Aberrant RPG - House Rules

[metaphysician]

What house rules are in effect in your campaign?

For Ancient Aberrant. . .

1. Armor Piercing does not exist

2. Rapid Recovery of quantum points is instant, not added to normal recovery

3. Additional actions cannot be split into multiple actions

4. Shapeshift can add physical mega attribute dots

[NFVD]

I have not started my Aberrant game yet but so far I'm planning to:

A) Begining aberrations are chosen by player, aberrations gained in-game will be crated by player-ST dialogue with the ST having the final say. Aberrations must be related to the powers manifestd by the Nova (i.e. a flying telepath would not sprout tentacles but he could gain wings or a halo).

Social penalties derived from taint do not combine with social modifiers from aberrations. Use highest penalty. Visible aberrations might grant social penaltites OR benefits depending on their nature, the target and the social ability being used.

[BlueNinja]

1) Dorming lets you dump tempmorary taint at the rate of one point per week.

2) Pushing a power automatically gives you a point of temporary taint. Botching gives you two points per 1 rolled.

3) We had a whole thread about how the weakness in Psychic Link works, so I'm not going to copy/paste it here. But my usage is a little different than everyone else's seems to be. You can see my final ruling in my Quick Reference Guide.

4) Using Healing on someone will not cure a poison or disease, but it does give them extra dice to Resistance.

5) You can buy off flaws. You can also buy some merits.

6) You cannot increase your Quantum as Tainted. Suck it up and shell out the big bucks.

7) Ping damage is reduced. IE, Aggravated damage that pings only inflicts Lethal, Lethal damage that pings only inflicts Bashing, and Bashing damage only inflicts ping on a roll of 10.

[Blue Thunder]

5) You can buy off flaws. You can also buy some merits.

Damn straight. Some of the Merits and Flaws in the book are the equivalent of Backgrounds anyway, Like Debt. Why shouldn't you be able to gain a Debt in-game? And why shouldn't you be able to train Eufiber Attuned? Or develop Iron Will?

7) Ping damage is reduced. IE, Aggravated damage that pings only inflicts Lethal, Lethal damage that pings only inflicts Bashing, and Bashing damage only inflicts ping on a roll of 10.

I pretty much use this as well, but only in cases of nova attacks. If a PC's soak can protect them against firearm damage completely (the soak far exceeds the gun's possible damage), then I'm not even going to roll damage for a squad of cops littering a player in gunfire. A Q-Bolt is different though.

[BlueNinja]

Damn straight. Some of the Merits and Flaws in the book are the equivalent of Backgrounds anyway, Like Debt. Why shouldn't you be able to gain a Debt in-game? And why shouldn't you be able to train Eufiber Attuned? Or develop Iron Will?

My sentiments exactly. Some merits and flaws are perfectly applicable - and some flaws just deserve to be handed out. (With accompanying XP, natch.)

I pretty much use this as well, but only in cases of nova attacks. If a PC's soak can protect them against firearm damage completely (the soak far exceeds the gun's possible damage), then I'm not even going to roll damage for a squad of cops littering a player in gunfire. A Q-Bolt is different though.

I use the Puny Human rule (ie, soak of 2x damage is completely negated) but I don't count that as a house rule. A nova with 6-10 lethal soak should still have to worry about acquiring a large bruise from a gunshot, but a nova with 11+ lethal soak should be able to ignore shots from all but the most amazingly talented slug-throwers out there.

[metaphysician]

Damn straight. Some of the Merits and Flaws in the book are the equivalent of Backgrounds anyway, Like Debt. Why shouldn't you be able to gain a Debt in-game? And why shouldn't you be able to train Eufiber Attuned? Or develop Iron Will?

I'm honestly a bit leery of the social flaws period. Call it a gut feeling, but they strike me as the kind of thing thats very susceptible to munchkinism. Then again, maybe thats just carry-over from how abusable merits/flaws were in WoD.

[Finbar]

The only major house rule we had was that vehicles had 7 HL/HL (so if a car only had 4 HL's in the book, it actually had 28 HL's). This was a carryover from our Trinity where it just didn't feel right that a frigate had some decent armor, but it only had 7HL's; you take out a few cubic feet and the entire thing explodes.

Basically, a baseball bat should be able to take out the small car, it should be a lot harder than to take out than an extra, and Abbie's power levels allow for that kind of damage...

FR

[metaphysician]

The only major house rule we had was that vehicles had 7 HL/HL (so if a car only had 4 HL's in the book, it actually had 28 HL's). This was a carryover from our Trinity where it just didn't feel right that a frigate had some decent armor, but it only had 7HL's; you take out a few cubic feet and the entire thing explodes.

Basically, a baseball bat should be able to take out the small car, it should be a lot harder than to take out than an extra, and Abbie's power levels allow for that kind of damage...

FR

I think the idea was, the damage the vehicle is actually being hit with to do those 7 HLs of damage, is alot more than is being done to, say, a normal baseline human. The health scale is ( mostly ) stable, because the soak effectively shifts the level of the attack it takes to do those health levels of damage.

Or, to sum it up, a frigate has seven health levels, but those health levels represent more durability and damage than the seven health levels a human has.

[Finbar]

It scales, but not when you start throwing space vehicles into the mix. A 45K tonne ship (with back-up systems, compartmentalized hull, and survival systems) should last a lot longer than a tank; however it doesn't.

Note, BTW, that a Q-Bolt with PR 3 backed by a Q3 does 12d10L [6] HL, which tears through that car (base 8 HL's/ Armor 2) in just one round; upping it to 28 (we tended to treat smaller vehicles (anything higher than a large truck on the chart) as extras with only 4HL's) just gives it the ability to survive four hits, which is fine as it makes the nova think about where to throw the Q-bolts. Up the Q-bolt in any parameter, and it goes a lot faster!

On the other hand, a character with Mega-Str 3 is going to demolish the car in just two hits...which I thought was a cool feature (it just felt right that The Hulk should go through cars faster than a normal energy projector)...

FR

[metaphysician]

Eh, I don't really think a car *should* survive much more than one hit from any decently powerful nova attack.

OTOH, regarding space vehicles and such. . . maybe they should have compartment damage for big vehicles. This would still allow large vehicles to be taken out quickly, you'd just have to either target more carefully ( so your damage hits, say, the power core ), or use area attacks ( makes nukes more valuable. . . ).

[SkyLion]

I liked how the old west end games star wars rpg handled this kinda stuff. To keep dice manageable, they had different "scales." So dice pools stayed around the same, but there is charcter scale weapons and armor, like blasters and such. Then their was "speeder scale" essenstially vehicles and such. "Walker scale" for the big tanks and heavy armor, and finally "capital scale" for star ships and destroyers and such. Attacking things above your scale gets really difficult without the appropriate weaponry while attacking things at lower scale is overkill. Aberrant keeps some of this with vehicle damage adds and such.

Not sure if that helps but maybe someone will come up with a cool way to adapt it...

[metaphysician]

Eh, for the most part, you just stack on the damage and soak levels. IMHO, the whole "damage/armor adds" system is mostly unnecessary complication.

Like I say, compartmentalize damage. Say, tanks or smaller are one target, and every doubling in size adds one target location and one health level per location. Distribute among systems as appropriate.

[Finbar]

1) Cars and Q-Bolts: I considered a Q3 Q-Bolt with a PR 3 to be a small blast. The minimum to destroy a small car (excluding maxes) would only take Q5 and a Power Rating of 5 (20d10[10]), backed by a Mega-Dex 3. A Mega-Str 3 character backed by Mega-Dex 3/Brawl 5 could also crush cars in one hit (even though it would take a lot of successes).

[isn't there a Mega-Str enhancement that doubles the amount of damage a character does?]

2) Space ships and Damage: The Trinity Tech Manual addressed the question rather well (frigates have 12 HL's and freighters have 15 HL's, and each ship has seven sections). In fact, you'll note that that was how the 7X Rule was created (HL for each section were assumed to be the same, and it assumed TOTAL destruction of the ship). Thus, we were giving most ships 49 HL's, frigates 84 HL's, and freighters 105 HL's.

When we started playing Abbie, this was applied to the bigger vehicles, especially when we started trying to figure out just how much damage an abbie could do (Q10, Q-Bolt 10, Mega-Dex 5 can do 30d10L[20]+29d10 (assuming all 10's), for 79 HL's, without max'ing or Mastery, if you're curious). The logic was that people tend to adapt to the challenge, and novas would be the biggest challenge. In essence, a tank with Armo 6[12] and 49 HL's made sense given that it would be made to deal with novas, and if you allowed for sections, you could still kill the people inside with a sabot round.

FR

[BlueNinja]

[isn't there a Mega-Str enhancement that doubles the amount of damage a character does?]

You might be thinking of the Crush enhancement, which makes you waste a round concentrating, then lets you drop quantum up to your node rating for auto-damage on a single attack.

[Centimane]

1) Cars and Q-Bolts: I considered a Q3 Q-Bolt with a PR 3 to be a small blast. The minimum to destroy a small car (excluding maxes) would only take Q5 and a Power Rating of 5 (20d10[10]), backed by a Mega-Dex 3.

Only Q5 and Q-bolt 5? That's as powerful as most characters will ever get to own. You do realize that a Q3 PR3 q-bolt is doing more damage than a 30mm cannon, and about the same amount of damage as a portable anti-tank missile or mortar round, right?

[NFVD]

Oh yeah, almost forgot this one.

I will allow players to buy powers at 1/2 cost (on character creation or with XP) at if they were bought tainted when they take severe limitations.

e.g. Cyberkinesis with a range of touch that can onyl affect one computer at a time, telepathy that works only on the opposite sex, etc.

[metaphysician]

Only Q5 and Q-bolt 5? That's as powerful as most characters will ever get to own. You do realize that a Q3 PR3 q-bolt is doing more damage than a 30mm cannon, and about the same amount of damage as a portable anti-tank missile or mortar round, right?

Gotta agree. Your *waaay* underpowering nova attacks. And a 30 lethal q-bolt is more powerful by a fair margin than a tank gun. If thats the minimum needed to kill a car, somethings wrong.

[Finbar]

Only Q5 and Q-bolt 5? That's as powerful as most characters will ever get to own. You do realize that a Q3 PR3 q-bolt is doing more damage than a 30mm cannon, and about the same amount of damage as a portable anti-tank missile or mortar round, right?

Which your average car can semi-survive; that is, unlike the movies, the vehicle tends to survive (not necessarily in drivable condition, but it can usually be repaired in a few days if you can find the right parts; in game terms, you've destroyed two or three systems and the crew quarters, but there's still a lot of the car left). This is opposed to completely destroying the car, like a few sticks of dynamite can do.

It's worth noting that an anti-tank missile isn't made to destroy a tank, but to incapacitate it and/or kill those inside it.

Also, you probably are right that I'm slightly misjudging the power levels, but that's because I'm used to dealing with characters that could plow throw most vehicles without much worry; in my table-top campaign, we had novas based on 30NP's that managed to acquire 150+XP. A minor detail that's being forgotten is that damage isn't only being created by Quantum and the power itself, but successes to hit (6+ successes per roll were not a rare occurence...).

FR

[BlueNinja]

A minor detail that's being forgotten is that damage isn't only being created by Quantum and the power itself, but successes to hit (6+ successes per roll were not a rare occurence...).

Which is limited to a maximum of 5 extra damage dice, just to note. ::smile

[metaphysician]

Yeah, but even a compact car has 2 soak. So, hit it with a 30mm cannon shell, which does 8L[5], or on average about 6-7 levels of damage. That leaves it a level or two away from Demolished. And note, Demolished does not mean "random bits of splattered debris about." It means "the thing is nonfunctional and irreparably damaged."

[Centimane]

Looking at this chart the only things that are subject to possible single-shot kills by a 30mm cannon would be Compact Cars, Motorcycles, Sports Cars, Small Prop Planes, and possibly Small Trucks. Mostly they'd be left Breached or Wrecked (or in some cases, only Smashed or Battered). However, the majority of these vehicles would only be demolished by a very good damage roll from a 30mm cannon. The 30mm is the smallest of the "heavy weapons" listed on pg. 276, after that you have things like the 105mm gun, antitank rounds, artillery, portable lasers, etc. Personally, I have no problem with these sorts of things being able to completely wipe out a compact car and reduce it to a pile of slag. Ditto a q-bolt operating at similar damage levels.

[Blue Thunder]

On large ships: How are the HLs a concern? Only other spaceships will be attacking a spaceship, and they have weapons that are supposed to tear apart other ships. The Health Levels scale because they'll only be fighting other spaceships. The exception would be an Aberrant attack, in which case the ship is fucked anyway, unless they can outsmart it or pummel it with artillery and VARGs before it gets close enough to damage it. If a character takes his plasma carbine and shoot a ship, I doubt he'll do any damage. So having him cause a HL of damage is just not a problem.

Remember that Trinity spaceships aren't as large as they are in other sci-fi settings. Leviathons are the largest at 1200 meters, and that's only because they require so much room for the Tesser system. Most ships don't come close to that size; damaging "sections" isn't an issue when a ship is small to medium. These aren't Star Wars' Star Destroyers or Star Trek's Federation ships.

A Scarab, for instance, is pretty damned cramped, and not that large. I see no reason to increase its HL capacity...if it takes several bad hits, it'll fall apart. A fleet cruiser I can maybe see justification for, but it already has better armor (plus higher HLs, from the Tech Manual) so I personally wouldn't mess with them.

Aberrant:

I'm pretty sure cars have low soak and HLs in Aberrant for cinematic purposes. If a nova is going to be firing quantum-death everywhere, its cooler if shit explodes into fireballs upon impact.

West End Games Star Wars: Ah, memories...I had a Bith bounty hunter once. When I became full-time GM, the other players' bounter hunters ended up using his body as a human (Bith?) shield to escape a firefight, and then a thermal detonater went off in his apartment. He spent the rest of the campaign in a hospital. D6 Star Wars was my first RPG system, and though I haven't played it in years, I still remember 90% of the rules.

[Finbar]

Damage Cap: +5 is still +5; extra successes can be used for weird things...

On large ships: How are the HLs a concern? Only other spaceships will be attacking a spaceship, and they have weapons that are supposed to tear apart other ships. The Health Levels scale because they'll only be fighting other spaceships. The exception would be an Aberrant attack, in which case the ship is ****ed anyway, unless they can outsmart it or pummel it with artillery and VARGs before it gets close enough to damage it. If a character takes his plasma carbine and shoot a ship, I doubt he'll do any damage. So having him cause a HL of damage is just not a problem.

It's an issue because having an HL means that other (ie, non-large ships) can join in. Such as VARGs and artillery...It also allows space battles (so that missiles and fighters can be used; I am such a Star Wars geek, and my players are, too); too few HL's on the big ship, and it's just no fun, and reduces the encounter to a tactical one (based on initiative rather than skill) rather than a strategic one. Also, it gives those big ships a fighting chance against abbies, and makes a little more sense. Phoenix (or any Q6+ nova) going through a ship and killing it is cool; on the other hand, Sloppy Joe slagging a ship seriously doesn't feel right (yeahyeah, I know he doesn't have the power, but still...).

Remember that Trinity spaceships aren't as large as they are in other sci-fi settings. Leviathons are the largest at 1200 meters, and that's only because they require so much room for the Tesser system. Most ships don't come close to that size; damaging "sections" isn't an issue when a ship is small to medium. These aren't Star Wars' Star Destroyers or Star Trek's Federation ships.

Size isn't the issue; it's that any ship should have compartmentalized sections so that any given section can be separated from the others. We do, and we don't have to worry about abby attacks. Wouldn't it make some sense that a specific section could take a hit and survive?

I'm pretty sure cars have low soak and HLs in Aberrant for cinematic purposes. If a nova is going to be firing quantum-death everywhere, its cooler if shit explodes into fireballs upon impact.

Yeah, and most combat novas do that a lot...I just wanted to give tanks a chance. A 105mm gun does 15d10[10] damage; that maxes out at 30 HL's of damage (+5 damge add from accuracy, even though 18 HL's are more likely average)). A decent combat nova is going to have Armor 3 (+9 soak) or Force Field 3 (max of Q+9, assuming fixed option), Mega-Sta 3 (+4 Lethal, if you add in the normal soak+1 Bruised Level) and Elemental Mastery 3 (Shield) adds in another 6 (so [Q+]19 soak). In essence, the nova is most likely going to survive the shell. Even allowing that we're usually talking at least 5-10 tanks, under the current rules, what's essentially a lower mid-range nova (ie, one that's been around a while and is just hitting his stride) is going to kick butt and not really worry about problems.

Keep in mind that different groups have different needs; the standard cinematic kind of play isn't necessarily appreciated by everyone, especially when it seems that every game is into the heavily-dramatic cinematic thing and you want a good, light-hearted strategy game. House rules allow you to change things to fit your group a little better...so ::tongue !

FR

[Gideon]

We use three house rules:

First: All damage related to hypermovement and movement (slams and punches) are calculated by actual movement speed, not movement dots.

Second: using material barrier rules, all weapons have a breakage threshold. (reduces damage of mundane items, and encourages Attunement for reusable weapons)

Third 1: Permanent Taint affects the powers a player can select. The short of it is that the more Permanent taint you have the tighter you have to stick to your character's pure concept. The less taint you have the more "loosely" you can interpret your concept in power selection. We have a sliding scale, that gives examples of what powers become out offlimits at certain taint levels. Chysalis does not help with this at all, it actuall enhances this effect.

2: Temporary Taint restricts power purchase. If a character has 1 or more temporary points of Taint they must make a Willpower role with a difficulty equal to their temp. Taint score to learn a power not tightly aligned to their central theme.

and finally 3: Tainted powers must always fit into the character's central theme.

A bit wordy, but its an idea our group likes.

[metaphysician]

First: All damage related to hypermovement and movement (slams and punches) are calculated by actual movement speed, not movement dots.

How do you do that?

[Gideon]

Funny you should ask. I wrote up a "behind the scenes" paper to explain my system to my players.

But just for the mechanics the rough and tumble is that whether a vehicle a nova the objects speed determine the number of dice added to the damage pool. (every 20kph +1 die for Hyper/Aerial Strikes, and every 40kph grants a +1 die for Slams Hyper/Aerial) This allows a charcter that has Mega-Dexterity to benifit from extra damage and it also results in a character (baseline or nova) with Dexterity of 5 to get a solitary +1 with Strikes.

the write-up:

This alternate system leaves the falling mechanics intact as they incorporate a constant acceleration, and are internally consistent.

Alternate Hyperspeed Slam and Aerial Slam:

The nova moves into someone at superspeed. This move is treated as a Tackle (Str +3 bashing damage). The Storyteller determines the number of meters the character will cover in that turn to determine the number of additional Bashing dice from speed. The nova herself takes half damage from the slam (though her soak might well reduce this damage to zero), and she can reduce the total damage of her slam by any amount she chooses, so long as she announces it ahead of time and slows her pace accordingly. The victim of the slam must check for knockback (p. 249), while the attacker makes an Athletics roll, to stay upright, if running or a Flight roll if flying, to keep herself oriented, just as with a normal Tackle maneuver. If the defender suffers no knockback and the attacker fails her roll, the attacker also takes full damage from the slam (she just ran into the equivalent of a brick wall).

Ability: Brawl

Difficulty: +1

Accuracy: Normal

Damage: Special (Base Strength +3 as Tackle) + (Speed dice) + (knockback p. 249)

Attacker Injured with ½ Delivered damage (May soak it down to zero).

OR

If target is NOT knockedback or down, AND the Attacker fails their Athletics (or Flight) skill check, the Attacker takes FULL damage.

Alternate High Speed Strike (Aberrant):

The nova races by a target, bashing it with a limb or weapon as she passes. The maneuver is treated as a Strike or Weapon attack, but the player adds Speed dice up to twice the limb or weapon’s Damage Threshold.

Ability: Brawl or Martial Arts / Flight

Difficulty: +1

Accuracy: Normal

Damage: Special (Normal Damage + Speed dice [Limited by Damage Threshold])

If the damage dice gained from speed are greater than the calculated Effective Weapon Soak, the weapon will be damaged (and most likely destroyed) by the attack. If the weapon used is a part of the nova, then the nova must roll as though they received a targeted attack against the offending limb. Suggested max damage is Crippled as the limb striking will most likely be shattered.

Damage Threshold, is the combined dice pools of the weapon’s Strength damage add (i.e. a weapon that does Str +2 has a Strength damage add of +2) and the soak of the weapon’s weakest applicable material (i.e. a knife with a steel blade and handle would have a Soak of 6). This would mean that a steel knife would have a Damage Threshold of 8, thus a speedster could use this knife safely against a stationary opponent at speeds up to 132 meters (approximately 158.4kph). A nova that used his fist would be able to apply either their Bashing Soak or their Lethal soak depending on the target being struck. (A hardened target would cause the nova Lethal damage, though the Mega-Stamina enhancement of HardBody would alleviate this to a Bashing Soak). In addition to the damage bonus gained from speed, a nova possessing offensive powers that add to their damage potential may add them to their effective Damage Threshold with the Storyteller’s approval, thus if a character’s Claws power manifests as a pair of physical claws, then the Storyteller may decide to allow their added damage dice to increase the nova’s effective Damage Threshold, when used to perform a High Speed Strike.

Exceeding Damage Threshold: Every die that exceeds the weapon’s Damage Threshold is combined into an attack against the weapon that automatically hits and avoids all natural soak (because the soak has already been applied in the previous step). Each success counts as an automatic health level lost from the weapon (check the Material Strength charts for a reference). If the weapon is a limb of the nova, the damage should be limited to the crippling level, as the limb’s loss will be hard enough, though if the nova is already injured when they perform this maneuver, they may pay the price of their life for the extra damage.

Excerpt continued:

In closing I chose to base the Speed Damage off of a damage die for every 20 kilometers per hour, as opposed to the Adventure! rate of every 10kph, as I found that the Speed Damage results mapped closer to the power rank based damage when Slamming. And I went with a 40kph rate of accumulating dice for Striking, as again it mapped closer. If a rule was created using the 10kph rate as the baseline, then the Striking should be rated at 20kph and we can expect that Hypermovement will gain greater prominence in the Aberrant game world.

Sample Weapon Stats for Strike Maneuvers:

Type Damage Threshold Str Min Conceal Mass Cost

Ax Str +4L 10 2 N 3 1

Chain, lead Str +5B 10 1 P 2.5 1

Club, wooden Str +4B 7 1 T 1+ 1

Club, steel Str +4B 9 1 T 1+ 1

Knife Str +2L 7 1 J 0.5 1

Staff, wooden Str +6B 9 2 N 3 1

Staff, metal Str +6B 12 2 N 3 1

Spear, wooden shaft Str +4L 7 2 N 3 2

Sword Str +5L 11 3 T 3 2

Sword cane Str +4L 10 2 Y 3 2

Whip Str +2L 4 2 J 2 1

I hope that explains. I did a great deal of analysis, and the other 9 pages detail the resaoning and a few examples. this jives the Aberrant, Trinity and Adventure movement modifiers in a consistant manner. Though it tends to align the damage progrssion more with Trinity and Aberrant over Adventure!.

[metaphysician]

No offense, but you do realize that means even a single dot of Hypermovement adds 25 dice of damage to the attack, right?

[Gideon]

No I don't. how do you figure? It equates to 25 dice of damage? I am talking KPH not meters per turn.

[metaphysician]

. . .doh!! Nevermind.

[BcAugust]

We use three house rules:

Third 1: Permanent Taint affects the powers a player can select. The short of it is that the more Permanent taint you have the tighter you have to stick to your character's pure concept. The less taint you have the more "loosely" you can interpret your concept in power selection. We have a sliding scale, that gives examples of what powers become out offlimits at certain taint levels. Chysalis does not help with this at all, it actuall enhances this effect.

2: Temporary Taint restricts power purchase. If a character has 1 or more temporary points of Taint they must make a Willpower role with a difficulty equal to their temp. Taint score to learn a power not tightly aligned to their central theme.

and finally 3: Tainted powers must always fit into the character's central theme.

A bit wordy, but its an idea our group likes.

Hmm, since it doesn't seem anyone else is asking, can I ask how exactly you do this? It sounds like a nice idea, but means you really have to nail down the concept at the start.

[SkyLion]

We use three house rules:

Third 1: Permanent Taint affects the powers a player can select. The short of it is that the more Permanent taint you have the tighter you have to stick to your character's pure concept. The less taint you have the more "loosely" you can interpret your concept in power selection. We have a sliding scale, that gives examples of what powers become out offlimits at certain taint levels. Chysalis does not help with this at all, it actuall enhances this effect.

2: Temporary Taint restricts power purchase. If a character has 1 or more temporary points of Taint they must make a Willpower role with a difficulty equal to their temp. Taint score to learn a power not tightly aligned to their central theme.

and finally 3: Tainted powers must always fit into the character's central theme.

A bit wordy, but its an idea our group likes.

Interesting idea but it goes against canon. As the exemplar example we have Divis Mal, a multi multi-chrysalis taint-happy fruitloop. His theme is plasma control, yet in his description in WW Ph II it says his quantum understanding has evolved...he knows that he can do anything given time and practice.

,,

Then again, we are talking house rules here.

[Gideon]

RE: Taint Process:

Well the key is of course nailing the nova's theme. A nova's theme is not just "shadow", "night" or "something takes goes bump in the night" (to use three similar themes). A nova's theme is a complex bundle of culture, neurosis and self-perception (a perfect reference to this is how a baseline that errupts via an accident trigger can errupt SO many different ways). I ussually have my players sit down and chat with me about their idea(s) and we do a little session for their erruption (You have to be cofortable with one-on-one RP sessions) and the style is such that the Player gets a lot more control of their erruption (no dice are roled unless a truely random process is occuring), and we end the session with a newly errupted nova, their psychology worked out abit, and I get two to three pages of notes to compile their 'true' theme.

I often find that most themes are not just Fire, Speed or Shadows they tend to represent a combination of One major dominant Theme and one to three lesser Themes supporting the major one. I use the 1-on-1 session to try to shake the lesser themes loose. The ones that remain I try to reconcile with the major theme. If I can't it gets chopped (mind you this is ALL done with the player's help). The end product is ussually a well defined Theme with ideas of what abilities will fit and which won't. The key part is we also identify what parts of the Theme are driven by the nova' snature and which parts might be external influences (normally lesser Theme aspects).

So in a way a nova's theme can change over time, but the more tainted the nova becomes the less control they have (perhaps they become limited to only changing lesser aspects of a Theme). the general rule of thumb is once an aspect is defined it only changes with deliberate effort (only if it makes sense) and only new aspects are negotiable.

RE Chrysalis: Actually I over simplified a bit. What better defines its impact is that Any taint you convert to Chrysalis points is added to the tally (like the social modifier) to the Taint scale. Also the nature of Chrysalis supercedes the Taint limitations, as Chrysalis is the direct manipulation of Taint and the constraints it places upon novas. Outside of Chrysalis it is a hinderance in acquiring powers not related tightly to your theme.

Re Divis: So considering the number of Chrysalis that Divis Mal; has under gone he could have almost any power he wanted even with this house rule.

I guess a fun part of this I also use the non-cannon special effect that for a number of turns (low temp. taint), minutes (medium temp. taint) or hours (high temp. taint) equal to their perm. Taint score, a nova will manifest an aberation each time they acquire temporary taint.

i.e. <number of Temp. Taint Acquired> * <Perm. Taint> = number of units

and if (Perm. Taint == 0-3){ the unit equals turns }

else if (Perm. Taint == 4-6){ the unit equals minutes }

else { the unit equals hours }

For example:

If Skylion attempted a Power Max and botched badly (sorry Skylion ::blush ). He acquires two points of Temporary Taint (he already has a permanent Taint of 2 and NO other temporary Taint).

With th eabove system He would manifest a Low level aberration for (2*2)=4 turns(Perm Taint less than 3).

The temporay aberration can be anything Thematically appropriate, and may or may not have anytying to do with the first permanent aberration the nova acquires...though foreshadowing is fun! ::biggrin

Anyway its just House Rules so YMMV, but my players really enjoy these secondary effects of Aberration, and it was recently disclosed to me by one player that it was this system that made him REALLY interested in the Teragen (he normally plays big Goodie-two-shoes type characters), as he has 'issues' with being monsterous - not though with being a 7'6" steel plated bodybuilder...funny how labels affect people.

Gideon

[BcAugust]

Interesting. It sounds though it's a mechanical effect for what most people already do, but that can be nice to have. Though do you consider Themes more like inner nature or god's portfolios?

Of course, meta upthread has said our current game house rules, though if you wanted my oWoD houserules, we could be here all week.

[Alex Green]

Hey BcAugust, Welcome To the Boards! Hail and Well Met!

[BcAugust]

Hey BcAugust, Welcome To the Boards! Hail and Well Met!

Thanks. Been looking at the board for a while, decided to finally join. Expect a few necroed threads, but I'll try not to make it that overwhelming.

[metaphysician]

Just for a quick reference, this would be the bcaugust who plays Artemis in Ancient Aberrant.

[BcAugust]

Just for a quick reference, this would be the bcaugust who plays Artemis in Ancient Aberrant.

Yep. I couldn't let you have all the fun of describing our campaign. Plus, there's a few things I'm interested in seeing what people here think.

[Gideon]

RE BCAugust Themes: Its just me but I see it all as a psychology/Id thing, where the Theme is a manifestation of your need for instant gradification. Fortunately most novas are Big Media fed, so ideas abound in their psychies as to what constitutes true gradification of the self (as well as during erruption)...but as I said its just how I normally interpret things.

[BcAugust]

RE BCAugust Themes: Its just me but I see it all as a psychology/Id thing, where the Theme is a manifestation of your need for instant gradification. Fortunately most novas are Big Media fed, so ideas abound in their psychies as to what constitutes true gradification of the self (as well as during erruption)...but as I said its just how I normally interpret things.

Ah, and I would be more inclined to do it as it is in our current game, where it's more what would be a portfolio in D&D terms. For a modern game, more Jungian, then. Though certainly the media feeds into that in a modern game. *hat tip* Nicely thought.

[Blue Thunder]

Thread necromancy is perfectly fine here. We're not elitist pricks who hate on "newbs" or anything. Why make a new thread for a topic when you can pick up where an old one left off? There's a reason we keep old threads and don't dump them.