Jim Hague said:
*The American Dream - Lincoln TV store owner turned everyman gadgeteer. I'm tearing my hair out right now figuring out how to convert him to 2nd edition, since there's no Gadgets power.
There's at least three ways to do this with the 2nd edition rules. The Inventing rules from p 131, the Dynamic Powers power (reverse-engineered from Shapeshift), and the alternate power array.
The one most like 1e Gadgets is the device power array:
1) Buy a Device with an appropriate power. For Batman, buy "batsuit" or "batbelt". It gives you 5pp per rank and costs 3 or 4 pp/rank based on how easy it is to take away from you, basically- a 3pp/rank device can be Disarmed, a 4pp/rank device can only be taken once you are unconscious.
Batgear (10 ranks) (hard to lose): Costs 40 pp, gives you 50 pp worth of gear. Super-movement (swinging), dazzle, stun, protection, buy up the common bat gear powers.
2) Buy off the "Permanent" flaw by spending 1 extra pp/rank for your device. This makes it continuous instead of permanent, which is kinda a hack, but fair for step 3:
3) When you need a spare piece of gear, spend an action point to get a power with some of your device points. It will last until the end of the scene or until you need something else, basically, as per the normal Alternate Power rules.
4) Spend 1 extra point on your devices to make them dynamic, so you can still use most of them while you convert a couple of points into bat shark repellant or whatever you need.
So now bat-gear is a 51 point power which gives you 50pp worth of points that you can reallocate for the rest of the scene by spending a hero point. Less cost-effective than the original Gadgets, but it was probably undercosted to begin with.
