Hi! I'm new here. I do like the theme of Eclipse Phase, but I'm having some trouble with some of the rules (not due to the lack of trying). I've tried to reading the material several times, but some of it still confuses me. I kinda have a talent for finding holes in game rules, or program code so bear with me.
Today's Topic is attributes...
1) Lets say a character has COG 30 and is then sleeved into a Remade morph. A Remade morph has a max attribute rating of 40 and grants a +10 bonus to GOG. Does the character get a COG score of 40? The rules says that the normal max is 30, but the book does mention a few exceptions where it may be increased to 40 (but I can't find any mention of aptitude bonuses from morphs being one of them)
2) (I'm asking this to be thorough) Another character has the trait "Exceptional Aptitude" (applied to its ego) and uses it to increase his COG to 40. Am I correct to assume that the character will find that its COG would be limited in most morphs?
3) A character has one of its aptitudes limited by its morph (lets say its a flat). Is the character's skills (the ones that are linked to that aptitude) reduced or penalized while the character occupies the said morph?
4) A character has managed to raise one of its skills to a 100. However its linked aptitude was rather low (lets say it was 10). What happens when the said character decides to try to raise the said aptitude? Are the excess skill points lost? Are they refunded? Does the character keep the skills points (so they serve as a buffer against penalties)?
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Questions regarding rules
Sat, 2012-05-19 22:30
#1
DivineWrath
Questions regarding rules
Sun, 2012-05-20 01:01
#2
Pyrite
Re: Questions regarding rules
If you look, each morph has a maximum attribute rating. The Remade specifically has a maximum of 40, which is part of what makes the Ultimates so frightening. Remember that Ego and Morph are very separate in Eclipse Phase, and the max of 30 is for an Ego. In fact, the flat morph your in right now has a maximum attribute rating of 20, unless yours happens to have the special morph trait increasing it, so even if your ego has higher attributes than that, then you are being held back by the low quality of meat you inhabit.
You are correct, such a character would need a morph with exceptional attribute, or to be an infomorph, in order to take full advantage of their ability.
Yes.
I can't find a reference to this situation in the core rules, though the max is actually 99 rather than 100. Personally I'd rule they would be refunded, making those attribute points only cost 8 rez each.
—
'No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.' --J.R.R. Tolkien
Sun, 2012-05-20 01:02
#3
Tyrnis
Re: Questions regarding rules
1) The character does have a 40 COG in this case, yes, because of the high attribute maximum of the remade.
2) Correct. Likewise, if a character with an COG of 30 sleeves into a Menton, they essentially lose the +10 COG that the morph provides, because they're already at the morph's attribute maximum before the bonus is applied.
3) Yes, they are, just as they are likewise boosted if they switch to a morph with an attribute bonus.
4) The skill range is 0 - 99, though a roll of 99 is always a critical failure (00 is actually zero, not 100.) The rest is largely up to the individual GM, as unless I'm misremembering, the rules don't explicitly cover that circumstance. Personally, while I would _not_ refund any rez spent, I probably would be inclined to allow the character to make note of the additional skill level as a buffer against penalties.
Mon, 2012-05-21 05:02
#4
Decivre
Re: Questions regarding rules
Maximum natural attribute (discounting morph) is 30. The exception to this is if you get the Exceptional Attribute trait, which raises one aptitude's cap to 40. This natural attribute maximum only restricts what you can raise your ego's aptitudes to, and does not explicitly affect how your aptitudes will look once you are in a sleeve. If the morph has a higher maximum, than bonuses can get you to that maximum. At the same time, if the morph has an aptitude limit of 20 or 25, any points you have beyond that are effectively inaccessible until you change bodies.
Precisely. To take advantage of it, you either need to get a morph with an aptitude maximum of 40, or get the Exceptional Aptitude trait applied to the morph as well.
Yes they are. All things associated with that aptitude are lowered accordingly.
As a general rule, no skill ever goes beyond 99. If you raise the aptitude, the skill will remain the same. How you handle that will probably vary from table to table... I generally give a one-point discount towards raising aptitudes for every skill you have at 99 (associated with that specific aptitude, of course).
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Mon, 2012-05-21 17:46
#5
DivineWrath
Re: Questions regarding rules
Thanks for the replies thus far...
Next topic: Health and sanity
5) The rules state that the maximum penalty a character can suffer is -60, right? So that means that no matter how many wounds or traumas a character has, the penalties its suffers can be no worse than -60, right? I can't find any mention of initiative having such limits, so I assume that some poor guy could in theory have a -100 penalty to initiative, right?
6) The book seems to only lists 2 kinds of treatments that a medic can perform without the aid of advanced technology. As mentioned on p. 208, one is to treat an injury shortly after receiving it, and the other is to enable natural healing if the wound is too serve to allow it. Is there any long term treatments when advanced technology is unavailable?
7) (I may have answered this one myself when trying to figure out how to word it, but I'm going to ask anyways) The book says that a character may become hardened to stress causing stuff, making them immune to getting stress from the said sources. It however also says that the character's maximum moxie is reduce by 1 per phenomena you become hardened to. Does this apply to the max moxie a character may have (as in 10 - number of hardened phenomena), or does this apply to the moxie stat of your character (so a character with a moxie stat of 4 drops to 3 due to 1 hardening)? In the first case, what happens when the character maximum moxie drops below its moxie stat? Does the excess merely become unavailable until the character gets proper treatment or somehow manages to recover? In the second case, can the character buy back the moxie point( s ) and develop further?
P.S. Is there anyway to disable smilies on this forum. When I tried to type ( s ) without the spaces, it produced (s) when I posted.
Tue, 2012-05-22 02:53
#6
DivineWrath
Re: Questions regarding rules
Oops. I forgot a question.
8 ) Regarding disorders. You get a disorder for every 4 traumas you get. So once you get your 4th trauma, 8th, and 12th, etc. you get a disorder. However its a bit fuzzy on how this works when you recover a little and receive more trauma. If you get 4 traumas and thus get a disorder, then you recover to 3 traumas, would you get a new disorder if you were stressed to back to 4 traumas once more? If not, would you be safe until you got 7 traumas (which would technically be your 8th)? What happens when recover completely (0 stress, 0 trauma, 0 disorders)? Does this number reset?
P.S. Sigh when I use 8 ) without the spaces, I get a 8) smiley.
Tue, 2012-05-22 07:02
#7
Xagroth
Re: Questions regarding rules
5.- I'd say that -60 is a great enough penalty to initiative, this is no slug race and the odds of having a tie on initiative are solved as usual. Please do note that there seems no problem with a character with a -60 to give the teamwork bonus to somebody else...
6.- The game does not present scenarios where you cannot get advanced medical care in a short term basis. The only situations would involve gatecrashing or being in an escape pod of sorts (which tend to have first aid kits). No one is crazy enough to go Gatecrashing without medical options, though, but I suggest you to have a look at that supplement.
Tue, 2012-05-22 17:22
#8
Tyrnis
Re: Questions regarding rules
Don't forget that as an initiative penalty, the total negative modifier would need to be divided by ten. So -60 actually equates to -6.
Tue, 2012-05-22 18:23
#9
Xagroth
Re: Questions regarding rules
Just to save some possible headache: -60 would be in previous editions, while -6 would be in the third printing one (where the system had a few changes in the rolls and initiative among other things, streamlining the system, I think). This is, of course, if I am not mistaken (I don't know where I placed the old .pdf).
Tue, 2012-05-22 22:57
#10
Tyrnis
Re: Questions regarding rules
You're not mistaken. The second printing just incorporated some of the errata that had sprung up since the book was published, while the third printing included the system adjustments including initiative.
Tue, 2012-05-22 23:30
#11
Decivre
Re: Questions regarding rules
Nope. You are limited to a -60 total penalty. This means that if you cumulatively add up all bonuses and penalties together, the total modifier cannot be less than -60, or greater than +60 (-6 and +6 for initiative). Further wounds and traumas simply make it harder for you to eliminate that penalty, or reduces the effect of bonuses.
Not really. Those two forms of treatment are effectively first-aid. Until you have some serious medical tech, there isn't much you can do for somebody... an issue that is just as true in real life. First aid is all about stabilizing a person until actual medical treatment can be conducted, or the treatment of minor injuries.
I apply it to maximum moxie. Your moxie will only decrease if you are already at your maximum. Furthermore, I ruled that your moxie will go back up to wherever you happened to purchase it to if you treat the hardening. So if you have 9 moxie and get hardened twice, your moxie is now 8. If you get one of those issues treated, you go back to 9 but cannot raise it until you treat the other.
Not quite. A disorder occurs when you have four or more traumas, and at least one major derangement. When the GM determines it to be proper, your major derangement is replaced with a disorder. This only happens if you have a major derangement. If for whatever reason your GM has afflicted you with a multitude of minor derangements rather than one major one, you are still safe from acquiring a disorder.
Think of disorders as the fourth tier for derangements... at this point they become severe and permanent.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Wed, 2012-05-23 18:34
#12
DivineWrath
Re: Questions regarding rules
Thanks for the replies thus far...
Regarding Q 6 - Hmm... Where does it say that the modifier for initiative can be no greater than +/- 6? I tried searching my pdf file, but I couldn't find it.
Regarding Q 8 - I forgot about upgrading derangements... Clearly this problem is more complex than I thought it was...
Wed, 2012-05-23 22:16
#13
Decivre
Re: Questions regarding rules
It doesn't, it's just an extrapolation based on other rules. To be honest, initiative modifiers aren't too common and it only really affects when you act on your turn, so ignoring any cap on those modifiers will affect very little.
It is. Keeping track of mental health is actually a fairly complex issue in-game. It takes some getting used to in order to get it right.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Sat, 2012-05-26 23:53
#14
DivineWrath
Re: Questions regarding rules
Ok, more questions.
9 ) The rules say that a character can get more credits by spending cp or rez points. However, I can't find any mention of how they might get credits using other means. Did I miss something? If I did, would there be any charts or guidelines suggesting how much various jobs pay, the expected rewards for dangerous jobs, etc. ?
10 ) How do you measure proficiency in terms of skills? I'm finding it difficult to determine if a character is qualified to do a job.
What I mean is, in DnD 3.5 / Pathfinder RPG, I had this figured out pretty well. For those who don't know, a fairly simple tasks had a DC (difficulty class) of 10, while more difficult tasks like those people would do for a living had a DC of 15. A common blacksmith would have a skill value of 5 (+4 for skills, +1 for ability score), and by taking 10 (a trick to reduce dice rolling, in effect the character decides to skip rolling a d20 and accept a result of 10, an average result of their dice rolling system), the character gets a result of 15 on a regular basis. In effect, the blacksmith could always count on being able to complete tasks that were within its skill level.
In Eclipse Phase, I'm not too certain. Near as I can tell, a character with a skill of 40 has a 60% chance of failing, while a character with a skill of 60 has a 40% chance of failing. In ideal circumstances, a character with a skill of 40 could have access to a hypercorp lab and a few assistants giving a +60 bonus, pushing the target number to max. But, from what I understand, most characters don't run around in these ideal circumstances.
What I'm getting at is, I'm having trouble figuring out what it is a character can reliably do (beyond the obvious like walking or talking).
Sun, 2012-05-27 01:43
#15
Decivre
Re: Questions regarding rules
The cost ratings and reputation system act as a decent guideline for defining wages. Just try to determine how much of a favor such a job might be counted as, then use that to determine the favor rating... which you then compare directly to the five cost ratings. Wageslave work might garner you trivial or low wages per day or week, while hypercorp executives might bankroll expensive wages every hour. It's really up in flux and dependent on where you are in the system, what your social status is, and how important you are deemed by employers.
There's a really nice skill range guideline on page 174 of the core book that details what various skill levels mean. As a general rule, a skill ranging from 1-19 means virtually clueless on the subject at hand, 20-39 means rudimentary knowledge with minor training (you can be an assistant for this job; you might be here for many things right out of high school), 40-59 means professional-grade training (you could make a career out of it; my computer skills probably fall here), 60-79 means expert-level training (you are one of the few exceptional people in your field; specialists probably fall here), and 80-99 means mastery (textbooks about your field will probably mention your name; Isaac Newton, Bruce Lee, Olympic gold medalists).
As for what you can reliably do, I think you should note that not every task will be pass or fail. Some actions have guaranteed success, but skill and roll determine the quality of work. For instance, any person with a language skill at 50 can speak fluently in the language... rolls simply determine how well you say something. These sorts of rolls are called simple success tests, and are detailed on page 118 of the core book.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Sun, 2012-05-27 04:49
#16
Xagroth
Re: Questions regarding rules
Consider that here, the attribute bonus can reach (theoretically) 40, while in D&D 3.5 a +5 is like "woah". However, EP goes from 00 to 99, and D&D from 0 to 33 (not counting epic levels, or Conan-like bonus to all attributes every 6 levels, but counting a 20, +5 at lv 20, +5 from magical objects = 30 on an attribute => +10). Also, in D&D you can get more than +6 in gear and teamwork bonuses.
Personally, I use the creation rules as a guideline: up to 60 on a skill (including the characteristic), you pay 1 creation point per skill point, but between 60 and 80 you pay double (infolife are an exception, let's not talk about them). It is reasonably to assume, then, that somebody who finished his superior education has a top value of that, and any skill over 60 means serious effort and devotion or lots of actual experience. With the appropiate tools (or/and taking time) you can boost your chances to near 90-99%, however, while somebody reaching the +60 limit would be doing the stuff with the book open by his side, so to speak.
Sun, 2012-05-27 06:10
#17
Decivre
Re: Questions regarding rules
It might be better to compare averages rather than the exceptional on those scales. Human average for aptitudes in Eclipse Phase is 6-10, while in D&D it is probably more like 8-13. The transhuman average for aptitudes is 11-15. To that end, if you take into account all potential modifiers in Eclipse Phase, you can potentially go beyond 99 with skill synergies, improved equipment and plenty more.
I disagree with this assessment. A score of 60 requires 50+ points of investment for someone with average aptitude. According to advancement rules, that's 10 months of complete devotion to the study of that craft to raise that quickly, not just attending classes daily and doing homework. Few people have that level of dedication, so it'd be hard to call that standard education level.
The chart I mentioned earlier states that 40 is about college degree level knowledge of a skill. Professional-level qualification. That fits in line with the fact that skillwares and AI are capped to about that level... that's the point where they actually become useful for most purposes.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Sun, 2012-05-27 16:57
#18
Xagroth
Re: Questions regarding rules
I was mentioning the tops in both games, not exceptional beings ^^.
Actually, starting characters have a base of 15 in each attribute in EP, the rest coming from Creation Points. It is easy to imagine that at least one will be at 20 and other at 10 (personally, COG 20 is a very good investment, giving plenty of skills at 60 in the non-active field!). Also, with a starting morph we can imagine a +5 bonus being common...
Anyway, we can assume only 40 points of development required to reach 60 on a skill. While it requires time, it does not require as much as a lv 80 in a skill. Of course, Player Characters are exceptional ones, and I personally tend to create the NPCs as 700-800 points (not counting morphs/gear) usually without advantage. That usually means experts tend to have one or two skills at 80 and the others, at best, at 60 (usually less): they tend to be specced into something, instead of being more generalists (they are deployed with support, backup or in limited situations, after all).
Now, Gatecrashers tend to be more like player characters.
My advice about power difference between players and NPCs? Be really sure the players have more than a 20% chance of success against them, at least with non-critical enemies. I played a Goblins & caves game this saturday, and we usually needed an 8 in 1d8 to suceed in combat all the time (the warriors. The thief was mostly useless, the cleric did no damage at all and healed nothing, and the archer damaged the enemies a little...); it was really frustrating to know that you had 1/8 chance of success... and that you could count with only one other player, because the rest were literally useless (I don't want even to imagine what they suffer, knowing that their chances were literally zero).