If a character lessens or ruins the fun/enjoyment of other people at the table, even if it follows the rules, it is a bad character. I don't find it an issue with the augment, but rather how it was used by the player. Sounds like you had a disruptive player on your hands more than anything else, and talking to him about it seems the most reasonable thing to do. Hopefully he will listen, than it is an easy fix. Side note: this is one reason most GMs prefer to make premade characters for one shots/smaller arcs. Might be worth looking into for the future.

My standard rule as a GM is that every players get one PC. So if there is another person in the implant, I get to run it. Including adding extra agendas, personality quirks and whatnots. Yes, even forks diverge or sometimes act unexpectedly.

While not helping, i have to state that my first thought when reading the character description was "is that the Hulk?!",

This business of entire separate characters seems far, far too much ruletwisting/rulebreaking to me. I'm going to post a few bits of what the rules actually say which seem relevant: [i]"For all intents and purposes, the extra personality is treated as a separate ego (i.e., it may fork separately), except that both personalities are backed up in the same cortical stack and if downloaded they must be placed in separate morphs or in another morph with this implant." (p.301 EP)[/i] Okay, so the extra personality can be placed in a separate morph. At that point, in my book, it'd become a GMNPC, and the local laws will probably figure that it (or (ohnoes!) the original character) is an alpha fork which has been instantiated in its own body. The RAW allows a little flex here, but it's the only way to prevent the player easily having two characters for the price of a Flat, Case or Spare morph and a single (relatively cheap in chargen) augmentation. [i]"This extra personality can be an NPC run by the gamemaster, a separate character (in ego form only) made by the player, or the downloaded fork of another character."[/i] (p.301 EP) What confuses me is where people get this business of extra points, etc., for the additional ego. The RAW says: [i]"Each ego has its own Lucidity and Trauma Threshold, and they track stress and trauma separately. Any psi attacks or social/mental influences only affect the personality at the fore."[/i] (p.301-2 EP) From that I take it to be inferred pretty solidly that the Egos do NOT differ in any other fashion. I.E., one could not have an ego which was a martial artist, an ego which was a weapons-master, and an ego which was a social face. No additional CP are inferred for the building of such egos. Effectively what it provides (other than the opportunity to generate GMNPCs) is for you to have two separate tracks for Lucidity and Trauma Threshold in emergencies. This fits a lot of forms of fiction involving characters with multiple personalities wherein the background personality comes out as a result of trauma which causes the foreground personality to 'panic', and gets their shared body to safety. Nothing more than that. No additional CP to buy skills, no creating an alternate Ego with different skills, no dividing the available CP between Egos...They are identical except for LUC/TT. That's the RAW mechanic as near as I can tell and MUCH more in line with the cost of the augmentation. Anything else is going to be (as you noticed) very disruptive. It would be nice if we could get someone from the staff to weigh in on this, of course.

Re-Laborat wrote:

What confuses me is where people get this business of extra points, etc., for the additional ego.

From this part: [i]"This extra personality can be an NPC run by the gamemaster, [b]a separate character (in ego form only) made by the player[/b], or the downloaded fork of another character." (p.301 EP)[/i] But this was also the problem. babayaga should not have assumed that this was the best option to make. I would have only allowed the separate PC played by the same character under the condition that every player at the table gets an extra character. That was the reason this player was able to play center-stage in the game… he was given more benefits from the start.

TadanoriOyama wrote:

This is one player playing two sepeate characters, something I wouldn't allow at my table. The problem isn't the augementation, it's the player. Consider: if this second ego had been a in a seperate morph, would you have allowed your player to control that individual as well?

Exactly. The problem here was the number of unique characters this player got, simply by merit of the fact that he put them in the same body. The implant isn't very special at all, and I haven't had any problems at the table from it (despite seeing it in play twice). Had every player at the table been allowed to make two characters and play them as pairs, this would not have been a problem.

crizh wrote:

I've always felt the point of rpg's s to have fun and that rules should be played as is until they prove to be a problem. Eyeballing rules and declaring them broken, particularly if they are rules that don't actually affect you, is a short-cut to sucking the fun out of the whole exercise.

We once had a game of Shadowrun going that wasn't so bad, up until one of the players started dating the GM. At that point, their character took center stage for the rest of the game. Period. Every major NPC wanted to meet [i]that character[/i]. Every scenario was crafted so that character was the most essential member of the group. The entire game from that point on became "she does everything fun, and you guys dick around until she needs to be protected". Hell, I didn't even see any scenario that required hacking from that point on (I play hackers). This was a problem of game balance. A problem that does not necessarily mean the mechanics are broken or anything like that. In fact, this implant isn't broken. Not by any means. Taking the implant does not magically allow you to create a new character; it says that the second personality [b]can[/b] be played by another PC ran by the same player, but does not say that you may immediately do so. The GM or playgroup has to allow that. And they should only allow it if they are okay with one player getting more of the spotlight. Because anyone who honestly believes that a person playing multiple characters [i]isn't[/i] going to get more attention as a side effect is insane. That's just the way these things work. And if your idea of having fun is "make everyone pay attention to me while ignoring everyone else at the table", then [b]you[/b] are probably the one sucking the fun out of the whole exercise. Not the people who say that isn't right. As an old friend once put it: "Nobody roleplays as a member of the audience, because no one ever wants to."

crizh wrote:

I don't think the problem is a single player getting more time as much as it is the other players getting less.

Po-TAY-toe po-TAH-to. The problem, no matter how you want to look at it, is that one player is potentially enjoying the game more than the rest. Not a problem if everyone else is just casually playing and doesn't care about being part of the game, not a problem if everyone is okay with the game being structured like that, but it is a problem if other people want to be part of the story and to a similar degree.

crizh wrote:

Like I said, our Earthdawn game has had a player with two characters for several months now, since Christmas I think, and I had not even noticed him taking more of the attention until another player started making noises about retiring the extra character. It didn't make sense, in character, and I had to have a really good long hard think about what was actually going on in the group dynamic. I talked to the GM about it and he didn't feel that the player with two characters was unfairly hogging the limelight either so we've just let it slide for the time being. Thing is, I don't get any less time in the spotlight, the number of characters in the party hasn't changed and so I still get as much attention as I always did. One player gets twice as much but that doesn't cost me anything. If he had two characters but only got to play one in any particular round I would actually have more attention.

There are plenty of good situations where one player can play multiple characters. I remember one time as the veteran gamer in a relatively new group of D&D players, I played the group's cleric and wizard because no one else wanted to be a magic user. But it was consensual among everybody at the table, and my character was actually the wizard; the cleric was there solely to buff and heal characters, not to make me the focus of the game. That's the point. The original poster said that the implant was detrimental. I'm arguing the problem is in what he allowed that player to do, not the actual implant itself.

crizh wrote:

I'll point that out again very clearly seeing as you felt the need to bold that 'you'. A player with Multiple Personalities gets no more time than any other player.

How so? If they are granted two different characters to play because of it, then they have twice the number of skills, twice the number of actions, twice the number of resources than any other individual player. So how does that not give them more focus? I mean at least forking isn't all benefits. It grants you an exploding amount of actions, but no greater skillset to work with. Your army of forks is simultaneously as incompetent and competent as any one of you. It grants the added benefit of acting elsewhere, yet the requirement of owning another body to do it with. Multiple characters have a completely different dynamic. With this playstyle, you are effectively creating a single 2000-point character. And according to you, that has no potential to ruin the game for anyone else. How so? If we are arguing that the actual capability of a character is irrelevant, would you be okay with someone creating a single character with a 99 in every skill, maxed out reputations and a 30 in every aptitude? Would you be able to enjoy the game knowing that you'd have to show the relevance of your character in the context of standing next to the Übermensch?

crizh wrote:

What they get, if there isn't a high enough cost associated with the implant, is to be as good as any other player in twice as many areas whilst being vulnerable in half as many. The cost needs to be sufficient that you can have several specialities but never be quite as good as someone who only has one Ego in his head.

Sure, but this isn't a problem with the implant. No one has said the implant was a problem, except the original poster. The problem is that someone was given multiple characters, and used the implant as an excuse to do so. That isn't okay. The problem was a terrible interpretation of recommendations on how an implant should be handled. I'd be recommending errata if the book said "by picking this implant, you get to make another character that shares a body with this one". Instead, it simply says that multiple characters ran by one player is one way to handle the implant.

crizh wrote:

Don't get me wrong, Multiple-personalities is certainly open to abuse but it contains a massive amount of GM fiat in the way it is adjudicated so if a GM finds he has a problem he has explicit tools within the rules to remedy the situation. Eclipse Phase is full of technology that is potentially unbalancing to the game. Nerfing those technologies is, in my opinion, a wrong headed approach to the imbalances technology brings. The correct way to deal with it is through social/legal controls.

But if someone interprets the mechanics of this implant in this manner, it is beyond game-breaking. For instance, I could purchase up an army of flats at creation, all with this implant, at 5 CP (flat costs 0, implant costs 5). Each flat has my personality, alongside one other personality I get to create for that implant. With 300 bonus points, that means I get an army of 61 characters at my disposal. And that's assuming that I don't purchase more of them with my other character's points. It was a terrible interpretation of the implant's instructions. Nothing more.

crizh wrote:

Assault rifles are better than longbows. They just are. Nerfing them because it's difficult to build an archer character in a world where they exist is just stupid. You deal with it, just as we do in the real world, by restricting access to them, making life complicate for those known to possess them and making it socially unacceptable to run around in public showing them off.

Except there's a difference. No one is saying the implant needs any correction. We're saying that a GM that let's a player make another character without thinking about the ramifications is a problem. No correction needs to be done with the game book. This was a problem of interpretation, not the actual game mechanics. The book never says that you get to make a free new character if you pick the implant. I would say that the longbow needed correction if it said "by purchasing one, you may also create a brand new character with which you can play simultaneously with your own". Because nothing would stop me from purchasing as many longbows as I desire.

crizh wrote:

Bollocks. Try again. I am happy to address the rest of that post in sensible debate but that's just an outright lie and I won't until it is corrected.

How is it a lie? Both characters act every round as always, but only one of them controls the body they are sleeved in. That means the other one can do mesh actions, mental actions, and any number of non-body-related actions (including teleoperation and jamming) just fine. Don't call people a liar without having anything to back that up. I am many admitted things: a libertarian, a gamer, a bit of a man-whore; but you'd better have more than words to throw when you call me a liar.

Quote:

Only one ego may be in control of the morph at a time. The other resides in the background, still active, but not on a surface level.

This means only one ego actually has any access to the functions of the body. The best example I could think of would be imagine essentially a Ghost Rider Module with a Puppet Sock built into the Cortical Stack. Now I will note that the character does receive an extra Mental Action for the extra personality. Ideally this means that the Extra Mental Action you get per round is the extra personality doing whatever it is that they do. Both personalities share the same initiative and action pool.

I wouldn't do this at will. I would personally at least make this a Complex Mental Action to switch and due to stress or something mentally disabling can only be performed once per action phase.

Balancing does not always quite make sense in a literal sense of the word. This implant is very strangely worded in some sense of it. In that case let's look into other implant you're speaking of. Ego Sharing Robotic Only. So not for Biomorphs or Uplifts unless you install an cyberbrain. Specifically designed to allow more than one Ego to access controls at a time. (A Puppet Sock Ghost Rider can't do this as effectively. This is mentioned that only one has control with this implant.) Requires implant per user, where this one has a special stack to support it. Divides the actual body functions into sections. In this implant they take control of the whole body. And due to the above, each can operate on it's own initiative score since they can actually do separate things. This has them acting in the same turn on the same score using the same actions for mental and phyiscal. They don't double up for having two egos, they're two egos with the pool of one person for resources. If not a complex Mental Action, then simply make it a Mental Action to switch between the two since this provides the player with an extra one per action phase.

Mechanical issues (ie. switching, stress, control) aside, I'd resolve that in a simple way - each player gets basic freebies (aptitude points, free rep, free cash, ...) + 1000 CP per character (which means once). If they wish to make two half-characters of it, fine, but those would be - in best case - divergent forks, with the same basic aptitude and skill sets, with one being an NPC at all times. Anything else would be giving an unjustified advantage to a player. I would not worry about "wrestling control from the player" - it could be used as "Common sense" equivalent, like the second ego yelling "Stop it, you're going to kill us both!" and assuming control to save itself. As for two characters controlled by two players in one body - be my guest, of course, it would be not much different from ghostrider module use; of course, it would be best if players know each other well.

NewAgeOfPower wrote:

crizh wrote:

Decivre wrote:

twice the number of actions

Bollocks. Try again. I am happy to address the rest of that post in sensible debate but that's just an outright lie and I won't until it is corrected.

You are starting to become offensive, crizh. If you can't back up your assertions with evidence, stop the name-calling.

I don't remember doing any name calling. I identified something I don't believe to be true, and given Decivre's self-assigned role of rules-guru around here I called him on it. I didn't call him any names or slander his character I just stated the facts as I see them.

Decivre wrote:

And if your idea of having fun is "make everyone pay attention to me while ignoring everyone else at the table", then [b]you[/b] are probably the one sucking the fun out of the whole exercise.

He on the other hand said that I'm an attention whore who is ruining the game for other people. He explicitly ignored what I had to say about others not getting any less time and characterised me as the sort of person that behaves in that manner without any evidence to back up that assertion. A flat out ad hominem attack without addressing any of the substantive issues I raised.

All groups are different, but if I was in a group where one player had a character twice as good as mine I wouldn't have very fun. If one person can do everything I can do and still be better at 10 other skills then what's the point of my character? It's not so much about 'time' as it is 'time in the limelight'. More to the point, how many situations one character can handle as opposed to the others. Having twice as many skills easily becomes a problem as the rest of the characters are simply not necessary anymore. In the case with one player taking over another players character it is true that the other players are not getting 'less time' than they had before, but they are getting 'less time' as compared to the one player that now has two characters. Wouldn't it be easier to simply let the GM handle that character instead? If it works for your friends then it works and it's nothing we can say about it. However, if I was a GM I would never allow such a thing and if I was a player I wouldn't have fun either. Just because the rules say 'could', it doesn't mean 'should'. But, speaking of ghostrider module with puppet sock, how does the control actually work? Does the puppet sock controller get to use the morph's aptitude bonuses? Does he (or she) need to make a resleeving test everytime they assume control? Or perhaps only the first time? This is interesting to me as a character in my experimental adventure had to get that combination to carry a (sex and drug crazy) hacker to a small mission. As it was just very small amount of actual puppet socking he had to do I simply let the progression of the story take precedence but still it would be nice to know. Especially as the character now wants to upgrade her muse to an AGI and have in the ghostrider module so they can have a more real relasionship...

Decivre wrote:

I'm a rules-guru? When? When did we get to assign roles? What kind of bullshit role is rules-guru? Why would I assign myself to that role? Who got God-Emperor of Mankind? That was mine.

Your record speaks for itself. Would you like me to go through it and post some examples of you parachuting into a discussion to render an opinion as if it were indisputable fact? I've got plenty of time on my hands at the moment... I'm not sure how to go about finding out stats on this forum but I would be shocked if you are not by far and away the most prolific poster on it. It has been my impression that your posts rarely, if ever, contain conditional phrases like 'I think', 'in my opinion', 'it is likely that', etc, etc. When someone asks for an interpretation of a poorly written rule your tone in reply is almost exclusively one of utter certainty in the correctness of your position. A self-proclaimed rules-guru. By deed. You have a lot of time invested in this game and you are probably right far more often than you are wrong but on matters of a factual nature regarding the rules you present yourself as someone that knows what they are talking about and can be trusted to be correct.

Decivre wrote:

But you did slander my character, by characterizing my statements as lies. It informs us that I intentionally mislead by statement. You were effectively accusing me of the intentional representation of information, to which I would ask you to prove it. The book explicitly states that the extra personality gets a complex action. If that doesn't amount to double the actions of a person moving at standard speed (which gets one complex action... 1+1=2, and 2 divided by 1 is two, and double means twice something last time I checked), then math got altered sometime between the last time I tutored my niece in Algebra and… now.

As you present yourself as someone that can be trusted to be correct, when you make a statement that is clearly wrong I don't feel uncomfortable calling it a lie. Perhaps if you are less than completely familiar with the rules set you would be better served by being more guarded in your pronouncements regarding it. You have retro-actively inserted the phrase 'moving at standard speed' into your argument in what I consider to be a deceitful way in an attempt not to appear completely wrong. A single extra Complex Mental/Mesh action per Turn is far from doubling the number of actions in the vast majority of real world play examples. A speed 3 character with Multi-tasking has 9 times as many actions as your retro-active baseline. As a method for gaining additional actions Multiple-personalities is objectively one of the worst implants in the book. It categorically does not double the number of actions except in a very specific circumstance that you have defined retro-actively and that very rarely occurs. Even when it does occur there are half a dozen other implants that are massively more problematic on this metric. You know this very well but you are happy to try and snow me with this ludicrous fallacy which is frankly insulting.

Decivre wrote:

Two things: [list][*]The prostitution industry is one of the oldest, and most mature industries in the world. It is also one I actually happen to have a lot of respect for. It would be a grave insult to simply throw around their professional titles willy-nilly. So I'll have you know I have never accused you of being a brothel worker that is paid through the non-physical currency of attention

Distraction. Look at the shiny. You know what I meant, I won't stoop to re-stating it in single syllable words.

Decivre wrote:

[*]The statement you quoted was an if/then statement, as in "if this is true, then this is also true". The only way I said you were ruining the game for others (or as I actually put it: "trying to suck the fun out of the whole exercise") is if you are admitting that you enjoy making everyone pay attention to you while ignoring everyone else at the table. Either you misread my statement, or you are admitting statement A while taking offense to statement B.[/list] So, if you admit that you like to make everyone else at the table get ignored while getting all the attention, then I apologize for saying that you suck the fun out of the whole exercise. I guess. I still think you do if this is the case, but you are apparently offended by that statement, so I will retract it.

Yes you did indeed cloak yourself in the flimsy shield of if/then. However the whole post is a Strawman. You injected a completely unrelated story about a different circumstance that played out in a crucially different way and then mapped it onto my behaviour as if it were one of only two possibilities. This is a black-or-white fallacy. The fact that you covered your arse with conditionals suggests that it was deliberate.

Decivre wrote:

Had you read one of my previous statements (I believe that it was the very one you refused to read until I stopped being a liar, or a fraud, or an Asian, or whatever), you would have seen that I stated, quite clearly, that playing multiple characters does not necessitate hogging the spotlight. One act is not inclusive to the other, and vice versa. I then gave a clear example of a time when I did the very act of playing multiple characters, with the explicit goal of not hogging the spotlight. So I never stated in any manner any of the things you are referencing. What I did state, from the get-go, was that the player that babayaga referenced in the original post was acting detrimentally to play for their playgroup. Hence the very reason he's posting on these forums for help. I then stated that the problem wasn't the implant, but the fact that babayaga used one of the sentences within the mechanical information regarding the implant to justify giving that player a second character, without gauging the potential ramifications that a player with two characters can have on play. Hence the issues they had. Had he not given that player a second character, or that player not used the oppoortunity to have a second character in order to gain an unfair advantage over his peers, there would have been no problem. So, have we cleared everything up?

You misrepresent me again. I said I wouldn't respond to it, not that I had not read it. I wouldn't respond to it because it was partially predicated on statements, that given your experience, intelligence and talent, it seems difficult to believe you were not aware were not true.

crizh wrote:

Your record speaks for itself. Would you like me to go through it and post some examples of you parachuting into a discussion to render an opinion as if it were indisputable fact? I've got plenty of time on my hands at the moment... I'm not sure how to go about finding out stats on this forum but I would be shocked if you are not by far and away the most prolific poster on it. It has been my impression that your posts rarely, if ever, contain conditional phrases like 'I think', 'in my opinion', 'it is likely that', etc, etc. When someone asks for an interpretation of a poorly written rule your tone in reply is almost exclusively one of utter certainty in the correctness of your position. A self-proclaimed rules-guru. By deed.

Believe it or not, there are many instances where statements are going to be factual, even when a topic involves opinion. In fact, an opinion that is not informed by fact is often a terrible opinion indeed. As a consequence, there will be many times I will not use such words. But I often do use other words to a similar effect, such as "if you allow it in your games", or something to that ilk. Alternatively, I often offer multiple interpretations of something, of which those interpretations are factual ways that a phrase can be understood, but opinion will determine which interpretation is correct to the reader. Usually in those cases I don't offer my opinion.

crizh wrote:

You have a lot of time invested in this game and you are probably right far more often than you are wrong but on matters of a factual nature regarding the rules you present yourself as someone that knows what they are talking about and can be trusted to be correct.

I do to a degree. But the facts are what is written in the books, and any facts I reference are because I am referencing from the books, not because I am declaring them canon.

crizh wrote:

As you present yourself as someone that can be trusted to be correct, when you make a statement that is clearly wrong I don't feel uncomfortable calling it a lie. Perhaps if you are less than completely familiar with the rules set you would be better served by being more guarded in your pronouncements regarding it. You have retro-actively inserted the phrase 'moving at standard speed' into your argument in what I consider to be a deceitful way in an attempt not to appear completely wrong. A single extra Complex Mental/Mesh action per Turn is far from doubling the number of actions in the vast majority of real world play examples. A speed 3 character with Multi-tasking has 9 times as many actions as your retro-active baseline. As a method for gaining additional actions Multiple-personalities is objectively one of the worst implants in the book. It categorically does not double the number of actions except in a very specific circumstance that you have defined retro-actively and that very rarely occurs. Even when it does occur there are half a dozen other implants that are massively more problematic on this metric.

Even if the character is moving at faster-than-normal speeds, there are definite vagaries within the mechanics for the multiple personality implant that have not been addressed in any way: whether or not mental implants can be used on the second ego, and whether sleights used by the second ego (should it have psi) continue to function. Whereas an ego with speed 3 and multitasking has 9 actions a turn, an ego with multiple personalities, multitasking for both egos and the multitasking sleight on the second ego would have a whopping 19 actions (22 actions if you have the sleight on both egos, in contrast to 12 actions without multiple personalities in the same scenario). So the doubling of actions (or in the second case, in order to cover all bases, the near-doubling of actions) is still a potential problem with regards to high-speed characters and the multiple personality implant.

crizh wrote:

You injected a completely unrelated story about a different circumstance that played out in a crucially different way and then mapped it onto my behaviour as if it were one of only two possibilities.

Incorrect. I injected the story because it is the only experience I have with personally playing multiple characters at a game table. Whether you want to take my only personal account as an insult is purely up to you.

crizh wrote:

The fact that you covered your arse with conditionals suggests that it was deliberate.

No, the conditional was because it was not a statement directed at you, but as a derisive statement towards that sort of behavior (akin to "if you're the sort that is playing solely to win, then you're probably a munchkin"). There aren't many ways in the English language to reference states of mind without second- or third-person pronouns, unless there is an abstract noun for it. And I don't know of a noun for the state of mind in which someone enjoys taking attention from others at the expense of their enjoyment of a game.

I think the problem is that the devs made an error. People tend to do that. Considering that Eclipse Phase is a new product line produced by a new company, errors should be expected. Even experienced companies make errors. For instance, in Dungeons and Dragons 3.0, it turns out they made the Dwarven Urgrosh an exotic weapon, even for Dwarves. They had their "Doh!" moment once they were informed about their error, and when 3.5 was released, they made it so that Dwarves got special training allowing them to use that weapon as though it were a martial weapon. For the Multiple Personalities augmentation, *I think* it would make more sense to make some changes. This is what I've written up. -This augmentation allows for the morph to be sleeved by 2 egos instead of the normal 1. This gives both egos the benefits and drawbacks of being sleeved in the morph. -Only one ego may be in the foreground, something that gives it control of the physical body. This gives it the ability to undertake all actions that being sleeved in a physical morph may allow. The ego that is not in the fore, resides in the background. This background ego may perform one complex action per turn that may be used for mental or mesh actions (assuming the morph has mesh inserts). -This sleeving setup is quite intimate as both egos are aware of each others thoughts and actions. -Both egos are both backed up to the same cortical stack. Should the unfortunate happen, it would be possible to separate both egos from the stack and re-sleeve them in different morphs. -While the ability to sleeve a second ego in a morph may be handy, the background ego slot may be left empty with no penalty. -The background ego may be the fork of the foreground ego, or it may be the ego or fork of a different character. -The foreground and background egos may switch places, causing the background ego to become the foreground ego and vice versa. This switch must occur at the beginning of the foreground ego's turn. The switch occurs without a hitch with no sense of disorientation (or penalty) for either ego. -Should the foreground ego be unwilling to give up control over the body, then the background ego may fight for control. This is an opposed WIL x 3 test. If the background ego wins, it becomes the foreground ego and takes control over the body. -Both egos have separate Lucidity and Trauma Thresholds, and they track stress and trauma separately. Any psi attack, or mental/social influence only affect the foreground ego. -For practical game play reasons, the GM may allow a PC to control the extra ego if the ego is a fork of its ego, a NPC, or fork of another PC. The GM and the PC(s) should be reminded that this does not make the extra ego theirs, and that even forks may eventually develop opinions and behaviors different from each other. The GM has the right to give control over a fork back to the owning PC, or the GM may take control over the extra ego at any time the GM feels that it is appropriate to do so. Let me know if you see any problems.

Lorsa wrote:

About all the supposed extra actions people can get. The multi-tasking does not work with any other speed enhancement augmentations as stated:

No, it says "any other augmentation that allows for extra actions", not an augmentation that enhances speed. Bonus actions and increased speed are treated differently.

Lorsa wrote:

Additionally I seem to clearly remember the rules stating that 4 actions per turn was the absolute maximum regardless of whatever you try. So where you get this 9+ actions from is a mystery to me.

The multi-tasking implant adds two bonus actions per phase. Having a speed of 3 gives you three phases to act in. One normal complex action + 2 bonus mental actions = 3 actions per phase, which with three phases is 9 actions total.

Lorsa wrote:

As far as forking is involved, I wouldn't let players play their forks either, unless they were ego casting forks to another habitat for a quick conversation and then traveling back to successfully merge. Otherwise if they want to fork themselves, as those forks are separate beings, they are GM controlled. Never would I let a player control more than one ego at a time. You can fork yourself, but the GM decides what the forks do.

I tend to do the same thing, but I allow PCs to control their forks while they happen to be in close proximity or communication with one another. Otherwise, I take complete control, and let the player find out later what happened. Some exceptions though, especially if I decide to run the events around their fork as a separate scenario.

Lorsa wrote:

Having extra speed is really good, but it simply makes you better at what you are already good at. If you're good at combat, neurachem makes you even better. That's why it isn't game-breaking and it fits the setting so well it has to be there. Multiple personalities however, if you run the way described by the topic's creator, will make you better at something new. You're good at combat and suddenly you are also good at hacking. Or (and) social stuff. In essence, that players gets to solve twice as many situations. It's not a matter of solving them twice as good, it's the amount of things they can do that causes issues. So, as I said, could does not mean should. Let every character control one ego at any one time and the GM control the rest. Including multiple personalities, forks and muses.

I agree. Unless I was giving every player at the table access to two characters, I probably wouldn't allow any of them to do so.

DivineWrath wrote:

I think the problem is that the devs made an error. People tend to do that. Considering that Eclipse Phase is a new product line produced by a new company, errors should be expected. Even experienced companies make errors. For instance, in Dungeons and Dragons 3.0, it turns out they made the Dwarven Urgrosh an exotic weapon, even for Dwarves. They had their "Doh!" moment once they were informed about their error, and when 3.5 was released, they made it so that Dwarves got special training allowing them to use that weapon as though it were a martial weapon. For the Multiple Personalities augmentation, *I think* it would make more sense to make some changes. This is what I've written up. -This augmentation allows for the morph to be sleeved by 2 egos instead of the normal 1. This gives both egos the benefits and drawbacks of being sleeved in the morph. -Only one ego may be in the foreground, something that gives it control of the physical body. This gives it the ability to undertake all actions that being sleeved in a physical morph may allow. The ego that is not in the fore, resides in the background. This background ego may perform one complex action per turn that may be used for mental or mesh actions (assuming the morph has mesh inserts). -This sleeving setup is quite intimate as both egos are aware of each others thoughts and actions. -Both egos are both backed up to the same cortical stack. Should the unfortunate happen, it would be possible to separate both egos from the stack and re-sleeve them in different morphs. -While the ability to sleeve a second ego in a morph may be handy, the background ego slot may be left empty with no penalty. -The background ego may be the fork of the foreground ego, or it may be the ego or fork of a different character. -The foreground and background egos may switch places, causing the background ego to become the foreground ego and vice versa. This switch must occur at the beginning of the foreground ego's turn. The switch occurs without a hitch with no sense of disorientation (or penalty) for either ego. -Should the foreground ego be unwilling to give up control over the body, then the background ego may fight for control. This is an opposed WIL x 3 test. If the background ego wins, it becomes the foreground ego and takes control over the body. -Both egos have separate Lucidity and Trauma Thresholds, and they track stress and trauma separately. Any psi attack, or mental/social influence only affect the foreground ego. -For practical game play reasons, the GM may allow a PC to control the extra ego if the ego is a fork of its ego, a NPC, or fork of another PC. The GM and the PC(s) should be reminded that this does not make the extra ego theirs, and that even forks may eventually develop opinions and behaviors different from each other. The GM has the right to give control over a fork back to the owning PC, or the GM may take control over the extra ego at any time the GM feels that it is appropriate to do so. Let me know if you see any problems.

I think if I were redesigning the implant I would remove the additional complex action entirely. It makes little sense in the fluff, particularly as I would be altering the fluff to make it clear that the background personality is a passive observer, it gets no actions of its own. Instead I would grant a teamwork bonus to any skill that both Egos possessed of +20. This would still cap out at 30 if you had someone else helping you. It would also mean the player would only get one Perception test per event. Easiest way to spot something is to increase the number of rolls you get so that's a helpful tweak. I might also introduce other limitations relating to processing power. There is only so much capacity in a brain. I might, for example, limit the combined total, before mod's from Morph, implants, etc, of each attribute of the Egos to 40. This is especially helpful because technically, as things stand, just like the Ego Sharing modification, there is no limit to the number of Multiple Personalities you can have. Another consideration is privacy. It is hard enough to get on with other people when you can walk away from them or put them on ignore. Imagine how hard it is when they can hear your every thought. All of them. I don't know about you but I have thoughts all the time that I don't want any sentient being to ever know passed through my cortex. So I might introduce a regular Stress test if the Egos in question are not Forks of each other.

Implants like Neurachem that increase speed are not incompatible with implants that grant extra actions. AFAIK edit Sorry, I was in a hurry earlier. Multiple Personalities is the only extra action implant, as far as I know, that does not contain the no-stacking text. This means it stacks with itself but nothing else that provides extra actions.

Xagroth wrote:

Personally, since it doesn't explicitely say it has any kind of compatibility, and given that it has not been listed in any errata (at least that I know of), I understand that it follows the non-stack rule between speed cathegories (mental and physical).

Sorry, could you possibly restate that in different language? I am not at all sure what you are trying to say there. I don't feel it is fair to respond unless I'm certain that I know what point you are making.

NewAgeOfPower wrote:

Again, a GM is free to rule however he wants, but I believe this to be the Standard Interpretation/what Posthuman Studios intended.

Rule: Thou shalt not do more than 4 actions per turn (physical, mental or any combination). Rules summary: Turn: it comprises 3 seconds, and 4 actions phases. You can act in as many Action Phases as Speed you have. Action Phase (Action Turns): brokes into Automatic, Quick (one, 3 if you only do these), Complex (one) and Task (takes several Action Turns). You cannot do Complex Actions if you are doing a Task Action. For reference issue, limitations on: Multiple Personalities (2nd ego "on board", you get +1 Complex Action each turn for Mental or Mesh actions only) Multi-tasking (+2 mental Complex Actions):

Quote:

This implant cannot be used simultaneously with any other augmentation that allows for extra actions, or with the mental speed augmentation (p. 308)

Mental Speed (+2 mental Complex Actions, +3 Initiative):

Quote:

This nanoware is incompatible with any other augmentation that provides any form of extra actions, such as multi-tasking

Neurachem: +1 or +2 Speed (+2 is more expensive and has "hangover" aftereffects) Reflex Booster: +10 ref, +1 Speed Drug: Kick (+10 ref, +1 Speed) Drug: MRDR (+10 Som, +10 Dur, +1 Speed) So, were us pure munchkins, we would take an absence of forbidding as allowing, and thus we could theoretically get: +3 Speed (Neurachem 2, Reflex Booster), +3 Complex Actions (Multi-Tasking or Mental Speed, Multiple Personalities); this would make a character with 4 Action Phases per turn with an extra 3 complex actions. For a ludicrous price Vs Neurachem 2 + Reflex Booster + 1 Ghostrider Module (the ego/fork inside the Ghostrider Module gets Speed 3). Differences: +3 Complex Actions gets nullified by a single Task Action, while the extra ego in the Ghostrider Module will not (and it costs much less). Conclude what you prefer ^^

Xagroth wrote:

So, were us pure munchkins, we would take an absence of forbidding as allowing, and thus we could theoretically get: +3 Speed (Neurachem 2, Reflex Booster), +3 Complex Actions (Multi-Tasking or Mental Speed, Multiple Personalities); this would make a character with 4 Action Phases per turn with an extra 3 complex actions. For a ludicrous price Vs Neurachem 2 + Reflex Booster + 1 Ghostrider Module (the ego/fork inside the Ghostrider Module gets Speed 3). Differences: +3 Complex Actions gets nullified by a single Task Action, while the extra ego in the Ghostrider Module will not (and it costs much less). Conclude what you prefer ^^

First, small nitpick, Multi-Tasking is BOTH Mental and Mesh Actions... Secondly, note that the Ghostrider Module houses one infomorph. I'd rule this as it not getting morph bonuses. Also, while the Ghostrider Module "may allow them direct access to their sensory information, thoughts, communications, and other implants" I'm rather uncertain that both egos in a given morph can gain advantage from a single set of implants AT THE SAME TIME. For example, I don't think that Reflex Boosters would benefit a Ghostriding Ego at all... It's rewiring the body and the brain, but the 'spare' ego resides within the module, not the brain... Same for Neurachem and most drugs. I can see one of the egos using, say, Multi-Tasking, as it houses a pair of extra forks of the ego, but again, it has capacity for EXACTLY 2 forks. Anyways, it would be nice to have a Final Canon Judgement™ the Posthuman Staff ^_^