Gear at +1 or +2 tier is pretty much just new “fine” gear the PCs have. Once they raise in tier themselves, they lose the benefit of the “fine” quality, because its now on par with the rest of their equipment (tier 2 lockpicks are fine quality to a tier 0 or 1 gang, but every tier 2 gang has access to tier 2 lockpicks by default).
Gear at 3+ tiers higher quality gets a bit dangerous. I will generally throw some qualifiers on the use of such gear; such as it needing a study roll or even project clock before they can use it (ie: “You’ve never seen a pistol like this before. There are five toggles along the side, the trigger has a dual action mechanism, and there is no obvious breach or cylinder to load ammunition into.” You will need to experiment and study this weapon a bit before you can confidently use it.”) unless they are wiling to give up position or effect for each unstudied use.
Gear at higher quality also comes with other drawbacks. I tend to increase heat when PCs use gear well outside their own means. Also, if they do something high profile with tier 3+ gear, it invites larger consequences in the story.
“There is no penalty for carrying that Imperial Repeater Pistol in your backpack, but when word gets around you killed Bazo with 30 rounds from a sleek silver and gold weapon that made next to no noise; more than the local Blue Coats are going to care about that.”
In general, pushing them to complete project clocks to sell off or anonymize powerful gear (like getting a Whisper to strip the psychic imprint from a famous duelist’s Orichalcum saber before the duelist’s pet investigator tracks you down) makes it into its own part of the story.
Whatever you end up doing, I advise strongly against consequence free acquisition of gear that is 3+ tiers higher than the group and to push even minor consequences on them collecting gear that’s only 1 or 2 tiers higher. The benefit is great – the story of keeping ahold of it should be too!
Just consider the gear to have the “fine” quality and leave it at that.
It’s trivial for PCs to acquire fine items naturally either through their playbook, a long term project, or a Quality crew upgrade.
Fine gear combined with a Quality crew upgrade has PCs using gear at Tier +2 .
Just let the PCs know they don’t need to focus on looting bodies in the hopes of finding a “+1 magic sword” that over powers everybody like in D&D.
I’ll echo advice that’s already been given: just let them have access to fine quality gear of the specific type they made, depending on how much gear they captured. For example, I ran a game where the crew successfully stole a shipment of military weapons to help fuel a Skovlander revolution. I specified that it was only pistols, rifles, and grenades, so they had the option of using them during a score.
However this also invites additional complications. The military sure as hell knew the weapons were stolen and that is a deadly enemy to have. Plus they weren’t the only gang who wanted to get their hands on that kind of hardware. I find in BitD you can’t get any kind of advantage without someone noticing and wanting a piece of the pie.
I’ve handled this by writing short descriptions for the higher-tier items and including drawbacks or flaws. For example, one of my players recently ended up with a set of demon-forged lock picks, which I’ve described as “fine” and “capricious.” Introducing a consequence (or potential consequence) for use is more interesting to me, narratively, then saying the gear was lost or stolen or sold.
For mundane items, I treat it as an item the PC doesn’t necessarily have the mastery to use effectively, but that might not gel with everyone’s style.