Rebuilding Aberrant to deal with some of its most eregrious flaws.

Problems Observed

First, issues.

Basal

1. XP/Chargen/BP Systems. Probably too much of a hassle to fix.

2. Overall consistency. Should be fixable by going over everything with a fine toothed comb.

Physical

1. Health Levels are undervalued. Novas don't tend to buy enough health levels, which is rather problematic. Similarly Novas do not get a free base defensive suite sufficient to even hang out on a battlefield, which isn't inherently unrealistic but not so good for gameplay.

2. Mega-Stamina is moderately suboptimal without the excessive use of biochem weapons. Although its Enhancements are very good, this means that it's often a good idea just to buy 2 dots of Mega-Stamina and use the rest of the XP on Enhancements instead. Higher levels of M-Sta need to be made more optimal.

3. Stacked Defenses greatly outstrip offense after a certain period of time, even if offense is highly efficient.

4. Dexterity is still the godstat. Fixing this will likely require a full rebuild.

5. Not enough options to harm stacked defense Novas, too many options to splatter non-stacked defenses. Increasing HLs should greatly assist in this issue.

Mental

1. No systems for technological improvement exist. Tentative solution is to appropriate systems from Brainwaves and Adventure!.

2. Gadget rules are aggravating to handle.

Social

1. No system for social conflict resolution (answer: import Sway from nWoD?)

2. Mega-Socials are ridiculously powerful. (working as intended, may add the burn-1-WP-to-resist, 2-WP-immunity rules and Natural/Unnatural influence distinction to enhance?)

Quantum

1. Inconsistent rules on buying Extras for powers. Limit of Extras makes low level powers much more useful than high-level ones.

2. Lack of useful defensive measures against Quantum-affecting powers such as Disrupt

3. Offensive power balance

4. Suite powers are suboptimal unless bought at extremely high levels in chargen (and even then are rapidly outstripped).

5. Power max is largely useless.

6. Taint is largely pointless. The rebuild will aim to make Taint something with benefits as well as penalties to make it more worth taking. Aberrations should be largely neutral, with positive and negative effects.

Physical Rebuild

Natural Lethal Soak

All characters, baseline and Nova, have natural lethal soak equal to Stamina/2. Novas no longer gain natural lethal soak as one of their special abilities-their increased toughness is represented by additional health levels, as listed below. All Stamina soak is Stackable.

Quantum and Soak

In Aberrant as written, Novas can spend 1 Quantum (up to their permanent Quantum score) to roll 1 die and add successes to soak for 1 turn. This is an incredibly inefficient and unpredictable defensive method, which is essentially pointless for most characters.

Instead, in this system, a Nova may always pay 1 Quantum to reduce the damage of one attack by 1 health level, up to their maximum Quantum/turn. Although worse against being hit by about a dozen attacks, it's more effective against sudden horrific ones.

Health Levels

A baseline human has a health track of -0/-1 x 2 /-2 x 2/-4/Incapacitated. This is the standard 7 level health track.

Novas channel Quantum through their body, increasing the toughness of their skin, muscles, and bones due to such rigors of channeling, and as they become more adept at channeling such energies their body becomes tougher in turn to allow them to make use of their mastery. Each point of Quantum a Nova possesses gives the Nova an additional -0 health level, and a Nova adds their Quantum to their Stamina to calculate their natural lethal and bashing soak.

Mega-Physicals

Mega-Stamina

Mega-Stamina now provides, per dot:

Doubles the Nova's lifespan per level (x2 for M-Sta 1, x4 for M-Sta 2, x8 for M-Sta 3, so on and so forth.)
Increases the Nova's healing rates per level as noted in the core book.
One -0, one -1, one -2, and one -4 Health Level per purchase.
+1B/1L Stackable natural soak per purchase.

Mega-Attribute Clarification

Each Mega-Attribute counts as 2 dots of the relevant Attribute when calculating values for powers, unless the power specifically notes it calculates values differently. Furthermore, no attribute-increasing power gives Mega-Attributes without an Extra anymore, instead adding dice.

Stacked Defenses

Stacking defensive powers becomes less and less effective the more of them you have. To allow the reduction in stacking effectiveness, there are now three categories of soak.

Natural soak: Natural soak comes from Quantum, Stamina, and Mega-Stamina.
Power-Based soak: Power-Based soak is gained from Quantum (or Psi) powers.
Armored soak: Armored soak comes from body armor or eufiber, or body modifications.

Any character may only gain the full defensive value of one source of each soak type (normally the highest soak value). The second source of said soak is halved, the third source has its value divided by 4, and so on, to a minimum of +0L/0B from stacking. Round stacking soak values down. Note that some soak is noted to be Stackable, primarily soak gained from body modifications. This means you add up all sources of stackable soak and treat it as one source of soak.

Example: A Nova with Eufiber 4 (+4B/4L soak), Advanced Body Armor (+6B/6L soak), and Subdermal Armor (+2B/2L soak) with a Hyperdense Skeleton (+2B/1L soak) calculates his armored soak by taking the full value of his Advanced Body Armor (6B/6L), then halving the value of his Eufiber (4B/4L halves to 2B/2L), and then quartering the value of his body modification soak (4B/3L quarters to 1B/0L), giving him a total of 9B/8L soak from armor, rather than 14B/13L.

Armor

Armor is destroyed if an attack has raw damage equal to its Destruction rating, with damage adds counting double. An armor's penalty adds to the difficulty of all athletics rolls in armor, including dodge rolls, rather than reducing dice. It also adds to the difficulty of all rolls to resist exertion. Furthermore, the heavier and more tiring the armor, the harder it is for a character to act. A character must have both (Strength + Might) and (Stamina + Endurance) equal to (2 + total mobility penalty), or takes a -1 dice penalty to all rolls for every dot he falls short of this requirement.

Some particularly light armor is now considered to be "lightweight" and has no strength or stamina requirements. Armored T-Shirts, Reinforced Clothing, and Eufiber are the only lightweight armor in the core.

Stacking Armor

A character may wear multiple suits of armor, but stacking thick and heavy armor is a great way to exhaust oneself. Wearing more than 1 source of armored soak adds an additional -1 to mobility penalty above and beyond the total penalty of the armor. Body modifications do not generally count for this unless explicitly stated.

Mental Rebuild

Science (or is it SCIENCE!)

To fully clarify, there are three "types" of technical advancement in Aberrant. Conventional science, super-science, and Devices.

Conventional science is stuff that fully meshes with the laws of physics and requires no exotic ingredients, nor does it play with the nigh-magical forces that the Inspired possess. Conventional science creates things like suborbitals, advanced body armor, railguns, powersuits, the occasional robot, fusion reactors, pollution-eating microbes, genetic enhancements, the list goes on and on. Anyone, baseline or Inspired, can advance conventional science.

Super-science isn't the same thing as cutting edge science. It's research and development which requires exotic, Nova-created ingredients or perhaps uses Noetic or Quantum forces (as opposed to small-q quantum). Super-science can be duplicated by baselines with the right materials, but cannot be advanced by baselines. Super-science developments include FTL drives, Soma, Eufiber based infrastructure, hypercore rounds, and several varieties of free-floating active nanotech.

Devices are handcrafted systems which are unique to the creator and their harnessing of Quantum or Noetic forces. Devices can be created by the Inspired but cannot be duplicated (although there are Devices that are similar enough to have identical game effects) because they are personal expressions of power, rather than technical advancements per se.

Advancement

Gadgeteering, 2.0

To create a gadget, a character rolls Intelligence + (Science or Engineering, choose lower). Biological gadgets replace this with Intelligence + (Science or Medicine, choose lower), while software gadgets use Intelligence + (Computers or Engineering, choose lower). Each assistant (up to Intelligence + Charisma assistants) adds 1d to this total if they have either Science or Engineering at 2+, 2d if they have both abilities at 2+ or 1 ability at 4+, and 3d if they have both abilities at 4+. Inspired assistants (Novas, Psions/Psiads, Paramorphs) add an additional 1d to the roll. If the character has a relevant power (such as Matter Creation for hardtech gadgets, Biomanipulation for living, or Cyberkinesis for software) add the power rating in dice to the roll.

Each roll is roughly 1 week of work time. Each success on the roll becomes 1 NP, which is used to purchase attributes, abilities, and powers for the gadget. All gadgets start at Quantum 0 and have no Quantum pool. A gadgeteer may not create a gadget with more NP than twice his [Intelligence + Highest Relevant Skill], each dot of Mega-Intelligence counting as 2 dots of Intelligence for those purposes. Note that a gadget may use its user's attributes and abilities if it is defined as a weapon or suit of armor, and therefore does not have to have all attributes.

If a gadget is defined as an autonomous system, it requires at least 1 dot of Intelligence to interpret commands and/or act autonomously. An autonomous gadget may only use its own dice pools.

Difficulty

The gadgeteering roll is +0 difficulty by default. For every power the gadgeteer desires to add which he or she lacks at the desired level but can study in a lab, add +1 to difficulty. For every power the gadgeteer desires to add which she cannot study in a lab, add +2 to difficulty. Increasing the gadget's lifespan past 1 month adds +1 or more difficulty. To make a gadget easy to maintain, halving its effective NP for maintenance purposes, add +2 difficulty. A gadget with more Quantum powers than the gadgeteer has Mega-Intelligence adds an additional +1 difficulty to its roll.

Remember, difficulty subtracts from the successes gained from the roll.

Maintenance

A gadget's lifespan is considered to be 1 month by default. Doubling this lifespan adds +1 to difficulty of the creation roll, quadrupling it adds +2, and so on. As an alternative, the character may attempt maintenance, using the same pool that he or she used to create the gadget to repair it. Maintenance requires a gadgeteer to roll as many successes as the gadget has NP, but the interval of the roll is days instead of weeks.

After a gadget's lifespan is up, every time it is used, a gadget takes 1 unsoakable, unhealable aggravated health level.

Xanatos Gambits

Because Mega-Intelligence needs a system for "I prepared for that of course." so it's not ST fiat.

Social Rebuild

Do you like Sway? I like Sway! Get nWoD Mirrors!

Quantum Rebuild

Chargen

There is no longer any option to purchase Quantum via bonus points, because that was broken as all hell. Instead, characters start with 40 NP default instead of 30.
1 NP now buys 2 attribute dots or 4 ability dots instead of 3/6 respectively.

Taint

Each Dot of Taint provides the following advantage:

Aberrations: The Nova gains beneficial body modifications (large size, acute senses, hardened skin, etc.) per dot of Permanent Taint. This body modification must relate to the power/etc. the Taint was used to purchase. After the 4th point of Taint, these body modifications become ever more obvious, and ever more powerful. At Taint 1-4, each point of Taint grants 3 XP worth of modifications, at Taint 5-7, each point grants 6 XP worth, and at Taint 8+ each point grants 9 XP worth.
Reduced Cost: Taking a power or level of Quantum Tainted reduces its cost by 3 NP (at chargen) or half (after chargen). This can give a power negative cost.
Transhuman Ascendence: The quantum energies coursing through the Nova mutate her body far past human limits, both for good and for ill. At Taint 4, a Nova can choose one attribute group (Physical, Mental, or Social). This attribute group no longer has a rating cap, and any body modifications or merits (such as Exceptional [Attribute] or Inhuman [Attribute]) are converted back into XP. At Taint 6, a Nova can choose a second group to remove the cap from. Finally, at Taint 8, the Nova no longer has any limits to physical development and can boost his or her attributes to any desired score.

However, each Dot has the following disadvantages:

Social Issues: A Nova suffers +1 difficulty on social rolls against others if the Nova's permanent Taint is 4 levels higher than the opponent, and this difficulty penalty increases by every additional 2 levels of permanent Taint the Nova has. A Nova with Taint 8 suffers a +2 difficulty against a Nova with Taint 2, and +3 difficulty against a baseline. This applies for all social rolls, including intimidation-the Nova is just so fearsome the opponent is driven catatonic or desperately tries to make a stand rather than telling the Nova what he or she wants.
Taint Radiation: At high Taint levels (8+) the Nova radiates Taint radiation, which can poison baselines and give Taint to nearby Novas. With one scene of constant exposure, a Nova or baseline with permanent Taint less than half that of another Nova must roll (Stamina + Resistance) at the end of the scene, the difficulty being half the difference between the Taint levels of the two Novas (round up). Failure means a Nova takes 1 point of temporary Taint + 1 more point for every point of permanent Taint a Nova has above 9, while a baseline gains 1 level of permanent Taint and the advantages and disadvantages of said.
Aberrations: The Aberration system is used as normal for disadvantageous or inconvenient changes. These changes are merely paired with beneficial ones. Minor Aberrations are generally minor physical changes which merely stand out, equivalent to 0 to 1 point flaws. Moderate Aberrations are generally equal to 1-3 point flaws, and should be disadvantageous to the character, or highly inconvenient. Severe Aberrations are equivalent to 4+ point flaws.

Novas gain Aberration points with increasing Taint as shown below:

Taint 0-2: 0 pts

Taint 3-5: 1 pt/level

Taint 6-8: 2 pts/level

Taint 9-10: 4 pts/level.

A minor Aberration is worth 1 point, a moderate 2, and a severe 4.

Temporary Taint

This section lists new and altered ways to gain or lose temporary Taint.

Quantum Recharging

Novas can unsafely channel ambient quantum energies, recharging 2 Quantum Points instantly at the cost of 1 temporary Taint. This supplements Dying for Power: A very desperate Nova can do truly insane

Power Maxing

A Power Max requires the character to pay double the cost of the power, although more Quantum can be spent (an additional amount up to the character's permanent Quantum score). The character rolls his permanent Quantum. The character gains 1 temporary taint for a failed max, and 2 if the roll botches. Successes on this roll (if any were rolled) are added to the number of additional Quantum spent and used to buy new features for the power. This is a reflexive action.

1 success buys +1d to the power's dice pool or damage, up to [Quantum].
2 successes converts 1 dice in the power's pool into a success. For powers which have a roll to hit and another damage roll, it converts both part of the to-hit and damage roll.
2 successes buys any desired Extra for the power.
3 successes increases the power's level by 1 for all purposes, including accuracy, damage, and range.
5 successes allows the Nova to alter the chosen power for (Quantum) actions, turning it into a similar but related power. For example, a Nova could pay 5 successes to turn Healing into Biomanipulation, or Bioluminescence into Quantum Bolt.

Power Maxing and Taint

A character may choose to take 1 temporary taint to add an additional point to their power max pool, or 2 temporary taint to convert all dice into successes.

Losing Temporary Taint

Characters may lose temporary Taint as listed in the core rulebook. Furthermore, a few additional systems help losing temporary Taint.

At the end of the scene, a character may roll Node. Temporary Taint is reduced by 1 per success on this roll. If this roll botches though, the character gains an additional 1 temporary Taint. It is the irony of the Nova condition that although a larger Node invaribly causes mental problems and Taint, it slows the accumulation of temporary Taint.

Taint Resistant Novas lose 1 temporary Taint every 24 hours.

2nd Gen Novas lose all temporary Taint every 24 hours.

Extras and Enhancements

Instead of how Extras work currently, an Extra can be purchased for a power for the flat cost of 10 XP per Extra, with a maximum amount of Extras equal to half the power rating, rounded up (so a power at Rating 3 can support up to 3 Extras). A power may use as many or as few Extras as desired, each one adding +1 to the Quantum cost of the power. Buying an Extra at chargen is worth 3 NP. This change makes L3 powers somewhat better because they can support just as many Extras as L1 powers, and gives an incentive to buy power ratings up. Furthermore, a power may also have Strengths (as per the Player's Guide) equal to its rating. Each Strength costs 4 XP or 1 NP at chargen.

For Mega-Attributes, a character may support up to (Mega-Attribute + 2) Enhancements per attribute instead of an infinite amount, and may not stack any Enhancement more than (Mega-Attribute/2, round up) times.

Altered Enhancements

Hardbody: Hardbody only affects Mega-Stamina soak, giving the Nova an aggravated soak score equal to his Mega-Stamina score normally, or twice that if the Nova also has Resiliency.

New And Altered Extras

Aggravated: An offensive power with the Aggravated Extra deals half (round down) its normal damage and has half (round down) its range, but is aggravated. Claws given the Aggravated Extra deal (Claws) Aggravated damage instead, soaked separately from the rest of the attack damage, which is lethal. A power with the Aggravated Extra becomes more difficult to maintain. Powers with the duration of [Action] become [Instant], and powers with the duration of [Maintenance] or [Concentration] become [Action].

Armor Piercing: Armor Piercing attacks reduce enemy soak by 2 and gain +1 damage per threshold success, up to 5 (unless an Enhancement improves this).

Impervious: Impervious no longer ignores armor piercing and turns aggravated damage to lethal. An Impervious defensive power halves the effect of armor-piercing (so soak is reduced by only 1 per success) and allows the power to add to aggravated soak.

Duration: The Duration Extra changes Instant duration powers into Action duration powers, Action duration powers to Concentration powers, Concentration powers to Maintenance powers, and if bought twice for a Maintenance power, a Maintenance power becomes a Permanent power.

Supercharge: The Supercharge Extra does some stuff that I haven't written down yet. Presumably allowing you to build a power up over multiple turns.

Power Alterations

New Duration

Some powers now have a duration of "Action" instead of "Instant" (mainly offensive powers). These powers are Quantum Bolt and Stun Attack, as well as certain offensive techniques in (Element) Mastery or (Element) Control. This means that the power cost must only be paid once every turn, rather than once every action.

Animal/Plant Mastery

Animal/Plant Mastery gives the ability to talk to both plants and animals without an Extra.

Bodymorph

Given that Bodymorph allows the emulation of Level 2 powers, Bodymorph is now considered to be a Level 3 power.

Density Increase

Density Increase is no longer rolled, instead adding (Density Control*2) to strength, lethal, and bashing soak, and also multiplying the character's mass by that value rather than the standard increase.

Disintegrate

Disintegrate has an attack roll now, (Dexterity + Disintegrate), and does a base damage of (Stamina + Disintegrate) dice + [Quantum] automatic levels of damage.

(Element) Control

(Element) Control is now a generic unified power, with power effects appropriate to the chosen element or weakened L1/L2 powers.

Blast/Lethal Blast are one power, and have a duration of "Action" rather than "Instant". Blast does [Quantum x 2] levels and [Power Rating x 4] dice of bashing damage, while Lethal Blast does [Quantum x 2] levels and [Power Rating x 3] dice of lethal damage.
Sphere uses the rules for Spatial Shockwave, with a radius of [Quantum + Power rating] x 10 meters, and a damage of [Quantum x 2] levels and [Power Rating x 3] dice of bashing damage, or [Quantum x 2] levels and [Power Rating x 3] dice of lethal damage to all in the sphere. Sphere cannot be blocked without a power or dodged without the ability to move outside of the radius of effect.
Shield can use one of several rules, with the player choosing the mode on purchase.

*Deflection: The Shield power can add +1 difficulty per dot to hit the character with most attacks, except for one weakness which halves its effect. This is common for powers that involve altering space or probability.

*Specialized Deflection: The Shield adds +1 difficulty per dot to hit the character with a certain attack, and +2B/2L soak per dot if the attack connects anyways, but only has reduced effect against other attacks (only adds +1 difficulty to be hit for every 2 dot ratings, or +1B/1L soak per dot). This is common for specialized shields, such as magnetic fields.

*Soak: The shield adds +2B/2L to soak per power level. This is commonly used for "shields" which emulate armor, such as Molecular Control.

*Ablation: Acts identically to forcefield, save it has [Quantum + Stamina + Power Rating] external health levels. Shields which ablate against enemy attacks (magical sci-fi energy shields) are represented in this fashion.

*Offensive Option: The shield halves its given protection (choose another option to show how its protection works) but a hand to hand attack that hits it deals 3d of bashing or 2d of lethal damage per dot in the power. Things like fire shields or shields made out of blades would work as this option.

Forcefield

Forcefield no longer gives soak. Rather, it gives temporary external health levels equal to (Quantum + Stamina + [2*Forcefield]) which regenerate at [power rating] levels/turn on the character's action. An attack which penetrates the field deals its full damage through the field, deactivating it and has to be soaked normally. So a character with Quantum 3, Forcefield 3, and Stamina 5 with Mega-Stamina 2 has a forcefield with 18 health levels that regenerates 3 of these levels a turn. If she was hit by an attack that did 30L damage that penetrated his field, the power deactivates and she would have to soak the damage normally.

Aggravated damage ignores forcefield unless said forcefield is Impervious, and Armor Piercing attacks deal an extra level of damage to the forcefield for every success past the minimum they roll.

Hypermovement

Hypermovement multiplies the final movement distance by 6 per level for both tactical and strategic movement.

Matter Creation

Instead of sacrificing 1 permanent WP point to make items permanent, the character sacrifices 1 permanent Quantum point instead. Furthermore there are no restrictions on how much damage they can do. If you get enough successes summon a railgun out of thin air. Go wild!

Psychic Shield

Psychic Shield does not give soak against damaging mental powers, just the 2 successes on the resistance roll.

Quantum Bolt

Quantum Bolt is now Duration [Action] rather than [Instant] and can switch between lethal and bashing damage as desired.

Sizemorph (Grow)

Sizemorph (Grow) gives a linear increase in volume. 1 dot is doubled mass, 2 is tripled, so on. Sizemorph (Grow) adds +2 Stamina and +2 -0 HLs instead of +1 per level as well, to even it out with the "Large/Huge/Giant/Gargantuan" body modifications.

Shapeshift

Shapeshift no longer allows the character to emulate powers. It only allows the character to shuffle attribute dots, change appearance, and manifest body modifications. Each success on the shapeshift roll allows the manifestation of 6 XP worth of body modifications, moving 2 physical attribute dots (or appearance) around, or adding +1 to a physical attribute (or appearance).

Stun Attack

Stun Attack now has an attack roll of Dexterity + Stun Attack and does (Strength + Stun Attack) dice of stun damage. Stun Attack is also Duration [Action] rather than [Instant].

New Stuff

Merits and Flaws

Merits

Taint Channeler (4 pts): A Nova with this power is particularly adept at making Taint work for him, rather than the other way around. The Nova gains double the effect whenever he chooses to take temporary Taint, or halves the cost (round up) if the power costs 2 temporary Taint or more. That is to say, a Nova can gain 1 temporary Taint to add 2 successes to a max roll, regenerate 4 Quantum points, or turn all the dice on a powermax into successes. This Taint can be converted into Chrysalis as usual.

Taint Resistant (5 pts): A Taint Resistant Nova reduces all involuntary gains of Temporary Taint (botches, failures, Taint radiation) by 1 (minimum 0). Furthermore, every 24 hours, a Taint Resistant Nova loses 1 point of temporary Taint.

2nd Generation Nova (6 pts): A 2nd Generation Nova does not gain Taint from any normal source, including Quantum or Node, due to their adapted physiology. 2nd Generation Novas cannot willingly gain Taint (or Chrysalis) under any circumstance, and heal all temporary Taint (and Chrysalis) every 24 hours.

Body Modifications

Body Modifications are "powers" which give capabilities via physical mutation, rather than channeling quantum forces. These powers are generally much less effective than Quantum powers but far cheaper. At chargen, a Nova may trade in 1 NP for 8 XP worth of body modifications. Furthermore, with superscience genetic engineering, baselines may acquire body modifications.

Some of these body modifications are equivalent to Merits and can be taken by baselines even without superscience.

Minor

Minor Body Modifications cost 2 XP per.

Redundant Organs: A Nova may gain additional toughness by increasing body redundancy, adding either 1 -0 and 1 -1 HL or 2 -2 HLs and 2 -4 HLs per purchase.

Large: Being about 50% heavier and larger than the average man has its advantages, adding +1 to strength, +1 to stamina, and 1 -0 HL. Novas which are Large add +1 to Dexterity for movement.

Increased Ground Speed: A Nova's legs are lengthened and strengthened, adding +2 to dexterity for movement purposes.

Claws: Unlike the Quantum "Claws" power, these claws are small retractable things like those of a cat, more useful as utility than weapon. Claws do (Str-2)L damage when raking and are more useful as can openers than weapons.

Tough Skin: A Nova's skin becomes armor with this body modification, adding +1B/0L stackable armored soak.

Filtration Liver: A Nova gains +2 Resistance against toxins with this body modification.

High-Capacity Lungs: Novas with this body modification gain +1 Endurance and +1 Resistance.

Streamlined: Novas with this modification gain +1 dexterity for swimming speed.

Acute (Sense): A Nova with acute (sense) gains +1 to Perception for the purposes of using that sense.

Pheromones: A Nova with this body modification has particularly powerful pheromones which induce a certain state of emotion (chosen at purchase), adding a +1d circumstantial bonus for any social roll which resonates with that emotion. Purchasing this multiple times allows a Nova to choose which pheromone type he or she wishes to use.

Moderate

Moderate Body Modifications cost 4 XP each.

Alternate Sensory Mode: Each time this is purchased, a character gains an alternate sense, such as lateral line sense (the ability to sense the electromagnetic fields of others), echolocation, infrared vision, and so on.

Chromatophores: +2 stealth if naked or wearing attuned Eufiber. (versus +3 by RAW).

Huge: A Nova with this modification is huge, easily about 180 kilos and 2.2 or more meters tall, and gains +2 Strength, +2 Stamina, 1 additional -0 HL, and 1 additional -1 HL. Huge Novas add +2 to dexterity for movement purposes only.

Ultralight Body: A Nova with an ultralight body has high-efficiency muscle tissue and porous bones that halves his weight, which reduces his natural soak by 2B/1L (min 1B/0L) but halves all falling damage, adds +2 to dexterity for movement purposes, and doubles jump distances. If bought twice, the Nova uses extremely high-efficiency organs and tissues, comparable in strength/weight ratios to carbon nanotube or aircraft composites, which eliminates the soak penalty, adds +4 to dexterity for movement purposes, and quadruples jump distances, as well as reducing the Nova's mass by a full 75%.

Dispersed Organs: A Nova with dispersed organs gains improved resistance to called shots, whether because of organ redundancy or because he just doesn't need them any more. Called shot bonus damage is halved. Purchased twice, the Nova takes no additional damage from called shots and probably looks like a Shoggoth on the inside.

Reinforced Skin: A Nova with toughened skin has skin that can ward off small-caliber bullets and slow glancing knife blows, adding 1B/1L stackable armored soak. A character may only have one armor body modification at one time.

Significant

Significant Body Modifications cost 6 XP each.

Electroshock: A character with this ability can shock anyone who contacts him or her at the cost of 1 willpower, dealing (Strength + Stamina) dice of bashing damage which can be soaked normally. If used in conjunction with a melee attack, the damage is soaked separately. Both Mega-Strength and Mega-Stamina apply to this calculation, each adding 1 level of bashing damage rather than 2 dice or 5 levels (in the case of M-Str). If purchased twice, the character may channel this shock through air at short distances, giving it a range of (Strength) meters (and no maximum range), and if purchased three times it no longer costs 1 willpower to use per attack, instead costing 1 willpower to use for a scene.

Subdermal Armor: A Nova's skin at this point is active nanotech armor, reinforced with nanotube sheeting, or so on, adding 2B/2L stackable armored soak. This armor is not inherently visible, but greatly alters the texture of the skin, meaning that it can be discovered by touch.

Multiple Arms: A Nova with multiple arms reduces multiple action penalties by 1 per pair of additional arms he or she possesses. A Nova may support up to (Stamina or Wits, choose lower) sets of multiple arms, which does not count Mega-Attributes for the total.

Multiple Legs: A Nova with multiple legs adds +5 to Dexterity for purposes of ground movement speed, and being able to kick with more than 1 leg increases kick damage by 2B per purchase. Like Multiple Arms, a Nova may support up to (Stamina or Wits) sets of multiple legs, and Mega-Attributes do not count for limb support.

Inhuman (Attribute): A Nova with Inhuman (Attribute) can raise the attribute in question to any level, ignoring normal caps, as long as the Nova has sufficient experience. This can be bought up to 9 times, once per attribute.

Giant: Giant Novas approach 300 kilos in mass and 2.5 meters in height, gaining +3 strength and stamina, 2 additional -0 HLs, and an additional -1 HL.

Hyperdense Skeleton: A hyperdense skeleton is abnormally heavy and solid, sometimes just out of increased bone density but it is not uncommon for a Nova to end up with bones plated in some sort of dense heavy metal such as adamantium. Novas with hyperdense skeletons add +2 damage to unarmed melee attacks, +2B/1L soak, and because of the greatly reduced chance of breaking limbs, double the distance that needs to be dropped to take fall damage. Terminal fall damage stays the same, as the increased skeletal mass also increases terminal velocity. A Nova cannot have an ultradense and an ultralight skeleton.

Gliding Wings: Novas with gliding wings can glide at their normal running speed.

Dermal Plating: A Nova with Subdermal Plating gains 3B/3L stackable armored soak with no penalties, but the armor is obvious to onlookers if the Nova wears skintight or revealing clothing, as it takes the form of heavy bone, metal, or chitin plates under the skin.

Extreme

Extreme Body Modifications cost 10 XP each.

Heavy Exoskeleton: A Nova with this body modification has no visible skin, replacing it with hardened metal or chitin plates that give him 6B/6L stackable armored soak, and a penalty of -2, and counts as worn armor for the purposes of penalty calculation. This modification replaces Dermal Plating, Subdermal Armor, and Toughened/Reinforced Skin.

Gargantuan: A Nova with Gargantuan is more than 3 meters tall and masses almost half a ton, adding +4 to strength and stamina, as well as two additional -0 and -1 health levels. Gargantuan Novas gain +4 dexterity for movement, but all opponents gain a +1 circumstance bonus to detect them or successfully attack them.

Aberrant 2.0