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.

• 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 4B/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.

• Full Riot gear: Soak 7B/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.

• 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. The effects are listed per dose, or per turn of exposure. If a drug does damage, it does

Vector: The method the drug or toxin is delivered. Ingested, inhaled, injected, skin contact, etc. Potency: A drug or disease's potency is the difficulty penalty to resist the drug's effects (applied to a Stamina + Resistance roll) if they're unwanted.
Addiction: The addiction rating of a drug is the difficulty penalty on the Willpower roll to resist addiction. 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, and gain no benefit from most everyday drugs. Novas add an automatic success on all Stamina + Resistance rolls made to resist the effects of a drug or disease, and halve the potency of all drugs that are not Nova-derived (round down, min 0). This is applied in addition to Mega-Stamina's effects. Some Quantum-active or superscience drugs may have special rules when applied to Novas.

The automatic successes from Mega-Stamina and just being a Nova apply even if the Nova is not rolling to resist a drug's effects. Therefore, a Nova is always immune to any drugs with potency less than (Mega-Stamina).

Toxins

Alcohol: Well, it's not really that much of a toxin, but it is a depressant. One 'dose' of alcohol represents a fair amount more than just one beer.

Vector: Ingested

Potency: +0

Addiction: +0

Effect: -1 to all dice pools, -2 to Willpower for the scene, 1 level of bashing damage. Successive doses increase the dice pool and willpower penalties by 1 each. If incapacitated by alcohol damage, the character suffers from alcohol poisoning and will die without medical aid.

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

Vector: Inhaled

Potency: +1

Addiction: -

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

Sweet Dreams: A more humane and potent 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.

Vector: Contact

Potency: +2

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.

Vector: Contact

Potency: +4

Addiction: -

Effect: -(10 - Stamina) to all dice pools and 2 lethal health levels of damage per turn. Success on a resistance roll halves the dice pool penalty and reduces damage to 1 bashing level/turn. An exceptional success (5 successes over difficulty) on the resistance roll negate all effects.

Nanokill: Nanotech anti-personnel weaponry that lyses cells in vital organs.

Vector: Contact

Potency: +8

Addiction: N/A

Effect: 2 lethal health levels of damage per turn. Success on a resistance roll negates the damage for that turn.

Eclipsidol: Anti-Nova biochemical weaponry. Quantum-active.

Vector: Contact

Potency: -

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

Panacea: Triton has created a cutting-edge anti-disease drug that provides broad-spectrum protection against all known diseases.

Potency: -

Addiction: -

Effect: +2 automatic successes to rolls to resist disease.

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

Potency: +0

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.

Stimulants: Drugs that increase the mental and physical speed and reaction of a character, stimulants are sought after by the sleep-deprived, the junkie, and anyone whose life may depend on their reaction speed.

Potency: +2

Addiction: +0

Effect: +1 to Wits, +1 to Dexterity for a scene. After use, +1 difficulty to all physical actions due to lethargy.

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

Addiction: - to +2

Effect: Wound penalties are reduced by anything from -1 (aspirin and other over the counter pain medication) to -4 (things like PCP). The potency of the drug is equal to the wound penalty negation and the addiction is the drug's potency (so a drug that negates 4 points of wound penalty would have a potency of +4 and addiction of +2). A negative addiction is considered to be (N/A).

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

Potency: -

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.

Mite: Nova-harvested steroids.

Potency: +4

Addiction: +1

Effect: +1 Strength/Stamina upon use. 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.

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

Potency: - or +2 for baselines

Addiction: +0 or - for baselines

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

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

Potency: - or +2 for baselines

Addiction: -

Effect: +1 difficulty for all Quantum power or Enhancement rolls, reduce all Mega-Attributes by 1 (min 0), reduce all temporary Taint gains from botched rolls by 1. Baselines take 3 dice of unsoakable lethal damage per round for (10 - Stamina) rounds instead. Succeeding on the potency roll reduces the damage to bashing.

Soma: Derived from a processed Nova M-R node, Soma is very illegal, very difficult to make, very expensive, and extremely powerful.

Potency: -

Addiction: +3

Effect: +1 to all Mega-Attributes and Powers a Nova possesses. A baseline which ingests Soma must roll (Stamina + Resistance) or instantly die. If the baseline survives, he gains 6 NP worth of powers/Mega-Attributes/enhancements and a quantum pool of 5 points for a scene.

Diseases

The Common Cold: The most aggravating disease in existence, the cold is adaptable but weak and generally nonlethal.

Vector: Contact

Potency: +0

Effect: -1 "wound" penalty for the duration of the disease (typically 5 - Stamina days, min 1)

Influenza: Influenza is a somewhat more dangerous but still generally nonfatal disease. Symptoms include coughing, headache, muscle pains, and lethargy.

Vector: Contact

Potency: +1

Effect: -1 "wound" penalty for the disease duration (typically 7 - Stamina days, min 1).

AIDS: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is caused by the HIV virus. An effective antiviral and vaccine for the disease have been created by Utopia's Triton medical facilities, but in poorer countries the disease still exists.

Vector: Bodily Fluids

Potency: +4

Effect: Cumulative +1 difficulty to any roll to resist disease per (Stamina) years.

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.