Eclipse Phase Character Creation

[Cynical Cat]

So we've been kicking around ideas for Eclipse Phase for a while and I thought I would do a blow by blow of character creation. This is a transhumanist adventure/horror game so we get into some cool and weird shit before we even lead character creation, let alone encounter the enemy. Disclaimer: there is, unfortunately, a lot of math in this fairly free form character creation process. Use a fucking spreadsheet to create your character. You will make mistakes. I'll make mistakes.

Anyway, here it goes. Basic concept is a soldier of fortune /adventurer with some good tech skills and enough social skills not to be a liability. We'll see how it pans out. Background is a soldier during the Fall who made it off Earth by having his mind broadcast off planet just before the broadcast point blew to prevent it from being overrun and every killed or forcibly downloaded by Skynet the TITANs forces. He then serves as a corp indentured soldier so he can actually get a new body doing such noble activities as keeping the Martian settlers down for the benefit of their rightful hypercorp masters. He responds by doing very little, making it appear that he's doing a lot, and conducting as many shady deals as possible on the side because fuck these slaver assholes. Once out from under he freelances security, investigative, and military work as well as anything else that pays and he also works with Firewall because he's seen the Devil first hand and he's not prepared to let it get another shot at dragging what is left of the human race to hell. The hypercorps are assholes, but compared to the TITANs they're minnows.

So that's done. Shiny basic character concept. Name, nationality, and other background details will come later because right now they're up in the air.

Now kinetic weapons, chemical slugthrowers with super special ammo and railguns with more vanilla ammo, are the standard weapons of the setting. I happen to be a beam weapon whore and the errata makes these otherwise inferior niche weapons much more viable. So I'm going to go that way, which suits the higher tech/specialist background of my character and will differentiate him from the rest of the group who will probably go with less expensive and more effective kinetic weapons. I will also be packing seekers, small smart missiles, which are pretty fucking nasty and the combo of beam weapons and seekers should work well. If it doesn't, there's always seeker spam, switching over to rail guns, and the energy weapon BFG known as the plasma cannon. . .


So nuts and bolts

Kerem Kaplan

Background: Re-Instantiated
Advantages: +10 Pilot: Groundcraft, +10 to one Networking [Field] Skill, +2 Moxie (re-rolls, fuck yeah)
Disadvantages: Edited Memories trait, 0 starting credit (but can buy some with CP and you can bet I will)
Common Morphs (bodies): Cases, Infomorphs , Synths (the cheapest ones, but I'll be going with something top of the line, thanks to CP)

Faction: Scum (halfway between Anarchists and Criminals)
Advantages: +10 Freefall Skill, +20 Networking Autonomists Skill, +10 to a Skill of my choice

Okay, free skill points and rerolls. Cool. This game has a lot of skillpoints. There's a mandatory expenditure of 700 points in character creation, not counting attribute bonuses and the skills detailed above. See what I mean about the spreadsheet?

Anyway, on to starting attributes. Being a transhumanists RPG, we can't call anything strength on constitution. No, our stats must sound more futuristic and sciency.


7 stats
105 points to spend (you can get more points later).

10 points is baseline human average in an attribute. 20 is max. For baseline humans aka Flats. Fortunately we aren't limited to Flat bodies. Stats represent your mind and mind/body interaction so they get modified based on what body you're currently in. A shitty robot body or a flatmorph isn't a state of the art combat drone or a custom piece of gene engineering designed to do what is does better than anything else. If your stat is above your body's max then you're treated as if your stat is just max. All that potential is wasted if it isn't expressed in a form capable of doing what is required.

I'm going a straight 15 in everything and then buying more points later on in character creation. Combined with a high grade body and I'll be pretty damn awesome.

Cognition COG [Intelligence] 15
Coordination COO 15
Intuition INT(Wits and Cunning) 15
Reflexes REF 15
Savvy SAV (Charisma) 15
Somatics SOM (Strength or how to use what strength you have) 15
Willpower WIL 15

Moxie: 1 (+2)=3

Credit: 0 (5,000 is normal but see disadvantages)

Reputation: 50 points to spend on the various types of rep. We'll get to that later.

So that's the start. Now to spend 1,000 Customization Points.

[Cynical Cat]

So 1,000 CP.

Well mandatory skill spending will take up 700, so it's really only 300.

That'll go pretty fucking fast.

First I'll spend 100 more on attributes which translates to 10 more points.

So I'll jack INT and COO to 20.

200 points left.

100 goes to resources (the max) giving me 100,000 credits for gear and enhancements.

5 goes to rep, which becomes 50 rep points.

20 stays in reserve to round off the result.

That leaves 75 points. Which pays for a Fury morph, a top of the line gene engineered combat monster. It comes with whistles and bells and I'll add more.

I'll take the Fury's unassigned stat bonus in COG.

So now we have

COG 15 +5 20
COO 20 +5 25
INT 20 +0 20
REF 15 +5 20
SAV 15 15
SOM 15 +10 25
WIL 15 +5 20

So my worst score is above vanilla human average and my best is literally superhuman and I that's just with the stuff that comes with the body.

Aptitude Max: 30
Implants: Basic Biomods (immortality, disease resistance, regeneration, the vanilla stuff), Basic Mesh Inserts (interwebs), Bioweave Armor (light), Cortical Stack, Enhanced Vision (includes IR and gamma), Neurochem (level 1), Toxin Filters

Speed Modifier: +1 (neurochem means extra actions)
Durability: 50 (vanilla human-30)
Wound Threshold: 10

And 100,000 credits for gear and upgrades. Oh yeah.

[Cynical Cat]

Augmentations
Direction Sense 250
Enhanced Hearing 250
Enhanced Smell 250
Eidetic Memory 250
Enhanced Pheromones 250
High Gravity Adaptation 1,000 (+5 SOM, +5 DUR)
Hyper Linguist 250
Math Boost 250
Chameleon Skin 250 (what a steal so far)
Circadian Regulation 1,000
Eelware (as in electric) 250
Emotional Dampers (+30 to Deception and Impersonation attempts? Sold!) 250
Endocrine Control 5,000
Enhanced Respiration (Breathing on the Martian highlands? Sold!) 250

9,750

Cyberware
Anti-glare 250
Elecrtical Sense 250
Radiation Sense 250
Hardened Skeleton (+5 SOM and DUR) 5,000
Reflex Boosters (+1 SPD and +10 REF) 20,000

25,750
Nanoware

Medichines (medical nanoware) 250
Mental Speed (+3 Initiative) 5,000
Nanophages 1,000
Respirocytes (+5 DUR) 1,000

7,250

Not even half spent yet and the bare bones augmentations are all bought. Next is gear and buying the luxuries.

[LadyTevar]

What... the Fuck...

[rhoenix]

Oh, this is only scratching the surface of all the possible awesome in this game.

[LadyTevar]

You do know I hate math, and I suck at this kinda thing, which is why Martin is the one who keeps track of the money, right?

[rhoenix]

You do know I hate math, and I suck at this kinda thing, which is why Martin is the one who keeps track of the money, right?

I really can't blame you - this is precisely why spreadsheets are awesome.

[Cynical Cat]

Remember I maxed out resources so there's going to be more math in my character than is the norm.

On the other hand, everyone has to spend 700 skill points.

For the third and last time, spreadsheet.

Armor is rated by how much damage it stops and damage is divided into Energy/Kinetic
Since my character is a Professional Practitioner of Coercive Violence, guns and armor will be well represented.

Armor Clothing 3/4 100 Chameleon Coating
Armor Vest 6/6 300 Chameleon Coating
Second Skin (bullet proof underwear) 1/3 500 Shock Proof
Smart Skin (nanofluidic armor for that Hyperion look) 3/2 300 Chameleon Coating
Heavy Body Armor 13/13 1,300 Shock Proof and Chameleon Coating
Full Helmet 3/3 100 Chameleon Coating

2,600-not bad for wide array of body armour.

Laser/Microwave Link 1,000
Radio Booster 250
Portable QE Com 250

Covert Operations Tool (COT-super sci-fi lockpicks) 5,000
Dazzler 1,000
2 Cuffbands 500
Smart Dust 1,000
Traction Pads 250
White Noise Emitter 50
X-ray Emitter 250
Gray Box 1,000
DNA Chaff 1,000
Lens Spotter 250

11,500 for covert and coms gear

Liquid Thermite 1,000

Ecto 250
Holographic Projector 250
Micrograv Shoes 50
Smart Clothing 250
Smart Vac Clothing 1,000
Specs 250
Utilitool 250
Viewer 250

Nanoswarms
Cleaners 250
Engineers 1,000
Fixers 1,000
Guardian 1,000

Anonymous Accounts 1,000
Fake Ego ID 5,000

12,300

Programs

Exploit 1,000
Firewall 1,000
Sniffer 1,000
Spoof 1,000
Tactical Networks 1,000
Tracking 1,000

Nanobandage 50
Repair Spray 250
Smart Vac Suit 5/5 1,000

7,300

Total for this section: 33,700

[Cynical Cat]

Knife 50
Extendable Baton 50
Shock Baton 250

Weapons are rated by how much armor they ignore (bigger negative is better) and damage
Light Pistol 250 2d10
Heavy Pistol 250 -4 2d10+4

100 rounds of Biter for Light Pistol 250
100 rounds AP for Heavy Pistol 250
100 rounds Hollow Point for Heavy Pistol 50

Particle Beam Bolter -2 2d10+4 (so it packs roughly as much punch as a heavy pistol in a rifle frame)
Underbarrel Seeker 6,000
Additional nuclear battery 250
3 standard batteries 150
Stunner 1,000
Seeker Armband 1,000

10 frag with homing -4 2d10+6 1,000
10 high-Explosive with homing 2d10+10 1,000
10 HEAP with homing -8 2d10+12 1,000
10 Overload with homing 1,000

4 additional months Backup Insurance

16, 800

[Cynical Cat]

92,850 spent which leaves me with a little over 10K for additional purchases.

[LadyTevar]

89,100 spent which leaves me with a little over 10K for additional purchases.

[Hotfoot]

Translation:

"Of the 100 points I have used on money, I have only used 89.1. As each point spent on credits gives me 1,000 credits, this gives me over 10,000 credits to play with for extra purchases now or at game start."

Or:

"89,100 spent out of 100,000 bought, leaves me with 10,900 for other stuff."

Alternatively:

"I got mad money, yo."



However, there is a slight error in the gear. All weapons come with smartlinks and safety systems free of charge by default. I'll go over it in more detail later, but that one stuck out to me.

[Cynical Cat]

It directly states that in the kinetic weapons section, so I didn't assume my beam weapons and seekers were so equipped. Note that I didn't pay for the kinetic pistols. I was hoping you would rule that it applies to beam weapons and seekers (it makes sense) but I don't always get what I hope for.

[LadyTevar]

Posted for Commentary and Suggestions. 250CP left to spend on Morph & Equipment.
Morph options include Ruster, Menta, Human 2.0, or a Fury (just for the GitS fun)

Concept: Hackivist, InfoBroker, BrewMeister

Background: Barsoomian/Martian.
Adv:
+10 Pilot: Groundcraft
+20 Networking: HyperCorp
+10 to Profession/Acedemic/Technical

Faction: Barsoomian
Adv:
+10 Free Running (Parkour)
+10 Skill
+20 Networking: Autonomous

*common morphs: Cases, Flats, Rusters, Splicers, Synths

Starting Aptitudes:
Cognition 18
Coordination 15
Intuition 16
Reflexes 15
Savvy 16
Somantics 15
Willpower 15

Native Tongue: English 70+Int

Starting Moxie 1

Creds: 5000

Rep: 50 base
@ List
Hyper Corp
Autonomous

Skills: 400/300
Active
Fray 30+Ref
Percept 30+Int
Kinetics Weapons: Pistol 20+Coor
Pilot: Groundcraft 30+10+Ref
Free Running 30+10+Som
Networking: Hyper Corp 34+20+Sav
Networking: Autonomous 34+20+Sav
Disguise: 34+Int
Info Security 46+Cog
Interfacing 35+Cog
Programming 46+Cog
PsychoSurgery 30+Int


Knowledge
Language :(Arabic or Cantonese?) 34+Int
Profession: Vinter/Brewer 36+Cog
Profession: Social Engineer 43+Cog
Academic: Comp Sci 43+10+Cog
Academic: Cryptography 38+10+Cog
Academic: Brewing Methods 33+cog
Interest: Old-World Brewing 20+Cog
Interest: Beekeeping 20+Cog
Art: Brewing 33+Cog

[Cynical Cat]

If you're thinking of GitS fun, a Ghost morph might be an option.

[Cynical Cat]

So skills. This works as follows. Skills are bought with points plus aptitude points in the relevant aptitude. Up to 60, each points costs 1. 61-80 costs 2. Morph bonuses are added after.

COG 15 +5
COO 20 +5
INT 20 +0
REF 15 +15
SAV 15 +0
SOM 15 +20
WIL 15 +5


Format is first points spent, then skill, linked attribute, total baseline, morph bonus, and total
So free skills

Pilot: Groundcraft REF 25 +15 40
Language: Native Turkish INT 90 +0 90
Networking: Criminals SAV 25
Networking: Hypercorps SAV 25
Networking: Autonomists SAV 35
Free Fall REF 25 40

Tossing my 20 free floating points into skills

80 Beam Weapons COO 80 +5 85
5 Blades SOM 20 +20 40
5 Clubs SOM 20 +20 40
20 Deception SAV 35 +0 35
40 Fray REF 55 +15 70
20 Free Running SOM 35 +20 55
10 Hardware: Armorer COG 25 +5 30
10 Hardware: Electronics COG 25 +5 30
20 Infiltration COO 40 +5 45
30 Infosec COG 45 +5 50
20 Interfacing COG 35 +5 40
10 Kinesics SAV 25 +0 25
20 Kinetic Weapons COO 40 +5 45
30 Perception INT 50 +0 50
30 Persuasion SAV 45 +0 45
10 Programming COG 25 +5 30
40 Seeker Weapons COO 60 +5 65
20 Unarmed Combat SOM 35 +20 55

420 points

20 Academics: Military Science COG 35 +5 40
10 Academics: Turkish History COG 25 +5 30
20 Interest: Literature COG 35 +5 40
40 Interests: Black Markets COG 55 +5 60
20 Interests: Pre-Fall Cinema COG 35 +5 40
40 Languages: English INT 60 +0 60
30 Languages: German INT 50 +0 50
30 Languages: Russian INT50 +0 50
10 Profession: Instructor COG 25 +5 30
30 Profession: Military Ops COG 45+5 50
20 Profession: Security Ops COG 35+5 40
30 Profession: Smuggler COG 45 +5 50

300 points

so 50 free rep plus 50 bought rep equals 100

@ rep: 40
c-rep: 20
g-rep: 20
i-rep: 20

[Karrick]

If our characters are all part of a Firewall team and some (all?) of them know each other do we all need to purchase tactical net software or can we pool cash monies and get one? Perhaps in so doing we could acquire a "superior" one more resistant to being hacked or whatever crazy cyberpunk nonsense Hotfoot can think up.

[Cynical Cat]

If our characters are all part of a Firewall team and some (all?) of them know each other do we all need to purchase tactical net software or can we pool cash monies and get one? Perhaps in so doing we could acquire a "superior" one more resistant to being hacked or whatever crazy cyberpunk nonsense Hotfoot can think up.

Tac net software costs 1,000 credits. It's possible to hack, but hacking isn't easy or instantaneous Hollywood magic bullshit hacking. It's not something we need to pool our money to get.

[Hotfoot]

TacNets are relatively easy for everyone to get, but in order to get the full benefits from it, each individual character needs the software. At 1,000 credits, it's a pretty simple grab.

As far as hacking goes, there are already several members of the team with infosec and a few with programming, which should give you adequate defense against intrusion under most circumstances. Rules as written, it's nearly impossible for someone to hack your tacnet in the middle of a firefire (3 second rounds vs. 1 minute for the fastest hacking), meaning most hacking will take place outside of combat.

Case in point, let's say you want to give yourselves an upper hand in a fight you know you're going to get stuck in. You trail a member of the team you're going to have to fight covertly and attempt to break into his TacNet software. You take your time (10+ minutes) and sneak in, gaining access to his personal mesh network and in the process you leave a backdoor in his firewall, all without him noticing that you had your dirty sinful way with his mesh inserts (not easy, but doable).

Then, when the fight comes, you pop into the backdoor you left behind, which is itself nearly instantaneous, since you're not fighting the firewall or defensive programs anymore, and you start feeding his TacNet bogus information. Fake augmented reality alerts, ghost enemies, or, if you've prepared them, some nasty illusions for him and his whole squad.

But all of this requires prep time. In the field, the best alternative is EMP or jamming to prevent them from talking to each other. Even assuming I allow brute-force hacking in combat, which I may do, it's very obvious and there's a very simple defense, shutting off the system or simply "unplugging" it from the wireless connection.

Of course, if your TacNets are being covertly infiltrated and subverted mid combat, you might have other things to worry about.

[Karrick]

For some reason I had them pegged as being 5k apiece. Which still isn't much in the context of being able to sink 100 points into cash, come to think of it.

[Josh]

So this is going on Mondays? IRC game or what?

[rhoenix]

So this is going on Mondays? IRC game or what?

Via skype.

I wait with extreme impatience for my work schedule to change again so I can play.

[Hotfoot]

Details will be made clear in a few weeks, but it will likely take place 8p-12a Eastern Time on Monday Evenings

[Josh]

Ah, thanks.

[Lys]

I may be joining an Eclipse Phase game run by a cute Netherlander girl! ^.^

So as I was reading the book and idly tinkering with the rules, it jumped out at me that there appeared to be inconsistencies in the biomorph pricing. Something wasn't adding up and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Looking into the matter, I discovered that some guy named Martin Swann (alias CodeBreaker) developed a custom morph creation system by basically reverse engineering the cost system used in the book by the writers. You can see that much of it makes sense, and indeed much of it is a pretty straightforward 1 for 1 exchange rate. The issue appears to be the implants, which are costed as follows:

Basic Implant Package = Free
One Low Cost Implant = +1.5CP
One Moderate Cost Implant = +3.3CP
One High Cost Implant = +20CP

If you are familiar with the rules, you know that the cost of implants bought with credit at chargen is actually:

Low: 1/4 CP
Moderate: 1 CP
High: 5CP
Expensive: 20CP

I believe the discrepancy exists because unless the implants breach a certain threshold, you functionally get them for free. To wit, a couple of moderate implants on a 40 CP morph give it a functional rating of 42, which then gets rounded down to 40, so that's two free CP points. The extra cost helps ensure that mechanical benefits are paid for, but bugger all if I know why the increase is so dramatic, or why there any increase at all for High and Expensive implants, which are big enough that they always affect the total CP cost. I'd say double the basic cost of the Low and Moderate implants when applied to a Morph, round 3s or 8s down to the nearest multiple of five, and round 4s and 9s up to the nearest multiple.

Aside from that, a few of the morphs seemed to be getting certain bonuses for free. First one I noticed was the Sylph, which has a 10 CP advantage with little in the way of compensating drawbacks.

Finally, costs seemed inconsistent to me so I drew up a basic table for establishing basic costs. The usual modifiers due to availability and legal restrictions apply to the base cost:

00-10 CP High minimum 5000
10-20 CP Expensive minimum 10000
25-40 CP Expensive minimum 20000
45-60 CP Expensive minimum 30000
65-80 CP Expensive minimum 40000
85-100 CP Expensive minimum 50000

So with that in mind, I have recalculated Biomorph costs below:

Flat - 0 CP - High, 3k min (unchanged)
Flat w/ Basic Package - 0 CP - High, 5k min (A Flat with the same implants as a Splicer)
Splicer - 10 CP - High, 5k min (unchanged)

Exalt - 35 CP - Expensive, 20k min (+5 CP)
Menton - 40 CP - Expensive, 20k min (unchanged)
Bouncer - 40 CP - Expensive, 20k min (unchanged)

Olympian - 45 CP - Expensive, 30k min (+5 CP, +10k Credits)
Sylph - 45 CP - Expensive, 30k min (+5 CP, +10k Credits)
Futura - 40 CP - Expensive, 40k min, rare (-10k Credits, didn't think the 150% markup was justified)

Fury - 65 CP - Expensive, 40k min (-10 CP)
Ghost - 60 CP - Expensive, 30k min (-10 CP, -10k Credits)
Remade - 60 CP - Expensive, 30k min (-10k Credits)

Hibernoid - 20 CP - Expensive, 10k min (-5 CP, -10k Credits)
Neotenic - 30 CP - Expensive, 20k min (+5 CP)
Ruster - 20 CP - Expensive, 10k min (-5 CP, -10k Credits)

Neo-Avians - 25 CP - Expensive, 20k min (should count as small target, if not it's 15 CP, 10k min)
Neo-Hominids - 30 CP - Expensive, 20k min (+5 CP)
Octomorphs - 70 - CP - Expensive, 40k min (+20 CP, +10k Credits, these were way cheap for the bonuses they got)

What do you guys think?