So Eclipse Phase is a fairly easy to house rule system. Even after only a few read throughs you can quite easily get firm enough a grasp of the rules that you can easily change little bits and pieces with a fair amount of certainty that it wont break everything into a complete mess. So I ask you, Eclipse Phase forum readers! What are the house rules that you apply to your own table? Or the house rules that your GM apply. The following is a quite rundown of the things either one of my players, or myself, have suggested be changed.
Reputation Vetting – As has recently been discussed quite thoroughly in the general section, the Rep system as written sometimes runs into trouble when you actually apply it to the big wide world. Our group decided to adopt a form of reputation vetting, in which a reputation change is only actually applied after a certain number of people, with a particular amount of reputation, vet the change as worthwhile. Each different award or loss level has a different reputation amount.
Trivial Award or Loss: 50 REP threshold.
Minor Award or Loss: 100 REP threshold.
Moderate Award or Loss: 150 REP threshold.
Major Award or Loss: 200 REP threshold.
Extreme Award or Loss: 250 REP threshold.
Whenever an individual weighs in on a reputation gain or loss that persons reputation within the network is applied towards the threshold. When the threshold is reached the reputation change is applied.
Custom Morphs/Traits/Gear – Most people who have spent time being active on these forums have probably seen my custom morphs/traits/gear. While the options provided in the Core/Sunward books are very good, we wanted some more stuff to play with. So we made some.
Stress from Forking – Every time someone creates and runs either an Alpha or Beta fork of their ego they risk suffering stress damage. Every time they create a fork they must roll either WILL*3 (For creating a Beta fork) or WILL*2 (For creating an Alpha fork). If they succeed they do not suffer any ill effects. If they fail the suffer from either 2SV (For creating a Beta fork) or 1d10/2SV (For creating an Alpha fork). We didn't think that the possibility of someone being able to constantly fork themselves with no consequences (other than the social) was thematically fitting for our table, so we changed it. We explained it away by suggesting that the process of creating and running a fork would be mentally stressful to both the fork and the original ego. The stress damages inflicted are low enough that for someone who just creates a Beta fork every few days they do not really have to worry, but high enough that if someone wants to create an army by farming their own mind they are going to run into troubles.
Psi Strain is Stress Damage – Instead of physical damage, Psi Strain is instead stress damage. This is primarily a thematic change. Instead of physically hurting the user of Psi, it instead mentally taxes them. For the first few sessions of my game we initially played it this way by mistake, simply because I had misread the rules. When I was corrected on the matter everyone thought that it made more sense my way. No other values are changed.
Only Allowed to Equip One Riot Shield – A countermeasure against one of my players who wanted to take many, many extra limbs and turn himself into a walking, talking turtle of riot shields. One of the few game balance changes I make, simply because I didn't see how equipping multiple riot shields should protect an individual more than just one.
Dazzlers Reduced Range to 20m – Dazzlers as written are powerful as hell. Personally I think the 100m they normally have is a bit much, especially as they completely incapacitate almost every synthmorph in the area.
Alpha Forks May Only be Merged Within One Week – Again, a primarily thematic change, after a week of deviance in experience an Alpha fork is no longer capable of remerging with its original ego. Only Alpha forks are changed, every other kind is played as normal.
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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.