Now remember how I had said that skills are what define your character the most? I was being serious. Your attributes can be highly variable, but your skills are going to be what you count on most. And remember the mantra - YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO LEVEL UP AGAIN. There are, generally speaking, 2 major schools of thought on point expenditures overall in EP. There are players who take full advantage of the gear list, front-load their reapers with all the SOTA hardware they can get their claws on, and leave the character with the barest of core competency. The opposing school of thought is the "nude skydiver" (I prefer Rapid Insertion or Guerrilla Warfare expert) - you spend absolutely nothing on your gear and instead opt to build up the ego as much as possible. There's an additional "Clanking Mass" school of thought which buys a morph that is as cheap as possible (Case or Flat) and burdens it with every Negative Morph Trait possible to the point where the body actually has a negative CP value so that when they inevitably die, they can get a body that isn't made of recycled materials (these are the players I force to keep the morph for every mission, so be forewarned). I tend to keep to the middle of the (first) two schools. You want to emphasize your ego as much as possible, but unless your GM is a git about constant egocasting, you will want to spend enough on gear to give your skills the best chance of success. A note to GMs, if you are planning on making the players egocast everywhere, tell them ahead of time so they can strip to the skins and put on parachutes. Now, as for actual skill values, here's the rubric I usually keep in mind: 40 is useful for background skills that you use infrequently. This is mostly for knowledge skills or things you know you can take extra time on (like Hardware). You can't use them when your butt is on the line, but they can still be useful to have. In the case of Knowledge skills, you can use these as complimentary on active skill tests. 60 is where you should aim for with your ancillary skills - the ones that are useful, but not *critical* to your character concept. Your core competencies should be in the neighborhood of 70-80. If you budget carefully, you can get 3-5 skills in that range, and routinely use them in the worst situations with some expectation of success. 90+ are, conversely, not incredibly useful unless you absolutely have to have it that high. I've had a lot of success with a hacker who had Infosec and Interfacing at 90 because then I could take negative penalties to get the job done considerably faster. With things like ranged combat or stealth, you either can't rush the job or don't want to, hence 90 is meh. Also important to note, buy skill specializations where you can. That's 5 points spent for 10-20 (even, rarely, 30) points of value. Seriously, players never seem to take advantage of them and it's the easiest way to push up the economy. My usual chargen rules: 1 - you are in a party, so talk to each other. You *should not* be making characters that do all the same things the same way. Yes, cross-training is useful, but jack of all trades is master of none. 2 - Networking is powerful. It is very, very powerful. You don't have to make a Jack of All Trades (see 1). Make your character competent. Broadly competent is ok, but focus on competent. You can call on others (in or out of your party) to cover your blind spots. Usually. But always make sure that when you are dumped naked in the middle of nowhere, you can reasonably expect to survive.

Trappedinwikipedia wrote:

IMO its generally better to boost complementary skills (once you know how much will be complementary from the GM) than go for skills above 60, it works out much cheaper.

I'm still leery of complimentary skills. It's very much like spending 20-40 points (I'm running under the assumption that you have an INT and COG of 20) on a specialization. When I run games, usually the active skill also covers any knowledge skill it encompasses - so, for example, Kinetic Weapons can cover the Physics necessary to make an accurate sniper shot (it is, after all, weaponized mathematics); Infosec could be used in place of Computer Science when looking into issues of data security - that's what it is; Kinesics could be used in place of Gambling in games of poker (or could even be a rare instance of an active skill being complimentary to a Knowledge one!). For the most part, I place an intrinsic value on not allowing my GM to tell me when some aspect of my character does not apply. He might say that my knowledge of Cryptography doesn't help me to crack a Fabber, but he'll never be able to say that my Demolitions skill can't keep a building from going boom even if I don't have the background in chemistry. I should also point out that you do have a slew of knowledge skill points to play with, so you *should* invest in complimentary background skills where you can - I'm just vehemently opposed to *relying* on them. Example: My character Frivolous Vector has an Infosec and Interfacing of 90. He also has 61 in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Cryptography. Why have I done this? because when those three background skills apply, I can tap them for a +30, take a -30 Rush penalty, hammer down the digital defenses, and crack open that reaper before it squishes a teammate 90% of the time. But at the same time, if my GM says that those KS's don't apply, I'm still working at 90 and even have the option of rushing the job *anyway*. So yes, stack those bonuses. That's (mechanically) what EP's all about. But at the same time, the GM is going to be stacking penalties against you well. FV might be rocking a 90 with +30 from skills, +10 Teamwork, and +30 programs, but he's also going to be fighting against sanity penalties, rushing, injury modifiers, active jamming, that suspiciously placed hydraulics leak...

jKaiser wrote:

I could see the 'prints costing less than the arbitrary Category+1, which I've never much liked, but you're still looking at a licencing fee of +50% or more, just to pull a simple example number out of the air. If one of my clients wants to buy the copyright for an image or image set I create, that's typically going to cost them that much or more, depending on the terms set in the contract. And I draw pretty pictures, not 3D-printable handguns.

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:

Remember: as long as you're not somewhere with censored mesh traffic, or if you can bypass the censored mesh traffic, you can download [b]all the cracked/open source blueprints you want[/b]. For free.

This is a big part of why I respect both of you, because as far as this conversation is concerned you guys are perfectly covering my blank spots, so thank you for that. Blueprints are one of those things that Requisition Officers are really useful for. If/when I run my games, I usually just say that the equipment the players buy is a blueprint with built in DRM - you can build a pistol, use it for a mission, feed it back into a fabber, and build another identical one after your egocast. The listed blueprint cost far as I'd care is DRM free unlimited manufacture ones. So you can either buy one armor jacket or functionally infinite ones. But again, it's always easier to get gear later (especially, as you point out, free gear).

As I said before, a character is defined by their skills before all else. Admittedly, you do need to buy traits & powers to be an async, but the async nature is a means to an end - one that is defined by your skills. As far as the major (most effective) archetypes you can work off of, the big ones are Combat Monsters, Faces, Hackers, Investigators, and Tech Specialists. In practice, most players will find a lot of utility in choosing a primary and a secondary archetype for their characters - A Combat Monster/Tech Specialist is different from a Combat Monster/Investigator, and either is far more useful than an exclusively combative character. Combat Monsters are, generally speaking, the simplest archetype. They are Boot+Butt. Combat Monsters will want a good REF & INT so their initiative is favorable. They will also want a decent WIL (doesn't have to be top, but they tend to see unpleasant things). Combat Monsters will want the skills to use all of their weapons (and/or drones) effectively at all times. An average character can get away with a skill of 60, you will want to invest higher (especially in melee skills). Melee combat is dangerous and difficult, but has the highest average damage with the right builds. At the same time, touching the oozing exhuman is usually patently unwise. As the saying goes, "anything that you can hit can hit you". Faces are the source of human interaction, income, and cover stories for the party. Everyone should have a decent Networking skill, but a good Requisition Officer will have 60+ in 3-4, and use that to get all of that narrow function custom gear you cut from your character sheet during chargen. Faces help the Investigators by bringing in Humint (Human Intel), and can be very useful in getting the more aggressive members out of lockup if things go south. Even better, in the case of something truly horrible, a good Face can even rally military or militia assets to your cause. Instead of admitting defeat, a Face can ask for help - because more than any other game, EP is unique for having a population of competent personnel. Play your cards right and you can use a Corp cleaner squad or a group of Guangxi smugglers to save you a boatload of time and effort. Hackers run defense for their party more often than not. They can protect the Combat Monster's cyberbrain so they don't stop splatting opponents, they can help the RO print out all the gear the party needs, they can vet the information Investigators track down. On the other side of the coin, in a technophilic society, Hackers can do a lot to change a battlefield. Cracking an airlock, tripping a bulkhead, or falsifying a work order can get the party into their operational area (or eject someone from it). Additionally, hackers can be very useful in subverting local resources. It's a lot easier to arrest a big hulking death machine when the Hacker cracks his cyberbrain and triggers the Puppet Sock. More than any other archetype (Asyncs being the second), hackers are the characters who can constantly hit the ground running. The lion's share of their gear is digital, and transmits with their ego. If there's a task that the hacker could accomplish fully kitted out, they can still do it naked in the TQZ. Investigators are the most varied of the archetypes. Your morph broker, scavenger, private eye, police officer, scientist... these are all forms of investigators. They are the party members who acquire, process, and prioritize any information the party gets. To some degree you will always need someone in the party capable of covering this role with Investigation and/or Scrounging, Kinesics, Perception, and Stealth. Psychosurgery, Research, Networking and some Psi skills & abilities can make the Investigator even more effective; meanwhile social skills can improve their sources of intel if they want to conduct the interview themselves. Tech Specialists are the characters who make sure that all of the gear that your party relies upon works and knows how to use it. While it's unwise to take it on as a primary archetype, a good Tech specialist (or a number of party members who cover all the skills) can make a huge difference. Medicine, Hardware, Pilot, and Demolitions are all useful skills to have when the party needs them. Techs can also draw on skills from other archetypes - like Scrounging from Investigators, or Interfacing/Programming from hackers - to draw out better gear, parts to repair it, and modifications to make sure The Incident never happens again. Also, no matter what you do (even if you ignore everything else I've said), ALWAYS invest in Stealth, Perception, and Fray. Because that will get you out of trouble more than anything else. If you see them before they see you, you're already that much better off. Additionally, it is usually useful to invest in Freerunning, Freefall, or Flight - they can be used to default to each other, and let you get out of trouble faster.

Fair points all around. This actually answers a few questions I had about existing rules - dare I say, your interpretation is how the game is supposed to be run, just not how it usually is. In any case, thanks for the back & forth.

The one that gets me is there are 3 athletics skills - free running, free fall, and flight. Flight & free fall are the same thing - FF even covers parachuting and skydiving! Related note Scrounge, Investigate, Perception. My usual interpretation is that related skills are used to default to each other. A Kinetics marksman can use a particle beam bolter at a penalty, but they still know which end to hold. So yes, I agree wholeheartedly that there should be fewer skills. The only reason I feel the need to optimize this much is because it's impossible (to me) to cover *all the skills in the books*. Also not impressed with asyncs for the most part. The Eye has a good writeup for Mass Effect style biotics which made them more effective but also prohibitively expensive.

"Armies equip themselves to fight the enemy they expect to face". Your character should do the same, but that means dedicating not only credits, but skill points to the task. With 7 weapon skills, it can be a little daunting for early players. So here's the breakdown: Kinetic Weapons - Kinetic Weapons are very definitely the jack of all trades weapons in EP. They have among the highest ranges, respectable magazine sizes, high damage, good rate of fire, and tend to have higher base DV than AP. In DV vs AP, it's easiest to consider AP an extra little bit of "sometimes damage" where it's basically extra damage that is only applied against targets who are wearing armor. If you are using a tank cannon on a rat, it will still splat the rat, but it is more efficient to use your pistol on the rat and save the cannon for the TITAN death machine. The biggest advantages that KW's have over others is they are omnipresent, cheaper, and highly customizeable. With access to nanotech, a lower-skilled character can easily trick out their SMG with an extended smart mag so they can alternate between Homing-Reactive-Armor-Piercing rounds for synthmorph targets and AccuShot-Regular ammo for those long distance soft targets without even switching the magazine. If any character has to invest in only one weapon skill, KW's are the most consistent weapons no matter what. Beam Weapons - Beam weapons tend to have a wider variety in response, higher base accuracy, but lower overall damage than the other classes. The biggest advantage they have is their high base magazine size. They also have the most long-range nonlethal weapons compared to their main competitor - Spray Weapons. Spray Weapons - Spray Weapons are extremely effective short-range weapons. Freezers, Flamers, and Sprayers can easily be used to set choke points and (for two of them) make effective nonlethal combat options. Shard Pistols & Shredders are excellent painting accessories, and have top-tier Armor Penetration. Shredders have the added benefit of being favorably comparable to SMGs, with a magazine size of "hilarious". If your character has access or the means to make chemicals and narcoalgorithms, you can tip your diamond shrapnel or freeze foam in BTX for extra damage, status effects, or other diabolical ends. Seekers - Seekers are expensive to maintain, but they hold the title for longest range, highest damage, and boast the best Area of Effect damage anywhere. Their major disadvantage is a technological vulnerability. If any weapon can be subverted or abused, it's Seekers. At the same time, the Seeker Rifle is just a rip-roaring, hull-punching good time. With a wide variety of specialized loads, any combat specialist can very easily tailor their loadout to most any situation. === Melee! In matters of melee vs ranged, Melee deals even more damage per hit with some exceptional synergy between implants and weapons. The tradeoff is that enemies can use Fray against every attack, and anything you can hit can also hit you. Thusly, no matter how awesome you are, perhaps don't get into fisticuffs with an infested Fenrir (or t-rex). Blades - As melee weapons go, Blades have the advantage of consistent damage. If you have a sword, chances are you will be dealing around the same damage in a Neotenic as a Ruster, with variances based on your SOM. There are very few modifications that can be made to Blades, but they are economical, omnipresent, and pretty easy to conceal or craft. When you are trapped naked in an abandoned (hostile) station, you can make a shiv and are then that much better off. Clubs - much like Blades' less cool younger brother, clubs are consistent and cheap. That said, though, clubs deal consistently less damage, have no AP value, and are generally less cool than your space katana. So while being able to turn any piece of rebar into a beat stick is handy, they don't really stand up to scrutiny in a fair fight. Unarmed - Unarmed is the best competitor to Blades for sheer damage. If you stack up the mods, Unarmed deals more damage than Blades hands down. However, if you are trapped in an unfamiliar morph with none of your usual gear, it can be a nightmare. A synthmorph with Hydraulic Limbs, Cyberclaws, Eelware, Poison Glands and Implanted Nanotoxins while wearing a Combat Exo and filling their other three hands with any sort of weapon can deal patently ludicrous damage while simply disabling some opponents in a single hit. At the same time, if your GM decides to mess with you, you could go to suddenly dealing all of 1d10+2 AP 0 damage. when all else fails, grenades make excellent party favors, improvised land mines, early warning systems, and all manner of fun pastimes. Ambidexterity is one of the more interesting traits for players who like to crunch numbers. Effectively, you have rank 1 of Ambi free (this is your main hand), and every weapon adds another attack test with a cumulative -20 (ambidexterity) penalty per extra weapon. Each rank of Ambidexterity, therefore, adds another weapon your character can conceivably use (given enough hands). For argument's sake, let's say that one person is dual wielding heavy pistols, and the other is using a single rifle. That is AP-4 DV2d10+4 for each pistol (meaning up to AP-4 DV4d10+8 with 2 pistols) vs an AR's AP-6 DV2d10+6. If that seems clear cut, remember that range is also important - the pistols cap out at 80m and took an extra 10CP to be able to wield effectively. Meanwhile the AR is accurate out to 900m. Additionally, you have to make separate attack tests against the same target for each ranged weapon. So consider carefully whether you want to have high burst damage in close range, or would rather pay a fraction of the price in favor of having the advantage in range. As far as I'm concerned, range is it's own reward, but then again you can have some morphs dual wield Light Machine Guns! In melee, ambidexterity is (mostly) unnecessary. Even without ambidex, characters dual/polywielding gain +1d10 (max +3d10) damage per weapon added to the primary, and can use all of them as a function of a single attack (for that modified damage). They also gain +10 per additional weapon (max +30) to Fray tests against melee attacks. The only time that Ambidexterity comes into play in melee is when your character attacks multiple targets in the same turn, in which case they lose all of the bonus damage and Fray.

CodeBreaker wrote:

I might actually go over everything I did for the Eye, cringe away at it all, and then rewrite it. That would actually be a fun little exercise.

If you need a second set of eyes, it would be my pleasure to assist.

Epsilon Rose wrote:

Also, does the gear/morph economy change if you're planning to go with an info-morph or are looking at a bunch of software? Edit: Also, on a tangentally related note, any tips for playing info-morphs or cyber-brain characters? One of the books made it sound really dangerous once you factor in the exsurgent virus, to the point of it sounding like an always bad idea.

Fortunately, you played straight into one of the topics I wanted to talk about. Morph selection is quite important - while you can (relatively) easily get a replacement body, you are still never quite in the position to make the perfect body as when you're in chargen. The first thing you should always look into is what your GM is interested in running. If you're gatecrashing, you're going to kit up very differently from a Jovian espionage campaign, a run & gun Direct Action campaign, or an egocasting "problem solver" scooby doo crew. So it's important to talk to your GM about what gear and morph you're thinking of getting so that they can vet it before you blow a pile of credits on something you have to leave in a closet. So, the way the game plays out, there are 4 major morph options - Organic, Pod, Synth, and Infomorph/Swarmanoid. Organic morphs are among the most frail, but most socially acceptable morphs. For a socialite, there's not much better than getting a biomorph (unless you want to spring for a Galatea or Steel synth). The Remade is one of the best, most cost-effective morphs in the book and one of the only morphs that can make full use of an attribute of 40. They are immune to cyberbrain hacks, and are also immune to a number of synthetic-only exsurgent virii. Asyncs pretty much require a biomorph if you're going stock. The tradeoff is pretty steep, though. First of all, biomorphs are vulnerable to electric shock, chemicals, biowarfare attacks, and organic exsurgent attacks. They exist, and they can be some of the nastiest of the bunch. You also have to breathe, eat, defecate, and all those other fun things. So while a Fury is a good combat morph, a Synth can take so much more punishment and can get spaced with little to no problems (location aside) while completely nude. If you are playing a biomorph, invest in a good pressure suit - the hardsuit is actually some of the best armor in the game. Pods are pretty much the least useful morphs in a straight-up fight. They combine the organic needs of a biomorph with the brainhacking vulnerability of a synth. Tack on the puppet sock and you're basically just waving a flag saying "eat me!" Of course, there is always a flip side to the coin. Pods are the most anonymous of the morph types. Pods are the invisible, like children, beggars and servants - because that's what they are. They occupy that nebulous middle ground between the clanking masses and the organic elite. If you want to blend into the background and the crowd, a pod can be a useful infiltration tool. They also tend to be a little cheaper. That said, if you want to use a pod make sure that you have the mods, gear, and skill to back it up. Synths are my personal favorite. They pack a punch (extra melee damage), they are highly durable (with some of the best implant armor in the game), and have access to some of the best implants - robotics. One of the least used advantages that Synths have is their ability to implant more mobility systems. My Galatea has a built in rocket pack because you never know when it will be useful. They are vulnerable to cyberbrain hacks, true, but you can compensate for that by investing in Infosec and a good firewall (your Muse can also run infosec for you, but I like being hands on). Their biggest advantage is their lack of organic frailties - they are by default vacuum sealed, and can survive in extreme conditions without the Environmental Adaptation mod. While the rest of your party has to use Alvin to hit the bottom of Europa, you can buy one mod and sit on top of the sub! One of the trickiest things you can now pull is getting the organic Brain Case mod. This not only makes you immune to brainhacking, but makes you immune to exsurgent attacks that target the brain, and means that you can play a perfectly comfortable Async in a near indestructible body. There are other drawbacks and restrictions that Synths face (and they can be slightly more expensive), but synths are my go-to morphs for combative characters and hackers. I lump Swarmanoids and Infomorphs into the same category because they face the same in-game issues. You can never quite appreciate how useful arms are until you don't have them. So with the understanding of my above stated "participation=fun", you can see where it can get a little dubious. After all, it's frustrating to get all the way to the end of a mission only to be defeated by a mason jar. So make sure that, if you do decide to go with either of these, you have the skills necessary to participate in combat and some means of opening doors. My go-to method is drones - if you have a drone pilot with 3-6 Guardian Angels, you might just outperform the combat specialist for a fraction of the price. The added advantage being, you can put a cyberbrain into a drone and host yourself in your own gear. The biggest advantage to playing an Infomorph is the improved Speed. By default you get a speed that costs instanced characters 30-40CP to get, at the cost of not having attribute bonuses. So if you go Infomorph, spring for an Eidolon - it's a data morph. If you are a hacker, then also spring for any programs that can be useful - I tend to go with the full array of passive programs, and then only take Spasm as my attack prog. The advantage here is that you can really gut the gear list in favor of your ego. If you only purchase an eidolon and programs, there is little to nothing that can take them away from you. I should also note that running forks of yourself in simulation is a very useful little trick. Vector regularly made use of 3 forks so that he could teamwork hack. Catarina & Katja are Async forks who use the Multiple Personalities mod to alternate who takes sanity damage (and for a little company when she's spending a few months riding a comet). You can do some very clever stuff if you're careful. ==== Now for the in-depth examination. Usually when I choose a morph, I am aiming for most bang for buck. With every morph, the most important parts are their Aptitude Maximum, bonus attribute points, cost, and mods in that order. If you can, find a morph that gives you an attribute bonus that you can use to benefit your primary skills (failing that, boost your secondary skills or cover a weakness). Remember that Somatics is the *easiest* attribute to boost, so a lot of the morphs that give +SOM are only going to save you ~10CP while not giving you a bonus elsewhere. As far as cost and off-the-rack mods are concerned, any morph that uses High or Expensive mods that you must have can reduce their effective cost by the value of the mod. So for example, the Reaper has a slew of mods, but most of them are in the Low/Moderate range. The Reflex booster (Expensive), though, can drop the cost from 100CP to 80 if Speed is important to your character concept. Generally speaking, though, I tailor my morph choices to whatever I expect my character to be doing. If I think there's a very high chance of egocasting, I'll either grab an Eidolon, or keep my morph choices on the low end of the scale. A Kyte (30CP) is a very effective morph, even if its attribute max is low - FV compensated by nabbing a ghostrider and running a fork. If you expect to die a lot, then having a low-cost morph can be an acceptable middle ground - you tend to get a decent morph that will probably survive, but if you don't it doesn't break the bank. For characters that you expect to keep their bodies, go a little higher - I usually stick around 60-65 because that's about where the cost/benefit starts to fall off. Ghosts are more efficient to upgrade into Furies (in some ways) than just buying an off-the-rack Fury. One thing to keep in mind: Every morph mod that you can't make use of is not itself an advantage for the morph. If you can get the same attribute performance out of a cheaper morph, it's probably smarter to just buy the cheaper one and upgrade than to overreach your means and have useless add-ons. The extra benefit to this is that a low-tier morph can be a surprise against anyone who has the resources to identify them - nobody expects a Splicer to fight like a Fury. As far as infomorph economy, there's a lot to praise in going full data. In the long run, you are basically only paying for your eidolon and programs, which means you don't need all the mods and gear that instanced players get. It's very much like buying a cheap morph and nothing else - you can instead invest the CP elsewhere in your character. Even if you end up buying a small fleet of Guardian Angels, you are still not going to have to deal with the in-depth customization and high-end mods that a more focused character will need. So by the numbers, an infomorph is drastically more efficient - you lose almost nothing in an egocast, and will have a leg up on the rest of the party if everyone dies. That said, it can get a little boring if you don't have a workaround.

jKaiser wrote:

Out of curiosity, where does the Guard morph fit in to your estimation? It seems at first glance to be the best of both biomorph and synthmorph worlds, like potential, if expensive, workhorse, but I've not yet had much of a chance to employ them.

When it comes down to comparing synths, usually I use the Lunar Steel (Sunward p163) morph as a high-end baseline. For those of you playing along at home, the Guard morph is in Transhuman p192. So for the full breakdown, the Steel is cheaper by 10 CP (and half price in cred). The Guard has better armor off-the-shelf, but the Steel has it beat in attributes (though SOM is still the easiest to upgrade, it's hard to beat +05 to 3 stats). As for augments, the Guard has the benefit of Neurachem; the rest of those augments are rather low-cost, but it certainly is convenient not having to buy them individually. Finally, they are equal in DUR, and share the same attribute maxima. My final verdict: off the shelf it's not a bad morph. If you are looking at equipping a number of people without having to write down all their gear (say, NPC mooks) it does simplify things. If you want to compare the deluxe models, compare it to the Liquid Steel morph (both examples are on the next page of the above). I don't mean to damn with faint praise, it's a good morph and a pretty solid choice. Note: the hand laser is EP's answer to the holdout pistol. It's not terribly useful, and I'd probably just end up using the thing as a spot welder.

Trappedinwikipedia wrote:

With Flexbots getting a section all to themselves in Transhuman they're practically a morph class of their own.

For those of you playing along, the relevant entries are in the core rulebook on p144, and in Transhuman starting on p200. As you mention, the biggest drawbacks on Flexbots are the cost and rules. It's a fantastic class of morph (and I feel bad for forgetting them), but they can very quickly become prohibitively expensive and complex in a game where you aren't always going to be in the same body forever. I would argue that while flexbots can change a lot about themselves, if you have access to the same resources you'd need to buy a number of flexbots, you'd be able to mimic most of them by robotic implants in a cheaper morph (like a Steel) or by simply going for a smaller one (like a Kite). As to nanoscopic vision and fractal digits, those aren't insanely costly augmentations on their own, and they aren't *routinely* useful. I totally agree with you on their potential as infiltration morphs. However, it's not impossible to just sleeve into a similar morph (spider, case, etc) or to install a cyberbrain or ghostrider in the correct model and use that instead. Their real advantage is the Apiary, as they can bridge the gap between a swarm morph and a (for lack of a better word) functional one. I don't mean to sound overly negative, but in the simplest terms they are not economical simply because each unit is priced like a morph instead of the incomplete components *of* a morph. I haven't run the numbers to see if a Flexbot makes a good morph on its own merits, which may be the case, but again - simplest terms says that the flexbot is not a good choice for starting characters, and especially not for starting players. So with all of that said, here's where Flexbots are at their most useful - in times where durability and high flexibility are critical. Titanbusting, Gatecrashing, and "hostile hab reclamation". Their flexibility makes using terrain and tight accessways very easy and tactically sound. Generally speaking, on these missions you have the funding to back up all of these purchases, which means you should have access to at least 3 flexbot modules. Once you have multiple modules you can also start setting up a moment-to-moment backup of your ego in case the worst should happen. The Firewall book places a lot of emphasis on getting intel to extraction even in the case of a TPK (Total Party Kill). Having a Flexbot along means that you can disengage one bot, hide it somewhere, and then come back every so often to keep it updated. The biggest advantage there is the bot is fully equipped and not as helpless as a Spare (or a lone cortical stack). You're also going to be one of the tougher morphs, and are not going to take on quite as many questions as a Reaper. As you start taking damage, you can also slough off solitary components to run at near-full capacity - a trick that no other morph can pull off. So if you do use flexbots, be careful not to buy into the goofy ones that are only special because of off-the-shelf augments. If there's a price difference because of (for example) Mental Speed Implants, just buy a standard version and the mod you need.

Epsilon Rose wrote:

You grouped swarmnoids in the same category as infomorphs, because they have a hard time interacting with things, but what about smart swarms?

Transhuman p198 Amusingly, you found one of the notes that I helped behind the scenes. My older brother is a regular contributor, and we got into lengthy debates about how to make Swarmanoids better than they were in the core rulebook. Smart Swarm does mean that you aren't defeated by the mason jar, but you still have some issues participating in certain tasks (like combat). So I would still recommend that the swarmanoid be used exclusively by hackers or drone jockeys, because there isn't a good way for other archetypes to participate in one of the most time-consuming activities of gameplay. But, by your response, I realize I gave the swarm a bad rep unduly. Swarmanoids are the ultimate infiltration bot. It's one thing to disguise yourself as a dock worker in a Flexbot, it's another thing entirely to hide inside of an electrical outlet. The biggest advantage swarms have over conventional morphs is their damage resistance (they are both harder to hit and harder to damage), their low profile (as above, they are so small sneaking is considerably easier), and their natural panopticon. I subscribe to the "queen bees" morphology in which multiple redundant cortical stack drones share control over the swarm as a whole - you can tap into this disseminated consciousness to physically spread your morph - and now it can pull tricks no other morph can manage. I've used them to create custom transmission lines across a split party, you can set up microdrone early warning systems, and can get into just about anywhere. So this is actually an amazingly efficient morph, you just have to guarantee that you can interact fully with the world around you. My bottom line is that I don't want players to be bored. The downside of swarm morphs is their difficulty in interaction, and the ease of forknapping. Physically, all someone has to do to get a (variably complete) fork is to cause sufficient damage to your swarm such that individial drones are damaged. They can then come back, comb through the area, and pick up the pieces to recreate your damaged ego. From the perspective of opsec, your morph is extremely high-risk high-reward. On the one hand, your best missions are the ones you never have to fire a shot, but on the other hand the last thing we need is for Ozma to get a copy of you.

Fray is one of the most useful and easily forgotten skills listed in the book. In all combat, every time a character is attacked they can roll Fray (or 1/2 their Fray in ranged combat) in an opposed test versus the attacker. This is part of the reason why melee combat is less efficient than ranged - it deals higher damage but it is also harder to land a hit. This defense is a free action, and in half of the outcomes (for *each* attack) the character takes no damage from an attack. With a decent investment in skill, proper use of cover, concealment, and camouflage you can take considerably less damage than you otherwise would. How to maximize your outcomes: Take a specialization (I like Ranged, which only gives an effective +05 but it helps), take advantage of REF boosts, cover, multiweapon fighting (each weapon after the first adds +10 Fray in melee), and use your Speed stat - you can spend a complex action to gain a +30 on this test for the entire turn. This is also why smaller morphs are a solid tactical choice - they are harder to hit, which by extension gives you a better chance to dodge and thereby take less damage than the Reaper. Networking is the single most powerful skill in the game, bar none. It is literally your "get paid" skill, but more than that it is also your "rent that submarine", "buy that mod for (a given definition of) free", Favors Paid, Palms Greased. A socialite and a Requisitions Specialist can get anything, anywhere, any time with enough rep and patience. Since a lot of missions pay you back in +Rep instead of cold hard creds, you want Networking to take advantage of this. The funny thing is, "cold hard cred" only counts for one purchase - +Rep can help with *dozens*. How to use it: Firstly, invest wisely (heavily, early, and often) in the rep networks you use. Every 20 points of Rep you have sets your baseline favors one category (of five) higher. For each category below your max, you gain a +10 on Networking tests. Secondly, when making a Requisitions Officer (AKA anyone who can pull from several rep networks), consider the Social Butterfly trait (Panopticon p145)- 15 CP for 20 (or 30) CP savings on every rep network above 60! The Tenure trait (Transhuman p86, 10 CP) gives the character an effective +30 to all Networking tests through your linked university, at the low low price of needing a background knowledge skill to pontificate on. Always remember to specialize when you can. Like Social Butterfly, that's 5 CP for 10-30 CP payout. My RO (C&K) is a smuggler by trade, so almost all of her specializations are smugglers too - this means she has access to black/red market guns, ammo, mods, etc pretty much anywhere, and can use legal channels for the cheaper stuff. Otherwise be willing to drop extra cash (+10), take extra time, and have a background knowledge skill (like Social Engineering) to call on. Networking is insanely powerful, and you can easily get the full +60 bonus constantly if you know what you are doing. Catarina & Katja have 60 Networking (R) (specialization TAU), 61 Academics: Social Engineering (that's their doctorate ^_^), the Social Butterfly and Tenure traits, and an R-Rep of 80. Working through TAU, they can request a level 5 favor from TAU with an effective skill level of (60+10s+30se+10sb+20t) 130 and treating the favor as one level lower (so it refreshes faster). In comparison, they have 60 Networking (@) (specialization smugglers), 61 Academics: Social Engineering, Social Butterfly, and an @-rep of 80. She only has access to @-rep favors of level 4 or lower, but she can still poke her underworld buddies for (60+10s+30se+10) 110 at level 4 favors (this actually means that she has access to level 5 favors and still has room for other penalties). Compared to someone with two Networking skills at 80 with specializations (absolute value of 210 CP), she spent 145 and is considerably more effective. Also note: a lot of morphs run one type or another of penalties to your SAV or your social skills. If you are sleeved in those morphs, spin off a fork in a ghostrider and have *them* run the wheel and deal. The biggest advantage of phone calls is they can't see your face!

My biggest beef with them is that they've consistently been written by someone with only the most passing understanding of psychology (Biotics rules included, sorry bud). Someone with the Lost background and Psi-II has 3 mental disorders - if you actually tried to find that in present-day humanity, these are the people who can barely dress themselves. Comorbidity is no fun.