FIREARMS
Description: This Skill represents the basic aptitude for cleaning, recognizing, and accurately firing most forms of small arms. After all, executing a mortal with a sword starts investigations. Clawing someone to ribbons tears the edges of the Masquerade. So even supernatural creatures adapt, and many have devoted their energies to learning how to kill with guns. Sticking a klaive in the back of a Wyrm-tainted CEO is a gilt-edged invitation to the police, but blowing him away at an ATM can look like just another mugging gone wrong.
Allowed Specialties: Assault Rifles, Black Powder Guns, Fast Draw, Heavy Weapons, Hunting Rifles, Pistols, Revolvers, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Submachine Guns, Trick Shots
Rules: A character with the Firearms Skill knows how to kill things with guns. This Skill represents a broad knowledge and familiarity with all kinds of guns, whether it’s a .22 pistol or an AR-15.
A character with at least two dots in Firearms knows her way around a range, ammunition types, and the pros and cons of various makes and models. This Skill can also be used to unjam guns (Wits + Firearms), yet major repairs or custom modifications are the province of the Crafts Skill (with the Gunsmith specialty).
Most specialties are self-explanatory except the following:
- By reflexively rolling Dexterity + Firearms with the Fast Draw specialty, you can draw a weapon and have it poised for use, just as if it had been in your hand all along. The difficulty depends on how securely stowed the weapon is — a gun hidden in your underwear is harder to reach than one in a belt holster!
- Success allows you to draw your gun without being penalized the usual -1 dice for bringing a weapon to bear in combat.
- When appropriate, your Fast Draw successes can be added to your Initiative – but only in Storyteller-determined situations where all characters are drawing and firing guns, such as during a ‘Mexican Standoff’, and only for the first round.
- Heavy Weapons: It requires the proper training and experience (i.e., a military background) to qualify for the heavy weapons specialty. There’s nowhere in Los Angeles where you’re going to learn how to operate a 40mm grenade launcher without getting in serious trouble. It covers heavy machine guns, bazookas, RPGs, grenade launchers, and so on.
- Heavy Weapons never benefit from rolling 10’s – it’s enough to be allowed to use them at all.
- Trick Shots: You benefit from the specialty bonus whenever utilizing a firearm in a non-lethal capacity (such as target shooting or a stage performance). Albeit, botching might still have terrible consequences (as more than one stage assistant has discovered).