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A Call to Arms (PACKs)

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Thu, 2011-11-03 12:02

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

A Call to Arms (PACKs)

OK, forum people. Some might remember that a few months ago, I tried to write a PACKs system for Eclipse Phase? Well, I am back onto that. I am in need of your assistance. One of the parts of writing a PACKs like system for Eclipse Phase is having an extremely broad pool of character concepts to draw on. I need to know that my system is robust enough that you can make most any character with it, to a reasonable degree. So here is what I want you to do, if you fancy it. Reply to this thread with any character concept you can think of. Try and make it as detailed as possible. Aptitude spreads, Factions/Backgrounds, skill choices, what kinds of gear you would want to take. If you have completed character sheets, all the better. Don’t worry about word count. I would prefer overly detailed over not detailed enough. There are already a few resources I am drawing from (RPG.net had a fantastic thread back when the game was released), so work has already started. I should have something to show for it within the week. But any help from here would be fantastic. I am tired of having to devote entire 4 hour sessions to character creation (and that is using Kindalas’ bloody fantastic spreadsheet). So hopefully going to squash that bug. Hopefully you are as tired of it as I am. Go forth, creative minions! Bring me your brain stuff!

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Thu, 2011-11-03 12:29

thelabmonkey thelabmonkey's picture

Re: A Call to Arms (PACKs)

This is interesting, but what is a PACK system?

Thu, 2011-11-03 13:04

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

Re: A Call to Arms (PACKs)

Oh bother, I knew I forgot something. That is what I get for writing an overview, deciding it wasn't ready enough, and then doing a second post. PACKs was a system written for Shadowrun 4E (I believe) that made use of modular... modules that could be combined to create characters. Each module has a combination of packages that contain skills, gear, or other character attributes. Each package also has a cost value applied. It’s an alternate character creation system that I believe Eclipse Phase would benefit from. At the moment CC is by far the worst part of the system, and adding alternatives can only be beneficial. The difficulty comes in the way EPs CC system currently works. Aptitudes, the Ego/Morph split, and a few other factors really cause an awful bother. However I think I have worked out a way to work it all out, which is what I am working on now. I want character concepts to proof the system against.

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Thu, 2011-11-03 14:46

Re-Laborat Re-Laborat's picture

Re: A Call to Arms (PACKs)

Facepalm time! Just got done asking for contributions of job/role based character templates elsewhere. Pool our resources?

Thu, 2011-11-03 14:50

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

Re: A Call to Arms (PACKs)

Sounds like a good idea. That and it could only be beneficial for me. I tend to be good at working out the numbers, worse at actually applying them. I have a notepad filled with some, but most are just stolen from Shadowruns. I would type them out, but on iPad, and it's terrible for such things. I'll edit the post when I am on my computer tomorrow.

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Fri, 2011-11-04 10:19

Xagroth

Re: A Call to Arms (PACKs)

My "Red erring" of the adventure I'm currently GMing: Eva (direct copy-paste from OpenOffice)

Quote:
Name: Eva Speed: 3 Armor 6/10 Background: Infolife Faction: Hypercorp Desventajas: Blacklisted (c-rep) (-20) Edited Memories (origin, believes to belong to the Lost Generation) (-10) Enemy (certain Cognite members) (-10) On the Run (Valles-New-Shanghai) (-10) Real World Naiveté Social Stigma (AGI) [camouflaged] Ventajas: Adaptability lv 2 (+20%) (20) Exceptional Aptitude (COG) (20) Expert (Infosec) (10) Stats: COG 40+0 COO 15+10=25 SOM 10+20=30 WP 25+0=25 INT 20+5=25 REF 15+15=35 SAV 10+5=15 Skills (the +XX are from mod modifiers to attributes) Interface 80, Freefall (60+15) 75, Infosec 90 Freerunning (60+20) 80, Research 80, Fray (60+15) 75, Programming 80, Infiltration (60+10) 70, Investigation (50+20) 70, Perception (60+5) 65, Palming (30+10) 40, Spray Weapons (60+10) 70, Scrounging (50+5) 55, Kinetic Weapons (60+10) 70, Unarmed Combat (20+20) 40, Professions (all at 60): Security Procedures, Police Procedures, Mesh Networking, Habitat Operations, Nanotat ID forgery, Forensics, Academicisms (all at 60): Nanotechnology, computational science, Psychology, Biomorphs, Pods, Synthmorphs, Implants, Interests (all at 60): Petals, Common Passwords Morph: Female Remade variant (Tyreus Line, durab. includes implants) (Durability 45, WT 8, +10COO, +5SAV, +10SOM, +5 to other 2) Implants: Enhanced Hearing (+20 PER audio), Enhanced vision (+20 PER visual), Bioware armor (light, 2/3), Sense filter, Cyberbrain, Eelware (pg 204 shock rules), Neurachem 1 (+1 speed), Muscle Uagmentation (+5 SOM), Medichines, Hardened Skeleton (Masked implant, +5 durab., +5 SOM), Reflex booster (+10 REF, +1 Speed, masked), Oracles (negate being distracted, +10 investigation), Skinlink, nanotat ID flux, Multitasking, Ghostrider Module (x2) Gear: Armored smart clothing (3/4, +20 infiltration), Second Skin (1/3), Utilitool, blueprints (ectos, gray box, bullets), Fabber, Kinetic Pistol (medium) Programs: AR illusions, Encryption, Exploits, sniffer, spoof, tracking. Muse: Security AI with Kinetic Weapons & skillsoft (accounting 40+COG, Psichology 20+COG, Medicine (general) 20+COG)

History: An AGI project of Cognite, it ran away in a military-grade body and managed to escape from Valles-Center. She stayed a while with a triads gang boss in New Shanghai (she was there for about two or three days) until she saw some bounty hunters coming for her, running again a few hours before they went in. After that, the triad boss hired the Player Characters to find her and discover what the fuck was going on (he has a bill for the bastards that filled his "massage parlor" with bullets!), and the surviving bounty hunters went to a rumoured Ultimates pub, where they were, again, repelled, picking the interest of the Ultimates (it was the "Savannah", a disco I still have to translate to english ^^U). Call her "Project 2501" if you want ;). My plan is for Eva to end up joining the Ultimates, maybe even sacrifying the morph in the process. My thoughts about the character sheet: It is certainly overpowered (about 1200 or so CP, counting skills and body, gear, implants...), but it's alone and don't really knows what to do aside from running and hiding. I made her as an infiltration & sabotage specialist, and gave it a "novelty system that allows the AGIs to pass for humans in the less deep scans" (identifying her as an AGI using the listed methods in Panopticon would require a MoS of 4+, without equipment bonuses). The system has only one small flaw: can only be mounted in infomorphs and cyberbrains. Ah, the name I choose it because there is a movie being projected this days called that, with robots. I try to keep stuff simple ^^. Now if only my players get the guts to go into Little Shanghai looking for her...