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Morph change rules complexity

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mman mman's picture
Morph change rules complexity
Hi there, I found EP some months ago and have been gulping down the books like a maniac. I really love the setting and the whole atmosphere. So thanks to the devs and all the contributors for this! =) I'm about to start my first campaigns in near future, but I'm a bit worried about the rules complexity, especially when it comes to changing morphs. I get the picture from the books that changing morphs is, if not weekly, at least quite common thing for Firewall agents as they often have to travel (egocast) to where ever they need to be. Also in the books GM's are urged not to be afraid to "kill" player characters' morphs. But when I look at the rules and the character sheet, I get the feeling that changing morph is a huge game breaker as you have to recalculate all the skills and aptitudes, check new traits and implants and what not. It seems you could easily spend a half an hour or more just updating you character sheet and recalculating all the derived values. And when you come back from the mission you were egocast to, it's the reverse all over again. To add to this, I'm planning to have four players in my group, but only one core rule book. So it really makes things even more complicated as usually only one player is able to consult the book at a time... As said, I have only read the rules, not tried them, so any thoughs, experiences and tips on this issue would be much appreciated :)
DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture
Are you referring to this
Are you referring to this character sheet? http://eclipsephase.com/downloads/eclipsephase_charactersheet.pdf It kinda annoyed me at first, but I figured it would be simpler to do something like list both aptitude and skill ranks (separately) under the "base" column. I figured it would speed up recalculating your skill total. It might look like something like this: Base: Morph Bonus: Total: 60 (40) 10 70 In this instance, the skill had 40 ranks, 60 when you add the ego aptitude, 70 when you add in the morph bonuses. Edit: It seems that these forums won't let me handle indenting properly. The "60 (40)" bit were supposed be under the same column. The "10" and "70" were supposed to be under different columns.
DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture
Another thing worth
Another thing worth considering using a fan made character sheet in excel format. https://sites.google.com/site/eclipsephases/home/cabinet/Eclipse%20Phase... You should be able to find that you can fill it out with details, and switch morphs quite easily. It has drop down lists for a lot of things. When you switch morphs with different aptitude bonuses, it can recalculate all of your stats for you. Likewise, you can have 3 morphs filled out with gear, and other stuff. You know what, just go download it and take a look. I'm not going to be able to do justice trying to explain it.
NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture
One way that I house-rule
One way that I house-rule that simplifies calculations (so a spreadsheet is no longer required but is still helpful) is that I treat gear/morph and aptitude bonuses the same and double the skill cost after 40 points have been spent on it, regardless of the aptitude rating. So old system a 15 aptitude plus 55 skill points plus 15 morph/gear nets an 80 total (add aptitude and CP spent on skill, halve any total over 60, add in gear plus morph), in my house rule it would be 77.5. For one I didn't like how the gear and morph bonuses were actually more important than the aptitudes, and two, this is much easier to recalculate on a piece of paper during a game. It doesn't require you bring a computer with your spreadsheet software to the game.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto