Neon Knights update - equipment

 Spent some time today fleshing out rules or equipment, as well as some basic descriptions for default gear ("default" here meaning what it looks like if your group doesn't decide to change it during session 0).  I'm trying to find a balance between keeping it simple but still having equipment matter for more than just flavor text and narrative permissions.  What I've settled on is that weapons add damage on a successful attack, armor subtracts damage, and other gear can give bonuses for relevant actions.  You can purchase enhancements which increase the item bonus or give it other properties, to a limit (there will also be rules for what might be considered "magic items" in other games, though I'm going with a more magitech flavor here, but that's going to be another time).  Pretty straightforward.  Two sticking points though:

1) Shields - I'm not sure where they fit into this rule framework.  If they subtract damage like armor then they're basically just flavor text for your armor, which could work but also feels a little less satisfying.  Extra damage negation that stacks with your other armor also doesn't quite feel right.  Bonus to your defense roll means that it's effectively extra damage negation and increases the odds of negating the attack altogether, or even reversing it if you succeed with style on the defense, so that makes it even more powerful than regular armor and that definitely doesn't feel right (even if it otherwise makes sense mechanically, in isolation).  So I still need to figure out what I'm doing there.

2) Blasters - Neon Knights might be a mostly medieval-ish setting, but it also has laser guns.  And the lasers are slow, so that's why you can see the red beam shooting from your gun and hitting your enemy.  But if there are laser guns, then why is anyone wasting time with swords?  Well, two reasons.  One, which is still in, is that blasters are relatively rare weapons and are reserved for elite warriors (which definitely includes Knights and maybe others too).  The other reason I originally came up with was that the energy beam starts off weak and then gathers power as it flies, so it's not much use against a target that's in or near melee range.  I still like this idea just for the entertainment value, but the mechanical implications of it clash with the simplicity I was going for.  I guess it could be something like "+0 damage against targets in the same zone, additional +1 for each zone it crosses to reach the target," but I don't know if that becomes too much of a pain in the ass to keep track of compared to all other weapons being a straight "+X damage."  Maybe I'll just have to test it out and see how it feels at the table.