So because exomuscle's balance is
all sorts of off I was considering and reconsidering some of its aspects and variations, have some homebrew. I'm sort of happy with this system for Enhancements. Some of this stuff was originally done for Panopticon but largely in an incomplete and redundant state.
Enhancements
Harder. Faster. Stronger. Better.
- Like Wonder/Device, each Enhancement is typically purchased individually. However, minor 1-2 point Enhancements can be combined with each other to ensure no 'wasted' points.
- An Enhancement typically costs 2 background dots per 3 points.
- If a character's Enhancements permanently provide an obviously inhuman, consensus-unacceptable effect (significantly inhuman attributes, a deployable plasma cannon arm, etc.), the character gains 1 permanent Paradox per vulgar effect. A non-exhaustive list of these effects include:
- Deployable weapons larger than Conceal P
- any attribute above 6
- more than 3 additional -0 health levels
- more than 5 Armor
- Otherwise, Enhancements do not generate Paradox unless stated.
- Dots of Enhancement do not typically incur Genetic Flaws. Instead, the character should just take normal flaws to represent Enhancement-related faults instead. It is common, but not required, for a character to have 1-2 points of genetic or implantation-related flaws per 2 dots of Enhancement.
Partial Cyborg (-5 points)
The character is a cyborg who has significant cybernetic modifications rendering them vulnerable to certain forms of magical attack. This Flaw is mandatory if the character has 5 or more total dots in cybernetic Enhancements. A character with fewer cybernetic Enhancements can take this flaw, which would represent being dependent on extensive artificial organ replacements to survive.
- Although cybernetics self-repair with some effectiveness, they can and do take damage. The character heals at half effectiveness if healed using pure Life 2/3 (1 health level/success). Conjunctional Matter 3 is required for full healing.
- It takes twice as long to heal a level of damage.
- The character takes 2 additional aggravated health levels from direct Life attack.
- If the character is Incapacitated, they must roll Stamina + [Enhancement's Enlightenment] for each enhancement they possess. Failure or botching means that the augmentation must be repaired. For Enhancements which do not possess an Enlightenment score, assume 1 point of Enlightenment per 3 points, maximum 5.
- 6+ successes on a conjunctional Life 3/Entropy 3 or Life 3/Matter 3 attack will also disable the implants by damaging the human-machine interface, although as that would result in massive amounts of aggravated damage anyhow, most cyborgs don't need to worry about this so much because they'll be dead as a result.
- Disabling the implants 'humanely' requires 6+ successes on a conjunctional Life 4/Matter 4 effect.
Full Cyborg (-5 points)
The character is a full conversion cyborg, over 90% machine, or an upload in a fully synthetic body. This flaw requires at least 6 dots of cybernetic Enhancements-a full body prosthetic isn't cheap, and if it's not going to give you significant superhuman ability, why bother?
- The character soaks lethal and aggravated damage with full Stamina (which is typically duplicated by the actual Enhancements they get, but it's a benefit).
- The character must be repaired rather than benefit from medical care.
- The character is obviously immune to all poisons and diseases, unless they're a full conversion cyborg and get them directly injected into their brain.
- The character self-repairs 1 bashing or lethal health level every 2 days as long as their body is still functional (i.e. their Incapacitated health level has not been filled with lethal or aggravated damage).
- The character must repair Aggravated damage with Matter 3.
- The character's cyberbrain is in an armored, removable case with its own life support system. This case has 8 armor, 3 health levels, and generally can keep the brain alive for a week even after the body is incapacitated or destroyed.
- Although the character can be rendered Incapacitated as normal, the character's body may be recovered and repaired unless its entire health track is filled with Aggravated damage. There are a fair few secondhand cyborg chassis in the Virtual Adepts. Turns out any Technocrat valuable enough to stick in a high-spec military cyborg shell is valuable enough that the Technocracy is willing to trade that shell to get them back in the typical round of prisoner exchanges.
- The character is no longer affected by the Life sphere (except for direct Correspondence/Life attacks to the brain, see below).
- Instead, the character treats the Matter sphere as the Life sphere. They may repair themselves with Matter 2, enhance their physical abilities with Matter 3, and 'shapeshift' with Matter 4. An enemy with Matter 3 can deal aggravated pattern damage to them, so on and so forth.
- The character is treated as a complex machine for the purposes of Entropy and Prime direct damage attacks. They can be directly attacked by Entropy 3 or Prime 4 (rather than Entropy 4 and Prime 5).
- The character is either a cyborg or an upload.
- If the character is an upload, attempts to affect the character's mind must substitute the equivalent Forces sphere rating instead. The Mind sphere no longer affects the character.
- If the character is a full-conversion cyborg, the character's brain can be directly attacked by a Life 3/Correspondence 3 effect. Even if a cyborg has minimal other countermagic, the cyberbrain is always reinforced, isolated, and protected by either primium or prymite dedicated to deflecting direct attacks to brain tissue, giving the cyborg an additional 3d of countermagic (stacking with any normal countermagic) against this attack only. Each success on the Life 3/Correspondence 3 effect reduces the character's mental attributes by 1 dot each. If the character is reduced to 0 dots in any mental attribute, they are put into a permanent coma. This damage can be healed via Life 2/Mind 2 (self-healing) or Life 3/Mind 3 (neurosurgery).
Exomuscle and Friends
Exojocks are a common sight in the Shock Corps, augmented individuals enhanced with musculoskeletal modifications for superior strength, speed, and durability. They can walk through small arms fire and take repeated hits from heavier weapons to incapacitate. They can snap a person's neck one-handed, run faster than Olympic sprinters, and achieve other inhuman feats, even more if they override safeties and limiters on their augmentation. The typical exojock looks like a massive bodybuilder, standing over 180cm tall and weighing over 140 kg. Significant amounts of that weight are from electroactive polymers woven through their skeletal muscles and high-density, reinforced skin impregnated with primium-mesh ballistic and Reality Deviance protection.
Over time, the sheer effectiveness of exomuscle has led to a wide swathe of variants for various use. Exomuscle is almost exclusively a Technocratic Shock Corps tool-outside of the Shock Corps it's rare in the Technocracy, and only a small handful of Traditions magi and Nephandi possess it, owing to the fact that to get exomuscle you need to have been a Shock Corps supersoldier (and their screening and indoctrination is
very good) or you need to have killed one in a way that leaves the body intact, and then steal it. Besides, the Traditions have their own ways of making superhuman combatants, and although exomuscle is a powerful, cost-efficient standard package, these bespoke Enhancements or Investments can still create individuals capable of equaling an exojock.
-All full-body myomer implants are generally combined with Skeletal Reinforcement, which is necessary if the character wishes to increase their Strength or Dexterity above 5.
-Full body myomer implantation does not incur any permanent paradox if it does not result in inhuman traits. Inhuman traits still incur paradox as normal.
-A character may only have 1 full-body myomer implant.
Exomuscle Classic (20 pts
a la carte * 0.75 fixed improvements = 15 pts)
The most common "bodybuilder" sort of exomuscle, standard exomuscle is still in use today because it's an effective, efficient package that a lot of Shock Corps soldiers get in conjunction with skeletal reinforcement to make the most of their new strength. Combining moderate ballistic and counter-RD protection with significant physical augmentation to increase speed, strength, endurance, and durability, most dedicated Shock Corps commandos further augment themselves with additional enhancements and customizations to be even more fearsome. Elite shock corps Commandos are a match for the Traditions' finest warriors, combining incredibly honed skill and powerful Enlightened Science effects with grossly superhuman physical prowess.
-4x -0 HLs (4 pts)
-Soak Lethal/Agg Damage w/Stamina
-+2 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +2 Stamina (10 pts)
-2 Armor (2 pts)
-2 Countermagic (4 pts)
Note that the number of HLs is reduced slightly (you get 6 if you combine this with skeletal enhancement) and you get an extra die of countermagic here. At 10 background dots (5 after you take your mandatory cyborg flaw), it's pretty affordable.
Heavy Exomuscle (32 pts
a la carte * 0.75 fixed improvements = 24 pts)
Because you really, really want to be a SPACE MURRINE. Heavy exomuscle mandates a reinforced skeleton, because they add something like 40cm of height and 130 kilograms to your height and weight from the myomers, armoring, and the necessary secondary synthetic organs to power it. The result is someone who looks more like a concrete wall than a human. Although somewhat popular in the 80s and 90s, heavy exomuscle has fallen out of favor as being cost-inefficient and also obvious, which was not a huge problem back then but is now with the Technocracy facing far more problems than it has resources to solve. On the other hand, there is something to be said about being able to tear a werewolf in half with your bare hands.
-6x -0 HLs (6 pts)
-Soak lethal/agg damage with Stamina
-+4 Strength, +4 Stamina (16 pts)
-4 Armor (4 pts)
-3 Countermagic (6 pts)
Implanted Exoskeleton and Bodyplating
Even rarer than heavy exomuscle now, the full implant exoskeleton makes the character look like a miniature giant death robot. On the other hand, it gives even more armor.
-As above (incl. cost), except:
-+4 Armor
-includes skeletal reinforcement (allows superhuman physical attributes)
-Visibly inhuman (skin made of space-age composites instead of human-seeming skin, visibly inhuman skull reinforcement, external skeletal reinforcement)
Full-Body Myomer Implantation ("Exomuscle Lite") (8 pts x 0.75 = 6 pts)
Full Body Myomer Implantation is a lighter version of exomuscle which doesn't implant about 30 kilograms of artificial muscle in the user and doesn't do nearly as much full-body reinforcement. As a result, the recipients tend to look like very fit people of normal height and weight rather than 80s action heroes. FBMI is more common in augmented individuals who require discreetness, which means that unlike the other exomuscle variants, this is actually not used much in Iteration X. Instead, it shows up a lot more in NWO and Syndicate agents interested in cybernetic augmentation, as a low-cost basic package. Most of them have FBMI as their sole augmentation, relying more on external tools and training than biomodification to succeed.
-soak lethal/agg with full Stamina
-2x -0 health levels (2 pts)
-+1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Stamina (6 pts)
Musculoskeletal CNT Augmentation ("Exomuscle 2.0") (28 * .75 = 21 pts)
"Exomuscle 2.0" is based off of carbon nanotube musculature in biocompatible ballistic gel packing rather than myomer polymer as well as graphene reinforcement to dermal layers, creating broad improvements to user durability, strength, and speed over standard exomuscle. Somewhat slimmer and lighter than normal exomuscle (but not notably so) this technology is generally rare due to the lack of resources and increased cost of using more advanced carbon nanotube musculature rather than myomer artificial muscle. Iteration X is slowly disseminating this over its exojocks, prioritizing high-value personnel, but only a handful of users exist.
-6x -0 HLs (6 pts)
-Soak Lethal/Agg Damage w/Stamina
-+4 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Stamina (14 pts)
-4 Armor (4 pts)
-2 Countermagic (4 pts)
Triple-Strength Myomer Exomusculature Implant (20 * .75 = 15 pts)
"Exomuscle is great." Some Iteration X biomechanic said. "Yes. It certainly is." Another agreed. "You know, it would be even greater if we made even better exomuscle, right?" A third said, and thus the triple-strength myomer exomusculature implant was born. Using a superior electroactive polymer with improved fast-twitch speed and sustained strength, a TSM equipped Shock Corps operative is strong. Ridiculously strong. "Beat a werewolf or combat-focused vampire in brute strength contests" strong. Unfortunately, the cost is that TSM exomusculature creates significantly more metabolic and physical strain and the need for insulating materials and redundant cooling systems to keep someone from dying of heatstroke as they tear the arm off of a werewolf makes it less durable than typical exomuscle, which integrates armor mesh materials (including primium) throughout the system for greater redundancy and ability to survive punishment. Optimizing the dermal modifications to act as an improved cooling system have also required compromising their antiballistic and anti-DEW qualities. The attributes below do not include skeletal enhancement, which is a near-necessity for use of TSM implants. Paradox backlashes common to TSM users include heatstroke, damage to even reinforced bones, ligaments, and tendons, infertility and impotence, cardiovascular failure from overstress, and in rare cases, spontaneous human combustion due to heat sink failure. Typically, TSM-equipped exojocks are close-combat specialists, who specialize in taking a knife to a werewolf fight and winning while still being able to barely fit through normal-sized doors.
-3x -0 HLs (3 pts)
-Soak Lethal/Agg Damage w/Stamina
-+5 Strength, +2 Dexterity (14 pts)
-1 Armor (1 pt)
-1 Countermagic (2 pts)
