Note that power costs in NP have been decreased and Attribute/Ability purchasing with NP is rendered much less efficient to encourage less people with 5s in every attribute at chargen. It does make characters more powerful but I don't think that's an inherent issue. Means more playing the character you want versus playing half of the character you want.

Virtue and Vice

Characters no longer use the singular Nature rules, but rather have a Virtue and a Vice. Characters regain WP when acting in accordance to their virtue or indulging their vice, and must spend WP to act against their vice. Characters may have different Virtues and Vices-James Bond's Virtue might be Bravo but his Vice is almost certainly Hedonist, for example.

A character regains 2 WP when acting in accordance with their Virtue and 1 WP when they indulge their Vice. If a character has an opportunity to indulge their vice yet does not do so, they must spend 1 WP. A character may only regain WP from Virtue or Vice once per scene, and only needs to spend 1 WP to act against their Vice for a scene.

Natures

Architect

(Virtue): Regain WP when your character takes a concrete step towards realizing his greater goal.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist getting angry at someone who points out flaws in your plan, or following someone else's great plan. Regain WP if ignoring such criticism or following someone else's agenda would benefit you in the long run.

Bravo

(Virtue): Regain WP when you defeat a seemingly equal or superior foe or force him to back down.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist taking by force something you desire and have asked for "politely". Regain WP if you do so and it has significant negative long-term consequences.

Caregiver

(Virtue): Regain WP when you recieve tangible proof that you have helped another.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist giving aid to anyone who seems like they need it. Regain WP if giving such aid ends up causing you more trouble than it's worth.

Charmer

(Virtue): Regain WP when you clearly provide comfort and good cheer to another.

(Vice): Spend WP to tell someone something they don't want to hear, regain WP if you don't tell them something they don't want to hear and not doing so has potential negative consequences to you.

Cynic

(Virtue): Regain WP when you have a backup plan when things go sour, because of your cynicism.

(Vice): Spend WP to take advantage of a lucky break (rather than dismissing it due to clearly being a trap/a worse choice/etc). Regain WP if doing so puts you into a worse situation later.

Expert

(Virtue): Regain WP when you make a particularly impressive showing with an ability or teach your chosen skill to someone.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist showing your expertise off in a valid situation. Regain WP if doing so is taking an unreasonable risk.

Fanatic

(Virtue): Regain WP when you advance your chosen cause.

(Vice): Spend WP to avoid making any sacrifice to the cause that is demanded. Regain WP if accepting this could possibly lead to grievous harm.

Follower

(Virtue): Regain WP when your carrying out your assigned duty is a significant factor in the group's success.

(Vice): Spend WP to take charge or disagree with orders. Regain WP if the orders are blatantly bad or inefficient and you follow them anyways.

Hedonist

(Virtue): Gain WP when you have a truly good time (and bring others for the ride)

(Vice): Spend WP to resist indulging in your chosen pleasure. Regain WP if indulging in such is obviously a bad idea.

Hotshot

(Virtue): Regain WP when you survive a dangerous situation you deliberately entered.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist indulging in an obvious foolhardy venture. Regain WP for taking the "hard way" when doing so has no benefits and great danger.

Jester

(Virtue): Regain WP when you lighten a mood or ease a tense situation.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist shooting your mouth off in inappropriate circumstances. Regain WP if you do so and it ends up greatly inconveniencing you (insulting a world leader on national TV, etc.)

Leader

(Virtue): Gain WP when one of your plans succeeds.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist taking charge when you are not in charge. Regain WP if doing so is a terrible idea.

Paragon

(Virtue): Gain WP when you accomplish a task by sticking to your enlightened ideals.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist your self-righteousness and accept a compromise. Regain WP if compromise would be a far better idea than self-righteous one-true-way moralizing.

Perfectionist

(Virtue): Gain WP when your painstaking perfectionism covers even an unforseen complication.

(Vice): Spend WP to trust a hastily-put-together plan or jury-rigged system. Regain WP when you end up going without because of this insistence on a perfect plan (or mechanism) or none at all.

Survivor

(Virtue): Regain WP when you survive a dangerous situation via your own cunning and preserverance.

(Vice): Spend WP to resist taking any action which would prolong your own survival or increase your chances, no matter what it is. Regain WP if you take an action that alienates or hurts friends and close allies for personal survival.

Traditionalist

(Virtue): Regain WP when adherence to tried-and-true methods prove effective.

(Vice): Spend WP or disregard intuition, non-traditional deduction, or the bleeding edge. Regain WP if your refusal to use bleeding-edge equipment or superscience hobbles a plan.

Altered Costs

Human (Phase 1)

Abilities: 30 ability dots + 3 free specialties

Quantum: Humans have a base Quantum of 0.

Otherwise all costs and points are equal to the ones in the core rulebook.

Nova (45 NP base)

Quantum: +1 Quantum for free, costs 5NP for every additional Quantum point (max starting Quantum is 5)

Quantum Pool: 1 NP buys +4 to Quantum pool.

Attributes/Abilities: 1 NP: 2 Attribute/6 Ability dots, one Ability dot can be traded for 3 specialty dots

Body Modification: 1 NP: 8 XP of Body Modifications

Mega-Attribute: 2 NP: 1 dot of a Mega-Attribute

Enhancement: 1 NP: 1 Enhancement

Strength: 1 NP: 2 levels of strength for a power

Extra: 2 NP: 1 Extra for a power

Level 1 Power: 1 NP: 1 dot of a L1 power

Level 2 Power: 2 NP: 1 dot of a L2 power

Level 3 Power: 3 NP: 1 dot of a L3 power

Bonus Point Costs

Attribute: 4

Ability: 2 (1 ability dot can be traded for 3 specialty dots)

Body Modification: 1 per 3 XP of Body Modifications

Initiative: N/A (can no longer be bought)

Quantum: N/A (can no longer be bought)

Experience Costs

TRAIT INCREASE		XP cost
Attribute		Current x 4
Ability		Current x 2
Background		Current x 2
M-Attribute		Current x 5
Q-Power (L1)		Current x 2
Q-Power (L2)		Current x 5
Q-Power (L3)		Current x 7
Q-Power (L4)		Current x 9
Q-Power (L5)		Current x 12
Q-Power (L6)		Current x 15
Willpower		Current x 1
Quantum		Current x 8
Initiative		N/A (can no longer be bought)
Merit		Rating x 2 XP
Buying off Flaw		Rating x 3 XP
Quantum Pool		2 XP / point

NEW TRAIT			XP cost
Ability		3
Attribute		6
Specialty		1 (3 max / ability)
Background		2
Enhancement		5
M-Attribute		6
Q-Power (L1)		3
Q-Power (L2)		6
Q-Power (L3)		9
Q-Power (L4)		12
Q-Power (L5)		15
Q-Power (L6)		18
Extra		10
Strength		3

New/Altered Merits and Flaws

Remember you can buy Merits (2 * point cost for a merit) or Flaws (you gain that much XP) in play.

Merits

2nd Generation Nova (1 pt): A 2nd Generation Nova does not gain Taint from any normal source (including high Quantum) 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. Furthermore, 2nd Generation Novas can buy Node up to 10 (and never gain mental disorders from high Node), but may not possess Dormancy. Powers which automatically give Permanent Taint no longer do so for 2nd Gen Novas.

Yes, 2nd Generation Nova is extremely cheap (despite this it is also an extremely rare merit). The methods of gaining involuntary Taint are rare, and being incapable of using any Taint-based mechanics at all gives this a rather significant downside.

(Ability) Prodigy (3 pts): A character with this merit allows the character to increase one chosen ability up to 6 with experience or bonus points, and as a side effect allows a character to choose a special benefit for that ability. An example would be being able to pick locks and bypass simple electronic systems without tools for Security, reflexively draw a weapon without any action for Firearms, so on and so forth. These abilities should be ST-approved.

Daredevil (5 pts, Baseline only): Much like latents are extremely weak psions and can occasionally access both Attunement and minor powers, and there are a variety of extremely weak sub-Novas, the character is a very weak Eximorph. When in situations of extreme duress, the character may occasionally tap into some of her power. The character halves difficulties for rolls, as long as the base difficulty is +3 or more (final difficulty is rounded up). Furthermore, if the character spends Willpower to gain an automatic success on a roll, she may also reroll up to 2 failed dice, taking the second result as if they were the result of the original roll. Finally, if the character is killed, she may pay all her Willpower (as long as she has at least 2 points remaining) to barely survive, although permanent injury is not out of the question.

Determinator (2, 5 or 10 pts): A character with this merit is extremely hard to stop. Not any harder to kill, just stop. At the 2 point level, the character adds +1 to her Stamina score for the purposes of resisting Dazing or Stun, and can pay 1 willpower to ignore 2 levels of injury for the purposes of resisting those effects (rather than 1). At the 5 point level, the character gains those abilities and also gains the ability to ignore being Incapacitated by Bashing damage with a Willpower roll (cumulative +1 difficulty). At the 10 point level, the character automatically succeeds on WP rolls to ignore being Incapacitated from Bashing and can attempt to do the same with Lethal damage, at the same difficulty. Determinators treat Incapacitated as a -6 wound penalty.

High Pain Tolerance (3 or 5 points): The 3 point version works identically to the one in the Player's Guide. At 5 points, a character is completely inured to pain and suffers no wound penalties.

Lucky (3 points): A Lucky character may just be lucky, or it may be something more, a latent quantum power, being what the Trinity era calls a "noetic probability vortex", or incomplete activation of eximorph genetics. Either way, the character gains the ability to reroll up to 3 rolls per session. The second roll always stands.

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. 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.

Tough (2 or 4 pts): You're tough. Rasputin tough-stuff that'd kill a regular person might not fail to harm you, but you'll be alive to complain about it. With the 2 point version, the character adds +1 to Stamina for the purposes of soaking damage or resisting poisons and 1 -0 HL. The character adds +2 to Stamina for those purposes and gains 2 -0 HLs with the 4 point version.

Flaws

Crippled/Missing Arm (2 or 4 points): A character with this flaw is has a damaged or missing arm. With a crippled arm, one of the character's arms is incapable of fine manipulation due to nerve or muscle damage, but can be used for rough tasks such as smashing someone's face in. Alternatively, one of the character's arms is extremely weak and has an effective Strength of 0, but can still be used normally. A missing arm makes doing anything which requires two arms impossible without help or a prosthetic.

Crippled/Missing Leg (1 or 3 points): A character with this flaw has a damaged or missing leg. With a crippled leg, a character is incapable of sprinting or running (the character may still limp around). A missing leg means the character is incapable of walking. Without a prosthetic, a character may not move at more than a crawl (1 m/round) with a missing leg. Using a wheelchair, a character may move at up to their normal walking speed per turn.

Feeble (Attribute) (5 points): A character with a Feeble attribute has one attribute which they are extremely poor at. Characters with this flaw choose one of their attributes, which no longer gains a free dot (although it must be bought up to 1 at character creation) and has an attribute maximum of 2. If a character acquires this flaw in play for an attribute with a rating above 3, the character's actual attribute score does not change, but the effective attribute score for all intents and purposes is capped at 2 until this flaw is bought off.

Fragile (2 or 4 points): A character who is Fragile is extremely prone to injury. At the 2 point level, the character no longer can soak lethal damage with Stamina. At the 4 point level, the character halves his Stamina-derived Bashing soak, therefore having a soak of (Stamina/2)B and 0L, rounding down fractional soak as usual. Fragile characters tend to be, but are not always, afflicted by some sort of disorder that causes brittle bones.

Glass Jaw (3 points): Characters with this flaw are extremely easy to daze or render unconscious beyond what their durability would imply. The character is Dazed if he takes more than (Stamina/2) levels of damage (round up) in one round, and Unconscious if he takes more than (Stamina) levels of damage in a round.

Low Pain Tolerance (1, 3, or 6 points): A character with Low Pain Tolerance is allergic to fights (they break out in wounds). At 1 point, the character loses the ability to roll (Stamina + Resistance) or pay Willpower to ignore wound penalties. At 3 points, a character gains all the effects of the 1 point flaw, but also increases all wound penalties by 1. (So his health track looks like -1/-2/-2/-3/-3/-5/Incapacitated). At 6 points, a character doubles all wound penalties beyond that (health levels become -2/-4/-4/-6/-6/-10/Incapacitated).

Sickly (3 or 7 points): A Sickly character is extremely fragile. At the 3 point level, the character adds +1 to the damage of any attacks that penetrate his soak. At the 7 point level, the character also loses 1 of each health level besides the Incapacitated level (the character's normal health track is now 1 x -1/1 x -2/Incapacitated/Dead).

Slow (1 point): A character with the Slow flaw halves all their movement ratings, due to whatever factor. Bad feet, being fat, being four feet tall, it doesn't matter.

Unlucky (3 points): An unlucky character is cursed to fuck up a lot, and fuck up big half the time. When an unlucky character rolls a 1, it subtracts a success above and beyond any other effects it may have.

Aberrant 2.0 Variant Chargen

Aberrant 2.0 Character Generation

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