Sometimes, you need silver bullets, or cold iron ones, or something more rare. The following forms of ammo are rounds and shells that are unique to the supernatural community.
Silver bullets, on the other hand, would be considered a novelty item at best, and would neither be mass-produced nor sold in bulk. The reason for this is that silver is an extremely flimsy metal and make for poor weapons, and for obvious reasons, silver bullets are prohibitively expensive to manufacture. Only Pentex has a large stockpile of silver bullets.
Rarity:
Some bullets are mass produced. All standard ammo is common and relatively easy to come by, to the point where we don't require you to track it. Anything special however, is more expensive. Ammunition comes in 4 rarities.
unless specifically stated the general rule is as follow's
Rarity | Cost | notes | Difficulty |
---|---|---|---|
Common | None | You are considered to have ammo for the weapons you're using in most cases | 6 |
Uncommon | 1 resource per 10 rounds | These mundane rounds are special, but less common | 7 |
Rare | 1 resource per round | These rounds are unique to the supernatural community but are produced in small numbers | 7 |
Illegal or restricted | 2 resource per round | These rounds are unique and have a risk to acquire so the seller charges for that risk | 8 |
Crafted | Cannot be purchased | These rounds must be crafted by hand, and cannot be sold or bought | 7 |
Tracer Rounds
These rounds are tipped with White Phosphorous, and are illegal for civilians to own or use. They are, however purchasable with the black market ties merit. Tracer Rounds reduce the amount of damage that they deal based on the firearm by 2 dice, but deal aggravated damage to most things. Don't get caught with them, or you WILL get arrested. The small amount of burning phosphorous isn't enough to set most things on fire. And they burn out so quickly that most vampires won't need to check against Rotshrek unless they're struck directly.
Skeleton Key Shells
These specially made 12 gauge shotgun shells have two buckshot balls connected by a length of braided steel cable. These shells deal normal damage to doors that are made of wood or plastic, and are used to destroy locks and breach buildings quickly. Against 'soft' targets, they are difficult to use, and increase the difficulty to hit a target by 2, and deal half the normal damage.
Dragons Breath Shells
These shells were originally made for the forestry service to start backfires during wildfires. They deal aggravated fire based damage to anything they hit, and set readily flammable objects (And entities) on fire. They require licenses to own, and if caught with them you WILL be arrested. Highly effective against vampires, but have the bad habit of setting everything around the vampire on fire too. NOTE, that once you fire a dragon's breath shell, that shotgun becomes unusable until the barrel is repaired.
Flare Shells
These 12 gauge and 410 gauge shotgun shells fire a flare instead of slugs or pellets. They do not deal damage if fired at an enemy further than 5 feet away. They do however, trigger Rotshrek checks in vampires… so they might have use… maybe… if you're dumb enough to actually trigger the red fear…
Brimstone Rounds/Shells
These specially treated rounds are somewhat like tracer rounds, save the rounds glow red hot when as they travel to the target, quickly cooling once inside the body. Against most targets they deal lethal damage and create wounds that don't bleed as they cauterize entry and exit wounds. Against any creature that normally halves and converts firearm damage to bashing, they are unable to convert wounds from these rounds. They deal normal lethal damage to Vampires, reapers, and zombies. The Imbued make these rounds in very small quantities and they are quite expensive.
Taser shells
These rare and expensive shotgun shells fire a set of four darts that are connected by copper wire. On a successful attack they deal 1 bashing damage, and electrocute the target once, causing them to fall over. Unlike normal tasers they only have one charge, and cannot be used to subdue a target over time. The victim falls prone once, and then is unaffected.
Pacifier Shells
These special shotgun shells, made by the imbued, are for hunting and subduing shapeshifters. They are filled with horse tranquilizers, but can be fired from any 12 gauge shotgun. If they strike a shapeshifter in frenzy they force a new check against frenzy with a +2 difficulty bonus. This is useful to subdue wounded shapeshifters and blunt the frenzied final moments where they are at their most dangerous.
Rock Salt Shells
These shotgun shells are filled with chunks of rock salt with a smaller gunpowder charge. The resulting shell deals bashing damage instead of lethal. Wounds caused by rock salt are incredibly painful. Causing the victim to roll willpower diff 7. A failure on the roll causes them to take a -1 die penalty on all actions due to the pain. A botch causes a -3 dice penalty. This willpower check is difficulty 4 for anyone with the pain tolerance merit, and no willpower check is needed at all for anyone with the insensible to pain merit.
Incendiary Rounds
Falls under “Incendiary device.” Any firebomb and any device designed or specially adapted to cause physical harm to persons or property by means of fire and consisting of an incendiary substance or agency and a means to ignite it. Rounds of any kind are federally and locally regulated in all fifty states on the civilian market, and the military keeps these kinds of rounds locked up tight, to the point where the small handful that somehow find their way onto the black market are extremely expensive.
Dangerous ordnance
Any firearm, rocket launcher, mortar, artillery piece, grenade, mine, bomb, torpedo or similar weapon, designed and manufactured for military purposes, and the ammunition for that weapon.
Silver and Cold Iron Bullets
Silver is a soft metal, and cold iron is brittle, and both are very difficult to make into functional ammunition. As such they must be crafted by hand. Mechanically silver and cold iron bullets are much lighter than standard rounds, causing them to be more difficult to aim. Any shot taken with silver or cold iron bullets is taken at +1 difficulty, and the soft silver and crumbly cold iron slugs deal 2 dice less damage for the weapons type.
To craft ammunition you need the proper setup, a loader, a workbench, the proper tools and materials ect. (see Times and loaders section). A 2+ dots in arsenal (one dot per stage of press) will suffice for this requirement but will limit the other items you get with arsenal. Additionally you may manually purchasing the various implements.
Crafting ammunition is dex + craft for most types of rounds. But some are int + craft as determined by the ST. Generally anything that is high tech, such as taser rounds, is int + craft, while more mundane ammo is dex + craft. Explosive style Rounds go under Dex + Demolitions.
The category of ammunition determines how much ammo you make with a single roll.
For common ammunition each success makes 1 rounds unless you have a progressive loader then it make 10. (the same loader will not make shotgun and Rifle/piston rounds.)
For uncommon ammunition each success makes 1 round.
For all other types see the specific resource and success cost below.
In order to acquire flare, Brimstone, Dragons Breath, Incendiary etc. rounds, you must have a minimum of Crafts 3, with two successes equaling one round. Botching this roll will cause the round to be faulty, and to explode in your own gun when fired, likely dealing severe Lethal damage to your character, not to mention destroying your weapon.
Mages may produce these types of flare rounds with Matter 3/Forces 3, and by infusing 1 quintessence into each bullet produced. to lock the effect.
A less costly method would be to create a batch of Charms with the same effect (Charms 3, 9 Quint for twenty bullets).
But unless you really need these fire dealing bullets, you're better off just using Prime 2 to make your weapon deal aggravated damage for the duration of the scene.
Silver Rounds: These cannot be purchased in bulk. The only companies that produces them in an amount where this would even be possible, Pentex subsidiaries, do not sell these on the civilian market, and are used almost exclusively by their First Teams.
Certain (small) businesses may make them as novelty items, but they're not meant to actually be fired. Botching a roll while using 'novelty' silver rounds will break your firearm.
You may attempt to get these rounds from Pentex itself, but make sure you have IC justification for it, such as having a Pentex operative as a background dot… or having enough Resources to ensure some “accidentally fall off the back of a truck.” Make sure your character is not hostile with Pentex, or that bullet will be in their skull instead.
Mages may produces these with Matter 2. Much simpler than incendiary rounds. Just like with flare rounds, you need a minimum of Crafts 3 to make them, or to make silver-plated weapons. But unlike flare rounds, you also need Resources 3 in order to buy the materials to make ten bullets (possibly less depending upon the caliber of the round you're making).
Pure silver is not cheap, and it's a relatively flimsy metal that makes for a poor weapon unless you know exactly what you're doing. For details, see the ST of your splat.
Note A weapon that is 80% silver can only have half of its damage soaked by a Werewolf/Fera, but is treated like any other weapon against anything else.
A weapon that is 90% silver or above cannot be soaked at all by Werewolves/Fera without the required Gifts, but this weapon can be soaked by anything else with the appropriate armor at -2 Difficulty due to the weapon being brittle and not designed to fight anything other than a Werewolf/Fera.
It is not possible to buy these weapons on the black market. Again, the consensus opinion among arms dealers is that they're a stupid vanity item, with no real practical military use. Since, y'know, werewolves don't exist.
This does not include casting the bullet ( Bullet casting is entirely different thing ). This is reloading Common Ammo with premade items. For Uncommon and higher follow the above rules since your time spent is in crafting the bullet or special casing not in the reloading.
Rifle and Pistol
A single stage press ( by far the most common and the most precise method) can typically reload 100 hulls in approximately an hour (3-5k to get started).
Classic turret press can typically reload 250 hulls in approximately an hour. It functions like a Single stage press and thus can produce similar ammo but the speed does make for greater # of inconsistencies in the loads but for our purposes this does not matter. (5.1-7K to get started)
Progressive presses (fast but prone to error and not able to make special rounds do to that the bullets are stacked on one another in a tube.)can typically reload upwards of 400 or 500 hulls an hour.(7.1K to 10K to get started)
The prices reflect the loader and all the miscellaneous stuff you need. (Load out book, casings, powder scale, hull trimmer, powder funnel, primer push, Files, brushes, generic tools, Dies bins, Etc)
Any person found in violation ( making, or possession of controlled items without proper legal exception) upon conviction, will be fined not more than $10,000, or be imprisoned not more than ten years, both and the items will be subject seizure and forfeiture. Note you will also be placed on a watch list and this is a Felony. This is is the Federal reg. not the State be prepared for those if you willfully choose to be in violation. (note laws stack. The fact that it is likely you were using the weapon to kill a monster means you will also have a dangerous weapon in the commission of a violent crime or the intent to preform a violent crime.)