The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on September 25, 2005

Character Creation
- There are 16 sample characters for people to steal if they don't want to make their own.
- For those not familiar with the races:

 ~ Humans are, well, humans.
 ~ Elves and orks are height/weight close to humans, with some minor changes.
 ~ Dwarves and trolls are farther from the humans, with some more major differences.

- Build system is done via points; you start with 400BP.
- Attributes all start at 1. It costs 10 BP per Physical/Mental Attribute for each up until Max – 1. To go from Max – 1 to Max costs 25BP.
- You may not spend more than 200BP on Physical/Mental attributes.
- Only one attribute can be at racial max at start.
- Edge (basically, “luck”), increases like the other attributes.
- Essence (a measure of how whole your body is) starts @ 6
- Magic (for mages) and Resonance (for technomancers). You need to take the appropriate Quality first, which gives you this at 1, and then is raised just like the other attributes.
- Initiative = Reaction + Intuition (oh, Quickness was split into Reaction and Intuition, by the looks at it)
- Skills are bought at 4BP per point.
- Max starting is one skill at 6 or 2 at 5. The rest must be 4 or less.
- Skill group – you can buy a group of skills at 10BP per level. Max rating at start is 4. (Yes, it is cheaper than buying them individually.)
- Specializations are 2BP, you can only buy one per skill, and you can't get specializations for a group.
- There are still Active, Knowledge, and Language skills. Knowledge and Language skills are as open ended as they used to be.
- Knowledge skill starting points are (Logic + Intuition) * 3, and you use these to buy knowledge skills. You can spend more BP to add them at 2 BP per point. Specializations for Knowledge skills are 1 BP per specialization.
- Language skills: You get 1 native language for free. You can buy additional ones for the point values just like Knowledge skills, and the specializations are called “lingos”.
- Money: 1 BP per 5,000Y up to 250,000Y.
- Starting gear is limited by rating (<=6) or availability (<=12).
- Cyberware still costs Essence
- Bioware now costs Essence too (no more Bio index).
- You still buy lifestyles.
- Spells cost 3BP each. There is no more Force.
- You can start play w/ Bound spirits.
- There are still Foci, you still bind them.
- Technomancers are like hacker mages. They have Complex Forms (which are like spells) and Sprites (which are like spirits).
- Contacts now have a Connection Rating (how powerful and useful they are) and a Loyalty Rating (how much they like you).
- Condition monitor is no longer fixed. You get 8 + (Body / 2) physical and 8 + (Will / 2) Stun. Spells and such cause one to recalculate and increase/decrease these. You get 1 additional physical box per cyberlimb.
- Most normal folks will probably want to get the Firearms group at level 4. This costs 40BP, and makes you "professional" with most firearms you'll run across.
- Sperethial is the Elf language.
- Or'zet is the Ork language.
- Special attribute only tests:

 ~ Composure (WIL + CHA) – Do you lose your lunch at the carnage you just saw?
 ~ Judge Intentions (INT + CHA) – Is he really going to shoot, or is he just bluffing?
 ~ Lifting & Carrying (STR + BOD) – Deal with heavier than normal bits.
 ~ Memory (LOG + WIL) – Did he fire 6 bullets or only five?

Combat
- Roll Initiative. Initiative score = Initiative Attribute + # of hits on Initiative Attribute test. Damage still modifies this.
- Extra free actions can be taken in place of a simple action.
- All combat is handled the same way, be it melee, ranged, astral or cyber. It is an opposed test between attacker and defender.
- If the attacker scores more hits than the defender, the attack hits . If not, it misses. If success, we note the net hits.
- Net hits get added to base Damage of weapons. More hits, more damage. This gives the modified damage value.
- AP value of the weapon is applied to the target's armor, giving the modifed armor value.
- If the attack causes physical damage, compare modifed DV to modivied AV. If DV <= AV, it does stun damage instead (the armor soaks it).
- The defender rolls attribute + modified armor value to resist damage. Each hit reduces modified DV by 1. If reduced to 0, no damage is done. If not, each DV is one box of damage.
- Automatic weapons (burst, autofire, etc.) can be shot to either increase damage (hold weapon on one target) or increase chance to hit (spray bullets around)
- It looks like they still have a knockdown test (though I haven't gotten to the specific rules). My guess is that we'll still ingnore it, unless you're trying to knock someone on their ass.

So far, it seems less complex than SR3, but more complex than D20. It nicely handles the annoyance of the following:
Alice shoots Bob. Bob is wearing body armor. Alice misses Bob, but would not have if Bob hadn't been wearing armor. Bob should at least take some type of damage, since it hit the armor, but this isn't really dealt with in the D20 system. It's at least handled in this system.

All in all, I'm looking forward to running games with this system. I just need a GM screen, and lacking one need to make up a pile of crib sheets. If I make them up, I'll probably post them as PDFs.

Category: LJ Import
Tags: