[BESM 3rd Edition] How does ammo work?

[theonesin]

I'm going to be playing in a campaign soon(Gundam 0079-esque in terms of technology), and I wanted to make a demolitions expert who used a lot of grenades in battle. I'm still new to character creation though, and the "Ammo -4" stat on the pre-made grenades is confusing me.

While I get that it means they're consumed on use, what exactly determines how many grenades I have? There isn't really money in this game from what I can tell, so I guess everything's paid for in character points. Do I pay the point cost PER grenade though? Because if that's the case, I don't know how my character can work when a I'd be paying over twice the cost of say, a light machine gun, for just TWO frag grenades.

Any help with this? Is there something with ammo that I'm missing, because I hope there is. Thanks.

[Tengu_temp]

You can get a new grenade whenever you get the chance to resupply ammo. If you want to have more than one grenade at once, it's better to just buy a virtually infinite amount of grenades as a custom weapon - same stats, but lacks the "ammo -4" drawback.

Also, insert mandatory plug for M&M 2e/3e here, which does everything BESM does, only better.

[theonesin]

We're just going with BESM because it's what the DM and some of the other players know.

Anyway, that helped straighten it out, and while the "infinite grenades" weapon is nice, it almost immediately left the DM concerned about balance. So, I'm just going to drop the idea entirely, it's just going to be a headache if I have to redo parts of my character later. There's just a bad feeling if just the concept of a character is raising red flags.

I'll just try to think of something else, though I really have no idea what to go with now.

[realbombchu]

Your original idea can work just fine, even without the infinite ammo option. What the ammo restriction is supposed to represent is more of a plot inconvenience to your character. Sure, he has a powerful grenade, but once he uses it, he can't use it again until he purchases or is issued another one.

What it kind of boils down to is that the grenade is a once per session attack. However, if you spend the points to purchase one (or however many), then you've invested part of your character's potential in these weapons, and should be able to count on an opportunity to receive replacements.

BESM has some problems, a lack of a monetary system being one of them, but it's still a good time.

[Tengu_temp]

Anyway, that helped straighten it out, and while the "infinite grenades" weapon is nice, it almost immediately left the DM concerned about balance. So, I'm just going to drop the idea entirely, it's just going to be a headache if I have to redo parts of my character later. There's just a bad feeling if just the concept of a character is raising red flags.

Why is he concerned about balance? There's nothing inherently overpowered in BESM about grenades than any other kind of weapon. They work just like every other weapon - and since they're ranged, more often than not they're actually weaker than melee attacks.

And overall, BESM is not exactly a good game if you worry about balance to this extent. It's way too easy to break it in hundreds of different ways, intentionally or not.

[theonesin]

I don't know why he's concerned really. I too new to the system to even know how to break it.

[Slipperychicken]

I too new to the system to even know how to break it.

Yeah... BESM doesn't do game balance. It doesn't take much to create a character who is invincible and can one-shot mechas. Just don't worry about it and focus on realizing the concept you want to play; optimizing BESM is neither fun nor rewarding.