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Would anyone (especially RJS) be opposed to me swapping some abilities around? I'm feeling like infrared vision is a waste of an ability slot (it's complicated and doesn't have any direct combat effectiveness).
Precision Tweaking (Scales with Hack): INA hacks into an ally's brain to adjust their aim, giving them a +2 boost to Precision for one turn.
Infrared Vision: INA's eyes glow red, changing her view to render based on heat rather than light. During this, INA gains the ability to see hidden targets that give off heat and loses the ability to see anything that does not have a thermal difference with it's surroundings.
Levitation: Thrusters activate allowing INA to levitate. While levitating, INA receives +5 Agility, -3 Power and -3 precision.
Precision Tweaking (Scales with Hack): INA hacks into an ally's brain to adjust their aim, giving them a +2 boost to Precision for one turn. Unchanged
Redirect Power: INA reallocates all of her base stats (except health). If used during battle, it must be used as INA's action and 1 stat point is lost each time this ability is used until the end of the battle. Replaced Infrared Vision with this
Levitation: Thrusters activate allowing INA to levitate. While levitating, INA receives +5 Agility and can't deal damage. Changed stat penalties to "can't deal damage," as it's meant to be defensive
One thing I will say, which may have a huge impact on how you want to build your character: You are field agents. Nobody gets to hide away at the base. As a member of the Institute, you have been sent out to fight because the drones aren't enough.You are an on-scene presence.
Also laptops? Really? You could have a retinal display with a keyboard implant in your arm and you went with a laptop? I am disappoint
Personality:
Tito is a very rigid thinker, with his perspective on life ruled by the orders he has been given. He sees the rule of law and order to be necessary, no matter the cost, and views the Partition as uncivilized cretins who desire anarchy.
Backstory (at least one paragraph):
Tito was born to a family in the Upper Districts. From an early age, he enjoyed playing at being a soldier, to the exclusion of almost all other interests. He showed no interest in computing, coding, or any sort of technological role so, when the time came for him to choose a school, he was enrolled into the Institute's military division for their training program. Attracting the attention of Karl Marquese for his unflinching dedication and commitment to his duty, he was swiftly graduated before being transferred sidewards into the Institute's field operations team.
Following the battle with Godetzka, Tito has spent his spare time training and preparing in order to prepare himself. Some of his light-heartedness has been replaced with his earlier serious demeanour - he knows how close to death they came that day, and is intent on ensuring that it does not happen again.
Abilities:
Suppressing Fire: Tito shoots with -2 Precision at his target. Regardless of whether this attack hits or not, target suffers -2 Precision and -1 Agility until the end of their turn.
EMP grenade: Tito throws a grenade that releases an AOE EMP blast. All affected opponents are unable to use hack-based abilities on their next turn. 2 turn cooldown.
Energy Shield. Tito encases himself in a deployable energy shield. While active, Tito cannot move or attack, and Durability is increased by his Firewall stat. This effect is dispelled either when Tito cancels it, or if the defenses are penetrated (Tito takes damage)
Information:
The IN-AI Mk4s, or just 'Droids' to the populace of Magnopolis, are programmed to enforce the rules of the Insititute. While reasonably well constructed, they lack the ability to do much more than keep an unarmed populace under control, and stand little chance against trained and augmented individuals. With the growth of the Partition, and a series of devastating attacks on droid patrols, they have been largely pulled out of the districts where the Partition makes its presence known. They can still be found patrolling the safer areas of the city however.
Abilities:
Electroshock: The droid discharges an incapacitating current into the opponent. Rolls Power vs Durability for damage, and Power vs Firewall for ability disruption. If Power roll exceeds Firewall roll, all of the target's abilities are blocked for their next turn.
Name:
Weave (Dan Tuite) Age:
15 Affiliation:
Institute Appearance (Image, description or both): View attachment 24578 Personality:
Dan has ADHD. His doctor told him he needs to take weird pills to help him stay focused. His parents told him to stop fiddling. He told them he was focused, he just couldn't focus on what he needed to. He is a good-hearted and funny young man, just don't give him anything you don't want deassembled and experimented with. He has an obsession with the way things work, and when he was gifted a laptop for his seventh birthday, he changed instantly to a boy focused on weaving the hacking world to benefit what he sees as right. Backstory (at least one paragraph):
Diagnosed with ADHD by his implant at the age of three, Dan loved to take things apart to see how they worked. His parents, however, did not. So it's no surprise that the laptop Dan received for his seventh birthday was thoroughly un-openable. Luckily, Dan didn't need to take it apart anymore, he could take apart the virtual world. He weaved the programming of hacking in a way that older people more set in their rules of programming found it difficult to understand. One time, while hacking, he was tricked into giving control of a squadron of drones to someone named Spider. The drones were recaptured but not before significant damage was dealt to the institute's pride. They approached Dan and gave him the option to join them and boost their military with his hacking, or to be put in prison on charges of humiliating the government. Of course, the law was completely made up, but 15 year old Dan was pretty damn scared of being put in jail, because he didn't dare imagine what his parents would say if they found out he'd been sent to jail.
He joined the institute's Out of Combat (OOC) and was shocked by the rigidity of the programming. No wonder people found windows in, you could pretty much knock the door down with that kind of programming! He weaved new improved programs for the OOC and increased the effectiveness of the OOC by 2x! He was quickly promoted to the most senior member of the OOC and was granted access to all except the institute's best kept secrets. Not that they could be kept if he actually cared. He was granted access to soldier's views and was able to run programs based on their surroundings and display their results directly to the eyes of the soldier. He seems completely determined in his job to help the soldiers, but if you watch his screen, dead people strangely disappear rather than showing them dying... Stats (25 total):
Power: 1
Precision: 2
Durability: 1
Health: 1
Agility: 2
Hack: 9
Firewall: 9
Abilities:
Weave - Dan's programming is difficult to understand for the logical minds of mature adults. His woven firewall protects him from cyberattacks: Firewall stat takes damage instead of health from hack damage.
Optimal Strategy calculation - Dan runs a program which calculates the optimal way to complete a task and uploads it to the soldier's retinal implant: Has a 75% chance to add 5 points randomly spread between durability, power and agility to the soldier for a turn, has a 20% chance to do nothing, and a 5% chance to take away the 5 points.
Cyberwarfare - Dan does quick offensive or defensive programming to disable opponents and protect himself: Can either repair his firewall by a D(x/2) or lower the enemies firewall by a D(x/3) where x is his hack stat. If the enemy firewall is reduced to zero he can instead deal the damage to health or have a 50% chance of disabling one of their implants for five turns.
Equipment:
A powerful laptop and admin allowance.
An armored sentry/minigun that he pilots should they be invaded. It won't work against an actual soldier without help though.
DAN IS NOW 15 AGAIN. I HAVE ROLLED BACK HIS STORY TO THAT POINT.
Alright. Three main concerns here. First two are more for your attention, and you can ignore them should you wish. Third one is a matter of balance though, and I would ask you to look at it.
You will be on the front lines, you will be attackable. With your stats at the moment, you are probably going to be killed by the first Physical attack aimed at you.
Precision applies to both Physical and Hack attacks. No matter how good your Hack stat is, you need to be able to hit to do any damage.
Cyberwarfare is currently unbalanced as an ability, for one simple reason - it is two different abilities squashed into one. As a result you have 4 Abilities, not 3. As a result, I would ask that you choose either the offensive or defensive version of Cyberwarfare, and use it exclusively. The Abilities section has a game mechanics based suggestion for each of these routes - feel free to have a look and discuss with me should you be unhappy/have any questions
@lenscas Ok, so your abilities. First off, how is creature shutdown different to the creature deform? Seems to me that you are wasting 2 Abilities on one effect here.
In terms of the creature I think I have an idea to make it a little more balanced:
Creature has base stats of 1 across the board. Wyatt can boost the creature's stats by transferring power to the implant, reducing one stat (except Health) by one for each stat point the creature gains.
If the creature deforms on Wyatt's command, all stat points are restored. The cooldown until the creature can be reformed is (1+x) turns, where x is the number of Health Points the creature lost during its formation.
The creature glitches if its Health falls to 0. A glitched creature has a 3 turn cooldown before it can be reformed. If the creature glitches, then half of the allocated stat points are restored in each stat, with the rest restoring at a rate of 1 per stat per turn.
I would take the glitch off the use of the taser as a result, as glitches are now a much bigger consequence.
I think this provides a boost (as Abilities should) by giving you the extra base stat points in the creature, however there is a certain amount of cost to making the creature an effective combatant. It also means that the creature can't be easily used for suicidal attacks, and opponents can gain by targeting the creature, not just Wyatt.
ABILITY MECHANICS Red text is where abilities have been altered by me. This is to make them fit with a dice-based resolution system, and also with an eye to balancing. In all cases, I have endeavored to preserve the general flavour of the Ability. If you have any concerns, please do raise them - these are are up for discussion, within reason.
Tito Graves Abilities:
Suppressing Fire: Tito shoots with -2 Precision at his target. Regardless of whether this attack hits or not, target suffers -2 Precision and -1 Agility until the end of their turn. 1 turn cooldown.
EMP grenade: Tito throws a grenade that releases an AOE EMP blast. All affected opponents are unable to use hack-based abilities on their next turn. 2 turn cooldown.
Energy Shield. Tito encases himself in a deployable energy shield. While active, Tito cannot move or attack, and Durability is increased by his Firewall stat. This effect is dispelled either when Tito cancels it, or if the defenses are penetrated (Tito takes damage). 3 turn cooldown following deactivation.
IN-AI Mk4 Abilities:
Electroshock: The droid discharges an incapacitating current into the opponent. Rolls Power vs Durability for damage, and Power vs Firewall for ability disruption. If Power roll exceeds Firewall roll, all of the target's abilities are blocked for their next turn. 2 turn cooldown.
Elin DuVares Abilities:
Subdermal disruptor field: When Elin is wounded (Health below max), she gains +2 Durability and +2 Firewall.
Medical Nanobots (Scales with target Durability): Elin can inject nanobots into a target, healing them. Heals Health based on Durability roll/ 10 - rounded to nearest whole number. 3 turn cooldown. Max 5 uses per battle.
Disruption Sphere: Elin can overpower her disruptor field to generate a sphere around her. Allies within the sphere gain +1 Durability and Firewall. This cancels any buffs from her disruptor field that are already active, and damages Elin for 1HP upon activation.
Karl Marquese Abilities:
Jammers (Scales with Firewall): Should a Hack roll from an opponent fail, that opponent is paralysed until the start of their following turn. Whilst paralysed, Agility is 0.
Crushing Blow: Karl launches a heavy attack, with +3 Power and -3 Precision.
Cleave (Scales with Power): Karl sweeps his baton in front of him with -2 Power and +2 Precision. AoE.
Equipment: IN-KMS Shock Baton (Reduces Hack and Firewall by 1 on every hit until the end of combat), custom-made;
Ravyn Portwyn-Elise Abilities: Motorference (Scales with Hack): Ravyn hacks into his opponent's mind, interfering with their muscular control. If successful, target is at -2 Agility until the end of their next turn. 2 turn cooldown.
Distortion (Scales with Hack): Ravyn hacks into his opponent's mind, distorting their vision. If successful, target is at -2 Precision until the end of their next turn. 2 turn cooldown.
Penetrating Sight: Ravyn's cybernetic right eye scans the opponent for weak spots. If Ravyn's Precision roll is 2x the target's Agility roll, Ravyn's Power is increased by 1 for that attack.
Raptus Omega Abilities:
Blood Rush: Every time Raptus deals damage to an opponent, he gains 1 Precision and Agility for the next turn.
Rend (Scales with Power): A vicious melee attack that may cause bleeding (-1HP next turn)
Wounded Beast: If Raptus takes damage, he will target only the person who wounded him until either of them dies
Spider Abilities:
Cyberbastion: Manifests digital barriers to protect against attacks. Both physical and Hack attacks roll against Firewall for damage.
Catastrophic Meltdown (scales with Hack): Shuts down a module of an opponent until the end of combat. One ability is silenced. May cause damage to opponent, depending on Hack result.
Spider's lair: All opponents around Spider must pass a Firewall check at the start of each turn or suffer -2 Agility.
Equipment: Unknown
Syderis (Sy) Velos Abilities:
Full metal jacket: Sy can use armour-piercing rounds that reduce the enemy's durability by 2 for his attack. 2 turn cooldown.
Retinal augmentation: If Sy's Precision roll is double that of his target's Agility roll, he gains +1 Power.
Stealth mode: For three turns, Sy is in stealth. This can only be entered while not in enemy line of sight, and is forcibly exited if they succeed a hack check while looking for him in their line of sight, or if he attacks. While in this mode, he can only be seen by said hack check. Attacks are made with +1 Power, and target is at -2 Agility. 3 turn cooldown following exit from Stealth
CPU.overload()(Scales with Hack): Wyatt causes the CPU of a device/implant to become overloaded bringing it to an halt. Silences an Ability for two turns. 2 turn cooldown
Leopold Cinder Abilities:
Pyro Punch(Scales with Hack): Leo's glove can become cloaked in flame, or shoot a variable-width and -distance fireball or stream of flames. 2 turn cooldown.
Superdermal cyberskin: a network of electricity across Leo's skin can be activated to protect against weak attacks and projectiles. (+2 dur if at full health, +1 if not). Following 2 turns of activation, Agility drops by 1 each turn. Following deactivation, Agility is restored at 1 point per turn. 2 turn cooldown from deactivation.
Energy exchange: Leo can sacrifice health for agility, and vice versa. This allows him to heal in safe places, or escape from a brewing fight.
Erza Bloodscar
Abilities:
In to the shadows: Becomes invisible and untargetable until the start of her next turn. Cannot attack on the same turn this activates. 2 turn cooldown following deactivation.
Malware insertion(Scales with Hack): Deals damage based on Hack vs Firewall. If Hack roll is more than double target's Firewall roll, silences an ability for the next two turns. 3 turn cooldown. After using "Malware insertion" she gains knowledge of the enemy's system. She gains +1 firewall for a turn but loses 1 Durability.
Shadow step (passive ability): After using "In to the shadows" her next melee attack has +1 Power and +1 Precision. But her hack is down by 2 for a turn.
INA (Independent Neural Application) Abilities:
Precision Tweaking (Scales with Hack): INA hacks into an ally's brain to adjust their aim, giving them a +2 boost to Precision for one turn. 2 turn cooldown.
Levitation: Thrusters activate allowing INA to levitate. While levitating, INA receives +5 Agility, but cannot attack. 2 turn cooldown following deactivation.
Redirect Power: INA reallocates all of her base stats (except health). If used during battle, it must be used as INA's action and 3 stat points are lost each time this ability is used until the end of the battle. Can only be used once every 4 turns.
Gardenia Pirosé Abilities:
Sneak Exit: When Health is down to 1, Gardenia can attempt an escape. If her Agility roll exceeds the nearest opponent's, she gains +2 Health. If her roll is more than twice the opponent's roll, she gains full Health. 3 turn cooldown.
David to Goliath: Rolls Agility vs target Agility. If successful, target Power is reduced by 2, recovering by 1 every turn. 3 turn cooldown.
Piercing Strike: Rolls Precision against Durability. If successful, Gardenia gains +1 power for her attack. If roll is greater than double the Durability roll, Gardenia gains +2 Power for her attack. 2 turn cooldown.
Weave (Dan Tuite) Abilities:
Weave - Dan's programming is difficult to understand for the logical minds of mature adults. His woven firewall protects him from cyberattacks: Firewall stat takes damage instead of health from hack damage.
Optimal Strategy calculation - Ally gains 3 points across Agility, Durability and Power for a turn. 2 turn cooldown.
Cyberwarfare EITHER: Repairs Firewall stat by Hack roll/15
OR: Attacks with Hack stat. If Hack roll is more than double target's Firewall roll, then target's Firewall is reduced by 2 until start of Weave's next turn.
Yeah, apologies for the slow state of getting things rolling - this is only the second RP I've GMed, and the most complex thus far. Throw into that being busy IRL and Fallout 4, and it's a miracle we're even at this point
In terms of the creature I think I have an idea to make it a little more balanced:
Creature has base stats of 1 across the board. Wyatt can boost the creature's stats by transferring power to the implant, reducing one stat (except Health) by one for each stat point the creature gains.
If the creature deforms on Wyatt's command, all stat points are restored. The cooldown until the creature can be reformed is (1+x) turns, where x is the number of Health Points the creature lost during its formation.
The creature glitches if its Health falls to 0. A glitched creature has a 3 turn cooldown before it can be reformed. If the creature glitches, then half of the allocated stat points are restored in each stat, with the rest restoring at a rate of 1 per stat per turn.
Its probably my sleepy brain that causes me to be a bit confused about it but does it cost wyatt one point in everything (except health) to give the creature 1 point?
edit as in it costs wyatt 1 of everything (except health) to give the creature lets say 1 health?
Personality:
He acts upon pure primal instincts. All you can sense from him is deep, deep sadness for what he used to be. Backstory (at least one paragraph):
Dan was crazy about time travel. He was obsessed with traveling through time, and winning prizes for his amazing invention. He had been travelling to the city, when the meteors struck. He was all ready, with a full metal skeleton used as the harness for ripping through space-time. He walked into the forcefield, and then it hit him. He frowned. It was supposed to let him through. He looked up and he saw it. A huge meteor, heading straight to him. His last thought was to travel away through time. And then he died. At the exact moment of being hit he travelled away, creating two of himself. Five seconds passed before he saw himself walking to the barrier. He ran to himself, and shoved himself out of the way, saving his own life, but dying. The timelines leading up to this event then never happened, but then it did, but then it didn't flicking back and forth faster and faster until the space time paradox opened up! Growing and growing, ripping off his skin, leaving just the metal underskeleton hooked into the brain. His metal fingers were forced in both directions with insane force, giving him elongated claws. He watched the time flick by him. One moment someone found him, the next he was inside, he saw events, flicking past faster and faster until it all stopped. He saw a scientist standing in front of him with a device in his hands which he was holding to his metal chest. It's been a long time Dan. Maybe a minute for you. A long time since the meteors for us. That device, it controls and keeps under control the paradox inside your chest. You're realigned with real time. My name is doctor shine of the Institute. Come. Let me show you the world now. He looked around. And then it hit him. He tried to frown. Stats (25 total):
Power:3
Precision:2
Durability:3
Health:3
Agility: 5
Hack:5
Firewall:4
Abilities:
Desync: Dan desyncs himself from time again, making him not exist next turn, after which he will appear behind the chosen enemy. (can be used every 3 turns)
Travelling back: Another Dan appears from the future to fight for one turn as well. (can be used every 4 turns)
Jitter: Dan channels some of the power of the paradox into an enemy, taking away a D(HACK STAT) - a D(ENEMY FIREWALL STAT) with a minimum of 1 from both agility and precision for a turn from the enemy. Equipment:
Yeah, apologies for the slow state of getting things rolling - this is only the second RP I've GMed, and the most complex thus far. Throw into that being busy IRL and Fallout 4, and it's a miracle we're even at this point
Its probably my sleepy brain that causes me to be a bit confused about it but does it cost wyatt one point in everything (except health) to give the creature 1 point?
edit as in it costs wyatt 1 of everything (except health) to give the creature lets say 1 health?
No. He can reduce any of his stats by one to give the creature one in any stat (basically transfers a stat point from Wyatt to the Creature, with no requirement to hold it in the same stat.
Personality:
He acts upon pure primal instincts. All you can sense from him is deep, deep sadness for what he used to be. Backstory (at least one paragraph):
Dan was crazy about time travel. He was obsessed with traveling through time, and winning prizes for his amazing invention. He had been travelling to the city, when the meteors struck. He was all ready, with a full metal skeleton used as the harness for ripping through space-time. He walked into the forcefield, and then it hit him. He frowned. It was supposed to let him through. He looked up and he saw it. A huge meteor, heading straight to him. His last thought was to travel away through time. And then he died. At the exact moment of being hit he travelled away, creating two of himself. Five seconds passed before he saw himself walking to the barrier. He ran to himself, and shoved himself out of the way, saving his own life, but dying. The timelines leading up to this event then never happened, but then it did, but then it didn't flicking back and forth faster and faster until the space time paradox opened up! Growing and growing, ripping off his skin, leaving just the metal underskeleton hooked into the brain. His metal fingers were forced in both directions with insane force, giving him elongated claws. He watched the time flick by him. One moment someone found him, the next he was inside, he saw events, flicking past faster and faster until it all stopped. He saw a scientist standing in front of him with a device in his hands which he was holding to his metal chest. It's been a long time Dan. Maybe a minute for you. A long time since the meteors for us. That device, it controls and keeps under control the paradox inside your chest. You're realigned with real time. My name is doctor shine of the Institute. Come. Let me show you the world now. He looked around. And then it hit him. He tried to frown. Stats (25 total):
Power:3
Precision:2
Durability:3
Health:3
Agility: 5
Hack:5
Firewall:4
Abilities:
Desync: Dan desyncs himself from time again, making him not exist next turn, after which he will appear behind the chosen enemy. (can be used every 3 turns)
Travelling back: Another Dan appears from the future to fight for one turn as well. (can be used every 4 turns)
Jitter: Dan channels some of the power of the paradox into an enemy, taking away a D(HACK STAT) - a D(ENEMY FIREWALL STAT) with a minimum of 1 from both agility and precision for a turn from the enemy. Equipment:
In all honesty, I think that Weave was a much better starting point than this. A little stat rebalance and another look at his abilities and I'd have said he was good to go. Time travel and paradoxes are well beyond the lore of this RP. I can appreciate the feeling of a character not working out, but I quite liked the idea of a proper 'Hackcaster' as opposed to a buff/debuffer or physical fighters. We have a lot of those as it is.
If you're feeling tired, leave it alone for a bit and then come back to the character. There's still a few things I need to sort out on my end too, so you have some time. Don't feel you need to rush it.
Wow, I thought you just lost interest, then suddenly big wall o rebalancing; yay! I'm happy with the skill tweaks, they still look like they fit INA's character really well.
Name:
Weave (Dan Tuite) Age:
17 Affiliation:
Institute Appearance (Image, description or both):
Personality:
Dan is a kind-hearted teenager, who has finally found a purpose in life. He cares deeply for those close to him, however, there is a darker side of him lying beneath. Despite finding a purpose, Dan still has few things that he feels he strongly needs to stay alive for. Because of this, he will sometimes risk his life for reasons which are hardly sufficient. However, his new sense of purpose is also enough for him to risk his life, so he is surprisingly steadfast in battle, and will rarely flee unless instructed to do so. He is also incredibly awkward, having had a total of almost zero social experience in earlier life. Backstory (at least one paragraph):
[WIP] Stats (31 total):
Power: 4
Precision: 4
Durability: 3
Health: 4
Agility: 3
Hack: 7
Firewall,: 6
Abilities:
Weave - Dan has a thin transparent forcefield which is maintained by his power: Firewall stat takes damage instead of health for hack damage.
Cuff formation - When used on a player, the original hack roll of Dan will be recorded. Every turn, the cuffed player will passively roll firewall. This firewall will be added to a firewall grand total. When this grand total reaches higher or equal to the original hack roll, the cuffs will break. While the cuffs are still active, the cuffed player can not attack or use abilities. They can however still:
Run away.
Skip a turn.
When the cuffs break, the cuffed player CAN use their abilities and attacks on the turn it breaks.
Solid Energy Mimicking - Dan hacks into the files of opponents and copies an ability they own: Rolls hack against firewall, if hack roll is at least double opponents firewall roll, choose one of the targets abilities and use it. Cooldown of the ability used.
Cyberwarfare Attacks with Hack stat. If Hack roll is more than double target's Firewall roll, then target's Firewall is reduced by 2 until start of Weave's next turn.
Cyberwarfare Attacks with Hack stat. If Hack roll is more than double target's Firewall roll, then target's Firewall is reduced by 2 until start of Weave's next turn.
