A few questions from game play

Fallout 2D20
1

Just a few things that have come up in our ongoing West March style game.

  1. Can a Mr. Handy attach other weapons, use other things beyond the laser/flamer/10mm/buzzsaw? Could they mount a shotgun, for example?
  2. Can a character use a Mr. Handy attachment that’s no longer attached? Like if the Mr. Handy decides to get rid of their laser, could someone else pick it up and use it?
  3. Can mods be removed from weapons/armor?
  4. Does the -1 to sight based Perception tests for the Mr. Handy (page 55) count for Energy Weapons attacks which uses Perception?
2

Here are my interpretation of the rules as they’re currently written. The core rule book doesn’t specifically answer all of your questions so if you don’t particularly agree with something you’re welcome to homebrew it into your sessions (with your GM’s permission of course).

  1. A Mister Handy’s weapon options are limited to the ones listed as Arm Attachment types on p. 54. Personally I might also allow a homebrew of a Mister Handy using other weapons outside the Arm Attachments, but at an increased difficulty and increased complication roll provided they have enough Pincers to manipulate a non-integrated weapon, though I don’t think they were intended to use them as the rules are writen.
  2. Another “no.” The integrated Flamer, as an example, has a drastically different design to the one used by bipeds. I would however allow them to sell of an Arm Attachment to a merchant.
  3. I don’t think this was mentioned anywhere in the core rulebook, but I’d say a player can uninstall a mod using the same roll required for installing it.
  4. Yes! This is a huge benefit of running a Mister Handy as it makes hitting targets and obtaining action points in combat much easier.

Keep in mind that with integrated weapons Mister Handy’s can’t be disarmed like other Player Character’s and their unmodified weapons have no carry weight to them. There are many other significant benefits to them that more than balance out some of these drawbacks.

3

Those were my takes as well. Our Mr. Handy actually doesn’t have pincers so that’s a goal of his :slight_smile:

4

In my game, I have decided that:

  1. Yes, Mr. Handy’s can attach new weapons and tools to their arms. But, because General Atomics built them out of very specific modular parts, this is quite difficult. It is not as easy as detaching a pistol and adding a shotgun. It takes some serious Repair skill, Rare Materials and Robotics Expert. But I recently let a Mr. Handy player replace his buzzsaw arm with a pneumatic launcher that throws stuff at long range and its awesome.

  2. Nope. Again, General Atomics not only wanted to protect their patents, they also cut every corner. Trigger and targeting mechanisms were tricky and hard to access. The Rust Devils in Boston needed a lot of expertise just to make Mr. Handy Buzz Blades.

  3. Yes. Things are made of parts, and if you know how to Repair things, you can change out those parts.

  4. I say no. As written, it totally should. A min-maxed Mr. Handy could be an Energy Weapons sniper monster. But I don’t like that. I want low-level characters to be weak and, like, earn stuff.