>>5430255>How is improvised weaponry handled in Hunter?CofD has 2 main ways to use improvised weapon. There are improvised weapons, and then the Improvised Weaponry Style Merit.
For the actual weapons you either treat them as a standard weapon that they're close to, so a hammer or wrench you'd treat as a crowbar for example. If there isn't anything suitable it gets some stats based on its Size and Durability. It does Durability - 1 damage, so a metal pipe does more damage then a wooden plank. It has a required Strength and an Initiative penalty equal to Size, so bigger things are slower and heavier. Regardless of if you make the stats or use something close, improvised weapons get a -1 dice penalty to attack with, making them harder to use as weapons, and any damage you deal with them is dealt to the weapon, as they're not designed to be used as weapons.
The Merit, Improvised Weaponry, is about what you'd expect. Style Merits work a little differently to regular ones, each rank in the Merit gives you access to a maneuver of some sort but also works as a prerequisite for later ranks. So to unlock the third maneuver on Improvised Weaponry you'd need to get the first two. Improvised Weaponry has just three maneuvers in it, and they do this.
>Always Armed •You can make a Wits + Weaponry roll to grab an improvised weapon basically anywhere, they always have the same stats and the object doesn't matter, you can fluff it how you like.
>In Harm’s Way ••This lets you use the weapon from Always Armed as armour against a Brawl or Weaponry attack, damage dealt to you is inflicted to the weapon.
>Breaking Point •••When you make an all-out-attack with a weapon from Always Armed you can choose to reduce the health of the object in order to get bonus dice, so you're more likely to hit and deal more damage.
>can they just say they pick up a rusty pipe or will they need to ask if there's anything laying around, or roll to search for something?Depends on the ST. Typically STs will tell you if there is something obvious to use as a weapon if you ask for that, and if there isn't anything obvious they'll tell you to make a Wits+Investigation roll to see if you can find something.
>The same goes for unconventional weapons...This is on the ST, but the player would be declaring their intent. Most stuff like this is going to end up being statted like molotovs, pipe bombs, or tear gas with varying toxicities. Maybe stun and smoke grenades too, depending on what they're after making. Potentially something like white phosphorous if they're very lucky. But if the player says "Can I use these chemicals to make X" the ST should say yes, make them roll, only to then give them Y. At least if the roll was a success.
