Chora's Den- General discussion [Mass Effect- Scum and Villainy]

Sarky

Sarky

Drunken master
Evening, folks.


I'm going to be popping up a little setting info later.


I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
 
So there's no restriction on who can learn Biotics.


As long as you take the merit it's fine?


Awesome, been itching to try a Turian Biotic, all doom and strict with biotics and of course weapon training since how can you be turian without weapon training ;)
 
As I stated in the recruiting thread, I plan to make a Quarian, possibly a Quarian scoundrel. You know all those bad rumors about Quarians? They go around for a reason :wink:
 
Okay so I made My character, I'm sorry but I'm going to need our masterfull GM to tell me what level my Code of Honour is at, and have a look over my character see what he thinks.


But on a related note, nWoD uses merits and flaws as a separate entity, Merits can be bought with XP (Some limited to character generation).


Flaws on the other hand are one tag things that if they hinder your character in a meaningfull way, you are rewarded with 1 extra point of XP at the end of the 'session'


So, I was wondering if you were going to play it oWoD style, where Flaws give you extra points/xp. Or nWoD and we get 1xp at some specific time/place if it hinders us.
 
Let's go with the nWoD style. It'll potentially earn you much more xp.


Typing out the tech powers right now, I'll put up a selection of guns and equipment after that...
 
You have made tech powers pretty awesome.


Got my Equipment sorted. Looking forwards to seeing the rest of the group.


Should we make sure we have a couple 100c just make sure we can get around from the start?
 
Holding on to some cash would be useful for bribes and the like, but not completely necessary. You could always mug some poor sucker. :)


Just added some weapon modifications to the equipment for specialised ammo. Biotic powers will get a little tweaking, I put them up in a rush last night.
 
I'm hoping Equipment modifications will come into play as we go along.


Improve weapons and such things. ;)


I may have bought a speciality in it for Science.
 
That's the plan! This is only a starter set of rules, I intend to add to it as time goes on.
 
Oh, and that Code of Honour looks like a 3-pointer to me. Fairly restrictive, but if you let someone else handle the dirty stuff and don't hear too much about it afterwards, you should be fine :)
 
I don't think the races are quite balanced. Maybe it's just because I'm playing one, but the Quarians feel like they need a bit of a boost. Hell, all the races fall short of that human 50 XP, if I calculate correctly (though maybe I don't). I'm still making a Quarian, but I'd appreciate a bit of evenness to the playing field.


Though if none of us play humans or Asari, we might be okay.


EDIT: Also, are we allowed to exchange Morality for XP? I honestly don't feel like my thief/conman should have Morality 7.
 
Holy... I didn't notice humans got an extra fifty xp. Wow... Yeah thats pretty oomph.


Well here are a couple of recommendations from me on possible rebalancing.


I would give humans a Floating +1 (Any attribute) to represent Adaptability


And either a couple of skill points or specialities extra.


Asari Always seemed More presence then Dexterity/Intelligence.


Could always Make it, Pre, Int with a str negative.


and a specialised racial ability


"Alluring and compatible": Asari have an exotic magnetism along with a very figure that is pleasing to the observer. They gain 9 agains on social rolls to seduce and charm.


I think you might be hitting Krogans a might too hard with the willpower hammer though.


Losing one from Composure and resolve each and then another from willpower meaning you need to throw away two attribute points just to make sure your willpower is a base 1. I think you lose well enough just from Composure, resolve scores taking both a hit no need for the extra -1 to willpower.


Thinking on this, I get you are trying make Krogans weak willed, but they certainly don't lack resolve, composure most probably.


I would give them a Resolve Boost (+1), But change the willpower to -2. At that point I think it looks fairly interesting and smooth across the board with quite a bit of variety.


Salarians, Actually, yes quick metabolism means they suck up and process Radiation and poisons faster, -1 stamina is a good fit, but I think dropping the strength penalty is a good idea.


Quarians, maybe a +1 Wits? And give them chance to use wits on rolls involving machinery for familiarity with equipment from birth. Giving them a chance to just Intuit the right way to fix things instead of spending time thinking about how to fix it.


These are just suggestions. Sorry I didn't think of looking it all over when you first proposed it all. I was kinda stuck with "Whee! I get to play a Turian!".
 
Thanks for the input. I know the races aren't terribly balanced (most of this was typed out after a lot of sleep deprivation and/or energy drinks, I wouldn't dream of calling it gospel), and I was looking for suggestions just like that to help even things out.


Humans, +1 to any attribute and say +2 dots to any skill is much less messy (and silly) than 50xp.


I dunno why I didn't think of giving Asari +1 presence, that makes a lot more sense. And 9 again on social rolls is a nice touch. So, +1 Presence, let's try the -1 Str, and that "alluring and compatible" bonus.


Agreed on the Krogans regarding Resolve. More characterful to lower Willpower but give them a resolve boost. So, -2 Willpower, +1 Resolve, and alongside their natural social penalties against almost everyone else, we'll see how that goes. I probably went hard on them in that way because they're big damn wrecking machines, I look forward to seeing how these changes work out.


Quarians +1 Wits is good too. Makes sense, especially coupled with machinery/tech skills.


We'll go with dropping the Str penalty on Salarians too. I wasn't terribly happy with it, only had it in there to try and make the template vaguely neutral, but if each template ends up giving a slight bonus that's balanced too.


It's 6am in my time zone right now, I'll make some official changes after some sleep. Keep the suggestions coming, by all means. Half the reason I'm trying to run this is to iron out details like this. :)
 
My character is up. Sad Quarian is sad :P


I really would like to drop my Morality, though. My character has been lying, cheating, and stealing for a living for quite a while. I don't think he deserves and derangements for continuing on his lifestyle.


Also, the sheet is currently going by the initial Quarian racial template, so I'll have to update it when you get a new version up.
 
Feel free to reduce your morality, I won't be making much reference to it unless a character does something fairly heinous (by the standards of their species, anyway). You are all criminals, so I'd be surprised if anyone had a Morality above 5 to start with. What with the galaxy being a dangerous place, and futuristic mental health treatments, there'll be no penalties to starting at 5. Anything below that will net you standard xp (3x[dots you're dropping from], so dropping to Morality 4 gets you 12xp, dropping from 4 to 3 gets you 9xp), but will require taking a derangement for each drop.


Any of the minor derangements are fine. I'd recommend steering clear of major ones. And I'd also recommend sinking no lower than about Morality 3.
 
I'm thinking about spending time on the mass effect (1) wiki and reading up the power scaling from there and propose some scaling rules for our Biotic and tech powers.


Or if we should just bust the class powers into things like disciplines/gifts/spheres/ etc like the nWoD Splats, but I like the Idea of 'Skills' but more expensive.
 
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