Stuff
The Quality Bonus vs. the Gear Bonus
The inherent quality of a piece of equipment is expressed in the Quality bonus. Technically speaking, everything has a Quality bonus, although for the majority of things, it is +0. The Quality bonus stacks with the Gear bonus, where Quality is the inherent usefulness of the item itself, and Gear bonuses come from things that you add on to it. A +2 handgun is of excellent accuracy, but you will be even more accurate with it if you add Gear that further help you hit your target, such as a laser sight, for example. Similarly, a car may have a +0 base Quality, but could be fitted with a new suspension, giving you a Gear bonus to Drive skill rolls whenever an improved suspension is helpful.
Typically, Quality comes into play whenever you make a skill roll involving the item, regardless of what aspect of the item may be helpful to the situation, where a Gear bonus is more focused on a certain aspect of the item's function or usefulness. For example, a Quality +1 car will give you +1 on all things involving the car, while fitting the car with +2 tyres will only help make the car less prone to skidding and fishtailing. In the end, what exactly is Quality and Gear is a matter of flavor, style and common sense.
For something that you only expect to do the job with no frills, you pay the standard price and get a +0 Quality item. If you want quality, however, it will cost you. The maximum Quality bonus is +3, and the cost progression follows the 1-3-10 model, in this case extended to 1-3-10-30, as follows:
- +0: Standard price
- +1: Standard price x3
- +2: Standard price x10
- +3: Standard price x30
