Armaments (FiD)

Armor and Weapons have their own category here. You could call these Gadgets or Magic Item, they can be made according to either method.

Armor

You can only use one kind of armor of each type, meaning you cannot use regular light or heavy armor after you have used invention armor of that kind. The same applies to shields, tough only a few playbooks have access to shields.

Armors have an additional type of drawback, Material. An armor can only be made of one material, but you can have light and heavy armor of different materials.

2 Smoldering Armor ◯: Wisps of harmless, odorless smoke rise from this armor while it is worn. May help Command rolls. Any suit of armor can be turned into a smoldering armor. You have to either have used any armor or to reserve load for light armor [☐-☐] to use this.
3 Expressive Shield ☐: This works as a normal shield: Functions as armor and takes up one hand. The front of this shield is shaped in the likeness of a face. While bearing the shield, the face's expression changes to match your own, including speech, which becomes audible at a much greater distance. This allows the sue of the Command and Sway action to be used at greater range. This replaces a normal shield, you cannot carry both. When using this mark the shield box one way when used for expression. Mark it fully once you use it as armor. In either case the expressive functions works for the rest of the score.
3 Light Serpent Armor ☐: Armor made out of the scales of a large snake or similar flexible natural armor. This functions as light armor, but only weights ☐. This replaces normal light armor, you cannot wear both, so a good way of representing this is to permanently cross off one box of light armor. You cannot use this with heavy armor or normal light armor. Material, Rare
4 Exosuit Armor ◯: You can doff this armor in seconds. It breaks open and stands up by itself, you simply walk into it and it closes around your body. This has no effect on a score, it is useful when you are surprised when camping or during downtime. The armor otherwise works normally. This is a quality added to any armor you wear at no cost in load. Any suit of armor can be turned into an exosuit. Complex.
4 Glamered Armor ◯: You can make the armor assume the appearance of a normal set of clothing or some other kind of armor. You decide what it looks like, including color and style, but the armor retains its normal bulk. It can lower your apparent load by one category. The illusory appearance last until you use this property again or remove the armor. You have to either have used any armor or to reserve load for light armor [☐-☐] to use this.
4 Heavy Carapace Armor ☐-☐: Armor made out of the hard exoskeletons of monsters, such as the carapaces of giant insects and scorpions or the hells of giant crustaceans. This functions as heavy armor, but weights less. This replaces normal heavy armor, you cannot wear both, so a good way of representing this is to permanently cross off one box of heavy armor. Complex, Material, Rare
5 Light Mithril Armor ☐: Armor made out of a light metal as hard as steel but looking like non-tarnishable silver. This functions as light armor, but weights less. This replaces normal light armor, you cannot wear both, so a good way of representing this is to permanently cross off one box of light armor. Material, Rare
6 Heavy Adamantine Armor ☐-☐-☐-☐: Armor made out of a hard, heavy, black metal that is very difficult to work. This functions as heavy armor, but continues to reduce physical harm for the rest of the score. This replaces normal heavy armor, you cannot wear both. Complex, Material, Rare
6 Light Dragon Armor ☐-☐: Armor made out of the scales of a dragon. Different dragons have different scale colors and are linked to different power. This functions as light armor, but also improves your position against attacks made using the power of that dragon. This replaces normal light armor, you cannot wear both. Complex, Material, Rare

Weapons

Rather than individual weapons, this is a list of features a weapon can have. A weapon starts at a complexity of one. Add the complexity rating of all effects together to get the final complexity of a weapon. Unless noted, these do not change the load cost of a weapon.

1 Basic Weapon ☐: All weapons need this. A heavy weapon costs two load ☐-☐. Common.
+1 Concealed Weapon ◯: The weapon appears to be an ordinary item of its size and shape to all by close inspection, or appears to be harmless. Typical examples include cane swords, fighting fans, snuffbox guns, and glaive staffs. A weapon that seems harmelss but is not, without revealing a hidden feature does not need this. This can be a normal staff, swagger stick, or loaded glove.
+1 Fine Weapon ◯: The weapon increases effect.
+1 Morphing Weapon ◯: The weapon can change shape to become another type of weapon of the same basic type: melee weapon or ranged weapon.
+1 Potent Weapon ◯: The weapon penetrates many supernatural defenses, avoiding a loss of effect.
+1 Power Weapon ◯: Select a Power. The weapon can deal the type of damage that the skirmish attacks of that power deals. Typical examples are flame blades, ice arrows, and psi knives. This does not change the amount of damage, only the type. You can apply this invention multiple times to a weapon to add three additional damage options. Rare.

Weapon Descriptions

Weapons in Blades in the Dark do not have general attributes, instead they are described and may gain situational bonuses.

Heavy Melee Weapons

This category includes things like long spears, lances, pole-arms, and larger versions of hand weapons such as greatwords, greataxes, and mauls. Heavy weapons are surprisingly defensive. They have an advantage in reach to hold opponents at bay and threaten to attack opponents before they can get at you. A group using heavy weapons is almost invulnerable to melee attacks. These are military weapons, carrying one marks you as a fighter and someone the guards keeps an eye on.

Pole Arms: include long spears and pikes, but also developments of the concept such as halberds, glaives, and an almost comedic number of variations. Very much the king of infantry battles, to the point that special tactics have been invented against them. Pole arms have a weakness in that multiple opponents can approach from different directions, once the enemy is inside your reach the pole arm is useless. Tight formations also have a weakness against ranged attacks. In tight quarters such as indoors, pole arms are basically useless.

The crouched lance is a special case of pole arm, it is used in one hand on horseback to outreach infantry weapons, leading to a shaft race against the pike.

Great Weapons: Great swords, mauls, and great axes control a wide area on the battlefield, protecting both the wielder and those nearby. The long quarterstaff is a civilian weapon in this category. They are occasionally used to break the shafts of pole arms.

Hafted Weapons: Essentially a short pole arm, this is metal head on a short wooden shaft. From the humble fighting staff to the militia bill hook and the knightly pollaxe, these weapons are made to defeat armor either with really heavy blows or by tripping and entangling, they lack the defensive reach of other heavy weapons.

Heavy Ranged Weapons

Most ranged weapons require two hands to use and are thus heavy weapons.

Bows: From small selfbows used for hunting to the mighty longbow, bows can be made directly from wood. Composite bows are instead laminated, pieces of wood and bone glued together to form a shorter bow that is easier to use mounted. All bows fire a variety of arrows suited to different targets. With their high rate of fire, bows are excellent weapons until opponents start using large shields and heavy armor. They also suffer from a lack of ammunition, arrows are long and cumbersome to carry.

Crossbows: A crossbow is a bow attacked to a stock. The bow is very powerful to the point of requiring some mechanism to load, but the span of action is short making the bolt only slightly more powerful than that of a bow. The bolts are short and thick, easier to store and carry than arrows, and overall the crossbow is an easy weapon to use. Its weakness is rathe of fire, particularly on the heavy bows required to penetrate armor. In a way the crossbow is a midpoint between the quick bow and powerful firearm.

Firearms: Early firearms are heavy and cumbersome, but surprisingly easy to use despite the novelty of gunpowder. Gun designs go form heavy to light. The earliest firearm is the hand cannon, a tiny cannon at the end of a stick with a hook to place against terrain to manage recoil, which is already obsolete. Then comes the arquebus, using a fork to support the overlong barrel. The third stage is the musket, shorter, less powerful, but easier to wield. Finally there are blunderbusses, with a wider barrel, designed to fire shot, which gives up armor penetration for advantages against tiny targets like birds. Firearms are slow to load but deliver a wicked punch. The ammunition is easy to carry and transport, but prone to incendiary accidents.

Cheap firearms use matchlocks, a slow match to fire presented to the touchhole and dangerous if it comes into contact with gunpowder. Expensive firearms use wheellocks, clockwork devices that scratch steel across flint to light the charge with sparks. Reliable and secure, safer but slower to reload.

Melee Hand Weapons

Smaller than heavy weapons, hand weapons do quite sufficient damage, their weakness is lack of reach. Much less threatening and easier to carry than heavy weapons, hand weapons are carried in daily life, serving as a sign of class. Over time hand weapons become longer and longer, peaking in the long sword and the rapier that are getting cumbersome to carry and use.

In most cases a longer hand weapon will have an advantage against a shorter hand weapon, but in constrained spaces or when wrestling, the opposite is true.

Swords: are defensive weapons to keep an opponent at bay while wearing them down.

Axes and Maces: are offensive weapons that win quickly or not at all.

Exotic Weapons: like the whip, crop, chain, cestus, fighting fan, balls and chain, and the like benefit from surprise and allow unusual maneuvers, but are generally not as efficient in a stand-up fight.

Ranged Hand Weapons

Slings: Coils of rope used as a lever to sling stones or bullets, slings are inaccurate but powerful. Originally a tool for herders to keep predators at bay, upgrading both the sling and the projectile makes this powerful. Slings are technically used in two hands, but that is mostly for loading, their small size makes them count as hand weapons. A staff sling is a sling mounted at the end of a stick. Cheap, easy to use, and powerful, but lacks high-tier development.

Pistol Crossbow: Something of a toy, this crossbow can be used in one hand, shot and loaded from a small magazine and a lever. The problem is that it does minimal damage over short range, more or less requiring a poison or some kind of gimmick bolts, like the Syringe Crossbow.

Pistol: One handed firearms, really shortened versions of the musket (cavalry pistol) and blunderbuss (dragon). There are also much smaller pistols, such as palm pistols and even pistols disguised as cutlery, snuffboxes, and similar everyday items. Pistols have very limited range but do quite a lot of damage. Finally there is the dueling pistol, a small caliber precision pistol slowly gaining popularity.