Aberrant 2.0 Rules Alterations

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)/1 week (lethal)
  • -2 HLs: 4 hours (bashing)/2 weeks (lethal)
  • -4 HLs: 8 hours (bashing)/1 month (lethal)
  • Incapacitated: 1 day (bashing)/3 months (lethal)
  • Dying: 1 day (bashing)/5 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.