Aberrant: Infinite Earth - Some Proposed Background Clarifications

[The Story Guide]

Reputation:

Dots in reputation may be die bonuses or penalties in social interactions depending on the Reputation and the interaction.

Legend

Regardless of the character’s other traits, he has imitators of one kind or another. An Elite gets credit for fights he’s never been in and slapped with lawsuits when baseline kids try to stop a bus while dressed up in their outfit/mask. A brainiac is assumed to have been the mind behind the latest gadgets or ideas in their area of expertise, even if they’ve been vacationing in Nice for the past year; they also get stalked by Japanese high-schoolers trying to figure out how to become them. The charismatic and beautiful hardly every pay for anything and never wait in line, but they’re stalked by would-be lovers and jealous spouses. Everyone – and I do mean everyone – knows who you are and has a story or two about you that just has to be true. You have no anonymity without Cipher, and even then it’s starting to get dicey. As a positive background, Legend gets you what you want from baselines and even impressionable novas with little or no effort. The negative of this background/Enhancement is Media Attention/Front Page Darling. As with Media Attention, you allocate the five points of Reputation before Legend to those that share in your Legend; or the ST does for those that share your notoriety.

Resources:

Expendable income is 1% of total liquidated assets for each level of Resources and may be saved for a large purchase or “borrowed” forward. Borrowing forward reduces the available Resources rating in future month by one dot or month per multiplier. A character may not reduce their available Resources below 1 through borrowing forward, nor may they borrow more than twelve months in advance; if they require more money immediately it will cost them one permanent dot of Resources. This means that those with Resources 1 or less may not borrow forward; Resources 2 may borrow forward a max of $30,000; Resources 3, $150k; Resources 4, $600k, Resources 5, $6m; WBA $30b.

• Example: Eurphyosyne needs $100,000 to purchase a blacktech device to protect her from motherhunters; she has resources 4. Her monthly expendable income is $10,000. She needs 10x her monthly expendable income. She has not been setting money aside, so she borrows forward two dots of Resources for five months, reducing her effective resources rating to Resources 2 for those five months – this starts the month she purchases the device.
  
  Wealth Beyond Avarice
  Liquidated assets would garner $5 billion, expendable monthly income is $50m. Expendable income may be saved for a large purchase or “borrowed” forward. Borrowing forward reduces the available Resources rating in future month by one dot or month per multiplier. A character may not reduce their available Resources below 1 through borrowing forward, nor may they borrow more than twelve months in advance; if they require more money immediately it will cost them one permanent dot of Resources. This means that those with Resources 1 or less may not borrow forward; Resources 2 may borrow forward a max of $30,000; Resources 3, $150k; Resources 4, $600k, Resources 5, $6m; WBA $3.6b.
  • Example: Eurphyosyne needs $10 billion to purchase a blacktech device to protect her from motherhunters. She needs 20x her monthly expendable income, she borrows forward for five months, reducing her effective resources rating to Resources 2 (4 points) for those five months – this starts the month she purchases the device.
    
    
    Sanctum:
    Sanctums are places of refuge and respite for a character. Each dot allows a number of features equal to the dot bought to be purchased to add to the base Sanctum; Sanctum Sanctorum allows one Enhanced Feature. These features are inherent to the Sanctum; more may be added by the purchase of other backgrounds and placed at the Sanctum.
    
    Base Sanctum:
    Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, basic workroom. Cipher rating 1 for the Sanctum itself.
    
    Features:
    • Well Hidden (+2 to Cipher, may be bought twice and the effects stack on the base Cipher rating.)
      
    • Igors (+4 Followers that are bound to the Sanctum, may be bought multiple times but the effects do not stack. Igors are not novas, though they may be altered with bodymods pending ST approval.)
      
    • Host (May accommodate up to four guests indefinitely or up to 16 guests for one month, with each fewer guest adding a month to the timeframe until only four are left. May be taken multiple times, effects stack. Igors do not count towards this cap.)
      
    • Posh (Amenities are high class; this confers no mechanical benefits, it just means that the Sanctum is well appointed and has excellent food. The purchases for this high lifestyle are untraceable and always present if procured through Posh instead of the character’s Resources rating.)
      
    • Professional (Adds the necessary space and tools to practice a profession. For medicine, this means a small hospital set-up (which can accommodate per the Host rating, 0 Host is a one-person facility). For inventors, this is a workshop for their particular type of inventions, for a computer programmer this is a state-of-the art tech set-up. Mechanically, this provides a +2 die bonus to the profession being practiced within the Sanctum. This may be bough multiple times for different professions or to stack on a single profession.
      
      • Note for Invention: Instead of adding +2 dice for gadgeteering, the character may reduce the time per success to thirty minutes for one die or fifteen for both dice; alternately the character may reduce the time between rolls to twelve or six hours respectively. Any combination of bonus dice, success time reduction, or roll spacing reduction may be used.)
        
      • Security (Each purchase must be designated Defensive or Offensive, the fluff of what this actually is is up to the player and will affect how the security system may be disabled. All systems must have some manner in which they can be overcome, though that doesn’t mean it should be easy.)
        
        • Defensive: Imposes penalties on intruders or attacks on the Sanctum. Each purchase imposes a -1 penalty to infiltration rolls (including powers being used to circumnavigate the defenses) and provides 1 [2] soak/armor and +2 Health Levels to the sanctum itself. It can only be bought the as many times equal to the total Sanctum rating.
          
        • Offensive: The Sanctum may attack intruders/attackers with a 6d10B or L (determined when bought) attack with a range of 50 meters outside of the Sanctum (internal security is considered to cover all areas unless specifically noted by the player) and a RoF of 1. One more purchase point adds +1d10 damage or doubles the range or adds one to the Rate of Fire. Two points of purchase add +[1]; automatic damage cannot exceed the number of dice of attack.
          
          • Note: Damage that actually misses a target “hits” the Sanctum instead if the attack is made inside the Sanctum. It can’t dodge itself.
            
            

          [*]Mobile The Sanctum is mobile. For one purchase this means the Sanctum is either wheeled or a boat; for two the Sanctum is capable of flight, for three it is space (and submersion)-worthy for the number of people per the Host rating. Each movement type must be bought separately. Land speed: 200 kph base, + 50 kph for each additional purchase point in land mobility; Flight speed: 500 kph base, +500 kph for each additional purchase point in flight mobility, Space: 50 million kph base, +50 million kph per each additional purchase point. Space flight works only in microgravity; if the sanctum is planet-side at some point it must have its own way of getting back out into space before it can use the Space mobility speed again.

          [*]Sensors A sanctum may be outfitted with a number of sensors. Standard cameras (both internal and external) are one purchase. Ultraviolet, Infrared, Sonar, X-Ray, and Quantum scanners each cost another purchase point to be added. The interior of the Sanctum is considered always in range; base range is 200 meters, purchases may also be made to double the range of the sensor system.

          [*]Remote Access The sanctum has a remote access ability, like the Teleport power. The sanctum creates a number of remote access keys equal to the number of sanctum owners plus one for each additional feature point put into Remote Access. Each Sanctum with Remote Access creates it own particular kind of key, but all keys must be physical and removable. The remotes allow the user to 'port to the Sanctum and returns the user to the location they 'ported from (or the nearest location deemed safe for the user). There is no security on the keys; anyone in possession of one can access the Sanctum if they are in control of a key. Once in the Sanctum, however, they may have security, Igors, and unhappy sanctum owners to deal with.

        Sanctum Sanctorum

        Enhanced Features:

        [*]Tricked Out: +40 Feature points.

        [*]Unassailable Security: Security cannot be shut down. +10 feature purchases in Security only. Also, three new options are available:

        [*]Defensive:

        [*]Self-Healing allows the Sanctum to heal one level of damage per hour. Further purchases may reduce the healing time by half or add another level of health per period.

        [*]Offensive:

        [*]Aggravated allows the Sanctum to be outfitted with weapons that do aggravated damage. Remember that attacks that miss targets do damage to the Sanctum itself.

        [*]Difficulty Levels allows the Sanctum to switch between damage types. If multiple weapons systems have been installed previously to taking this, they are combined into one highly effective single system. It takes the system one turn to switch between damage types, but this may be done room by room or for the system as a whole.

        [*]Have fun running through the kill zone.

        [*]Micronation: Legion followers, In Charge backing. The Sanctum may also Host any number of people indefinitely. Per In Charge, the character may “borrow” backgrounds from the Sanctum up to no more than three dots in Allies, Contacts, Gadget (heavily monitored by the ST, should make sense with the kind of Igors running about and the theme of the Sanctum), Followers (only that many of the Legion may leave the Sanctum at any point), Mentor (ditto Gadget), Resources. Only six points of “borrowed” backgrounds may be active at a time. If Mentor is dropped before the skill is learned (max skill level to be mentored is 3), the time is considered lost and must be restarted when Mentor is again activated.

        [*]Traveller: Space mobility, Warp engine that allows the Sanctum Sanctorum to warp. The warp engine may warp up to one light-year per jump. The Sanctum has 30 qp that recovers at the rate of 1 qp per hour. If a nova is in direct physical contact with the engine they may transfer qp per Quantum Conversion or Quantum Leech. The engine has no resistance.

        [*]Uknowable: The Sanctum benefits from the effect of the Enigma Enhancement, Psychic Shield (+6 auto successes; as a shell only, Telepathy inside the Sanctum is unaffected), Blank 5, and Invisibility (flat 10 permanent successes; all senses, people instinctively move around the Uknowable Sanctum).

        [*]Lyceum: The Sanctum contains all the necessary tools, space, and even raw materials for nearly any profession or pursuit imaginable. The Sanctum functions as if it is the teacher, automatically succeeds at “instruction” rolls, and has the Pedagogue Enhancement. The Lyceum is considered to have a 5 in all skills. Any skill check has one automatic success if the roll does not botch and botches are considered simple failures (this includes gadgeteering rolls).

        [*]Nexus: The Sanctum has the Warp power in a very specialized manner. All warps will either originate from the Sanctum or connect to it if activated by an authorized user of the Nexus system. There are a number of remotes available per the Host rating. Distance from the Sanctum does not matter when activating a warp to the Sanctum, warping from the Nexus requires the Sanctum to have the location available through sensors or logged in the ship’s memory. For security reasons, the ship will not open a warp to a blind location, but authorized users act as always active sensors to record all locations that they have been.

        [*]The Thousand Eyes: All Sensor options are installed and the range is moved to kilometers instead of meters. Remotes (number determined by the Host rating) act as extra points of origin for the sensors of the Sanctum. If the Sanctum or a remote is in sensory range of a computer system or information stream, the Sanctum may attempt to copy the information on the system or being transmitted with a static 5 successes. If a nova with Cyberkinesis is using the Sanctum’s sensory system, they suffer no distance difficulty to affect any computer or system within the Sanctum’s sensory range. Difficulty appliers accrue from the edge of the Sanctum’s sensory range.

        Multiple Sanctums:

        A character may purchase multiple Sanctums. Multiple Sanctum Sanctorums must be approved by the STs and have some great backstory and plot hooks along with it.

        Improving on a Sanctum Sanctorum:

        Also requiring ST approval and extensive in-game support, a Sanctum Sanctorum may be improved by buying a second rating of Sanctum, moving up the points just as the original Sanctum points were bought. However, the cost is 3 for the first dot and current rating x3 for each dot after. A second Sanctorum rating costs 18 xp. A third run through would cost 5 and x5, with another Enhance Feature costing 30 xp. You could continue up...but really, you've just got too much xp floating around at that point.

        Shared Sanctums:

        Each player in a shared Sanctum buys the points they are contributing separately, including Sanctorum ratings. This does allow for incredibly impressive Sanctorums, but requires players to share. If a character is killed in the course of gameplay, the ST may either require the remaining (or possibly new) players to pay for the “lost” dots or damage the part of the Sanctum that was attributed to the dead player. They may also rule that those points have been bequeathed to the players (usually the result of great gameplay and an awesome death scene). If a player simply wants to "take their dots elsewhere" this is only possible for things that can actually move. Use common sense, please.

[Telluris]

I like these proposals. The Resources clarification on expendable income is very useful, and I love the expanded Sanctum rules. I'm already designing Asteroid R.

[Sean Cassidy]

I like these rules, with some caveats - I find some of the numbers too extreme, or that additional ranking increase the effect too quickly. So, here are some of my suggestions.

Resources/Wealth Beyond Avarice:

For some reason, I never noticed that expendable income equated to 1% of liquidated assets. Anyway, not sure if you meant to change the income increments from weeks to months, though I like how borrowing forward works by month. Liquid Assets for Wealth Beyond Avarice seems fine, but I think the incremental income of 500m is really high, even if it's 1%, like the other ranks of Resources. How about reduced it to something like 10m or 50m? Going from Resource 4 to 5 increases the numbers by 10. As is, going to Wealth Beyond Avarice/Resources 6 increases them by 5,000 - Fine for Liquid Assets, comparable to the net worths of Bill Gates and Warrent Buffet, but it makes the incremental income just silly. I'd be a lot more comfortable with 10 or 50 million, even if I find those pretty high.

Sanctum:

Really cool, just fine some things increase too rapidly, without limit.

Professional: As needing a lab/garage/etc is already necessary for inventing, I don't think gadgeteering times should be reduced. They don't actually take that long as is (at least the ones in the A:PG, to my mind, for the benefits they give). And actually, granting Dice dice does reduce the time, as you can accumulate more successes per day. And maybe there should be a limit to how many times the feature can be applied to a single profession - a workshop can only do some much (unless there are AIs involved, who are smarter than you, and that leads into something else entirely ) I'd suggest a maximum of 2 or 3 times - getting another 4-6 dice is plenty fine.

Security:

Defensive: -2 to rolls and the soak/armor seems a bit much, considering how many times it can be added, especially with Santorum and multiple Sanctum backgrounds. On the other hand, I don't think the Soak is high enough and that it maybe should add Health Levels. How about something like -1 infiltration rolls (this would include penalizing powers that try to circumnavigating the defenses), +2 Health Levels, and + [2] armor, and it can only be bought a number of times equal to the Sanctum rating (which could be more than 5 with buying multiple Sanctums)?

Offensive: Looks good except of the RoF (Rate of Fire, I assume). instead of doubling, I'd suggest simply increasing it by one for each feature assigned to it. For Damage, I'd suggest +1d10 per Feature Point, + [1] (Auto-Damage/Damage Add) per 2 Feature Points spent, and Damage Adds can't be higher than the Dice of the attack.

Mobile: Pretty damn fast, even comparing it to Novas and the powers they can use. Even at the base level, a Sanctum on wheels is going as face as a race car, and with doubling, it can increase extremely fast. And the Spaceflight is insanely fast (by real-world standards, if not Space Opera ones). For interstellar Flight, I think the Travellar feature from Sanctorum is sufficient - even if it uses an 'Warp' effect, you can define it as some sort of FTL drive - wormholes, hyperspace, true FTL - it's going fast enough it doesn't matter all that much,

Anyway, my suggestion for speeds (not sure what the numbers before and after the slashes signifies).

Land/Water: 200kph + 50kph per additional time purchased (Used the out of combat speeds for Flight, with the same incremental increase, with an arbitrary starting speed equivalent to having a Quantum + Rating = 4)

Flight: 500kph + 500kph per additional time purchased (same as Hypermovement)

Spaceflight: 25,000kph + 25,000kph per additional time purchased (used the rough speed of the Space Shuttle and the speed of the International Space Station in orbit as a guideline, with the same proportional increments as Hypermovement)

The Sanctum Sanctorum features look okay (I'm a bit iffy on Lyceum and getting 9 points of versatile backgrounds from Micronation), but willing to see it in action before passing judgment, Also not sure about the stacking of Sanctum Sanctorum through multiple purchases of the background (though that gets pricy, if not too pricy considering how fast XP can be earned in some games) and with the sharing of Sanctums (sharing doesn't much seem like much of a concern or drawback, compared to the benefits), but again, willing to see it in action first, with the understanding things might need to be adjusted later.

Just my thoughts - not meant to be a lot, just trying to explain myself and offer suggestions.

[Mr Fox]

That actually brings up a thought about Gadgeteering times. I would suggest that real time be used for making stuff rather than thread time. Reason being, some games I've been in here on the site took well over a year for an in game week to pass by. You wouldn't be able to bring the gadget into the current thread unless it lasted in game long enough to make the gadget, but you could have it in other threads that might start after the gadget making period was complete.

[The Story Guide]

Resources/Wealth Beyond Avarice:

For some reason, I never noticed that expendable income equated to 1% of liquidated assets. Anyway, not sure if you meant to change the income increments from weeks to months, though I like how borrowing forward works by month. Liquid Assets for Wealth Beyond Avarice seems fine, but I think the incremental income of 500m is really high, even if it's 1%, like the other ranks of Resources. How about reduced it to something like 10m or 50m? Going from Resource 4 to 5 increases the numbers by 10. As is, going to Wealth Beyond Avarice/Resources 6 increases them by 5,000 - Fine for Liquid Assets, comparable to the net worths of Bill Gates and Warrent Buffet, but it makes the incremental income just silly. I'd be a lot more comfortable with 10 or 50 million, even if I find those pretty high.

The reason for the large jump was 1) research into the net worth of the wealthiest people on the planet and 2) the difference in cost between buying up the five regular dots and purchasing WBA. I was thinking NP and not averaging that out with xp. In the game I was creating this for, all Enhanced Backgrounds were 1 purchase things that cost 30 xp (also, I went back in and adjust the Sanctum Sanctorum costs to reflect the standard 12 xp and the multipliers, as I'd had it at the 30 xp and multipliers before). For CN, I'd say toning down WBA makes sense. Let's say that liquidated assets come down to $500m and then monthly rates are 5m? And that going down from WBA to Resources 5 counts as two multipliers?

Also, you pointed out that rates I have as monthly here are counted as weekly in the Player's Guide. I call BS on the Player's Guide if they think a college student has $250/week in expendable income (this is income after paying for the appropriate lifestyle for your resources rating, not just what the paycheck is after taxes). I can adjust if people want, but I intended this to be the cash people had access to for just whatever extra they wanted to do, not paying bills and whatnot.

Sanctum:

Really cool, just fine some things increase too rapidly, without limit.

Professional: As needing a lab/garage/etc is already necessary for inventing, I don't think gadgeteering times should be reduced. They don't actually take that long as is (at least the ones in the A:PG, to my mind, for the benefits they give). And actually, granting Dice dice does reduce the time, as you can accumulate more successes per day. And maybe there should be a limit to how many times the feature can be applied to a single profession - a workshop can only do some much (unless there are AIs involved, who are smarter than you, and that leads into something else entirely ) I'd suggest a maximum of 2 or 3 times - getting another 4-6 dice is plenty fine.

That's fair. Say you can take it twice for each profession, so that you're not getting more in bonus dice than you can even buy in skill level?

Security:

Defensive: -2 to rolls and the soak/armor seems a bit much, considering how many times it can be added, especially with Santorum and multiple Sanctum backgrounds. On the other hand, I don't think the Soak is high enough and that it maybe should add Health Levels. How about something like -1 infiltration rolls (this would include penalizing powers that try to circumnavigating the defenses), +2 Health Levels, and + [2] armor, and it can only be bought a number of times equal to the Sanctum rating (which could be more than 5 with buying multiple Sanctums)?

I'll bow to you on this, you know far more about the combat rules than I ever want to.

Offensive: Looks good except of the RoF (Rate of Fire, I assume). instead of doubling, I'd suggest simply increasing it by one for each feature assigned to it. For Damage, I'd suggest +1d10 per Feature Point, + [1] (Auto-Damage/Damage Add) per 2 Feature Points spent, and Damage Adds can't be higher than the Dice of the attack.

Yeah, Rate of Fire. And again, I bow to your expertise.

Mobile: Pretty damn fast, even comparing it to Novas and the powers they can use. Even at the base level, a Sanctum on wheels is going as face as a race car, and with doubling, it can increase extremely fast. And the Spaceflight is insanely fast (by real-world standards, if not Space Opera ones). For interstellar Flight, I think the Travellar feature from Sanctorum is sufficient - even if it uses an 'Warp' effect, you can define it as some sort of FTL drive - wormholes, hyperspace, true FTL - it's going fast enough it doesn't matter all that much,

Anyway, my suggestion for speeds (not sure what the numbers before and after the slashes signifies).

Land/Water: 200kph + 50kph per additional time purchased (Used the out of combat speeds for Flight, with the same incremental increase, with an arbitrary starting speed equivalent to having a Quantum + Rating = 4)

Flight: 500kph + 500kph per additional time purchased (same as Hypermovement)

Spaceflight: 25,000kph + 25,000kph per additional time purchased (used the rough speed of the Space Shuttle and the speed of the International Space Station in orbit as a guideline, with the same proportional increments as Hypermovement)

I'm fine with adjusting the speeds except for the space speeds. The space speeds were done to be able to move around a solar system in a timely manner. Space is huge and even though those numbers look big, it'll still take you time to get around and trying to get somewhere out of the Solar System on those speeds will take years at best. However, as you used Flight and then Hypermovement, we could just port over the Swiftness speeds from QF, with the same zero-g only rules. That would mean that you would need Flight at a rate enough to escape the gravity of the planet/asteroid/whatever before Swiftness would kick in or have a space-only sanctum (or have some other way of getting the sanctum from planetside to orbit....).

The slashes were safe speed/top speed, as I was using the speed charts for vehicles from....TNF, I think. One of the books.

The Sanctum Sanctorum features look okay (I'm a bit iffy on Lyceum and getting 9 points of versatile backgrounds from Micronation), but willing to see it in action before passing judgment, Also not sure about the stacking of Sanctum Sanctorum through multiple purchases of the background (though that gets pricy, if not too pricy considering how fast XP can be earned in some games) and with the sharing of Sanctums (sharing doesn't much seem like much of a concern or drawback, compared to the benefits), but again, willing to see it in action first, with the understanding things might need to be adjusted later.

Well, the worst part about sharing a Sanctum is the same about having a roommate: you have to share. I live in a $250k house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in one of the most affluent counties in the country. My family does this on two lower-end wage jobs, SSDI, and renting out rooms. *shrugs* Better neighborhood, nice house, uppermiddle class lifestyle at the cost of working together with three other people. Sharing has its benefits and its drawbacks, and in a game it's pretty much purely on the rp side.

[Novakowski]

I must disagree i think that Wealth Beyond Avarice is good how it is but you would need to explain and tie it to a reason of why it is so high

I.E. family control the economic of japan as in a combine of corporations which they are head of.

or you are the sole owner of a mega corporation or is the ruler of a European nation.

but this is Resource 6 as such the ST must approved. plus this should be done in story. not XP only.

I research the 10 wealthy family s they have excess of 20 billion in realty state. one article stated a European family had 8 billion back in 1924 in land.

so its not a too far strech in beliving that liquided assest is 50 billion. remeber that ST can always adjust the income.

" sir i here to report that you are nearly broke" stated the lawyer

" how !" the CEO exclaim

" after taking in lawsuits and bad markting last year your income is less then $50million, you will need to sell some property idf you want to maintain your lifestyle"

so i don't see this as a big thing as it will only effect game play.

[Sean Cassidy]

Ah, yeah, the cost for Background Enhancements being 30xp would naturally lead to seeing what they provided differently. I'm fine with making the 'allowance' provided by Resources monthly instead of Weekly, and it makes it more consistent with your borrow forward rules. 500 million assets and 5 million per month looks reasonable to me.

Sure, each profession (I guess for each skill) being bought only twice works for me.

About the Space Speeds, ah, gotcha. I thought you meant it for interstellar flight, and was considering the Traveller Feature for that one. I'm willing to let it stand at 500,000kph, increasing by the same for each time Spaceflight is bought. I assume this will only work in Space, if they want to fly in an atmosphere/gravity well, they would need to buy a Flight Speed as well?

If we keep Sanctum Sanctorum at 30xp, and increasing from there, I certainly would have no problems with it. And otherwise, meh. I'm willing to see how it goes. I just tend to be conservative/restrictive when looking at gaming rules. And I haven't seen too many PC room-mates get into squabbles. Admittedly, I haven't played many games where PCs have been full-time room-mates with XP/resources actually spent on a shared living arrangement. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one... (and the elves could end up with a sweet Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion ).

[Sean Cassidy]

Novakowski, I wasn't really concerned about the Liquid Assets of Wealth Beyond Avarice, but the monthly income. At 500 million a month, at is 6 billion a year. Apple, worth of 600 billion, made a net profit of about 25 billion. That's Apple, as an entire company, the most valuable company in the world. Not Steve Jobs (or rather, his estate), or anyone with stock/working for Apple, but the entire company. A reduction in the monthly income needed a reduction.

And the liquid assests being lower is fine. You can say your are worth far more, like 50 billion or whatever, but it you liquidate everything, sale stocks, real estate, cash bonds and all that, you get burned with penalties and such, making your liquid assets much lower. Those rich guys don't just have huge amounts like that laying around.

At least, that is how I see it, making the excuse to keep things a little more balanced.

[z006]

I'd rather not take the cost of the Sanctum Enhanced background up to 30 when the others are still 12 xp. I'd rather lower some of the benefits in that case. Just to keep things consistent.

[Sean Cassidy]

Vyse, of course, that makes more sense.

[Mr Fox]

I need to understand more about Sanctum and how you spend xp to build your 'dream home'. Could you please give an example of how much it would cost to buy the Millennium Falcon? It would need space flight, interstellar flight, defenses, offenses, living space for at least 4, artificial gravity and who knows what else.

Thanks.

[Sean Cassidy]

Aluminum Vulture - Sanctum Sanctorum.

Each rank of Sanctum gives you an equal amount of Feature Points - so 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +5 = 15, plus one Enhanced Feature from Sanctum Sanctorum.

So, lets but some stuff.

Host (1 FP) - supports 4 people indefinitely. Not really necessary, the Aluminum Vulture didn't make food, and would have to get refreshed, but well leave on for now.

Mobility : Flight: 1,500 kph (6 FP), Spaceflight: 500,000 kph (3 FP)

Security: Offensive (skip it, this I guess could represent automated point-defense lasers, but the AV didn't have those - just slap on something equivalent to the Heavy Weapons in the Core book or something); Defensive: 5 ranks - -5 to infiltrate, +10 HL, + [10] Armor, probably has something roughly equivalent to tank armor or better - we can work it out (5 FP)

Enhanced Feature - Traveller - gives you a Warp Drive/Hyperdrive/FTL drive of some sort, lets you move 1 light year per qp, and has 30 qp that recovers at 1qp per hour.

Done. With what Mala proposed, you can buy Sanctum again, at an increased cost, to get more Feature Points, or get a co-owner, to get the same.

[z006]

The Host thing covers what you need to support those four people indefinitely on the ship, including food. It's not great food, but it's not rations either. Posh would give you gourmet food and using Resources could up the quality as well.

[Mr Fox]

So how much does each rank cost in NP/XP?

[z006]

Same as any background, but if you go for seconds or thirds on the same Sanctum, the cost goes up. Base background cost is 2 for the first dot and current rating x2 for each additional. So, 3, x3 for the second round, 5, x5 for the third, and so on with each new round adding +2 to the cost/multiplier. If doing multiple rounds in NP, the second purchase of 5 dots is 2 NP, the third is 3 NP, etc.

[Sean Cassidy]

... Oops, wrong thread.

[The Story Guide]

Okay, I've made alterations to the suggested backgrounds from feedback. Can we get a few more opinions here so we could move to a vote to include the rules for play in CN?

[SeaEagle]

Mala, if I may, I love these clarifications, and I would heartily second this. But also... I would like this for consideration not only for CN but for IE at large. This is a incredibly useful patch to the game, and I think this would be quite welcome.

I second to move this to consideration, and also vote in approval.

[The Story Guide]

Oh, I'm all for it being used in any game that likes them. I just posted them up for CN specifically, that's all.

[SeaEagle]

KK. But still, I like them.

[Mr Fox]

Ok, so I was figuring up actual travel times within the solar system at the given space flight speed of 500,000 kph.

Just under an hour to the moon. - that's ok.

Trip to Saturn - 3000 hours. or 125 Days!!!

This seems pretty darned slow for a space ship. That's barely better than current real world tech. Even at 50 million KPH it would still take 30 hours to get to Saturn.

Lightspeed is just over 1 billion KPH. So for sublight engines on a spaceship, I'd like to see about 1/2 the speed of light, which would put it at 500 million KPH or a 3 hour trip from the Sun to Saturn. That's much more in line with most sci fi shows like Star Trek and Star Wars.

Thoughts?

[Sailor OOC]

As someone who went all OCD and made a chart for warps using the Warp power, half the speed of light is a pretty good way for intra-solar travel. Once you start going to the stars though, Warp is a better way to go that relativistic travel. Unless you find a way to make it work like mass effect (where you make your ship 0 mass and tell Einstein that he's a prat.) having some tech that emulates a high-level warp is the way to go.

[Mr Fox]

A ship would need both. One system for short distance travel, such as inside a solar system, and one for interstellar travel. The ship will definitely have FTL as per the sanctum writeup Mala did.

It was the short distance sublight stuff that I was questioning since getting from one end of the solar system to the other would take more than a year as written.

[The Story Guide]

The travel power made in QF called Quickness was made specifically for intra-stellar travel. It's fast enough (with enough successes) to get you around the Solar System, but stops short of being able to actually hit lightspeed.

[Mr Fox]

Sorry. Scratch what I posted above.

The speed I was looking at was from the example ship write-up and it was stated wrong there. In the actual sanctum background that you created it's listed as 50mil kph +50mil kph per additional purchase of the mobile feature. I can live with that without alteration.

[Naomi Minami]

One thing I wish we had in IE&CN was the Interstellar Traveler Enhancement for Perception. That is worthy to port in.

[Mr Fox]

Can you, provide a link to it or a write up of it?

[Naomi Minami]

Sucks that Lightspeed in QF is a L4, QM7 power.

Anyways, Stellar Traveler is in this list Under Mega Perception. Light speed is also in that post. You should just look at that whole thread honestly.

[The Story Guide]

Personally, I find the Lightspeed power to be grossly overpowered and open to abuse, mostly because of the applications it has been allowed/given in combat. Were it just a travel power, it would at least be simply that and not effectively a "smash a planet into bits from intertia" power.

The Enhancement seems fine, though.

[SeaEagle]

Well if it was modded to being just a movement power, you think that would reduce it's level/Q.Minimum?

[Sean Cassidy]

I personally dislike the Stellar Traveller enhancement - all it is a way to increase the range of several teleport/warp powers at once for cheap. Wow, the 3 extra successes (not even dice) purely to extend the range of movement powers, where their main purpose is cross distance? All for 3 or 6 xp (in-theme/out-of-theme)? Nuh-uh, just buy more dots in the power.

[The Story Guide]

I think the Enhancement is meant for when you can't buy any more dots in the power. Also, it doesn't say in the description, is this enhancement able to be bought multiple times?

If we wanted to tone it down for CN/IE rules, perhaps we say simply bonus dice instead of successes? Just a thought. As it's not a combat thing, I'm less worried about it. *shrugs*

[SeaEagle]

No, it does not have the option for multiple uses. You can only get it once.

If it adds some comfort, just having it provide bonus dice would be a way to over nerf the enhancement, since the enhancement is of a very specific utility and requires other things (other Mega Per Enhancements) just to be taken.

3 Sux for Warp or Teleport can be powerful in combat, but if you make it so it's out-of-combat warps/teleports/transmits only, that might be just the right level of change where it becomes a safe enhancement.

[z-Coyote-Mad Scientist]

I have a suggestion.

Interstellar Warp

Level 3

Q-Min: 4

Dice Pool: Perception + Warp

Range: Q + power rating x 200 M

Area: N/A

Duration: Special

Effect: Creates a gate appropriate for interstellar travel.

It takes 10 turns to create a warp, and the PC may do nothing else while they are creating this warp. Interstellar warps are typically 30 meters square; the nova may alter the shape by 5 meters per dot. Anything that can’t fit through the warp can’t sure it. Warps may be created anywhere within the nova’s range.

This power isn’t useable offensively in combat, though a nova may abstain from combat to create a warp.

1 – 200 km

2 – 2,000 km

3 – 20,000 km

4 – 200,000 km

5 – 20,000,000 km

+1 – x1000 km

[SeaEagle]

So this is just Warp with a larger aperture? Will it have the same rules otherwise as Warp? The ranges displayed also doesn't really imply an interstellar warp. This is just warp pretty much with a different name.

Perhaps we should move the Warp/Enhancement issue to it's own thread.

[z-Coyote-Mad Scientist]

Yep, Warp with longer distances and the inability to be used offensively. Does it need more zeroes? I can do that.

1 – 20,000 km

2 – 200,000 km

3 – 2,000,000 km

4 – 20,000,000 km

5 – 2,000,000,000 km

+1 – x10,000 km

Does it need more zeroes? I can add 'em all night!

[SeaEagle]

Oh god you're gonna make me OCD to convert km to LY... with a spreadsheet...

[SeaEagle]

Okay, based on that, here is a spreadsheet to 10 sux.

I think... this is too cray-cray for our PL. The most we are getting to is Q6. Period.