Aberrant 2.0 Body Modifications

Minor

Minor Body Modifications cost 2 XP per.

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

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. If an attack deals zero or negative damage dice, round up final damage (after counting threshold successes) to 1L.

Filter Lungs: A character gains 1 success to resist inhaled toxins with this body modification.

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.

Increased Ground Speed: A Nova's legs are lengthened and strengthened, adding +1 to dexterity for movement purposes.

Nictating Membranes: A character with this body modification adds 1 success to resisting blinding or eye irritants. Combined with filter lungs a character becomes mostly immune to riot agents.

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.

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

Streamlined: Novas with this modification gain +3 dexterity for swimming speed, have silky smooth skin, and no body hair whatsoever.

Small: A character with this body modification is about half normal mass and roughly 80% as large in every dimension, reducing Strength by 1 and removing a -0 HL. Characters which are small are more vulnerable to damage, reducing soak by 1B/1L/1A (minimum 0 soak). On the other hand, a small character is harder to hit and detect, increasing the difficulty of hitting the character by 1, and the difficulty of any rolls to detect the character.

Tough 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.

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).

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.

Integrated Light Weapon: Baselines with cybernetic replacements and Novas which desire it may end up installing or outright growing integrated weapons. This body modification integrates a pistol sized weapon (Light or Heavy revolvers/pistols, Taser, Electrolaser) into the character. The character may have to reload the weapon, or may generate ammunition in his or her body. The former allows quick reloading and ammunition variety, while the latter requires no feed port to load magazines into, but the character only regenerates (Stamina) rounds of ammunition per hour and chooses a single ammunition type to use.

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.

Multitools: A character with this modification possesses an integrated set of precision tools for various purposes, reducing all penalties from insufficient tools by 2, to a minimum of 0.

Quills/Spines: A Nova with this has a coating of spines on his body, is naturally edged, or otherwise can easily cause harm to someone he or she touches. The Nova's unarmed attacks now deal lethal damage, and anyone who touches the Nova more than casually takes (Stamina)L damage (up to 5L). Repurchasing this enhancement once either makes the damage voluntary or increases the damage cap to 10L. Repurchasing this enhancement twice adds both benefits.

Regenerator: A character with this body modification heals faster than normal, reducing healing times by 1 category. Baselines with this body modification may heal crippling injuries without the need for prosthetic replacement or cloned body parts.

Springs: A Nova with this has spring-like structures in his legs which greatly increase the power of their legs. Novas with this enhancement halve fall damage from controlled falls, add +2 to damage with kicks, and double jump distances and heights.

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.

Tiny: A Tiny Nova is roughly a quarter normal mass and 62% normal dimensions, reducing Strength by 2 and removing 1 -0 and 1 -1 HL. Characters which are tiny are more vulnerable to damage, reducing soak by 2B/2L/2A (minimum 0 soak). Tiny characters add +2 to the difficulties of detecting or hitting the character.

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%.

Significant

Significant Body Modifications cost 6 XP each.

Blades: This body modification adds sharp melee weapons to the character, often elbow or knee blades but sometimes even replacing hands, and some Novas can manifest "psionic blades" or other stranger melee implements. Blades deal Str + 5L damage and can parry lethal melee attacks like any good sword. By default they are not retractable, but may be purchased as retractable for an extra cost (see Retractable Blades, below).

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.

Electroshock: A character with this ability can shock anyone who contacts him or her at the cost of 1 willpower per action, dealing (Strength + Stamina) dice of bashing damage which can be soaked normally, and if the attack deals any unsoaked dice of damage it inflicts an artificial -2 wound penalty to the character in question for the next round due to pain and involuntary muscle spasms. 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 * 2) meters (and no maximum range) or it no longer costs 1 willpower to use per action, instead costing 1 willpower to use for a scene. If purchased three times electroshock gains both benefits.

Dragon's Breath Like a bombardier beetle, a character with this body modification possesses a naturally evolved or surgically implanted self-defense mechanism which acts as a shotgun firing flamethrower shells (Accuracy +0, Dmg None, Rng 20, Rate 2, Capacity 8). Successful attacks (use Dexterity + Athletics/Brawl to attack) deal no damage, but set the target on fire, causing them to take 4L damage per turn until they put it out, which ignores normal armor. A character may store up to 8 uses of this mechanism and regenerates (Stamina) uses every hour.

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

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.

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. Purchasing hyperdense skeleton twice allows the Nova to deal lethal damage with unarmed blows due to the hardness of his skeleton, increases the Nova's soak against damage by 3B/2L instead of 2B/1L, and renders the Nova's bones practically unbreakable, tripling safe fall distances and the number of meters each additional damage interval is.

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.

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.

Nematocysts: Nematocysts carry a poison payload, with Potency (+2), Onset (Immediate), Interval (1 round), and Effect ([Dexterity]-[victim's Stamina] to the victim's dice pools, plus 1 dice of bashing damage per round, with a successful roll halving the penalty and eliminating damage). Buying this modification multiple times increases its potency by +1 per purchase and increases the time the poison lasts for by 1 additional round per purchase.

Tentacles: Tentacles are flexible appendages which extend up to (Stamina) meters. Each purchase of this body modification grants 2 tentacles, which either do Str + 4B or Str + 2L damage, depending on their makeup, and can grasp and manipulate objects at (Dexterity - 2).

Extreme

Extreme Body Modifications cost 10 XP each.

Acid Blood: This body modification gives the person who possesses it acidic or highly toxic bodily fluids, which deal (Stamina + Lethal Damage Levels Taken) Lethal damage, ignoring unsealed armor, to all targets in melee range whenever the character takes lethal damage.

Dense Musculature: A Nova with high-density musculature masses approximately twice as much due to greatly toughened and heavier skeletal muscles. Dense musculature adds 2B/2L soak due to its higher density, a -0 HL, and +1 to Strength.

Enhanced Reflexes: A Nova with this body modification reduces all multiple action penalties by 1 and adds +3 to initiative.

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.

Integrated Medium Weapon: This body modification is the equivalent of any shotgun, SMG, or rifle-sized weapon listed in the armory, including the single-shot grenade launcher (but not the multiple shot one). In Novas, this body modification can come in extremely exotic forms, such as high-velocity quill barrages, energy bolts, and so on. The character may have to reload the weapon, or may generate ammunition in his or her body. The former allows quick reloading and ammunition selection, while the latter requires no feed port to load magazines into, but the character only regenerates (Stamina) rounds of ammunition per hour and chooses a single ammunition type to use.

Miniscule: A miniscule character is approximately 1/16th the mass and 40% the length/width/height of a normal character, losing 4 dots of Strength, a -0, -1, -2, and -4 health level, moving at half speed, and subtracting 4B/4L/4A from soak (min 0), which also affects Mega-Stamina limits. If a character is reduced to 0 Strength he may not physically lift anything heavier than a kilo or two. A character may stack miniscule up to twice, the second purchase reducing the character to 1/4th normal physical dimensions and 1/64th mass. A miniscule Nova is very hard to hit or detect, increasing difficulties by 4. A second level of miniscule increases that difficulty further, adding 6 to all attack/awareness difficulties against the Nova.

Retractable Blades: This body modification is identical to the Blade modification, above, except that the blades are retractable and nearly undetectable (Difficulty 3 to detect via examination when not in use, Difficulty 6 if attempting to detect via sight).

Wings: A Nova with flight ability can fly to a limited extent-not nearly as fast as a Nova with the Flight power, and with an obvious and easily visible cause (such as internal rocket thrusters, gigantic feathered wings, or the like), but fly nontheless. A character with 1 purchase of Flight may fly at half their normal running speed. Purchasing Flight multiple times multiplies flight speed by the number of purchases.