Aberrant 2.0

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

Miscellaneous Rule Changes

Botching

• Botches: A character botches a roll if it fails with a margin of failure higher than the character's Ability rating in that roll + 1. Count each '1' rolled as +1 to the margin of failure. Therefore, if a character has an ability rating of 1, he botches with an adjusted MoF of 3 or greater, while a character with an ability rating of 5 will only botch rolls if his adjusted MoF is 6 or higher. Mega-Attributes do not reduce the botch chance of dramatic failure, save for adding more successes and therefore reducing the number of failed rolls and the chance for high MoFs.

• Botching Rolls without an Ability: Some rolls may not have an ability or Quantum power governing them (i.e. Node detection, certain Enhancements which require a roll of their associated attribute and only that attribute, so on). In that case, a character botches if he rolls no successes and at least one 1-Mega-Attributes do not insulate against botching with their requisite Enhancements.

Hazards

• Falling Damage: Falling damage is now 1 bashing die/2 meters (round down), up to 25B damage from a fall. Fall damage is lethal if the damage equals or exceeds the character's (Stamina + Athletics). So a character with Stamina 5 and Athletics 5 considers fall damage lethal only from falls of 20 meters or more, but an old granny with Stamina 1 and Athletics 0 considers all fall damage lethal. Remember that each dot of Mega-Stamina counts as 2 dots of Stamina.
• Hard Radiation: Hard Radiation's damage is aggravated at high levels, causing permanent damage which baselines cannot heal without extensive medical aid.

Equipment

• Vehicles: Vehicles now have altered stats, as listed in the expansion. There are no longer armor adds for vehicles, which should be noted. Note that vehicles do not take "ping" damage from attacks that lack damage adds. You can trash a car with bare hands, but you better be Charles Atlas or a Nova before you try it.
• Weapons: Weapons have errata and a few new additions. Both vehicle and weapon errata are listed in the expansion.
• Resources: The cost of an item establishes the rough "budget range" of an item rather than its precise cost. A Resources 4 car might cost a hundred thousand dollars, yet a Resources 4 set of clothing might only cost a thousand or so. It is possible to liquidate money to buy objects above one's price range. In that case, roll resources. For every success rolled, add +1 to effective resources for the purposes of a single purchase-if successful, you are now a proud owner of the desired item. This can only be attempted once per month and for particularly expensive items (Russian surplus air superiority fighters, new homes, illegal nuclear weapons) the ST reserves the right to permanently reduce resources by 1 or more points after a purchase.

Combat

• Death: A character is not always irrecoverably dead after being incapacitated, unless the deed is done by truly horrific or irreparable forms of damage. Typically there is a window equal to the character's (Stamina) in minutes to resuscitate them via a (Dexterity + Medicine) roll with a base difficulty of +1, +1 for each minute the character has been "dead", +1 for each additional level of damage past Incapacitated the character has taken. This stabilizes a character and prevents them from dying, but does not heal any damage.

• Instant Death: Being killed by some attacks may cause instant death and prevent any resuscitation without techniques such as Healing or Iatrosis 5. Instant death happens from one of several methods. Obviously, even a dead character who could be resuscitated might not be, if the circumstances of their death prevent it.
  • The character is killed by a called shot to a vital organ. CPR doesn't work if the heart or brain is destroyed.
  • The character is killed by Aggravated damage. Any attempt to resuscitate in this case via mundane medicine merely prolongs the character's agonizing death.
  • The character is killed by an attack which deals automatic levels of damage after soak, and is turned into meat sauce.

• Health Levels of a Corpse: A corpse typically has (dead person's Strength + Stamina) total health levels. Mega-Strength and Mega-Stamina each add an effective +2 per dot-even after the M-R node connection dies, something remains (which is how Soma and Mite work). This is generally only relevant in the case of attempting to resuscitate a dead character, given above.

• Human Shields: If using a person as a shield (generally a human shield is Superior cover for +3 difficulty) and the attack hits the person (this happens if it rolls enough successes to hit but not enough to overcome the cover), damage from an attack is reduced by the person in question's soak + 1 before your soak applies. If this reduces the attack's damage to 0L or less, you take no damage. Damage is rolled for both parties. Taking a human shield requires a Grapple maneuver. A character may parry with a human shield, a successful parry negating the attack as normal (the human shield takes the full force)

• Stun Damage: Some attacks do stun damage, which is essentially "virtual" damage. These attacks fail to do any lasting harm, and the worst they can inflict is unconsciousness. Stun damage is entirely healed at the end of each combat turn and does not deal any lasting effects. However, they may Daze (net Stamina levels of damage) or render Unconscious (net 2*Stamina levels) the victim. A point of spent Willpower may reduce damage by 1 for the effects of unconsciousness.

• Incapacitation: A character is Dazed if he takes more than (Stamina) levels of damage in a single turn or Unconscious if he takes more than (2*Stamina) levels, A Dazed character loses their next turn, an unconscious character wakes up at the end of combat. This ignores the character's remaining HLs. A character with a lot of Extra Health Levels may still be easily knocked out.

• Range Increments: The range increment is the short range of the attack. Medium range is up to double the range increment and +2 difficulty, Long range is up to quadruple the range increment and +4 difficulty, and an Extreme range shot is up to eight times the range increment, at +6 difficulty.

• Healing Times: A character who has taken damage heals each level at the rates given below. Novas heal at at least double normal rate by default, which increases via Mega-Stamina. Furthermore, Novas with Mega-Stamina 1 reduce wound severity by 1 category when calculating healing times, Novas with Mega-Stamina 3 reduce wound severity by 2 categories when calculating healing times, and Novas with Mega-Stamina 5 reduce wound severity by 3 categories for healing. A character heals an additional 1 category faster with competent medical care (a small clinic with decent provisions) and 2 categories faster with expert care (a top of the line trauma ward).
  • -0 HLs: 1 hour (bashing)/1 day (lethal)
  • -1 HLs: 2 hours (bashing)/2 days (lethal)
  • -2 HLs: 4 hours (bashing)/1 week (lethal)
  • -4 HLs: 8 hours (bashing)/2 weeks (lethal)
  • Incapacitated: 1 day (bashing)/3 months (lethal)
  • Dying: 1 day (bashing)/3 months (lethal)

Backgrounds

Revised Background: Mentor

The Mentor background gives you a teacher, who will allow you to purchase certain attributes, abilities, or powers at a XP discount. On the other hand, a Mentor often will require you to learn other things that you don't want to. You have to learn to sweep the floor very well and proper etiquette before your martial arts sifu teaches you how to punch better, so on and so forth. For every block of 15 XP spent on attributes, abilities, or powers the Mentor is willing to teach, a Mentor gives a discount equal to their Mentor rating. So for example if a character buys Charisma 4 (12 XP), Manipulation 3 (8 XP) and Mental Blast 3 (10 XP) from a mentor of rating 3, the character saves 6 XP on costs. Generally, the more expensive the desired power learned the more additional "stuff" needs to be learned, and higher level mentors are often more demanding than lower level ones.

New Background: Sanctum

The Sanctum background gives the character in question some sort of safehouse, hidden base, or similar. The background's rating gives the Sanctum an effective Cipher rating, adding to the difficulty of finding it, and also allows for ever more unrealistic Sancta from safehouses in the middle of a major city at low ratings to strange extradimensional realms at higher ones. The background gives a number of points equal to its (rating + 2) to be spent on Size, Inhabitants, Defenses, and Accessibility.

• Size: Size is the size and scope of your Sanctum. Size 0 is a small town house, while Size 1 is a mansion, Size 2 is a tiny island (maybe a square kilometer), and Size 3 is a larger (but still small) island approximately ten times the size. Larger sanctums give more space for experiments, guests, and inhabitants, increasing their numbers. Increasing Size beyond 3 increases size by a factor of ten per increase.
• Inhabitants: At Inhabitants 0, your Sanctum has maybe a butler or two. Inhabitants 1 grants you competent workers and guards, Inhabitants 2 gets you more seasoned personnel, and at Inhabitants 3 you get particularly elite personnel, equal to experts in their field or special forces ninjas or whatever. Inhabitants 4+ grants you inhuman personnel, allowing you to give them an effective Enhancements rating (chosen with the Sanctum, cannot be changed later) equal to (Inhabitants - 3). Space elves, green-skinned amazons, whatever you want.
• Defenses: Defenses 0 means you have a burglar alarm, and Defenses 1 gets you reinforced doors, windows, and locks. The more points in Defenses, the more traps and other protective methods you get, from minefields to automated sentry guns to laser traps and poison gas rooms.
• Accessibility: Accessibility 0 means you actually have to get there by normal means. Increasing Accessibility reduces the difficulty of getting to the Sanctum from anywhere in the galaxy.

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 or more Quantum to roll their permanent Quantum score in response to being hit by a damaging attack. Each success reduces the damage of one attack by 1 health level-and each additional point of Quantum spent adds an additional success to this roll. This is an instinctive response and does not require the Nova to be aware of the attack, and may reduce damage down to 0 health levels. Although worse against being hit by about a dozen attacks, it's more effective against sudden horrific ones. Willpower may be spent on this roll for an additional success. This last-ditch defense is obvious, and generally manifests in a way in line with the powers and beliefs of the Nova in question. Although one can only attempt this once per attack, it may be used multiple times a turn, the only limit to doing so being the Nova's limit on quantum expenditure per turn. All Novas possess this last-ditch but relatively inefficient defensive power.

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. Furthermore, each point of Quantum adds +1B/1L to the Nova's natural soak. Quantum-granted soak stacks with Stamina and Mega-Stamina soak, although it is not doubled by purchases of Resiliency.

A Nova has a natural Aggravated soak of (Quantum/2).

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 static values, but grant 1 success to all rolls based on that Attribute. No Attribute-increasing ability (save Node Spark) can grant a character Mega-Attributes anymore. Mega-Attributes are after all, powers rather than physical abilities, and you can't get Mega-Strength via bulging biceps or high-end artificial musculature.

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. Soak always rounds down.

• Natural soak: Natural soak comes from Quantum, Stamina, and Mega-Stamina.
  • Without Enhancements, Natural soak should equal (Quantum + Stamina + Mega-Stamina)B, (Quantum + Mega-Stamina + Stamina/2)L, and (Quantum/2)A.
• 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.

Non-Soak Defenses

Similarly, all additional defensive powers become less effective the more of them you have. A character with multiple powers which increase their resistance to quantum powers, mental powers, or increase the difficulty to be hit use the highest bonus and gain an additional +1 bonus for every additional source of the same bonus that is meaningful.

A meaningful source has a bonus equal or greater than 50% of the total bonus given. For example, if a nova adds +5 difficulty to all enemy attack rolls, a power that adds to the difficulty of enemy attack rolls is not meaningful unless it adds +3 or more to the difficulty of enemy attack rolls. If the nova had 1 such meaningful power, he would increase that difficulty penalty to +6. If the Nova wished to increase that to a +8 penalty, he would need the basic +5 difficulty power, and 3 powers with +4 difficulty.

Armor

Armor is destroyed if an attack has raw damage equal to its Destruction rating, with damage adds counting double. An armor's penalty decreases the user's dice pool for actions such as running, dodging, leaping, and so forth. 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.

Armor Stacking

Each "layer" of armor past the first increases the difficulty penalty of all worn armor by +1 if it has a penalty of 1 or more. Stacking multiple layers of armor with -0 penalty is somewhat less harsh, as it only adds +1 difficulty for each layer of penalty-free armor past the first. More importantly, stacked armor becomes encumbering and poorly balanced-the total Penalty Rating now applies to all physical actions, rather than merely just movement.

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

To create an advancement (either mundane or super-science) a character must have sufficient dots in the ability to make an advancement, typically 4+ in the primary ability and 3+ in at least two related abilities (so a character attempting to develop a fusion reactor needs Science[Physics] 4 and Engineering and Computers 3, for example), while his lab assistants need either 4+ in a related ability or 3+ in the primary ability (so said character could be assisted by an engineer with Engineering 4, or a physicist with Science[Physics] 3). Advancements typically are rolled for over the course of weeks or months, and best done during downtime. Each lab assistant adds +2d to this roll, up to the lower of (Charisma or [Primary Ability]) assistants.

Minor advancements (inventing the iPod, assembling already-existing technology into a new product) use 1 week as an interval for the roll, while major ones (developing sentient AI, creating a new species, curing aging, etc) require 1 month per roll interval. Typically a character must accumulate 20-100 successes although particularly bleeding-edge projects may require far more than this.

Super-science advancements require the character to be Inspired and use a roll interval of 2 months. Baseline lab assistants for super-science must have 4+ in the primary ability and 3+ in at least two related abilities, while Inspired (Nova/Psion/Paramorph) lab assistants may use the standard rules instead.

Anticipation

Oftentimes in Aberrant people will play characters smarter than they are. Far smarter, in fact. Due to this, a player may not consider an element in the story or predict a turn of events which the character, by all rights, should have been able to predict and prepare for. Modifying the Anticipation system from nWoD: Mirrors, this section covers how a Mega-Intelligent (or in certain cases, Mega-Witty or Mega-Perceptive) Nova may be able to alter a situation to their advantage.

Requirements

To be capable of using Anticipation, the character must have a relevant Mega-Mental attribute, or an Ability Mastery. A character may do this a number of times per scene equal to (1 + Highest Mega-Mental Attribute). Being able to predict a situation isn't just about raw intellect, after all. Someone superhumanly perceptive can twig onto extremely minor changes in tone or disposition which might betray future plans, while someone with superhuman thinking speed and poise can run through a half-dozen scenarios with their merely human intellect. At the ST's discretion, low average mental abilities may prevent the use of Anticipation without spending WP, or forbid it entirely. Planning is not all about perception, or thinking quickly, or thinking well. It requires all three elements.

Alternatively, characters without a relevant Mental Attribute may attempt this if their total (relevant Attribute + Ability) dice pool is above 7 and they spend 1 Willpower. They may only do this once per scene. Only the extremely skilled are going to have sufficient actual genius in the field for them to be capable of doing such feats.

Systems

During a situation where the player thinks their character could have anticipated, the character may roll a Mental Attribute and Ability combination which makes sense. Examples would be "Wits + Empathy" to plan for a social encounter or predict the actions of a hated nemesis, "Intelligence + Tactics" or "Intelligence + Security" to have a safehouse already set up when you're on the run, "Wits + Computers" to have infiltrated a virus into the security system ten minutes ago when you were at that unattended terminal, so on and so forth.

Successes on that roll translate to points which can be used to access effects. These effects must make some degree of sense. Effects include bonus dice, inflicting penalties, having equipment accessible, so on and so forth. The opponent may attempt to counter as per the rules, either canceling out anticipation successes, or using his own anticipation successes to alter your

Example Effects

• 1 success: Having a small item on hand ("I thought we might run into guys with guns, so I happened to be wearing a bulletproof vest")
• 1 success: +/- 1d on any one dice roll (yours or the opponents), cannot add more than +/-3 to any one roll ("I could see that he favored his right eye. If I made a run for it when he was only looking at me with his left, I'd have a better chance.")
• 1 success: Define a minor element of the scene ("There happens to be an abandoned building a block away which is pretty empty, we could hide there.")
• 2 successes: Having a larger item on hand ("I thought we might face that guy. Fortunately I have a RPG over here somewhere.")
• 2 successes: 1 temporary background dot (Allies, Followers, Resources/etc) for the scene
• 2 successes: reroll any one failed or botched roll for the scene.
• 3 successes: Define a major scene element ("You just happened to have stepped into a minefield." "I shut down the security five minutes ago.")
• 3 successes: Change an already taken action ("Okay, I read about the minefield and so I don't step into it, but hose the ground down with high-explosive 30mm shells instead.")

Complications

• +1-4: Desired effects are extremely unlikely ("You want me to believe that you, a law-abiding citizen, happen to have stashed a RPG and a half-dozen reloads in your car's trunk?")
• +2: Repeating the same effect again and again. Don't be boring!
• +2: Desired effect does not mesh with setting ("You're in an affluent neighborhood. An abandoned building nearby? Really?")

New Additions

Aberrant 2.0 Expansion
Aberrant 2.0 Optional Rules
Aberrant 2.0 Paramorphs