Feng Shui: Dodging

This past Saturday was the end of our Feng Shui adventure arc, and while this isn't my last foray into the realms of Hong Kong-style action RPGing, I'm ready to get back to Traveller for a while.

That said, I'm not done talking about Feng Shui.

During the last fight of the story arc, the players were fighting a big bad boss supported by many mooks in a defensive posture. The players spent a lot of time dodging incoming gunfire by said mooks, and I'm not certain if I handled it the best way.

In Feng Shui's rules as written, you declare a dodge after the GM says someone is attacking you but before the roll is made and the result announced. Now maybe I'm a big ol' softie, but I thought it was cinematic to allow the PCs to go "Oh crap!" and abort to a dodge after the roll is made but before the result is announced. I figured that losing shots (and potentially burning Fortune) was penalty enough in an action game -- after all, if you're dodging you're not fighting, and Fortune is a limited resource.

The problem with this approach is that it slows the game down. It's one thing when the PCs are fighting an equal number of Named characters, but if they're fighting 30 or so mooks with automatic rifles, it can turn into... well...

GM: Two of the mooks hit. A simple dodge will work for one, but you'll need to dodge and spend Fortune to avoid the other. Will you?
Player: Huh? Sorry, I wasn't listening.
GM: Will you dodge?
Player: Oh, sure.
[awkward silence ensues]
GM: Will you please spend Fortune on that?
Player: Oh, right...

With 6 players and 30 or so mooks, this can happen many times in a game session.

I'm not yet ready to do away with the "abort to a dodge" house rule, because I understand that bosses hit hard and players don't want their characters hit -- but I'm currently giving it the gimlet eye and sizing up its neck while I sharpen the butcher knife.

But what I think I will do is remove the ability to abort to a dodge against mooks. I realize that they are designed to be speedbumps, but they need to be some kind of a threat and they seem to work best in groups. So perhaps I will rule that when fighting mooks, you either take your lumps if they hit or you just do a blanket "I dodge" and... hmm. That still ends up with having to roll fortune and a game slowdown.

Okay, how about this: Mooks are designed primarily to be distractions and resource drainers for  PCs, so just the act of spending Fortune against one of their attacks ought to be an automatic dodge. So if, say, you happened to be a single hero running heroically down a gauntlet as a squad of mooks empties automatic weapons at you, you just tell the GM "I'm dodging" and the GM starts debiting your dodge account:

GM: The mooks shoot at you as you run through their killzone, automatic rifles blazing.
Player: I dodge.
GM: [consults pre-rolled Mook AV chart] Okay, you're down five shots and three Fortune.
Player: Um, I only have two Fortune.
GM: No, what you mean to say is that you have zero fortune and a gunshot wound. 

Yes, I like this concept. Let's see how it plays out the next time I break out the Feng Shui rules.

Feng Shui: House Rules for Combat

Since I try to run Feng Shui with the attitude of "Screw it, why not?", I've allowed some variations from rules-as-written. Some of these make the game go faster; many make the game feel fairer to the PCs, which encourages them to be more heroic and therefore entertaining, and also gives me freer reign to try to kill them all horribly.

Spending Fortune After the Roll
This is probably a legacy of playing other games with similar boost mechanics, but I like the notion of PCs saving their limited resources until they really need them. Therefore, I allow the PCs to see their roll and then spend a Fortune to boost it if desired.

Dodging When Out of Shots
According to my reading of the rules, dodging is an interrupt action -- but if you've used all your shots for the sequence, then you have no actions left and therefore cannot perform any interrupts. This strikes me as somewhat unfair, as it puts faster-moving people at the mercy of slower-moving people (although I suppose it could be interpreted as "This is deliberate game balance as it allows the slower-moving characters to get their licks in.")

I have therefore ruled that, even if you are out of shots, you may still dodge -- but doing so reduces your initiative roll for the next sequence by a cumulative -1 per dodge.

Marks of Death and Healing
This is less of a house rule and more a clarification in writing of a question asked by a player: "Since the rulebook says on page 107 that 'If a character is healed before he makes a Death Check, he doesn’t need to make the check', does this mean that healing removes Marks of Death?"

My interpretation of this is Yes. This ruling is partially based on the logic of "If you don't need to make a Death Check, then however many Marks of Death you have is irrelevant as MoDs only affect Death Checks and nothing else", and partly based on the cinematic notion that "If another PC is taking time out during combat to heal a character rather than kick butt, Cinematic Conservation of Action Awesome indicates that healing during combat is far more effective than healing outside of combat."

Feng Shui: The Power to Move You*

Movement hasn't been much of an issue in my Feng Shui campaign, because most of the fights have been in cramped spaces. But since my players prefer to play with a game map (blasphemy, I know! But they are uncomfortable with the vagueness of "theater of the mind" combat), this will come up at some point in the future and so I'm going to codify it now.

Page 101 in the core book states that it is a 3-shot action to "Run full-out, traveling twice your Speed in meters."

From this I derive these very loose rules:

• It costs no shots to move 1 meter (this is the Feng Shui version of the "Five foot step" rule from D&D). 
• It costs 1 shot to move your speed in meters. 
• However, if you make it into a stunt (-2 to your attack value), then you can move up to your speed in meters while still attacking. 

* Apologies to Tenacious D. (Mind bullets are a separate schtick.)

Feng Shui: Follow-Up on Scaling Enemies

Just a brief after-action report about the principles discussed in this post.

Increasing the base attack value of Mooks by 2 to give my players a challenge (these were trained mooks, by the way, not just gang rabble) made them just enough of a threat that the PCs couldn't just ignore them, and a couple of their characters either took damage or spent Fortune/Chi on dodges to avoid that damage. This is useful, because it softened their characters up enough such that they were down some combat resources when the Featured Foes arrived. I like how this mirrors the action-movie trope of "First swamp them with minions, then send in the lieutenants, then have the boss fight."

Curiously, giving the mooks an additional +1 defense (to represent armor & training) didn't seem to make much difference. Nearly all of the PCs still managed to hit them, and the one that missed did so by a large margin.

The mook quantity of [4xPCs] was certainly enough to make them take the mooks seriously, but not so much that they would overwhelm the PCs before defeat. 4x seems like a good number to use when backed up by named characters, and I think my group could easily handle 5x of just mooks and no named NPCs. They might be able to handle 6x if fresh, but 3-4x plus a Featured Foe for each PCs seems about right for now.

Speaking of Featured Foes, pitting the PCs against PC-level FFs that have been properly advanced per the above post is definitely a challenge for them, but not an unbeatable one. They're going to know they've been in a fight, though, as so far I have one character with two marks of death against him.

Potentially of interest: It took about 2 hours of game to get through a complete sequence of 6 PCs, 5 named NPCs and 6 mooks. I'm not sure what to make of this; perhaps this will speed up as we get more comfortable with the system and have to check the rules less often.

Finally, my players get really annoyed when the bad guys act like a team and use coordinated tactics. Imagine that...

Feng Shui: Scaling Enemies

I have run 3 combats using Feng Shui 2 rules --  a mook fight, a Named fight and a Boss fight -- and here are my thoughts on scaling NPC stats to match PCs.

Mooks
Not only do my players easily chew through 3x their number in mooks, they've done so while also fighting a Featured Foe for each PC. Now, I'm not suggesting that mooks need to have their deadliness increased; they're pretty much designed to be speed bumps and cannon fodder. What I am saying is that since the days of first edition, "3xPCs" has been the standard amount for a challenging encounter and, let me tell you, my players are not challenged by that amount.

At some point when I can't think of anything to run I'm going to have an arena combat session where I throw an improbably number of mooks against them (say, 6x) and see if it's a challenge or not.

Alternately, mooks could be made more challenging by using this table on p.200:

My PCs have an average attack and defense AV of 14, so maybe all my mooks ought to have an Attack of 10? That would also make them more threatening in a fight but still go down pretty easily. I'm going to try this the next fight they have.

By the way, this chart is going to get a workout in the next two entries.

Featured Foes

The rulebook tells you to pick a type of featured foe. Do not do this. This will result in boring fights. 

Instead. make the FF in exactly the same way you would make a player character. Given how character creation in FS2 is archetype based, this isn't at all a chore; your biggest hassle is swapping schticks around to make things interesting. Oh, and make sure your FF has as many schticks as the PCs. 

Invariably, some of you are saying "But what about keeping track of Chi, Fortune or Magic points?" To this I reply:

1. You're a GM. If you can keep track of how many wounds the NPC has and what shot it's on, you can keep track of their Chi/Magic points. 
2. I have yet to see a Feng Shui fight take more than 3 sequences, so if you want to just ignore NPC ChiFortMag expenditures, that's perfectly cromulent. 
3. Remember than gun schticks don't cost any Fortune points, and there are many kung fu paths where the first few schticks do not require Chi. Hell, the entire Path of Wushu requires no Chi expenditures. You could do quite well with a martial artist who only has Hands Without Shadow, Claw of the Tiger, Hammer Punch and Horse Stance. 

Also, be sure to use the chart above to keep Attack and Defense AV parity. 

Bosses

My six players (with only one advancement) went up against three bosses and not only wiped the floor with them in an epic fight*, but did this while 1) suffering no deaths or KOs of their own and 2) while refusing to engage one of the bosses (she was the ghost of a family friend who had been bound against her will to serve a Lotus sorcerer). So yes, bosses definitely need an upgrade. 

First,  make them like player characters, above. Make sure they have advanced like the PCs have, and if you want to give them, say, an extra schitck for each additional PC you expect them to take on, I say go for it; this would be a good place for Foe Schticks. Don't forget the two free schticks that all bosses get. 

Example: Sneezy Teng is built as a Killer, so he gets 5 gun schticks. The PCs have received an advancement from attuning to a Feng Shui site, so he gets another schtick. Then I expect he's easily a match for 2 PCs at once, so I give him an extra schtick. All told, he started the session with 9 schticks. 

Second, use the damn chart, above, to reach parity. 

Third,  use the Boss creation rules on p. 199 to boss-ify them. 

Fourth, if it makes sense, give some bosses body armor. 

Finally, consider (merely consider) allowing Bosses to spend Fortune points to enhance their rolls like PCs. I'm not saying you should do this; but if a fight is going too easily in your players' favor, a boss could always pose dramatically and announce that the kid gloves are off...

Is it possible that this makes bosses too tough? Perhaps. If so, the GM can always over-rule the result of Death Checks and declare that the PCs were defeated and left for dead, but survived. 

Uber-Bosses

I haven't run a combat with one of these.... yet. But I have plans. Oh, I have plans, and I have been learning from previous combats. Muahahahahahh.

* It's worth noting that there were mooks in the fight, but the majority of them had been drawn off by a well-planned distraction on the part of the players. I didn't have any Featured Foes in the fight, because I honestly thought three bosses and a theoretical flood of mooks (fresh waves kept entering the crowded apartment each sequence) would be enough. 

As it turns out, the fight was indeed epic, and adding FFs would have only complicated and confused things IMO. We didn't need more enemies, just higher quality ones. 

Feng Shui Bag Full of Guns 2 -- Ballistic Boogaloo

So it turns out that the player who has the Bag Full of Guns schtick is less than thrilled with how it works. No, not with my changes; those are fine. Instead, this player is annoyed at how long it takes to get to the good stuff inside the bag, which I suppose is a fair point when you consider that he could do a hell of a lot more damage with the schticks Signature Weapon, Firm Grip and Lightning Reload.

So I thought about it for a bit and considered the player. This is a guy who, upon getting the character, said "Can I change the guns in the list if I don't change the stats? Because I hate the Deagle and the Chiappa." This told me that the player wouldn't mind a little extra complication if it gave him the guns he liked, and so I tinkered.

What I did was ask him to give me a list of 5 rifles, 5 shotguns, 5 SMGs, 5 revolvers, and 10 pistols (in a mix of light, medium and heavy) that he wouldn't mind his character using.

Then I added 6 "GM Specials" to the list, created a 6x6 matrix, and randomized it as best I could. This was the result:

This gives us a few nifty things:

1. A player who is satisfied with both the added complexity and the ability to play with different guns in the game. 
2. Potential for amusement when the PC pulls out an entirely inappropriate weapon for the situation at hand ("We're fighting in a crowded apartment and I just pulled out a rocket launcher. What could possibly go wrong?)
3. A codified ability for other PCs to rearm from a BFoG by having them spend 2-3 shots pulling something out (and rolling). 

Two things I haven't yet decided on:

1. If Fortune points should affect the roll, and if so, how. I'm thinking that perhaps spending a point would allow the player to shift his choice in any one direction (up, down, left, right, and yes the chart "wraps" in both dimensions)
2. If there's any benefit to having more than 3 levels in this schtick now. Using the rewrite, levels 1-3 reduce the cost of switching a gun from 3 to 2, 1, and zero shots respectively. A fourth level ought to do something like increase the accuracy of picking which gun is grabbed (perhaps akin to the Fortune point, above) rather than anything potentially unbalancing like increasing damage. 

I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out within the game. It might be awful and broken, but I don't think it will be. I do however acknowledge that many FS2 GMs will not want to engage in this level of complexity, and that's fine. 

Feng Shui: Weird Gun Rules

I'm going to preemptively say that yes, I know rules about guns and gunplay in Feng Shui is deliberately unrealistic in favor of wahoo action sequences, and so I try to make the gunnie part of my brain shut up whenever I read it.

(Incidentally, I think "fun gameplay over realism" is the reason why magazine-fed handguns only require 1 shot to reload, but magazine-fed rifles and SMGs take 3 shots: since they have much larger magazines, they run out ammunition less often, and so their reloads take longer. If they all required only 1 shot to reload, then PCs would overwhelmingly choose rifles and SMGs over pistols in complete defiance of Action Movie Logic.)

However, I've noticed some contradictory rules within the game itself, and these need to be addressed.

Switching Weapons, p.110:  Switching from a martial arts weapon to a gun costs
you the number of shots it would to Reload the gun. 

OK, this is all well and fine: It takes you 1 shot to draw a pistol, 3 shots to draw an SMG or Rifle... wait, FIVE shots to draw a revolver?? What the.... nevermind, that's not fine.

Reloading, p.128:

• Reload your current weapon. This costs you a number of shots depending on the firearm type, as seen in the accompanying table.
• Drop and draw. Let your current weapon fall to the ground, and draw a new firearm already on your person. Shot cost: 2
• Switch weapons. Replace your current weapon and draw another already on your person. Shot cost: 3
• Drop your weapon. Take this option if you intend to do something other than fire a gun as your subsequent action. Shot cost: 1 

From this we can extrapolate a few things:

1. If dropping a weapon costs 1 shot, and dropping and drawing a new weapon costs 2 shots, then clearly drawing a weapon costs only 1 shot. 
2. This is bolstered by it taking 3 shots to carefully replace a weapon and draw a new one: 1 shot to holster, 1 shot to drop old gun/grab new one, 1 shot to draw new one. 
3. Not only is this is in complete disagreement with the rules on page 110, those rules also say that it's faster to switch from a knife to an AK-47 than it is to switch from a knife to a Colt Detective Special. What? This is a game that preferentially gives revolvers to police on account of the fact that Dirty Harry and Rick Grimes carry revolvers. Way to punish three whole archetypes, writers, especially the Karate Cop.

So you know what I've ruled in my game? We ignore p.110 and use the following:

• Dropping a weapon: 1 shot
• Sheathing/holstering a weapon: 1 shot
• Drawing/unslinging a weapon: 1 shot

Boom, done. I don't need to check the reload stats of the gun during combat, and best of all it gives a good reason for PCs to take the Battle Scavenge or Bag Full of Guns schticks

Feng Shui: Brain Shredder

(Yes, I'm running a day behind. These things happen.)

Supernatural Creature shticks arguably changed the most between versions (arguably because Arcanowave schticks largely disappeared from 2e, with the remaining few being integrated into Scroungetech).

Now, some of these changes were for the better: I can totally see why Armor (an overall Toughness buff) was broken down into Corded Musculature and Steel Hide (close combat and ranged Toughness bonuses), and Corruption is best used as a foe schtick (where it lives on as Contagion).

But some powers were just outright removed, and I don't like that. So this is me with a quick-and-dirty conversion for them; some powers have been split into different schticks.

Animal Transformation I
As Transformation (q.v.) but you transform into a single animal species instead of a human form. While in this form you can't access your other creature powers, but you do have access to its native abilities (flight, echolocation, breathing water, etc). This form is not suitable for combat.

Animal Transformation II

As per Animal Transformation I, but you can spend 1 Magic or 3 Magic to assume a new, normal-looking animal species other than your default. If you spend 1, you can never assume that species in any subsequent session. If you spend 3, you can change to that species at will for the length of the series.

Brain Shredder I
You can provoke in other intelligent beings a fear response so intense that they suffer brain damage. Your victim must be able to clearly see you and vice versa. Base damage is 7; victim uses Fortune instead of Toughness.

Brain Shredder II

As above, but base damage is 10. 

Brain Shredder III

As above, but base damage is 13. 

Damage Immunity

As the first edition version, but this schtick is only for NPCs. PCs will just have to make do with ridonkulous Toughness ratings and Regeneration.

Domination

As the Mind Control schtick from the Influence specialty of Sorcery. (Sorceror PCs may not like this, but how else are you going to model western vampires?)

Luck Stealer

After damaging any featured foe or boss with any close combat Creature Powers attack, spend 1 Magic and 1 shot as an interrupt. Gain +1 to Creature Powers and they gain -1 to their main attack until next keyframe.

Night Dweller (2e schtick)

Replace "outdoors at night" with "in darkness" to make this worth taking. Darkness does not have to be total darkness, although it can be (possessing this schtick allows you to see without needing light), but any lighting more than candle light will negate this power. 

Suggestion

As the Override Will schtick from the Influence specialty of Sorcery.

Mutant Powers for Supernatural Creatures

If the GM is feeling frisky, the following mutant schticks may be available to supernatural creatures: Acid Blood, Brain Bleed, Berserk Rage, Blinkshifter, Camouflage, Chanel Pain, Empathy, Eyes on the Back of Your Head, Go Cartilaginous, Pain Eater, Psychic Vampire, Push, Shared Sight, Skulky, Very Fast. Replace all references to Genome points with Magic points. 

Supernatural Powers for Mutants

Similarly, a GM may allow the following creature schticks for mutants: Amphibian, Blast, Corded Musculature, Death Resistance, Emit Smokescreen, Empathic Rage, Flight, Inevitable Comeback, Insubstantial, Natural Weapon, Night Dweller, Rage Against Machines, Regeneration, Steel Hide, Transformation, Venom Sac. Replace all references to Magic points with Genome points.


Disclaimer: I'll be honest, I don't grok what the writers were going for with mutant powers. They aren't specifically Comic Book-style powers, but neither are they Gamma World-type mutations. They're just strange. If I could figure out their flavor, I could see more of a divide between then and creature powers; but I can't, so I don't.

Feng Shui: Bag Full of Guns

I acknowledge it's been a while since I've talked about the Traveller RPG. Have no fear, I'll get back to it in time -- I've just been in an odd headspace lately, what with all of the traveling (heh) I've been doing, and dealing with a hurricane, and... well.. being distracted by another shiny RPG:

For people who don't travel in the same nerd circles that I do, Feng Shui is a balls to the wall action RPG that attempts to emulate all the awesome goofy goodness of Hong Kong cinema (and, to a lesser extent, Western action movies as well). Anyone who's watched a Jackie Chan or Jet Li movie already knows what I'm talking about, but if you aren't a fan of subtitled movies, then go watch Big Trouble in Little China; it's basically a Hong Kong movie made for Americans.

I played the first version of Feng Shui back when it first came out... dear gods, twenty years ago, I feel so farking old now... and I backed the Kickstarter of FS2 last year. But while I love PDFs for looking up rules during a game, I have trouble actually getting into a game unless I can browse the dead-tree version at my leisure, and the hardcopy version of the game isn't cheap. But thanks to the glory of Amazon gift cards via the Affiliate program, I was able to afford the printed rules!

And like you'd expect from me, I immediately started going "Hm, I don't like that rule... this needs to be changed,.. wait, they left THAT out?" And so, I'm going to indulge my House Rule impulse until I get it out of my system.

This post deals with the Bag Full of Guns schtick, which is a good attempt but falls short of what it could me. Here's the stock version:

Bag Full of Guns I
Start each fight with a revolver (9/2/6). Each time  you fail an attack roll, spend 0 shots to move to the next item in this gun list: Colt 1911A (10/2/4),  Desert Eagle .357 Magnum (11/3/3), Chiappa Rhino (12/3/5), Mossberg Special Purpose (13/5/4).

Okay, that's... not terrible. The notion of escalating firepower is cool, but a level 1 schtick allowing a 0-shot weapon switch seems excessive (it normally takes 3 shots to switch weapons). But Bag Full of Guns levels II-IV have the kludgy and totally unnecessary "homemade weapons" rule which is as unnecessary as the homemade guns are overpowered.

Here's how I would do it:

Bag Full of Guns I
Start each fight with a Colt Detective Special (9/1/5). After each attack, spend 2 shots to move to the next item in this gun list: Colt 1911A1 (10/2/4),  Desert Eagle .357 Magnum (11/3/3), Chiappa Rhino (12/3/5), Mossberg Special Purpose (13/5/4).

Bag Full of Guns II
Start each fight with a Colt Detective Special (9/1/5). After each attack, spend 1 shot to move to the next item in this gun list: Colt 1911A1 (10/2/4),  Desert Eagle .357 Magnum (11/3/3), Chiappa Rhino (12/3/5), Mossberg Special Purpose (13/5/4), M16 (13/5/1).

Bag Full of Guns III
Start each fight with a Colt Detective Special (9/1/5). After each attack, spend 0 shots to move to the next item in this gun list: Colt 1911A1 (10/2/4),  Desert Eagle .357 Magnum (11/3/3), Chiappa Rhino (12/3/5), Mossberg Special Purpose (13/5/4),  M16 (13/5/1), Hand Grenade (23/2/-). [You have a theoretically infinite number of grenades in your bag.]

Bag Full of Guns IV
Start each fight with a Colt Detective Special (9/1/5). After each attack, spend 0 shots to move to the next item in this gun list: Colt 1911A1 (10/2/4),  Desert Eagle .357 Magnum (11/3/3), Chiappa Rhino (12/3/5), Mossberg Special Purpose (13/5/4),  M16 (13/5/1), Hand Grenade (23/2/-), Grenade Launcher,  Rocket Launcher, or other ridiculous form of explosive or incendiary military hardware (18/5/6). [See rules for Military-Grade Weaponry, p.130.]

With this version, each increment of the schtick decreases weapon switch and gives an increasingly impressive ultimate weapon without the ridiculous "homemade weapon" rule.

Before you ask: There are no current rules for belt-fed machine guns in Feng Shui. However, since an M249 SAW is the same caliber as an M16, the M249 basically has the same stats as the M16. Be sure to check the "Automatic Weapons" rule on p.128. The .30 caliber M60 has the same stats, except it has the "two skulls" damage of 7.62mm ammo, as opposed to the "one skull" of 5.56mm.

Other Thoughts
I didn't want to clutter the rule block with additional info, as the entire point of Feng Shui is to be shot, sweet, and deadly, but here are a few notions I wanted to append to the Bag Full of Guns concept:

1. The FS2 core book says "you can personally carry a number of guns and clips equal to your Strength Action Value. Bring a gym bag, however, and all bets are off. Tip: bring a gym bag. Needless to say, the schtick Bag Full of Guns comes with its own gym bag." From this I decude that anyone with the BFoG schtick can carry a theoretically infinite amount of guns and ammo, subject to the good humor of the GM. 
2. Based on this, and bolstered by the Full Metal Nutball "Ready Resupply" schtick which seems to indicate tossing a fresh gun or magazine to a teammate, it could be easily argued that any PC who wants to spend 3 shots next to a Bag Full of Guns schtick owner could get fresh ammo from the bag. 
3. It is less easily argued that a teammate might be able to take the next gun on the list, because that could lead to abuse. On the other hand, they are spending shots doing it rather than doing fun action hero things, so at least a price is being paid. If the GM is feeling cranky, perhaps the teammates need to spend a Fortune point as well as shots in order to rearm. 
4. "How is BFoG different from Lightning Reload?"
• BFoG allows you switch weapons for little/no shot cost, but reloading them is not affected. It's basically the "New York Reload" schtick with escalating lethality. 
• Lightning Reload is better used for characters who really like one kind of gun and want to keep it running. 
5. "The rules say 'start each fight with a revolver.' What if I want to start a fight with something else?"   
• The BFoG schtick belongs to the school of thought where quantity is better than quality. If you want to start with a specific weapon, maybe you should invest in a different schtick, such as Fast Draw. 
6. "If I have the Signature Weapon schtick, how does it work with the Bag Full of Guns draw order?"  
• See above. 
7. "If BFoG is about dropping empty guns and picking up new ones, why not use the Battle Scavenge schtick?"
• Battle Scavenge forces you to roll to rearm, but gives you a free Fortune die if you're successful. BFoG requires no roll and grants no free Fortune die. 
• BFoG grants control over what you pick up; Battle Scavenge only lets you glean what has been dropped by dead NPCs. 
• It's basically a question of "How do you want your Guns character flavored?"

Next time, I'm going to address the question all the fans of supernatural creatures are asking:  "What the heck happened to the Brain Shredder schtick?"