If you've got a minmaxer playing in your group and you fear they may abuse rules loopholes to the detriment of other players, then... A: Don't let him take a morph that's a net disadvantage, obviously (counting morph disadvantages against advantages and morph cost). A zero-point flat, fine in theory, and if he wants to work his way up -from- a flat, that's well within the setting's schticks, but a body that's a disadvantage is just asking for a reinstantiation into a superior charity morph. Of course... B: Depending on where your crew is located, you may have grounds for questioning why he's in a flat in the first place. Flats -really- aren't common outside the Jovian Junta and when they exist elsewhere they're usually indentured. (Of course, that means you're requiring him to roleplay, but this is Eclipse Phase...) Saying "no flats, sorry" would not be out of place on Titan, in particular, since the Titanians go out of their way to put anyone who's worth anything in at least a splicer or synth. C: Also, if he tries to make an overstrength flat (as in, take a stat that's above flat limits), whack him. An ego born in a flat is subject to the limits of flat capability, at least until that ego becomes part of transhumanity and exercises its abilities in a superior morph. (Yes, this is a personal ruling.) Of course, all of this may drive Twinkie out of your group, but let's be honest: anyone trying to make a combat-twinked cyberbadass in Eclipse Phase doesn't know what the hell they're doing. If I were a player in a group with someone like that, I'd outright encourage them to get a Reaper morph; they make excellent cover.

Didn't say it was, though it appears I was misinterpreted (mea culpa there). What I meant is that the kind of combat focus that will work in D&D will get you -1 morph in Eclipse Phase. Trying to build yourself for a straight-up fight doesn't work when Security drops a dozen battle drones on you. I may, of course, be looking at Eclipse Phase more from a Shadowrun angle; if you're not trying to infiltrate some kind of installation or somewhere where a security force will be the problem so much as "wandering Exsurgent/xeno threats," then a Fury cyber-samurai may have more to do than provide cover for the rest of the players and help salvage the mission when the players have blown an alarm.

I'm always the big proponent of "easy come, easy go", so I thought I'd chime in on this with a bit different viewpoint. If you can have up to 25 CP worth of negative morph traits, then the game has a sort of built in 25 point bonus. Any morph, whether its 100 points or -5 (the aforementioned flat with -25CP in morph flaws) can and probably will die or become unavailable at some point. Here's some things to consider with your Flat, though (and to make sure the player considers): 1. No cortical stack. Flats have to back up the old fashioned way, by going to the Dollhouse, sitting in the chair and getting Tofer to make a copy. Depending on your location, this can be difficult so keep very careful track of the last time the character made time for a backup. 2. Similarly, no endo by default. This means that even if the character dies, no one will know to re-instance a backup until the body is found and identified. The people of EP seem quite paranoid about accidentally having two of the same person running around. Hide the body and the character may have to wait a year, or five, or seven before being reinstanced. 3. No engineered immunities and low stats to boot. Flats get tired, sick, hungry etc and have a harder time dealing with it than anyone else. 4. Availability of replacement morphs. Sure, you can get a lot of money taking a negative value morph, or even just an infomorph. You can also get a lot of rep. New morphs are an extremely high demand item. Getting one takes both and possibly more. Everyone has the same hurdles to go through, whether its an infomorph, a suicide flat or a remade. GM's may say that flats, splicers, pods and low end synthmorphs are available to anyone with the cash but the more advanced morphs are going to require more than just cash. Even in transitional/old economies the powers that be don't want just anyone running around in combat remade or reapers. Your Firewall provided morph replacement insurance only covers roughly equal value. In the case of a severely damaged (lots of negatives) flat, that value might be two clips of ammo and a pack of cigarettes. If you're a GM who doesn't like to seperate people from their gear and/or morphs because they paid for them with points, the obvious solution is to require that every new morph have -25CP worth of flaws until the player buys that off. They may be different flaws, but if they get to keep their positive points, they should keep their negative ones, too.

Yeah. Since flats are the only morphs that can effectively go negative cost, I can see where GM's might specifically limit flats to 20CP in morph flaws (rendering them cost neutral). In the final analysis a 20 CP flat with 25 CP in morph flaws only nets the player an extra 5 points (for a gain of 0.5%) over playing an infomorph. . . and in a flat, he's gonna need 'em. S As much as I like my real life, all human body, everything else in EP outperforms it by a mile.

Um... Has there been errata, or something? In my book, flats cost 0 CP, not 20, hence the concern--[i]any[/i] negative traits cause it to be worth negative points, and they were clearly intended to be able to have negative traits if the Genetic Defect trait is any indication. Looking at the rules, I've increasingly come to realize that a [i]lot[/i] of the morphs listed are more expensive in CP than they would be in credits gained from CP; for example, the Remade cost 60 CP, but if you were to buy it with money, it'd cost 40,000--40 CP's worth of cash. Possible fixes include tinkering with CP cost, tinkering with morphs' financial costs, or simply saying that morphs are bought with money that players purchase during character creation (which would probably require tinkering with the costs anyway).