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Rules for Hired Help

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Orphyn Orphyn's picture
Rules for Hired Help
Hello. I'm still fairly new to Eclipse Phase. I've had the PDF for a while and have done some reading throughout the book and I'm finally getting ready to run in a campaign. I must apologize if this has already been brought up, but are there any rules for hired help? I know there are tables for getting assistance (even longer term, up to a year) through reputation, but how would you handle finding a hired gun who would be on par with other sentinels, and their stats? One of the sheets I'm finishing up is for a Hyperelite Investor/Banker (Hypercorp faction) and I wanted to make his primary weapon to be in his assets (resources in credits, reputation, networking, media, hired guns, hired hackers, etc) rather than DIY since he has no active weapons skills. Would this even make for a usable character in a typical firewall campaign?
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
In my EP campaign, this
In my EP campaign, this concept would have about as much juice as someone wanting to play a Mindflayer in Pathfinder, but to each their own...
J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
Erenthia Erenthia's picture
It depends on your focus. As
It depends on your focus. As it is, I would say that idea probably wouldn't work for a Firewall Sentinel (though with a relatively small number of changes it could). If you want to keep it exactly as is, it's going to need a different kind of campaign. On the flip side, there's no reason you can't create a character who's less about shooting/hacking and more about credits/rep/social-skills/deceptions/etc as a part of group of Firewall Sentinels. If you'll allow me to harken back to the 80s, you'd be playing "Face" from the A-team. (This is largely assuming it's not a duet and you have other PCs available to take on those roles). If you stick with the Hyperelite banker concept, you'll want to make him an expect social engineer (high deception, high kinesics, high persuasion, etc). You'll also want a fake identity. A lot of players forget that they're operating under a panopticon 99.9% of the time and Firewall agents have to make a lot of hard choices. Fortunately fake identities are fairly easy (make sure you get yourself some g-rep). Maxing out the total number of CP available to spend on Rep is usually difficult (at least for me, I rarely want more than one level five reputation) but I think this character concept will probably do that. You just buy a fake ID and then purchases two sets of Rep scores, one for each identity (IIRC). As a Firewall agent your likely to come across some [i]really[/i] valuable information - or across hypercorps doing things they shouldn't. If you discover Cognite is dabbling into X-threat territory and decide to release a virus into their meshnet causing millions of credits in damages don't forget to short-sell their stock! (though be careful about doing that too often and swap between your identities when you do). You'll also probably end up being the person who supplies the group since you can probably afford the blueprints for a Cornucopia Machine (along with tons of other gear). Depending on how much time you have available you'll be able to resupply the team with most of their usual gear on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere. As I said before, don't neglect g-rep. You're a banker so criminal connections just make sense, right? ;-) Seriously though, if you can't hack and you can't fight you're going to have to double down on being able to get things done. You're (probably) not going to have a personal body guard for Firewall missions since that would expand the circle of trust a bit too much, but that doesn't mean you can't hire certain people for certain jobs on occasion. That can be done with normal g-rep favors. One other thing to consider is that you actually have a LOT of character points to throw around. Creating a secondary area of focus isn't actually that expensive. You could, for instance, just pump Interfacing to 60 (or more), buy the Mental Speed upgrade, and operate drones for protection. I myself am working on a Hyperelite Executive who's (possibly secretly) an Ultimate. He's focuses largely on melee combat (and denying his opponents the ability to use ranged weapons) but he has a full AGI as a muse (Transhuman is almost out and it has the Minion/Partner trait which is perfect for this). His AGI muse is a consummate hacker and has a habit of turning people's eyes off while my character kicks them in the face. Long story short, try making the character and see how many CP you [i]actually[/i] need to fulfill your concept. Chances are you'll have a lot left over, and you can pick up secondary and tertiary areas of focus. Have fun.
The end really is coming. What comes after that is anyone's guess.
Thampsan Thampsan's picture
Sure it would work, as long
Sure it would work, as long as the majority of the rest of the party aren't combat-wombats. In which case the GM would likely spend a lot of time actually action-adventure stuff. Personally I don't like Firewall as a default setting, so I run my games with the theme 'people vs. existence'. The characters my players have made are quite varied; * Uplifted spambot now Medean Argonaut Hacker AGI. * Uplifted Mecurial Raven who shuns meat bodies in favour of Raven-headed anthropomorphic Synth bodies. * Ultimate Reinstantiated who rails against the fascist ploys of his faction. * Scum glitterati who makes Horror/Thriller (Hrilla) experia of his suicidal vehicular exploits. * Ultimate psychosurgeon who aims for posthumanity and neurolinguistic perfection. * Drifter smuggler and investigator type. * ^ and his 'plucky engine girl' actually a Scumborn Criminal in a Hyperbright who is running a con on all of them. You don't need Firewall to have fun, if your players have enough direction and a willingness to stir up trouble then the adventure writes itself. At least it has for me, my campaign has been running for 3 years now.
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
I think the proposed
I think the proposed character is the Perfect firewall operative in a realistically portrayed firewall campaign. If your GM is more hacknslash and doesn't do politics well, then either; you're screwed or you'll be the most powerful character in the game. Load up on "Face" skills. Kinesics, Deception, Impersonation, Disguise, Protocol, Persuasion, Networking:Hypercorp and Autonomist. (the social engineer is the most point hungry character you can make.) If you really want to turn it to Eleven then be an Async and buy all the social manipulation slights and skills. No one will be able to resist your charm, no one will know who you really are, you'll be able to pressure anyone into doing anything you want. If I was your GM you'd probably end up running the firewall team.

Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
We have almost exactly that
We have almost exactly that character in our main campaign, and it works pretty well as long as everybody understands what their roles are. Hired help: I did some houserules at http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Transhuman%20capital.pdf for labor economics, hiring and employment that might be useful.
Extropian
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
Orphyn wrote:One of the
Orphyn wrote:
One of the sheets I'm finishing up is for a Hyperelite Investor/Banker (Hypercorp faction) and I wanted to make his primary weapon to be in his assets (resources in credits, reputation, networking, media, hired guns, hired hackers, etc) rather than DIY since he has no active weapons skills. Would this even make for a usable character in a typical firewall campaign?
There was a similar PC in my EP campaign - an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man]economic hitman[/url], specifically. The character in question was skilled in stock and reputation market manipulation to help or hinder hypercorps, politicians, and individuals, and was also a Sentinel for Firewall, so his skills were used to not only identify potential X-risks but to neutralize them without placing habitats at risk. In other words, ruining someone is a more subtle way of taking them out than assassinating their current instantiation and wrecking their backups. The PC in question was also, it must be admitted, a highly skilled (railgun) sniper (which made a good character party hook).