In PTR 2e, items are simply called Gear and are expanded to cover any type of item imaginable. This includes not just the regular items from the video games, but also covers weapons and armor. Wherever Gear is mentioned, this means that any rules for Gear and Gearing up applies in all cases.
All Gear is separated into the following Equip categories:
Gearing up is a simple way to explain equipping items. Across an adventure, knowing what items to keep directly on your person and easily accessible can mean the difference between success and failure. Every creature gets a limited number of equipment Slots, and each piece of Gear can only be equipped to its respective slot.
The number of equipment slots a creature has can be altered by Traits, Abilities, Perks and sometimes other items (like a bandolier or backpack).
Now that you’re geared up, how do you use items? Below are the following actions that allow you to use your items and generally interact with the world around you.
You may utilize an piece of Gear you have on your person or within your Physical Reach that you have access to. The Use Action changes depending on the item’s effect or location:
The Use action will make up a majority of actions for interacting and using items. This isn't limited to items alone and applies to objects in the environment as well, such as doors, buttons, levers, etc. Basically, if you have to manipulate something manually, it will require a Use action. In a combat scenario, you won't necessarily be able to use an item and attack on the same turn, and the Use action helps make this an easy distinction.
Along with this, creatures that have an item used on them, like a Potion, doesn't cost their activations like in the video games. Only the user spends the action cost.
You equip 1 Held item you have on your person or within your Physical Reach that you have access to, or store an equipped Held item in your Container or another slot if applicable.
You drop your currently equipped Held item on the space you are standing on as a Free Action. This frees up your Held Item Slot.
PTR:2e uses cashless economy rules. This means that instead of direct cash rewards, character wealth is determined by Inventory Points (IP) and the Resources Skill. These represent a character’s Ability to acquire goods and utilize services in a campaign.
Inventory Points or IP, is a meta-resource characters have to purchase items. The amount of IP a character has is determined by their Resources Skill with the following formula:
IP is used in a couple of ways. The first is used to set a character's Loadout. When creating a Loadout, Common Rarity [Consumable] items are selected up to the character’s current Grade, subtracting IP equal to the IP cost of the items. You gain a full stack worth of the acquisitioned item for the listed IP cost when obtained through a Loadout.
For reference, a character’s Grade updates at the following levels:
Level 1 -> Grade E
Level 15 -> Grade D
Level 25 -> Grade C
Level 35 -> Grade B
Level 45 -> Grade A
IP may also be used to gain a Consumable at a moment that it is needed, but the actor does not currently possess. The character may spend IP to Draw the item "out of nowhere", and Use it during the same Activation.
Note: An item gained in this way during combat must be used within the same Activation, or else the item cannot be acquired. If the item in question would normally come in a Stack, the remainder of the Stack would effectively be destroyed, or in more practical terms, you may only get 1 unit of a Stack item when using this feature during combat.
Any items used from a Loadout will refund its IP cost during a Resupply Activity. This allows characters to top off or refresh any of their loadout items, or allow them to make changes in case of a change in IP totals. Characters can also choose to “sell” the items in their Loadout, resturning the IP back to their pool to spend on replacement/different items if they so desire. Any remaining IP not used by items from the Loadout is also refreshed during this activity. Resupply Activities can be done whenever the Players enter a settlement or zone that has markets or shops.
Note: For GMs wishing to run scenarios with a greater emphasis on planning ahead, feel free to restrict IP to only being able to be spent to establish a load-out when in town. We recommend against removing it entirely or else you will find a lot of rolling for gear to deal with instead.
Items in the game use the following to determine availability: Grade and Rarity.
Grade refers to an item’s quality. The Item Grades are E, D, C, B, A, and S, where E is the lowest quality, and S for the highest. Grade is not necessarily a measure of how strong an item is or how expensive it can be. Rather, it’s more abstract to denote the “cumulative value and significance” of an item beyond merely monetary value.
Mechanically, Grade is intended to work as a scale of how easily a creature can gain the item and use it. This depends on your specific campaign setting, as the obtainability of higher grades could be tied to having more Badges in a traditional Gym Challenge or a higher Exploration Rank in a Mystery Dungeon game.
Rarity is the measure of general availability of an item. Item rarities are: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Unique. Commonly, higher Grade items are often higher Rarity in many traditional settings. But Rare or Unique items that are higher-tech or magical in a normal setting would probably be Common or Uncommon in cyberpunk or high fantasy settings.
On a basic level, Grade and Rarity is used to determine the stock of shops in settlements, or loot in dungeons. The listed, out-of-the-box values for these items are considered the “defaults” for the most common Pokemon settings: that of the mainline video games. Because of this, an Item’s Grade and Rarity, more than any of their other stats, are the two values we recommend GMs look into revising to fit for their own setting.
Shopping is an Extended Downtime Action that takes one Daytime Span to complete. When in a place that has shops, share with your players the number and types of shops available. During this Span, players can shop at one or all locations provided to them.
Players can normally obtain a variety of items on their own utilizing their own IP – Players should not be able to roll for Items that possess an IP Cost. Instead, rarer one-off items (such as Accessories), more limited Consumables (like Proteins), or necessary permanent equipment (such as weapons and armor) are what Players are allowed to Shop for.
Whenever anyone in the Party wishes to participate in the Shopping Activity, the Party rolls a Resources Skill Check for each item they wish to obtain, using a DC modified by the Item Grade and Rarity, and the Resource Skill of the Player of their choice. Refer to the following modifiers to determine difficulty of the roll:
- Players rolling for an item above their Grade have a -10 penalty to the DC per higher Grade.
- Players rolling for an item below their Grade get a +10 bonus to the DC.
- Item Rarity affects the roll as follows:
- Common: +20
- Uncommon: +0
- Rare: -20
- Unique: -40
- Note: Unique items may require additional GM permission to pursue.
- If the DC of a roll ends up being 100 or more, the DC is set to 100 and the Player is considered to have an additional +1 DoS on the roll.
- If the DC falls to below 0 the item cannot be rolled for.
The Player rolling Resources may spend their Luck to improve the result of their roll.
Any Player (not just the one whose Resources Skill is being used to roll) may spend Resources to improve the result of their or any ally's roll.
On a success, the party successfully purchases the item! But on a failure, they fail to obtain the item.
Rolling a larger number of successes on a Shopping Roll is often beneficial - as a particularly successful roll can net you more of an Item you're looking for!
Players can earn additional copies of a rolled item based number of additional DoS on the successful roll past the first – this amount is equal the item's Rarity (Common is 1, Unique is 4) plus 1.
This means at +7 DoS, the Party would earn 3 extra copies of a Common Item, 2 extra copies of an Uncommon item, and only 1 extra copy of a Rare or Unique Item.
The Party may only roll once to acquire a specific Item per Resupply/Shopping Activity.
While the Shopping Activity is the easiest way for your players to get items they want, it is not without limitations. Shops need to Restock items periodically and rotate their inventory. Because of this, the Shopping Activity is limited to 1 use per Settlement and recharges after the settlement Restocks, usually taking 1 in-game week or when circumstances change according to the GM.
GM Note: Players can realistically roll for every single item in the game at the right shops. While there is no specific rule to prevent that, it is a good idea to limit these rolls as needed. Also feel free to tell them "no" if they even attempt that.
Thrifting functions much in the spirit of Push Your Luck and Devil's Deal. The Party can decide to pursue an additional amount of an item (+X more individual items), by spending Resources equal to 2 * X * Rarity (Common is 1, Unique is 4) Resources to pursue the roll.
The GM then decides a fitting penalty to the roll's DC (GMs should consider higher penalties for rarer items, higher quality items, or greater quanities being pursued), and the Party makes the Shopping Roll.
On success, the standard effects apply, except the base amount of items purchased increases by +X.
Special Orders function almost identifically to Thrifting. The Party can pursue an item that is too difficult to obtain, too rare, or too expensive. In exchange for making the item able to be Shopped for, the Party must spend Resources equal to 3 + 3 * Rarity (Common is 1, Unique is 4) to be able to roll for the item, and even then, they have to wait for the Item to be delivered.
Using the standard Shopping DC based on the item's Rarity and Grade, the Party then makes the Shopping Roll.
On success, the Party can get the item, although they will have to wait a number of Daytime Spans based on how many DoS they obtained, and the Grade and Rarity of the item in question.
The below table is a optional tool for GMs can use to craft Special Order Clocks, but it is recommended for GMs to tweak these times based on the circumstances of their Party and campaign. Generally for these time, each DoS on the initial Shopping Roll should reduce the Clock's initial Size by
1 + PartyGradeSpans per DoS past the first, to a minimum Size of 3 Spans.
¶ Special Order Clocks (Daytime Spans)
Grade \ Rarity Common Uncommon Rare Unique E 5 10 15 25 D 10 15 20 30 C 10 20 25 40 B 15 25 35 50 A 20 30 45 65 S 25 35 55 90 So generally, Grade A Parties seeking high-end Legendary Pokemon items will see at least 18 days' worth of time before the item is delivered on 1 DoS, and with 5 extra DoS, that will reduce the waiting time by 6 full days!
Tied together with Shopping, Fencing is also included as a Downtime Action that happens parallel to Shopping. When in a place that has fences or anyone willing to take your goods, share with your players the number and types of available. During this Span, each Player can choose to sell Items to a fence.
However, fences are sly, able to tell if someone is trying to sell them their junk, but sometimes, they'll appreciate a lot of bulk to trade for wholesale purposes.
The Resource skill is vital to a player’s Ability to gain items and favors. The first way the Resource Skill can be manipulated is by winning battles and completing Quests (just going with this for now until we decide progression stuff). For each of the following factors, the players gain a permanent increase to their Resource Skill:
However, failing the above factors could result in a permanent decrease to the players Resource skill. The Resource skill cannot be increased above 90 or decreased below 10.
The second way to manipulate the Resource skill is by using [Treasure] items, such as the Nugget. These items are Consumables that give a one time bonus to a Shopping or Thrifting Roll, which vary from item to item.