4/15/2020 Cypher 

System Weapons

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A Blog About Cypher System RPG

Alterslavia Repairman by Zhillustrator

Cypher System Weapons

Apr 5, 2020

Let's get hacking and create some fantastic new weapons.

Out of the box, Cypher comes with super simple weapon rules. Three categories
light, medium, and heavy, 2, 4, and 6 damage, respectively. Let’s get hacking and
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light, medium, and heavy, 2, 4, and 6 damage, respectively. Let’s get hacking and
create some fantastic new weapons.

Before we dive into complicating our armaments, let’s open up the base design and
see what is inside.

Cypher System weapons rules contain two big design thoughts - false precision and
pace. We might define false precision as an increase of abstraction level to distill
meaningful choices. This distillation, in turn, helps immensely with the speed of
the game.

I tried to retain these two design principles in my weapon hacks as well. If I add
complexity, it needs to have a solid, meaningful choice, and be easy to use and track,
so it doesn’t affect the pace of the game much.

Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk gun
If you run a hard sci-fi or a cyberpunk game that is low on magic, you will need
exciting weapons and equipment. This weapon is meant to be handled as an artifact.
It’s rare, can’t be bought, needs to be stolen, or earned through a quest. Charges are
most likely expensive to find or produce. The first thing I wanted with this weapon
is to avoid counting bullets but retain a possibility it will stop firing. To that end, I
introduce the concept of “charges.” Charges are depletion dies, and you roll them
only when you want to use unique effects that come with them. When rolled, they
show both the impact of the effect and if the charge is depleted. With this in place,
we have our meaningful choice -“ Should I use a special effect and risk a depletion?”
and we avoid bookkeeping by using actual dice. Mods are there to allow a user to
customize the piece to better suit their needs. Mod should introduce a significant
change to the operation of the weapon.

Pflager Katsumata Series-4 Blaster (Very Expensive)

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Badass looking sci-fi gun

Damage: 4
Range: Short
Size: Light
Charges: 3 x d4
Fire Modes: Single, Burst
Mod Slots: 3
Overload: When all charges are used at once, the weapon needs 1 round to cool
before it can be reloaded and used again.

Fire Modes
Single: As long as there is at least one charge in the weapon, it can sustain a single
fire mode. One attack per round for 4 damage. Depletion: –
Burst: Attack is hindered. Roll a d4 charge and add to the damage, if 1 also discard
the charge. Appropriate skills like weapon handling can help with the attack.
Trained eases the attack at a close, and specialized eases the attack up to a short
range.
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In-game charges have the same shape as the charge die.

Mods
Barrel: Increases range to long. Disables burst mode.
Grav Release: Firing in zero-G will not launch you in the other direction. Damage is
halved.
Silencer: Decreases range to close. Shots are loud as a finger snap.
AR: Shoots where you look at, not where you aim. The attack is hindered.
Charge Grip: Additional charge. When overloaded jams with a chance to explode.
Biometrics: Only you can use the weapon, and it will never shoot at you. Unless
hacked.

Special Charge Types:

Kinetic: This charge pierces armor. Roll the charge die for bonus damage. Total
damage ignores armor. On 1 discard the die.
Painter: Paints the target so that any cover or environmental hindrance is negated,
as new rounds coming from the weapon are now seeking it. Does no damage. Roll
the charge die to determine the number of rounds the target is painted. On 1
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discard the die.

Tracker: Use two entangled quantum charges to implant a tracker. After the first
one is fired, load the second charge into a tracker fob to get a tracking signal on the
target. Does no damage. Discard both dies.
EMP: Use this charge to disable shields or one electronic system on the target. Roll
the charge die to determine the number of rounds system is disabled. Does no
damage. On 1 discard the die.
EXP: Explosive charge bursts on impact. Does no added damage but forces lasting
damage on the target. Shields and armor protect double against this type of charge.
On 1 discard the charge.

Fantasy sword
I created this weapon for a Numenera game. A player complained about how boring
his bow was when all others had some science-fancy weapons. I made him an
artifact “sword-bow” type of weapon that can instantly switch between melee/range
modes.

Mechanically, the main difference between melee and ranged attacks is that firing
at the range is safer. All things being equal, a ranged attack will always be a better
tactical choice for a player. As long as they have ammo, that is. In the bearest
mechanical sense, we can say that a player is exchanging ammo for not being hit (or
at least harder to hit). To solve this part, I introduced a depletion die on range
attacks. Depletion die is generally not an ideal solution for counting ammo, but this
is an artifact in a Numenera game, where a depletion die works well and has a
fictional coverage, so we are good.

With the range mode depletion in place, I needed a way to recharge the weapon. I
didn’t want to introduce crafting rules here and thought that a more elegant
solution was to make it so that the weapon “eats” cyphers. This idea has two benefits
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compared to Destiny crafting rules. First is that it’s narratively more interesting, and
second is that we are adding another layer of meaningful decisions for the player.
Once emptied, a player will need to decide which cypher to sacrifice in order to
power up the range mode again.

One more exciting thing we can do with depletion die is to “burn” it. In other
words, deplete an artifact on purpose for a more significant effect. For the Geminus,
I set it up so that a player can choose to burn the die for the additional melee
damage that scales with the size of the die.

The reasoning behind it is that now that we know the weapon is eating cyphers, we
put up an incentive to spend the charges so that more cyphers are used up, which is
always good. I also put it only on melee mode so that a player has a meaningful
decision to make. Should I burn the die, which will disable my range attacks for the
sake of the added damage? Yes? No? An Interesting choice.

So to recap, we have meaningful and interesting decisions on:

whether to use safer, more powerful but depletable range mode

which cypher to sacrifice to recharge the weapon

whether to burn the depletion die for bonus melee damage

Quite a few interesting decisions for the wielder to make, and we didn’t introduce
any additional crunch into the game! With all the mechanical stuff done, now we
can focus on the flavor and narrative, and bring some life into the weapon, and
maybe some personality quirks. What we mostly have is an artifact that is dualistic
in nature, so we can use various dualistic narratives to craft a story around it.

Some ideas:
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Twins

Lovers

Gemini ( horoscope)

Dualism (religious, philosophical, ethical)

Unreliable personality (check GMI ideas)

Geminus (Bow-sword)
Geminus is a medium sword at first glance, but at the will of the wielder can shift its
form instantly and become a bow instead. Hence Geminus can be used both in
melee and from range. Pia Enna, a former owner, swore that the weapon had a mind
of its own.

Moon aspect (melee): 4 (slashing) damage, deplete for bonus energy DMG
Sun aspect (range): 6 (energy) damage, roll depletion die on each use

Geminus is powered by cyphers. Depending on the level of a cypher it eats,

depletion die, and it’s level changes.

Cypher level 4: 1 in d4 depletion

Cypher level 6: 1 in d6 depletion

Cypher level 8: 1 in d8 depletion

Cypher level 10: 1 in d10 depletion

The Moon aspect allows the wielder to deplete the weapon for added damage. Roll
the depletion die for bonus damage, or use the highest number on the die.

Salient Points
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Aspect change is instant.

Depletion is tested only for ranged mode.

Can’t be recharged if not depleted.

Geminus is a medium weapon

Geminus can sometimes get nervous, inconsistent, or indecisive

Sun aspect is effective within long range

Energy damage ignores armor

Charging takes one action

Its level depends on the cypher eaten

GMIs

Eats random numenera owner is carrying

Depletes and ends up stuck in one aspect

Eats a cypher but is still hungry

Don’t want to eat anything but the level 10 numenera

Eaten cypher effect manifests on an attack.

Fumbles

Energy discharge burns a random cypher

Depletes

Stuck in one aspect

Energy discharge burns the wielder

Breaks needs to be repaired.

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Breaks needs to be repaired. Cypher System Weapons

Mandalorian Rifle
Let’s create that awesome Mandalorian rifle bident! Up to episode three, we got to
see several functionalities:

Melee mode with and without electroshock.

Range finder

Heat vision

Sound amplifier.

Disintegrator ammo

Amban phase-pulse blaster

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Amban phase-pulse blaster

Level: 5
Damage: 4
Price: Very Expensive
Size: Medium
No. of charges: 6 x d4
Mod Slots: 3
Mods Installed: Range Finder (+1 range increment), Heat Signature, Sound Amp
Attacks: Melee, Melee Electroshock, Ranged Attack, Disintegration
Light Melee Attack: 2 DMG (no depletion roll). The attack is eased.
Melee Electroshock: Roll the charge die for additional electro damage. (Attack not
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Melee Electroshock: Roll the charge die for additional electro damage. (Attack not

eased). Discard on 1.
Ranged Attack: 4 damage at long range (very long with Range Finder). Depletion 1
in 1d4
Ranged Disintegration: Burn the depletion die for an additional 4 DMG at a long
range (very long with Range Finder). Totaled DMG ignores armor. Reload time: 1
round.

I hope these examples inspire you to create your own Cypher weapons and artifacts.
Have fun!

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AUTHOR

Koan Mandala
Mad Speaker Who Doesn't Do Much

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Koan MODERATOR
K 0 points  ·  9 days ago

EXP Charge type on the sci-fi gun should be probably redesigned to an AoE damage. One thing I forgot to
mention in the article is a side benefit of adding complexity to a game through equipment and weapons
(and artifacts & cyphers). Players that don't use them don't need to know the rules.

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