Page 10: Hitting a target that is within 2m of you and actively is trying to avoid being hit would be harder when you are wielding a rifle than if the target is somewhat farther away. I suggest giving Assault Rifles and larger firearms the No Point-Blank feature. This would also give incentives for choosing handguns and sub-machine guns instead of rifles for close quarter fighting, as is the case in the real world. This pertains to bullet point three - it is un-fun to discover that you are the only player in Eclipse Phase Second Edition who willingly has acquired a sub-machine gun and thus made an sub-optimal choice for your character. Choices that aren't real choices are un-fun. No RPG needs three different types of machine guns. At least not if there is no real mechanical reasons to choose the lighter ones. My prediction is that no player who is in need for a machine gun will willingly acquire something lighter than a heavy machine gun. Machine guns will hopefully be a rare weapon seen among player characters, and I think most games will go well with the abstraction that all machine guns are alike in the important way - it's deadly to be in the wrong end of one. This also falls under the principle of choices that aren't real choices are un-fun. I don't understand why a sniper rifle should be Armor Piercing by default. Most snipers would choose their ammo carefully for the kind of mission they have. A weapon/bullet that penetrates and has less stopping power is sub-optimal in many cases where you want to be absolutely sure the target stays down. A hollow point to the head would be a better choice in many cases. The sniper rifle being AP creates a lot of questions and leads to you having to make some special rulings: * Is the sniper rifle still Armor Piercing if you use hollow point or biter ammo? If not, do you add the +1d10 DV that is deducted for the sniper rifle being AP? If it is, any player with some knowledge of weapons will complain about realism. * What happens if you load it with AP or RAP ammo? Do you ignore armour or does nothing happen? If the latter, why do snipers need to be less careful about what ammo they carry than users of other rifles? * What happens to sniper railguns? Do they get an extra +1d10 DV due to this having been implicitly deducted twice or do they ignore armor completely? If not, why doesn't a sniper railgun get more stopping power or other benefits? So, the sniper having AP by default is in my opininon un-fun because it will lead to a lot of rules discussions and discussions about realism. Just leaving it out and add +1d10 DV will give players more real choice and adds to realism. More technical things; Something funny has happened to the rail gun row in the Kinetic Weapons table. What are x2, the DV (sounds excessive) or the ammo capacity? If it is the DV that is doubled, the cost should be made a level higher than for normal firearms or else no one would choose anything but railguns. On page 11 you need to fix the paragraphs SMART AMMO and SPECIALTY FIREARM AMMO. Accushot, Hollow-Point and Plastic ammo should all be types of speciality firearm ammo and be listed under that heading with the cost from the table on the same page. Smart Ammo is also a type of speciality firearm ammo that should be listed under that heading, not having it's own heading at the same level. It should be made clear in the text that it can transform between being any of those former three ammo types. As it stands it is unclear whether you can use smart ammo in railguns, with my suggested fix, it won't be necessary to state that they can't explicitly. I hope this is helpful for you.

The WEAPON/GEAR TRAITS chapter is hidden on page 22 between SURPRISE and TACTICAL NETWORKS and is hard to find since you usually have to consult it when reading about the weapons on page 7 to 13. Consider putting it before page 7, since this is general information that is good to know about when reading the tables and rules on the following pages. If some of the traits pertain to gear in general, I recommend you considering repeating them at the beginning of the gear chapter.

Jumping on grenades is always inferior to throwing them back. It is the same REF check, but consequences of success are better for the player throwing them back and consequences of failure are the same for the jumping on a nade.

Freezers: For the love of robo-cthulhu, please put [i]some[/i] way of getting out of Freezer foam in the rules. As written, just like in version 1, the freezer can effectively 1-hit-kill pretty much anything. My preference is to change it so the target is Grappled instead of Paralyzed, letting them use SOM to get out, but just put [i]something[/i] in there. Seriously, the giant hulking warmachine is more vulnerable than a Scurrier. Weapon Systems: This segement seems out of place. I assume it's there for layout reasons, but maybe make it into a sidebar? Kinetic Weapons: I agree that SMGs and most machine guns are redundant, and no-point-blank makes sense for rifles. Also (and maybe I'm missing something) why are the ammo counts all X+1? Aside: For the record, I don't agree that the Sniper shouldn't have AP as a default, because it makes sense with armor being ubiquitous and enables different gear combinations, regardless of whether AP can stack or not. Thematically, it's not firing AP rounds, it's firing [i]heavier/larger[/i] rounds. Beam Weapons: Is the Laser Pulser supposed to have Full-Auto? Because as written it's on par with the Plasma Rifle.

I would like to get a just a feeling for this kind of thing: Would any of the Devs consider a combination of: Light Bioweave + Second skin + Armor Clothes + Combat Armor to be -20 worthy?

I'd probably rule that if you have more than one adder and the total exceeds your SOM, you get the layering penalty. This lets a morph with Bioweave wear a Battlesuit without crazy SOM, but restricts the layer abuse. It also lets tough players wear more armor than frail ones. This does restrict a player with a Ballistic Shield, Bioweave, and Body Armor, but frankly, these players should be eating a penalty to actions (nobody is doing parkour with a ballistic shield).

Urthdigger wrote:

It... already does that? If total AV for either armor type exceeds your SOM you get the same penalty as layering (-20) and half movement speed as well.

This is true for non-adders (like an Armor Coat and an Armor Vest), but the original question and my suggestion are for when there is one layer and some adders (like Armor Clothing).

For the armor stuff, I would suggest a definite value past which the +AV counts as the two layers (the "free" first, and a second because it surpasses the value, thus imposing the -20). Game Mechanics, pg 5, Initiative Order: I would like to confirm that 1d6 is added to the Initiative value... I mean, why not 1d10? While it opens more the initiative rounds, it also removes the need to have another type of dice, so having just 2d10 per player is enough. Gear, pg 47: The Shield Drone lacks a price/complexity tag. I would also add a note mentioning it is the Riot Shield from Actions & Combat pg 15, without the shock attack option. I would also add a Seeker "backpack", essentially something like a Seeker Rifle with more ammo (unless it's simply a Seeker Rifle that can be controlled with a smartlink connection). They would need some extra work, I'm afraid, since it's more of a mortar-like support weapon: it fires in an arc (unless you go prone!) and uses rules for Indirect Fire. I am still missing a "drone master" chapter, frankly. While I plan to open a thread about builds in EP2, I think it should be a kinda popular option that deserves its inclusion in the corebook, specially regarding how to use one, face one, and specially how to manage a kinda "massed combat" system (I would expect, however, some sort of supplement that will help us to use miniatures for at least represent combats in a more or less organized way).

In case you weren't aware, the seekers can already fire in indirect mode. The individual missiles can function as accushot or homing, and homing missiles are capable of indirect fire.

I'd personally limit it to a subjective time of 48 hours max for any fork being merged. It's those experiences which cause the divergence, and more experiences means more divergence. There's an entry for the Battlesuit on p. 51 of Gear which mentions the addition of 2 Vigor pool points and faster movement (8/32), as well as some other details. I think in EP2, you no longer have seekers taking multiple turns. It looks like they are treated the same as the other weapons (though it's possible I overlooked something). Even without the unrealistic initial boost to mach 6, for a reasonable range, a missile should reach the target in the same action turn. A few km away, both the bullet and the missile are going to arrive in a later turn, but it doesn't really make sense to simulate this for a game.

Oops. I think I mixed up a rule from another game. You're right that seekers don't take multiple rounds to reach their target in EP1 either.

AFAIK the hidden enemy is -30 to hit AND then even if you hit you have 50% miss chance. Major cover is when you know where the enemy is but they are protected. For example you see them with T-rays. Let's consider 2 situations. 1. The target is hiding behind tall but slim obelisk and I can see him with T-rays. Target would be in Major Cover. 2. The target is behind a wrecked tank opaque to T-rays and the tank is large enough to move about and possibly pop-up anywhere behind tank silhouette. Target would be Hidden. It is my interpretation. I

Yeah, it is all about GM fiat. Also I would require the players to tell me where they shoot and of they guess correctly then they would get the Hidden enemy. Similar to DnD invisibility.

There may be a bit of a loophole with the Case, where if you take the Case as your main morph, then take the Ikon as a secondary morph, the net cost is 1 MP, while if you take the Ikon as the main morph, and the Case as the secondary, it costs 2 MP. I'm going to assume that's intentional, though. I think the synth morphs are generally a little weak compared to the bio versions. Galatea has Chameleon Skin, Enhanced Hearing, and an extra Flex point, but the main source of her high cost is the DUR. The Case also has Inherent Flaws. The net of those differences is 4 MP, though purchasing gear with MP is generally a very bad deal. The Futura has 7 pool points (4 Moxie) for 4 MP, which is a much better deal. For physical interactions, the Steel has a lot of advantages compared to the Case. The medium frame and high DUR really make a difference in a combat environment. One real concern is whether there's any reason to sleeve in a morph instead of hosting in the cyberbrain and puppet socking. For any morph with a decent Insight or Moxie pool, that's probably not worthwhile. For a morph without a cyberbrain, it's not an option. That leaves a lot of good morphs (including pods). There's the small cost of Drone Affinity and Drone Rig, but that's pretty minor, and you don't really even need the Drone Affinity. It might not be sufficient, but you might try charging an additional morph point for extra morphs used at the same time. In the case of Case + Ikon, this would result in a total cost of 2 MP. If the morph is just available for resleeving, but not being used, this surcharge wouldn't apply. Another part of this problem is that a lot of gear costs came down, but the original prices were used in computing the MP costs of the various morphs. That means Enhanced Hearing and Chameleon Skin probably added 1 MP, where now they would only add .5 MP. This drives up the cost of a lot of the synths.

I think the Morph section of Character Creation needs some extra detail, as it stands, it seems like you can spend Resources directly as Morph Points, and then you get 6 Morph Points... Considering how the most expensive morph is 6 points (12 is the Reaper, but... it's a Reaperbot XD), I think that either the Devs wants us to grab one of the Infomorph "sleeves" plus one physical Morph, or something similar... I mean, it's quite easy to start with a 4 points Morph and a 2 points IM, and then you can throw on top of it a spare Case (selected as the first 0 cost Morph for free), and if you add the Resources advantage, just having 4 out of 20 points there allows you to start with a Case, a Fury and a Jammer Infomorph... Sounds kinda "too good" to me. I don't remember if I saw it somewhere, but letting you spend Morph Points for starting morph implants (over what you start with) sounds a better option for me.

So railguns give any weapon the Armor-Piercing trait, does that mean that there's a -1d10 to that weapon now? Because that seems to go against the original purpose of railguns, which was straight-up more stopping power at the cost of flexibility.

Urthdigger wrote:

You can spend your extra MP on positive morph traits.

Also on Flex (limit of 3 points) and ware (not a very good deal).

ubik2 wrote:

Urthdigger wrote:

You can spend your extra MP on positive morph traits.

Also on Flex (limit of 3 points) and ware (not a very good deal).

I think that flex will last only until the next resleeve. But yeah, extra mods for the morphs are a thing... just not one we should be applying libreally else the resleeving process gets bogged down (I'd let the players to custom one morph or so, and just that). Incidentally, I'm not sure if it's been addressed, but there should be a note that you cannot "buy" extra MP by clogging one cheap morph (let's say a case or a flat) with disadvantages to pay for another morph's advantages (let's say having a Fury and an advanced infomorph and something else).

Edit: reposting this in "Making characters thread" I think instead there should be a minimum morph MP cost that negative traits bring the morph to. For example 1 MP. You already cannot have a morph with negative MP. So this would be less clunky. If you want an army of cases you can still probably do that. I would also consider giving Cases an "Uncomfortable Sleeve" trait. You get stress when you engage in an activity that the Case is unsuited for. For example climb a long set of stairs your servos overheat. You are frustrated, get stress. Your charging port malfunctions you have to push on emergency power before you can get it fixed. There is plenty potential to signify how shit... (Corporate Policy.Exe -user override) MINIMALISTIC these morphs are. Right now anything that the GM does to signify that can be seen as antagonistic by the players.

I'm not a fan of this grenade rule. It kinda makes the No Close trait kinda moot. Besides that, there doesn't seem to be any advantage to using micros.

done

Dr Maxwell IIRC you are dwelling on the forums long enough to remember the old dispute of starting as a case/infomorph vs getting a Reaper with Speed 4. I think that Morph Points are pretty good abstraction to move around that issue. Especially when you are egocasting and relying on local Firewall resources. For other types of games without big organisation to support you I think there should be a rule for losing MPs to represent a huge resource loss that is losing a morph or some interaction with Resource trait. Right now MPs cover only change of morph without loss where you are able to sell your morph or rent it out or something. Puppet socking yourself is an viable tactic right now. It should be somewhat discouraged. Maybe a reintroduce a penalty to actions when Jamming full morphs?

As for Jamming it should be strongly indicated that it is influenced by quality of connection between the body and mind. As for Jamming through a PuppetSock from a Ghostriders inside the body I would treat it as is Sleeving. With synthmorphs it isn't especially different from sleeving into the morph itself. Perhaps there should be different qualities of Puppet Sock. The best ones with no penalties.

Maybe even more extreme -10 on Point Blank and normal from short range?

kheradruakh wrote:

There is nothing I can see that really indicates this armor type is intended to be synth morphs.

The description on page 14 has the [Hard] tag, meaning it can only be equipped on a synthmorph/bot/vehicle. The rules for that tag are on page 4 of Gear, so it's understandable that you missed it, since these aren't in a single rulebook yet.