Aberrant 2.0 Equipment Errata

Armor

Armor now has a "Bypass" rating with its coverage in parentheses, which is the difficulty for a called shot to ignore the armor. Armor with a bypass rating of "*" only protects part of the body. Some armor halves soak against firearms, round soak down in that case. Any attack with base damage + damage adds exceeding an armor's Destruction rating destroys the armor although it still provides soak against that one attack.

• Thick Clothing: Soak 1B/1L, Penalty -0, Bypass +2 (upper and lower body), Destruction 10, half soak against firearms
  • Although not capable of protecting against serious attacks of any sort, thick clothing can protect against a mugger's knife or a hard blow, or just the thorns and brambles of barbed wire or bush.
• Heavy Leather: Soak 2B/1L, Penalty -0, Bypass +1 (upper body), Destruction 12, half soak against firearms
  • Leather armor is reasonably good at blunting clubs, blades, and even the occasional arrow. Unfortunately, it does somewhat less well against firearms.
• Reinforced Clothing: Soak 1B/2L, Penalty -0, Bypass +1 (upper body), Destruction 12
  • Reinforced with shear-thickening fluid and kevlar, armored jackets can provide reasonable ballistic protection with only minor bulk and heat problems, and provide some protection against melee blows.
• Kevlar Vest: Soak 2B/3L, Penalty -0, Bypass +1 (torso), Destruction 15
  • High-strength fibers combined with shear-thickening fluids are used in current-generation body armor, allowing police and soldiers relatively comfortable ballistic-resistant body armor.
• Sports Gear: Soak 3B/2L, Penalty -0, Bypass +2 (torso, shoulders, upper legs), Destruction 12, half soak against firearms
  • Used in various contact sports, sports gear is designed primarily to protect against blunt trauma, although the hard plastic and thick padding provide some measure of protection against blades and claws.
• Military Body Armor: Soak 4B/4L, Penalty -1, Bypass +2 (torso, shoulders, groin), Destruction 18
  • Advanced military armor-high-strength ballistic polymer paired with lightweight composite trauma plates, with auxiliary shrapnel protection for shoulders and groin. Normally paired with a combat helmet.
• Chainmail: Soak 3B/3L, Penalty -1, Destruction 16, Bypass +3 (torso, arms, groin), half lethal soak against firearms
  • For guys who like old-school protection, chainmail and padding is pretty good protection against clubs and swords, but fails against firearms.
• Full Riot gear: Soak 6B/5L, Penalty -2, Destruction 22, Bypass +3 (torso, arms, legs, groin)
  • The modern equivalent of plate armor, full riot gear provides near full-body ballistic and impact protection, with a commensurate increase in bulk and discomfort compared to standard armor vests.
• Plate Armor: Soak 6B/6L, Penalty -2, Destruction 22, Bypass +4 (all body parts), half lethal soak against firearms
  • The pinnacle of classic armor design, full plate surrounds its wearer in a heavy casing of hard metal that gives superlative protection against blades and clubs but only limited firearms protection.
• Advanced Body Armor: Soak 6B/6L, Penalty -2, Destruction 25, Bypass +4 (all body parts)
  • Some concepts get revived centuries later, such as plate mail. Although it might be made of high-tech composites instead of steel, advanced body armor is recognizable as a successor to the full body hard armors that dominated the medieval battlefield.
• Bomb Suit: Soak 8B/7L, Penalty -4, Destruction 25, Bypass +4 (all body parts)
  • Designed for specialists who need protection against close-proximity explosions, bomb suits are very difficult to move in but extremely protective.

Armor Accessories

• Exoskeleton: Strength + 1, reduces armor Penalty by 1 (min -0), 8 hours powered duration.
  • A powered exoskeleton increases the wearer's strength and agility by reducing the effective weight of his armor.
• Combat Optics: Night Vision (no penalties for low light conditions) and Thermal Vision (+2d to detect objects significantly warmer or cooler than their surroundings, -2d to detect objects with similar temperatures to surroundings)
  • Combat optics in 2021 combine IR and nightvision capability to provide all-environment imaging.
• Reinforced Strike Faces: +1B to unarmed damage
  • hard plates, reinforced gloves, and other methods of improving the power of a blow can greatly assist a soldier in a fight.
• Personalized Fitting: reduces armor Penalty by 1 (min -0)
  • fitting an armor explicitly for a person and their quirks can reduce the difficulty of moving around and fighting in it, but is extremely expensive to do en masse.
• Sports Helmet/Hard Hat: Soak 2B/1L, Penalty -0, Bypass (N/A), Destruction 10, Protects head against called shots, half soak against firearms
  • Hard hats and sports helmets are used to protect heads from various kinds of blunt trauma.
• Combat Helmet: Soak 3B/3L, Penalty -0, Bypass *, Destruction 15, Protects head against called shots
  • A heavy kevlar and plastic helmet, combat helmets protect a soldier's head from shrapnel and impact, while also having mounting systems for various sensor equipment.
• Goggles: Soak 1B/1L, Penalty -0, Bypass *, Destruction 4, Protects eyes against called shots
  • Your run of the mill laboratory safety goggles.
• The Goggles: Soak 0B/0L, Penalty -0, Bypass *, no game effect
  • They do nothing.

Chemicals

The variety of toxins and drugs available in the Nova age is an extensive litany of performance enhancers, recreational drugs, and toxic chemicals for help or harm. This system covers chemicals as well as diseases as both can be modeled in a similar fashion.

Rules

All chemicals, toxins, and diseases have several traits, listed below with their explanations.

Potency: A drug or disease's potency determines how hard it is to get rid of. A successful roll against a drug's potency reduces or eliminates its effect, as noted in Effect. This is only rolled when the drug is unwanted, or in cases where the character's immune system is overactive or other situations like that.
Onset: Not all diseases or drugs have immediate onset. This determines how long before symptoms/results appear.
Interval: A drug or sickness has a certain interval which shows how long it takes for a drug to wear off or for its effects to wane.
Addiction: The addiction rating of a drug is a number (corresponding to the difficulty of the Willpower roll to resist). A drug with an addiction of "-" has no addictive qualities.
Effect: What the drug does. This may be attribute or situational bonuses, damage, penalties, or just about anything.

Novas

Novas are heavily resistant to most drugs and diseases, halving their potency (round down) and being outright immune to any drugs or diseases with a base Potency lower than (Mega-Stamina + 1). The few which they are not immune to will note their effects on Novas, which are often reduced.

Toxins

Alcohol: Well, it's not really that much of a toxin, but it is a depressant.

Potency: +0

Onset: 1 minute

Interval: 1 scene

Addiction: +0

Effect: -1 to all dice pools, -2 to Willpower. Successive doses increase the dice pool and willpower penalties by 1 each.

Riot Agent: A standard anti-personnel riot agent. Causes burning pain, choking, and other nasty stuff.

Potency: +1

Onset: Immediate

Interval: 1 minute

Addiction: -

Effect: -(6 - Stamina) to all dice pools and 1 die of bashing damage. Success on a resistance roll halves the dice penalty.

Sweet Dreams: A more humane riot agent, designed to disable targets via a combination of euphoriant and soporific effects. Under investigation by the UN due to its potentially psychological addictive qualities.

Potency: +2

Onset: Immediate

Interval: 1 hour

Addiction: +1

Effect: -(6 - Willpower/2) to all dice pools (round penalty up), must succeed on a Willpower roll at +1 difficulty to take any hostile action.

Nerve Gas: Your normal everyday VX-alike nerve gas.

Potency: +4

Onset: Immediate

Interval: 1 round, a brief moment of exposure (~1 second) causes the toxin to last for 5 intervals.

Addiction: -

Effect: -(10 - Stamina) to all dice pools and 2 lethal health levels of damage per interval. Success on a resistance roll halves the dice pool penalty and reduces damage to bashing.

Novas halve damage and dice penalties before rolling to resist.

Eclipsidol: Anti-Nova biochemical weaponry.

Potency: N/A

Onset: Immediate

Interval: 30 minutes

Addiction: -

Effect: A Nova dosed with Eclipsidol loses all control of Quantum powers and wastes his or her Quantum Pool as quickly as possible (a Nova with Node 0 uses up 6 quantum/round, a Nova with Node 5 uses up 20, etc.). While dosed with Eclipsidol, all Mega-Attributes work at half effectiveness (round down) and no Powers or Enhancements work.

Drugs

Nootropics: Cognition-enhancing drugs are in their relative infancy but still effective.

Potency: +4

Onset: 1 minute

Interval: 1 scene

Addiction: +0

Effect: +1 to any one mental attribute (maximum 5) for 1 scene, -2 to all mental attributes (minimum 1) for an equal amount of time later.

Novas are unaffected.

Analgesics: This covers a variety of pain management drugs, from over-the-counter medications to addictive ones like morphine and opium.

Potency: +0 to +4

Onset: 1 minute

Interval: 1 day

Addiction: N/A to +1

Effect: Wound penalties are reduced by anything from -1 (aspirin and other over the counter pain medication) to -4 (things like PCP).

Novas gain half effect.

Red 7: Advanced designer combat drug, developed by French pharmaceutical companies for brief performance boosts. Psychological addiction rates are considered high but acceptable.

Potency: +4

Onset: 1 minute

Interval: 1 scene

Addiction: +0

Effect: +2 to all physical attributes (maximum 6) for 1 scene, -2 to all physical attributes (minimum 1) for an equal amount of time.

Novas gain full effect from Red 7.

Mite: Nova-harvested steroids.

Potency: +4

Onset: 1 hour

Interval: 1 scene/permanent

Addiction: +1

Effect: +1 Strength/Stamina (up to 5). Continuous use for a month makes this increase permanent. Past Str/Sta 5, another month of Mite use grants the character the Large body modification, and one last month of continuous use grants Mega-Strength 1 after that (further reducing appearance by 1). Further usage just maintains the character's superhuman physique. Each month of Mite use requires the character to make a (Stamina + Resistance) roll, failure means heart attack.

Novas do not gain any permanent effects from Mite and treat it as potency +0.

Adrenocilin: Designed to improve Nova control of quantum powers adrenocilin is also a pain deadener.

Potency: N/A/+2 for baselines

Onset: 1 minute

Interval: 1 scene/1 round for baselines

Addiction: +0 or N/A for baselines

Effect: +1 to all Quantum powers and -1 to all wound penalties. Baselines take (3 - Stamina/2, round damage up) dice of lethal damage per round for 10 rounds instead. Succeeding on the potency roll reduces that interval's damage to bashing.

Moxinoquantamine (Mox): Mox reduces a Nova's ability to use quantum powers.

Potency: N/A/+2 for baselines

Onset: 1 minute

Interval: 1 scene/1 round for baselines

Addiction: N/A

Effect: +2 difficulty for all Quantum power or Enhancement rolls, reduce all Mega-Attributes by 2 (min 0). Baselines take (3 - Stamina/2, round damage up) dice of lethal damage per round for 10 rounds instead. Succeeding on the potency roll reduces that interval's damage to bashing.

Aberrant 2.0 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 or cybernetic engineering, baselines may acquire body modifications.

Some of these body modifications are equivalent to Merits and can be taken by baselines even without superscience. Generally these are minor body modifications like large or small or acute sense. In this case, each body modification costs 1 BP per 2 XP.

Attribute dots gained or lost from body modification do not increase the limits for a character's Mega-Attributes, but can decrease them.