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- The skill simplification (Folding COO into REF, folding the plethora of ranged weapon skills into ‘Guns’, eliminating ‘Networking’ and making rolls against straight rep) are all great. “Piloting” could use a similar roll-up. Knowledge skills haven’t been seen yet, but I have high hopes.
- The Pool system is promising but has some odd edges that need to be filed off. Consider tying the Flex pool to the ego; since the other three (attribute linked) pools are morph-based and make sense thematically as body enhancements, sourcing the the Flex pool’s narrative control elsewhere feels appropriate.
- Clearer action economy during combat is excellent; gear design should be explicit about auto/quick/complex/task distinctions folding into the combat value of equipment.
- Movement is improved but still has some hiccups. Consider making walk automatic, making full-speed running a quick action, and eliminating ‘rushing’, to clarify the pros and cons.
Aptitude/Skill/Pool system This is the biggie, really. Six attributes mapped to physical, mental, and social skills makes sense, and divorced from any historical inertia just feels good. The loss of COO isn’t much of a price to pay if the simplified skill list can be balanced out a bit more — WIL was always a weak link for players who weren’t rolling async. Using different skill pools for different kinds of “stretches” — pushing a character beyond what they’re normally able to do in a given situation — feels very solid. I don’t really share the concerns others have expressed about the in-game flavor implications of moving away from hard stat bonuses; in-game, no one was should’ve been talking about a morph’s “+5 to COO” anyways, just “enhanced cognition” or “neural boosts” or what not. Eliminating SPD is probably the biggest and most (potentially) controversial byproduct of the pool system, but has the most potential to make EP’s combat rewarding for… less-optimized players. Since the Vigor pool allows a player to slap extra actions onto the end of a turn, it’s functionally a lot like pre-Transhuman SPD rules. Except of course that it’s optional and paid for in points each time it happens, rather than automatic on every turn. That raises the question of how deep you’re anticipating the average/max Vigor pool to be. If it’s tool shallow, SPD-like combat tricks are basically dead. If it’s too deep, everyone is basically a SPD demon if they decide to spend their points right. If there’s high variation, the way I hope, I think it’ll feel juuuuuust right. I’m hoping that traits and gear will also help fill some of the gap; implants that use a quick action to refill a player’s Vigor pool in combat, drugs that refresh 1 pool point per turn at the cost of emptying the pool after combat, etc are all options that make a lot of sense using the system. The one concern — and this has been brought up by others on the board — is the fact that “Flex,” the catch-all and narrative-control pool, will ALSO be tied to morphs/shells. If there’s any candidate for a pool being attached to ego instead of shell, this is the one. Outstanding Questions:- Current version says that the “Insight” points can be used to “Avoid making an Infection Test when using a psi sleight (asyncs only).” Historically Psi stuff was WIL-linked, but the Insight pool is COG/INT. Inconsistency? Indication of a change in Psi powers?
- Related to the same line, I’m intrigued by the idea of a specific, explicit “Infection test.” Previously the mechanics for infection were pretty scattershot, even split over three or four sections of the core book depending on the vector. Making it standardized would be pretty sweet.
- If morphs are the primary source of pool points, how common are you anticipating gear/trait/sleight based enhancements to the pools? Traits that allow points to be used for additional purposes? Etc?
- Will creatures, robot shells, and vehicles have these pools as well? Without at least Vigor, it sounds like there will be no way to achieve the equivalent of a dangerous, high-speed kill critter.
Action Economy Praise be, the elimination of “any number of quick actions” is here! A clear, unambiguous breakdown of what can be done in a given turn will make a lot of combat sessions easier for players to engage with, IMO. If gear and skills are also explicit about what action types they require, it’ll help a lot. Putting more weight the individual case (Skill X, Weapon Y) to specify the action type will be more straightforward than trying to comprehensively list “kinds of complex actions” IME. “Taking time” is a little ambiguous in that it refers to tests and actions, but realistically, should only apply to task actions. (Unless the intent is to allow players to turn what would otherwise be a complex action into a task action outside of combat-time?) If the former, changing “You may take extra time to complete a test…” to “You may take extra time to complete a task action…” might make sense. If the latter, clarifying how quick or complex actions are affected by the time-taking rules would be cool. Movement This sort of fits with the action economy stuff, but movement being clarified in a number of areas is a relief. I especially like the clear mapping of action types to the levels of obstruction/complication involved with a particular kind of movement. Climbing a rock face isn’t just “moving,” it’s a task, for example. The one part I’ve been staring at is the interaction of standard move, full move, and rushing. Historically, rapid movement meant penalties on other actions that were happening at the same time. With the new system, though, I’m wondering if it makes sense to be more explicit. Why not just make Run/Dash/Full Move a Quick Action instead of an automatic one? That puts the choice in the players’ hands, treats dashing/full move similarly to other physical acts like jumping. Eliminating Rushing entirely might even be justified with this approach; its only purpose would be to give some skill-based variability to the ground a player can cover in one action. Also — “Standing Up” is listed as a quick action, but “Going Prone” isn’t. The feels like it’d be a good companion, and given the action economy, it’d also make tough choices necessary. Standing, full move, and going prone in a new location would be three quick actions — to get off a shot, I’d need to use a Vigor point and push for another action entirely. I like it. Overall Took some thinking, but in general I really like the changes. We’ll have to see how the skill list comes together — in particular knowledge skills, which consume a disproportionate swatch of the charsheet but are a bit of a tangle in real play. I think the new mechanisms have the potential give give players radically different ways to approach problems and situations — rather than just “Higher skills, more SPD, bigger gear.”Pages