Don't forget the target's Fray roll. In fact, this probably makes it easier to hit in real life than in EP. Elite shooters wouldn't even miss 1 in 100 shots under conditions that don't give penalties, and they do it in flats. Also - who cares if you always hit? You expect to play in a duelling gun slinger campaign?

Well, yes, it is that easy. Smartlink, Homing, Specialization, high morph bonus, not all that much in actual skill points. If it's really an issue with your players, maybe have them look at what different skill ratings are supposed to represent. If they're trying to make realistic characters, having a Kinetic/Beam/whatever weapons score of 99% basically means they're the best shot in the solar system, and they should really have a reason for that. Maybe it's just me, but I try to make and encourage other characters that are coherent and make sense. If your character is primarily a research scientist, but has Kinetic Weapons at 99%, why is that? I'm not against that character being able to shoot a gun, but the best I'd give them before morph bonuses and gear might be 40, which is supposed to represent basic professional training. "Marksman" is even listed at 60% in the example section in the core book. As a GM, if they can't come up with a reasonable "in character" justification for something that out of sync, I'd nix it, to be perfectly honest, YMMV of course. But that doesn't feel right to me unless you're running Eclipse Phase: The Anime Series. Alternatively, if you want to mess with them, have them lose their gear and resleeve. Actual training is important for a reason. Also, yes, negative modifiers should come into play in almost any situation. Wind, range, smoke, movement, electro-magnetic/radioactive interference, whatever.

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Smokeskin: "Don't forget the target's Fray roll. In fact, this probably makes it easier to hit in real life than in EP. Elite shooters wouldn't even miss 1 in 100 shots under conditions that don't give penalties, and they do it in flats. Also - who cares if you always hit? You expect to play in a duelling gun slinger campaign?"

I do want to ask you about Fray, Smoke. IIRC, against gunfire you roll half your Fray, and even if you succeed and succeed with a high MoF, an opponent's Weapon skill is likely to be higher than yours, and the highest number still wins, correct? Fray is just about useless against gunfire, unless I've forgotten or missed something. Even if your Fray is 99, against gunfire it's only 49, and thus even a semi-competent shooter with decent equipment has a pretty good shot of hitting you. I'm not sure if Fray really helps with OP's point here.

I'll quote CP202 core book: "what if armor makes you slower? You can't outrun bullets. But you can stop'em cold". This means: get armor and TAKE COVER! XD A biomorph can reach near 20 armor, if I'm right: bio implants can reach up to 3-4, the second skin can give you another 3-4, and you can get about 10 or 12 from heavy armor, and you would be wearing "rule-wise" only one layer of armor (however, I don't have the rulebook here so I might be mistaken). Anf of course a Reaper comes with 16/16 armor, upgradeable to 32/32. That means plasma or antitank weapons only. Also, you forgot a small, yet interesting fire mode: full auto gives either a +30 to hit or a +3d10 to damage. Finally, you can teach them a lesson: check the infosec part about hacking, and make the enemy to lay an ambush starting with an infomorph hacking their implants, turning them off during the actual battle... 99% of hitting with your weapon? Yeah, but... you cannot use that weapon because your mesh implants are down, so your weapon's recognition system won't unlock XDDD

Xagroth wrote:

A biomorph can reach near 20 armor, if I'm right

Consider the humble Novacrab.

You don't have to justify a shredder. :)

Duke Rollo wrote:

When I ran EP for some friends last year, it seemed pretty ridiculously easy to build a character (skills, cyberware, and gear) that could shoot a weapon with a 99% skill in it. "No panaltiies? Didn't roll that 1% fail? Cool. I hit." Did I miss something in the rules or is the game just that easy to break?

The other comment i forgot to make was to not forget that if the payers can do it, so can the bad guys. So having a character with a 99% effective roll target number also means their enemies and foes quite possibly will have those capabilities if your game is some what balanced some of the times, or more often than not maybe.

Re-Laborat wrote:

Xagroth wrote:

A biomorph can reach near 20 armor, if I'm right

Consider the humble Novacrab.

Is still stuck with ~20 armour without picking up layering modifiers. The 11/11 armour it gets is from the Carapace implant, which counts as a layer. He is correct in that ~20 is the general maximum without being a cheesy motherfucker (Multiple riot shields, for example).

dup

CodeBreaker wrote:

Re-Laborat wrote:

Xagroth wrote:

A biomorph can reach near 20 armor, if I'm right

Consider the humble Novacrab.

Is still stuck with ~20 armour without picking up layering modifiers. The 11/11 armour it gets is from the Carapace implant, which counts as a layer. He is correct in that ~20 is the general maximum without being a cheesy motherfucker (Multiple riot shields, for example).

Biomorph: light bioarmor implant (2/3) + second skin (1/3)= 3/6 armor without counting as a layer, or generating any negative effect. Add heavy armor with heavy helmet, and you get an extra 16/16, for a total, without penalties, of 19/22. Add a single riot shield for a 22/24. The best a synth can get is the Reaper's 32/32. Not bad for a fleshbag XD And for limits in starting skills, I never had to enforce that, almost everybody starts with a confy 60% (add to that the morph's bonuses, however), which incidentally produces quite interesting beta forks. Save AGIs, of course, those usually start with an 80% in all the four skills they have a discount in.

Duke Rollo wrote:

Did I miss something in the rules or is the game just that easy to break?

No, those are generally the power levels for Eclipse Phase: Big, bad, awesome, and up against the even bigger and even more bad. I once pitched EP to a prospective player thusly: "Do you remember the Major Kusanagi/Project 2501 hybrid at the end of [u]Ghost In the Shell[/u]? That is a starting character..."

To go back to the OP ... Yes, your characters can get 99% (or even 150%) 'chances of success' on basic tests. However, there are some caveats there; 1) That doesn't mean they are guaranteed success on these tasks. For instance, a programmer still requires time to succeed. Sometimes that time required is in the crazy amounts. Sometimes there are other requirements. The robot engineer requires uranium. No uranium? No go. Or he requires a material which doesn't exist whatsoever. 2) You're pretty weak everywhere else. Great, you can shoot a gun. Can you talk? Stealth? Pick a lock? You're a one-trick pony. Prepare to be extinct. 3) It works both ways. This is more of an out-of-game thing though. Establish with your players if they really want to crank up those skills to crazy levels, because now the NPCs will have them too.

Funny how nobody mentioned that a 99 is a botch always... Anyway, I don't let my players to buy specializations at character creation (easier with players who are new to the game ^^). And of course, you must remember that dying without a backup means going back to a previous state of the character's sheet, with much less experience points. Used and in reserve XD.

Indeed. It's very easy to game the system to the point that the only way the GM can bring you back in line is by actively picking on just you, and if you've got to that point, things are basically trashed. IMO, the best way to handle it is to either talk to all the players and say 'hey, this is a role-playing group. You will not be penalized for role-playing. Don't feel like you need a 98% in your skill of choice', or 'hey, this is a crunch group. I'm going to throw crazy stuff at you. Survive.' As long as everyone is on the same page, it shouldn't be a huge issue.

I don't worry about shooting skills that much -- in practical terms, what would happen in the real world if two hostile gunmen carrying fully automatic weapons suddenly came face-to-face only a short distance apart, with no cover and neither one diving for cover? Basically, the person who shot first would almost certainly hit their target. Now imagine similar circumstances with augmentations, smartgun targeting, and improved-if-not-superhuman reflexes. As to other skills, one of the elements I feel is weakest in the game's rules is that exceptionally high skills do not seem to grant that much of an advantage. You fail less often, sure, but the success of the system's leading expert is usually no better than that of a mediocre professional, or even a lucky novice. I like the idea of playing characters with genuinely superhuman abilities, especially when their gifts are described as such. Particularly in a game where the emergence of posthuman beings from the "merely" transhuman masses is such an important theme.