Taharqa’s Corner

PRESENCE

• Willpower (WIL): Determination, force of presence
• Charisma (CHA): Charm, magnetism, persuasiveness

Alert readers will note that this is very similar to MW3, with the addition of the MW2 attribute for Intuition, and the exclusion of Edge (which I will treat later).

Scores for each attribute range from 1 to 8, with the following scale:

The phenotype maximums are given by:

Phenotype	STR	BOD	DEX	RFL	INT	ITU	WIL	CHA
Human	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7
Clan MW	7	7	7	8	7	7	7	7
Clan Pilot	5	5	8	8	7	7	7	7
Clan Elemental	8	8	7	7	7	7	7	7

Note that the average here is lower than in MW3/aToW.  It is also heavily assymetric and that is on purpose. It seems to me that in an RPG you want to give yourself more “grain” on the up side than the down side.  It is important to keep in mind that one point changes on these attributes reflect significant differences. Very few people will have attributes above 4 and those with attributes as low as 5 will still be noted for their abilities.

The basic attribute check works much like MW3. You pick two attributes to determine your target number for success, like so:

target number = 14 – (sum of two attributes)

In some cases, you may just have a single attribute check, in which case the target number is:

target number = 14 – (2*attribute)

Its worth noting that this can be seen as an extension of the “Characteristics” in MW2 (Athletic, Physical, Mental, Social), but in this case instead of limiting characters to just four characteristics, you can combine any two attributes to get 28 different characteristics. Here is a sampling of the more important ones:

• STR+DEX = Acrobatics
• STR+RFL = Athletic
• DEX+RFL = Agility
• RFL+ITU = Reaction
• DEX+INT = Workmanship
• INT+ITU = Mental
• WIL+CHA = Presence
• BOD+WIL = Endurance
• INT+CHA = Social skill
• ITU+CHA = Social instinct
• DEX+CHA = Grace
• STR+CHA = Physique
• STR+WIL = Feats of strength
• DEX+WIL = Physical concentration
• INT+WIL = Mental concentration
• DEX+ITU = Artistic
• ITU+WIL = Spirit

Skills

Like MW3, every skill has two linked attributes. Once again, this can be seen as an extension of the “Characteristics” from MW2.  Skill ranks start at 0 and max at 6, with the following scale:

0	Novice
1	Green
2	Regular
3	Veteran
4	Elite
5	Heroic
6	Legendary

The target number for skills is determined as follows:

target number = 16 – (sum of linked attributes) – skill rank

This is almost identical to MW2 except that the linked attributes can now theoretically be 28 different combinations rather than 4 and I subtract from 16 rather than 18. The latter change allows me to scale back the value of “Regular” which in MW2 was all the way at 4, not leaving much room for characters to improve.

To use a skill without any ranks in it, the player treates the skill rank as zero and rolls 3d6, taking the two lowest dice.

Here is a preliminary list of skills and their linked attributes:

• Acrobatics (STR+DEX)
• Acting (ITU+CHA)
• Administration (INT+ITU)
• Appraisal (INT+ITU)
• Archery (STR+DEX)
• Artillery (INT+ITU)
• Arts (varies, but often DEX+ITU)
• Careers (varies)
• Crafts (DEX+INT)
• Climbing (STR+DEX)
• Comms/Conv (INT+ITU)
• Comms/HPG (INT+ITU)
• Computers (INT+ITU)
• Cryptography (INT+ITU)
• Demolitions (INT+DEX)
• Disguise (DEX+CHA)
• Engineering (INT+ITU)
• Escape Artist (DEX+RFL)
• Forgery (DEX+INT)
• Gunnery (RFL+DEX)
• Interests (varies)
• Interrogation (WIL+CHA)
• Jump Packs (INT+RFL)
• Language (INT+ITU)
• Leadership (WIL+CHA)
• MedTech (INT+ITU)
• Melee Weapons (STR+DEX)
• Navigation (INT+ITU)
• Negotiation (INT+CHA)
• Piloting (DEX+RFL)
• Protocol (INT+CHA)
• Running (BOD+DEX)
• Security Systems (DEX+INT)
• Sensor Operations (INT+ITU)
• Small Arms (DEX+RFL)
• Stealth (ITU+RFL)
• Strategy (INT+ITU)
• Streetwise (ITU+CHA)
• Support Weapons (STR+DEX)
• Surgery (DEX+INT)
• Survival (INT+ITU)
• Swimming (STR+RFL)
• Tactics (INT+ITU)
• Throwing (STR+DEX)
• Tracking (INT+ITU)
• Training (INT+CHA)
• Unarmed Combat (DEX+RFL)

The skills listed here all have basically the same subskills as in MW3/aToW. Note that the inclusion of an Intuition attribute gets rid of all of those stupid INT+WIL linked attributes in MW3/aToW for skills of the mind. Also note that Perception is gone. IMHO, this is much better served as a INT+ITU attribute check than as a skill.

Specialization
Specialization works pretty much as in MW3/aToW. The character gets a -1 to the target when using the specialization and a +1 when using the skill outside of the specialized area.

Character Creation

So how does chargen work? Well, I am playing around with a roll system as well, but the basic system is point buy. Unlike aToW, you keep separate pools for skills and attributes (and traits once I figure those out).

Attributes

Here are the point costs for attributes:

1	-2
2	-1
3	0
4	1
5	2
6	4
7	8
8	16

The scale here is intentionally non-linear. Unless you want to play a very high-powered campaigns, you don’t want characters with more than one attribute 7+.

The starting points for each character depend on the “heroic level” you want to play at:

Level	Points
Average Joe	0
Decent	4
Good	8
Gifted	12
Heroic	16
Super-heroes	20
Gods	24

The default level for most games will be either Gifted or Heroic, but you can also use this basic system to quickly generate NPCs.

Clanners also get free points to reflect their genetic phenotype. Please note that these are points for the point cost system, not attribute increases. These free points must be allocated as follows:

Clan MW: +2 point to RFL

Clan Pilot: -2 point to STR, +2 points to RFL, +2 points to ITU

Clan Elemental: +2 points to STR, +2 points to BOD, -2 points to DEX

Skills

Here are the point costs for skills:

0	1
1	3
2	7
3	13
4	21
5	31
6	43

The scaling here is also non-linear (the diff pattern is 2,4,6,8,10,12). With a fairly narrow range here, it is important to keep these skill levels as distinct as possible, i.e. most folks should have a real tough time hitting levels beyond elite.

I am still futzing around with the right amount of starting points for characters, but this again should be scaled to whether you want characters to start as neophytes or grizzled veterans.

Level	Points
Green	40
Regular	60
Veteran	90
Elite	130
Heroic	180
Legendary	240

It might also be good to cap the highest skill levels for each group, to discourage min-maxing.

So most games will probably start with Green Heroic characters, i.e. neophytes with promise.

Example Character

Using this system, I am going to reproduce one of my favorite characters, Arjun, the mystical Nova Cat warrior. He will use a Heroic, Green template.

Arjun

STR	3
BOD	4
DEX	5
RFL	6
INT	5
ITU	6
WIL	6
CHA	4

Name	Rank	Linked	Target
Piloting/Mech	1	DEX/RFL	4
Gunnery/Mech	2	DEX/RFL	3
Sensor Operations	1	INT/ITU	4
Navigation/Ground	0	INT/ITU	5
Small Arms	0	DEX/RFL	5
Unarmed Combat	1	STR/DEX	7
Tactics/Land	1	INT/ITU	4
Negotiation	1	INT/CHA	6
Protocol/Clan Nova Cat	1	INT/CHA	6
Interests/Clan Rememberance	1	INT/ITU	4
Interests/Nova Cat Vision Quest	1	WIL/ITU	3
Interests/Theology	1	INT/ITU	4
MedTech	0	INT/ITU	6
Language/English	1	INT/ITU	5

Arjun was never the strongest or toughest within his sibko (STR3, BOD4), but his perceptiveness and determination (ITU6, WIL6) helped him through the harsh rigors of clan training as did his interest in spiritual matters.  He was able to win a place in the Nova Cat touman with his trial of position. However, rather than immediately begin a tour of duty, he asked and was granted leave to become an acolyte in the Rossei cloister of Clan Cloud Cobra. After a two-year stint spent studying theology and immersing himself in mysticism, he returned to Clan Nova Cat ready to begin his quest for glory.

Example NPCs

To demonstrate the “scale” of the system, let me also introduce two archetypal NPCs. The first NPC is your “average” inner sphere mechwarrior:

STR	4
BOD	4
DEX	5
RFL	5
INT	3
ITU	4
WIL	4
CHA	3

Name	Rank	Linked	Target
Piloting/Mech	2	DEX/RFL	4
Gunnery/Mech	2	DEX/RFL	4
Sensor Operations	1	INT/ITU	8
Navigation/Ground	1	INT/ITU	8
Small Arms	1	DEX/RFL	5
Unarmed Combat	0	STR/DEX	7
Tactics/Land	1	INT/ITU	8
MedTech	0	INT/ITU	9

Note that the attribute points correspond to a “Good” character. Mechwarriors, even the rank and file, are after all the cream of the crop from a large interstellar population. The skills here are not necessarily complete, but rather just include the combat-relevant ones.

The most important thing to note is that this average mechwarrior has skills that correspond to average in the game (ok piloting should be 5, but that is too tough a nut to crack EDIT: go here to see how I fixed this problem). Each skill bump will move the character into the next highest bTech skill group and the character is going to top out at 0/0. This is all by design.

Next, let me take an average infantry grunt:

STR	4
BOD	4
DEX	4
RFL	4
INT	3
ITU	3
WIL	3
CHA	3

Name	Rank	Linked	Target
Small Arms	2	DEX/RFL	6
Unarmed Combat	1	STR/DEX	7
Support Weapons	1	STR/DEX	7
Throwing	1	STR/DEX	7
Navigation/Ground	1	INT/ITU	9
MedTech	1	INT/ITU	9

Note that this character would correspond to “Decent.”

So that is it for now. I really like what this system does so far.  Next I am going to tackle Traits and then I need to decide if I want to rework combat any or just use the aToW system directly.