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Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?

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babayaga babayaga's picture
Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
I have a player who's thinking about making a (Hypercorp) designer of morphs - from synths to pods to full biomorphs. But I'm left a bit clueless about what skills would be appropriate, especially for the bio part. If you are designing a synthetic morph, and the "cyber" part of pods, it's Hardware(Robotics) and perhaps Hardware(Electronics), and the ubiquitous Programming(Nanofabrication) if you are using nanotech to build it. But what about biomorphs? Is the core skill "Medicine" (and what field?), "Profession (biomorph designer?)", or some sort of "Academics"? Or something else?
And If Not And If Not's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
babayaga wrote:
I have a player who's thinking about making a (Hypercorp) designer of morphs - from synths to pods to full biomorphs. But I'm left a bit clueless about what skills would be appropriate, especially for the bio part.
I'd consider cribbing notes from the brinker genehacker sample character on EP.157 and loading up on a similar brace of Academic, Medicine and Professional skills, perhaps similarly with Art: Bodysculpting as well. Despite his fancy techno-eldritch title he seems to be, essentially, a biomorph designer. My additional advice would be, for such skills as could plausibly be used to get a complementary bonus for the primary skill, that if you're going to have them be exactly 60 you may as well take them to a skill rating of 61... as an underhanded method to with that one extra point reach the coveted +30 complementary skill bonus modifier (per EP.173). But that would be cheesy, wouldn't it? And does depend on the GM's judgement anyway.
babayaga babayaga's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
And If Not wrote:
babayaga wrote:
I have a player who's thinking about making a (Hypercorp) designer of morphs - from synths to pods to full biomorphs. But I'm left a bit clueless about what skills would be appropriate, especially for the bio part.
I'd consider cribbing notes from the brinker genehacker sample character on EP.157 and loading up on a similar brace of Academic, Medicine and Professional skills
Good suggestion!
And If Not wrote:
My additional advice would be, for such skills as could plausibly be used to get a complementary bonus for the primary skill, ...
This raises an important point. What would the primary skill be? It's not very clear from the sample character which are the "main" skills and which are purely complementary.
Rhyx Rhyx's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
Quote:
This raises an important point. What would the primary skill be? It's not very clear from the sample character which are the "main" skills and which are purely complementary.
I would say that the active skills would be the "main" skills, if only because they allow you to make concrete actions in game.
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
At what time is this dude going to be using such a skill in an Active skill test anyway? Would it not just be easier to use something like Academics: Biology with Profession: Morph Design as an offset and roll a Simple Success test?
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Rhyx Rhyx's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
I meant in a general sense. From my personal view (biased as it may be) characters "do" things and doing things is active. The pass/fail yes/no moment when a character does something is when they take the knowledge and put it into practice. Sure you can do an opposed test Academics: Biology when debating with a colleague but in this case you are actually creating life. And theorizing about making life and actually going around making life are two things (one of these two things requires a budget :D). So in this specific case if we use the Brinker Genehack as someone with the skills necessary to alter a biomorph the active skills would be his medicine skills backed up by his knowledge skills. I'd make him roll two modified skills them being: Medicine (gene therapy) to play with the genes in the first place and then a shot of Medicine (nanomedicine) to alter them further to do things that the genes were not supposed to do, that's the hacking part. Note that this guy is not equipped to make life from scratch, he alters one form of life into another. He has to start with something alive in the first place because he is woefully inadequate at chemistry. So this guy is gonna need something like stem cells or something else alive to change. I don't see him making a biomorph because he has the wrong skills, however I can see him modify an existing biomorph but it will be a derivative work.
Sepherim Sepherim's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
I believe And if Not mostly nailed it. I would go for: Active skills: -Medicine -Hardware (Robotics) Knowledge skills: -Art (Bodysculpting) -Academics (Genetics) This should be more than enough for what should be something in the background of the character and for his downtime. Maybe even excessive in the amount of points, specially in the Active part. Surely he could do it without the Art (if he, for example, just copies other's works) and Robotics (if he only makes the biological part and makes no implants).
babayaga babayaga's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
Sepherim wrote:
I believe And if Not mostly nailed it. I would go for: Active skills: -Medicine -Hardware (Robotics) ...
Hmm, Medicine is a Field skill. Should it be Medicine: Gene Therapy? Medicine: NanoMedicine?
Sepherim Sepherim's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
Touché. Gene therapy. Actually, modifying genetical combination should probably be done by using viruses and bacterias, so probably no sense in Nanomedicine for it. But, in case you want to avoid confusion, you can leave it at something that is clear to your group like "genetic modifications", or somethin like that. Maybe less technical, but clear.
babayaga babayaga's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
Sepherim wrote:
Touché. Gene therapy. Actually, modifying genetical combination should probably be done by using viruses and bacterias, so probably no sense in Nanomedicine for it. But, in case you want to avoid confusion, you can leave it at something that is clear to your group like "genetic modifications", or somethin like that. Maybe less technical, but clear.
In the end we went for Medicine:Biomods :)
Rhyx Rhyx's picture
Re: Which skill(s) to design (bio)morphs?
An elegant solution!