Weapons and Customization
Making Weapons: In general, melee weapons come in many flavors. For game purposes, they usually do one of two things:
Have Strength +1 damage OR
Have a reach of 10ft instead of the standard melee 5ft, while only dealing Strength as damage
In addition, certain weapons will have consumable portions. If a weapon is used up (say, the molotov-on-a-stick has expended it’s charge) then afterwards treat is as a 10ft reach weapon.
Weapons are pretty expendable in ATMOD. Combat will often see melee weapons sailing off into the sand, never to be seen again. Post-combat encounters may casually mention how the PCs start rummaging around for parts and pieces to make their own new weapons, or to improve those that they already have. Inventiveness is paramount when thinking up new weapons. Do not be afraid to have your character rip chunks off of their car, their bodies, or the environment, and use it. One’s faction heavily influences the type of weapon modifications they prefer.
Examples of some Melee Weapons:
Peelhand: A Leather Glove with short, hard, stripping grooves on the palm. Gravers love these weapons, which are often made with teeth and razors. This weapon allows the attacker to attempt and shred the armor or body of a car apart like a low-tech jaws of life
Improving Weapons
On occasion you may find yourself wanting something a little more robust in a melee weapon. In these cases, you can roll an attribute + Engineering to attempt to make improvements on a weapon. You should say what you are attempting to do to the weapon before you are told to roll. For example, if you want to take a 2×4 and put some nails in it, you would roll Strength + Engineering, Diff6 with a success or two being all you need. The “Nail 2×4” would probably not do any extra damage, but it may stick into metal… or flesh. More advanced and creative weapons will require more successes. As another example, if you wanted to take a pipe and fill it with acid that is released on-hit, you would roll Intelligence + Engineering, Diff8 with 4 or 5 successes needed.
Ranged Weapons
Guns and rifles are not common. Each ranged weapon is bound to be so rare as to be revered, just as every bullet is considered a last resort, only to be used if your life depends on it. When using firearms, use Dexterity + Firearms to hit, difficulty per weapon (see chart below). Every success after the 1st adds an additional damage die to the damage roll.
Example: Gungo wants to shoot his small pistol at the escaping prisoners he was supposed to be guarding. He rolls Dex + Firearms, using the pistol’s Difficulty of 5. He rolls 3 successes, so the GM rules that Gungo has hit his target. Now he rolls the pistol’s damage of 4, adding the 2 additional dice he earned from his 3 successes on the hit. He gets 3 successes, so the bullet that tore into the prisoner’s leg did some real damage. Gungo starts to chase his wounded target, hoping he would not have to use another bullet to subdue him!
Assume that ammo is rare. Finding more than one or two bullets or shells at a time is an event. Each bullet or shell has a 50% chance of failure when found; if characters take a turn and a Perception + Firearms roll in good lighting (difficulty 7) , they can tell if a bullet is a dud or not with reasonable cetainty.
You can certainly try and make homemade ammunition, if you miraculously come across a loading bench. However, the likelihood of finding good blasting caps and casings are even lower than that of finding bullets. Assume that 4 duds of 1 ammunition type can be consolidated into 1 functional bullet, with a loading bench and a Intelligence + Firearms roll (Diff6). Without the loading bench, this difficulty is raised to 9.
| Ranged Weapon | Damage | Range | Difficulty | Notes |
| Pistol, Small | 4 | 20ft | 5 | |
| Pistol, Large | 6 | 40ft | 6 | |
| Shotgun | 8 | 15ft | 6 | |
| Rifle | 8 | 80ft | 7 |