As the title says, is it possible to purchase multiple morphs for a character during character generation?
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Can you purchase multiple morphs during character generation?
Sun, 2009-09-06 16:55
#1
HappyDaze
Can you purchase multiple morphs during character generation?
Yes. For credits.
Even if you are forced to wait until "in-game", what stops you from leaving yourself plenty of excess cash after creation and buying a few just as the game begins? I haven't been able to find explicitly where the book deals with what happens to money bought with CP but not spent on gear, but if it carries over, then this is a very limited prohibition.
And anyway, what's so bad about buying a spare Synth? For 30 or 5 CP? It's not unbablancing , since to upgrade it to EP standards would require significant expendature of resources.
If you wait until in-game then you first have to attempt to find the morph you want to buy. In the inner system, credits may be enough, but many characters - and possibly games - are set-up for use in the outer system where Rep needs to come into play. Also, there's the fact that buying the character's 'new' morph in-game may get you a morph with unexpected details (morph Traits, augmentations, etc.) since you're not always able to buy a brand new off-the-rack morph. Lastly, there's the issue that you now have to attempt resleeving into a new (for you) morph. Purchased at character generation, it can reasonably be assumed that you are Familiar with sleeving that morph and that helps with the Integration and Alienation (a +30 modifier is a big deal!).
As for why it's a big deal: it's the fact that one character can take an Infomorph (0 CP) for his first morph and then buy a Synth for 5,000 credits (5 CP) getting both for a total of 5 CP. The next guy goes the opposite route, and he get both bodies for a total of 30 CP (the Infomorph is effectively free). That's not a balanced way of doing it.
Good point.
It is pretty annoying that morphs costs (in CP) are so radically different than prices. I.e. A novacrab is 30cp bought with credits or 60cp (if purchased "outright").
At the same time I just created a character with multiple morphs at creation; it was a cool choice to have made.
On one hand I got a 10 cp "break" (i.e. Remade+Exalt is 90cp direct or 80 if the exalt is bought with credits); on the other you've spent ~25% of your non-skill credits on morphs. Getting implants for both, paying for storage, etc will set you back even more.
It seems fair to say
1. If a certain morph is "required" you must buy a required morph with CP.
2. Otherwise you have to buy the more expensive morph with CP.
Some other factors:
Owning a morph and taking care of it are different. If you buy a biological you need to have it stored. Somebody who just buys a case and sticks it in a storage locker for a year (cost [Low]?) gets what they pay for.
It may be me but I see a lot of egocasting happening in games; having two or three morphs at your "start point" doesn't necessarily have a big impact on the relative effectiveness.
Just my thoughts.
One other factor to take into account is that your starting morph - purchased in CP - is where you're currently housed and resleeving is non-trivial.
I've just been skimming other chapters as I work through the history, but it appears that a second morph bought with credits at character creation would require:
- Life support for a biomorph.
- Preventative maintenance for a synth.
- A facility in order to resleeve.
- On average, a day or two to reacclimate each time you do so.
Buying a second morph with credits is cheaper in terms of CP, but it might be more costly in terms of game time and maintenance.
The credit costs do seem a bit low, however. I suppose it depends upon the current state of supply and demand. I was under the impression that there was still a relative shortage of biomorphs as of the default setting start date.
I'm generally of the opinion that gamemasters should be smart and shouldn't let their players get away with tricks that violate the spirit of the rules (and if they do, they get what they deserve). As noted, however, there's an easy fix to this problem, and that's to simply make any additional morphs be bought with CP instead of credits. I'll look into errata-ing that, or at least adding it to the FAQ in progress.
Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios
Good forward planning.
political power is, so he/she can do discussions there, then jump back
to Venus, to do whatever...I would be inclined to say "CP or Credits based
on how much you plan to use the body."
Honestly, it does kind of bug me that a Synth costs the CP of an Exalt, when Synths are almost Splicer-common. It should be a morph for the Clanking Masses, not the skilled and 1337.
Maybe I should just personally houserule the cost down to 10 (and the Case down to 0). If you want to be so deeply uncool as to use a synth as your main morph, knock yourself out. (If you want a Synthetic Mask, now, pay full price for the disadvantages you're ditching.)
Or let characters buy the synthetic mask for a cp cost.
@Rob
I would recommend that in the case of having multiple bodies, have the player pay CPs for the most expensive body and credit for the rest. This will make the infomorph problem disappear, while encouraging players to have redundant bodies saved up.