A heavy weapon is considered like a Spear. That’s pretty hard to hide on a person inconspicuously. I’m thinking of Light Load in particular.
I’ve been through the handbook pretty thoroughly and didn’t find this, so if it’s in there already please someone tell me what page.
Anyways to make things a little more logical do the following:
-A linked item (such as a spear) requireds load level equal to at least it’s number of squares.
So a spear can only by carried on a Medium or Heavy Load. Which makes sense because both are conspicuous, and so is a spear.
This affects the following items:
-A large weapon (Like a spear is going to give you away in light load. So you need Medium or Heavy).
-Armor (medium armor jives with medium Load)
-Heavy armor (which is a total of 5 Load, and it jives that it must be combined with Heavy Load (slow movement). Slow movement is what heavy armor would do to you.)
-Climbing Gear (walking around with a ~30ft coil of rope slung across your body is going to give you away)
-Demolition tools (A sledgehammer and crowbar are pretty obvious)
-Long rifle
-Fine Wrecking Tools (Lots of medium sized items… can’t hide them all… An early blowtorch would be expected to have at least a big/medium fuel canister. Not like the small handheld ones you can get at the hardware store today)
-Fine Lightning Hook (So here’s an issue because it says it’s collapseable)
Then what we do is if we use the rules of modifying an item, to make it collapseable or breakable into two parts (like a disassembleable rifle) we include 2 lines;
o Rifle part 1
o Rifle part 2
Or use a different symbol for the link.
Or write Fine Lighting Hook (dis)
That seems like an unnecessary complication to me.
The existing load system works perfectly, and it already makes it very hard for inconspicuous character (ie, the ones at Light Load) to carry large items. Sure they can do so, but that will use up most of their available load.
If you feel that spears or demolition tools should be more difficult to carry around… isn’t it simpler to just say they require 3 slots rather than 2?
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Well but how do you explain to your players that you can hide a spear under their coat. Or battleaxe. I guess that’s why it’s bugging me.
I’ve always taken light load to not be “completely hidden” but more of “not particularly notable.” Doskvol is a dangerous city, so it shouldn’t be uncommon to see someone carrying a sword or pistol around for self defense, but it 's also a port city with all kinds of people, so it shouldn’t necessarily be ridiculous to see someone carrying a more ostentatious weapon. People might think “Hey that guy had a spear,” but not “I think that guy was on his way to commit a murder.”
On a similar note, if you were to see someone walking down the street with a toolkit and maybe a crowbar, your mind will probably jump more to “handyman” than “thief,” if that person is also carrying a gun and wearing a bulletproof vest, that’s when the alarm bells start going off
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Well but how do you explain to your players that you can hide a spear under their coat.
In fact, it’s the other way around: ask your players how they are doing this! As a GM don’t have to explain anything 
I agree with Francesco. The GM doesn’t have to explain that. And besides, the players aren’t supposed to beat the rules trying to find loopholes. You are all together telling a logical story. You should, and hopefully can, expect them to adhere to common sense without making up complicated rules 
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