THE SHWA
It is 2288, The Shwa is a collection of cities and towns built among the ruins of what was once the eastern region of the Greater Toronto Area. Nuclear warheads destroyed large areas of Toronto and flooding made once densely packed city spaces uninhabitable. The Shwa is where many of those who survived went in effort to find a place to survive.
GAME NOTES
July 7th
Asset vs a step - In Cypher you can only have two assets for any action. If a perk says you have an asset the 2 asset limit still applies. If the perk says that an action is one step easier this is reducing the difficulty and does not count as an asset.
Buying and selling - In keeping with the tradition of Fallout when selling gear the selling price will lower than the listed price. Here I plan to tailor each shop with set percentages. For example at the price adjustment for you selling your loot at Gwen's General Goods is 40% so a 100 cap item will be bought from you for 60 caps. You can bargain and with success get a better price. When buying there will also be a percentage adjustment, at Gwen's it is 20% so if you are buying an item with a base price of 100 caps they will sell it for 120 caps. This allows for skills and perks to make a difference. As well you can build a rapport with shops which can help. Vendors will have different price adjustments. I will track all of this but it is good for you to be aware ahead of time that while a .44 pistol at Gwen's may sell for 120 caps, buying the same item from Archibald Monk will cost 180 caps. Of course Archibald may be willing to pay more for good items than Gwen. As well not all vendors will be interested in all items. However Gwen's as a general goods store will by default take whatever you are selling.
Grenades / Mines- The radius of the explosion for these will be an immediate range which is 10 metres. The also have a base DC that you need to take half damage. However for each step higher than the DC you reduce the damage further by 3. For example a Fragmentation grenade has a DC of 5, which means you need to roll a 15 or higher with what ever bonuses you have. If you were to roll an 18 you would reduce the damage in half and then another reduction of 3 points.
July 6th
Perks - I am working on perks still and think these will add a lot of fun to the game. All perks are passive, meaning once you take it you get the benefit without spending ability points. Many tier abilities have a point cost so I did not want to overload that. In a perfect world I would have the time to go through all the type abilities and turn them into active perks. Make sure to check perks before selecting passive type abilities, they may be covered by perks. For example a type ability is trained in light armour, this is covered in the light armour perk but taking the perk gives you the option of progressing in the perk for other bonuses. Most perks are tied to an ability, and the pool maximum dictates the ability to progress in a perk rather than tier. (I thought this would make things more like the Fallout but if it is too confusing we can switch to tiers). Luck perks are not tied to an ability, and I am still considering how level requirements for that will work. As always if you have thoughts let me know.
Weapon Ranges - A firearms range is where it is most effective. Its max range is two levels higher than its normal range. For example a pistol with a short range can reach medium range, but the attack is one step more difficult. Firing the pistol at long range would be three steps more difficult
July 5th
Travel Speed - The average travel speed is 4 kilometres per hour. This speed incurs no penalties but also does not provide any assets to spotting dangers. A party can travel at a slower speed and gain one asset for each kilometre below the default travel speed ignoring the normal two asset limit for checks. So a group travelling at 1 kilometre per hour would gain 3 assets to perception checks, and checks relating to being surprised. Conversely for every kilometre per hour over the default travel speed checks become 1 step harder. A party can travel up double its travel speed.
June 17th
Addiction - Chems have an addiction rating, so when you take chems you roll and as long as you roll higher than the addiction rating you do not suffer the addiction penalties. If you take another chem before the effects of the first have worn off the addiction rating increases by one. So if you take jet which has an addiction rating of 5, and then take a Buffout the addiction rating of the Buffout becomes 6. You suffer the addiction penalty for the type of chem you failed the addiction roll on and you suffer that penalty until you take the addicted chem again or have your addiction removed.
Alcohol - Alcohol has an addiction rating and an intoxication rating. You do not need to roll for addiction or intoxication on your first drink, the roll only happens when you have subsequent drinks within an hour. Once intoxicated you become impaired. (I think this is an easy way to track this, but it does not account for getting wasted. It would be easy enough to add another level for that if we want it in the game).
June 16th
Rads are accumulated until removed by taking Radaway or getting cleansed by a doctor. You get rads immediately when entering a radiation zone, and then every minute after that while remaining in the area. You can also take rads by consuming irradiated food and water. There is an escalating effect scale the more rads you take on.
Rads
10 Rads
Subtract 2 from health recovery rolls.
20 Rads
Subtract 4 from recovery rolls and your max effort is reduced by one.
30 Rads
You become impaired, the maximum number of ability points in all your pools becomes 15
40 Rads
You become debilitated, the maximum number of ability points in all your pools becomes 10.
50 Rads
You can no longer heal from stimpaks and the max number for all ability pools becomes 5, you cannot apply effort to roles.
AP (Asset Points) - These asset points allow you to spend them in order to have an asset on any roll. Whenever you increase in your focus tier you can add another AP to your total. AP are recovered after a long rest.
Fire Rate - Guns have a fire rate, this is how many attacks it makes in one round of combat. The player makes a seperate attack role for each attack. When it comes to weapons with a fire rating higher than three the player can choose to roll the 14d20 of the minigun or break it up into 3 attack rolls each representing a third of fire rate. For a minigun the breakdown would be (5/5/4), the lower amount of bullets is always the last attack.
Focus Tiers - At the top of your sheet you have the squares to track the things you purchase with XP, you move up a tier in your focus whenever you check all five boxes. This also allows us to track max effort, it is equal to your focus tier. It costs 3 XP per box, they are:
Effort, increase max effort by 1 (Max 6)
Edge, increase the edge in one pool by 1 (Max 6)
Ability Points, gain 6 ability points to distribute to ability pools
Skill - increase a skill proficiency or acquire a new skill
Perk - increase a perk or acquire a new perk
When you reach a new tier you can choose 3 tier abilities or choose 1 perk to increase or acquire, and 2 tier abilities.
June 15th
NO TYPES - With going to a no level style play you will not pick a character type. The abilities of character types can be purchased with XP. When picking abilities from a type you MUST have at least one lower tier ability before selecting a higher tier ability. For example, in order to pick the tier 2 warrior ability chop you must have at least one tier 1 warrior ability.
Invalid type abilities - Type skills that grant extra edge, or physical skills are not being used. As well being practiced with armour, guns, or a type of defense can all be acquired with direct buy from XP.
NO TYPES - With going to a no level style play you will not pick a character type. The abilities of character types can be purchased with XP. When picking abilities from a type you MUST have at least one lower tier ability before selecting a higher tier ability. For example, in order to pick the tier 2 warrior ability chop you must have at least one tier 1 warrior ability.
Invalid type abilities - Type skills that grant extra edge, or physical skills are not being used. As well being practiced with armour, guns, or a type of defense can all be acquired with direct buy from XP.
Distance - Cypher system uses three ranges, immediate, short, long we will be introducing a couple extra levels to account for weapon ranges.
Immediate Range 10 meters
Short Range 25 meters
Mid Range 100 meters
Long Range 300 meters
Far Range 600 meters
Healing - I would like to get rid of the first 3 recovery types, 1 action, ten minute, and 1 hour. This would be balanced in 2 ways, first the long (8 hour) rest would become 4d6 instead of 1D6 per rest, and stimpaks will be available and will give you 2d4 base healing, with various ways to get more healing. Based on results of earlier polls everyone was in agreement with this change.
Encumbrance - There is never an easy way to track this but here is what I propose. A character has an encumbrance equal to 10 x their might pool. For the armour the player is wearing only half the weight counts towards encumbrance. When a player is encumbered it costs them more to use abilities and effort. So for 0-15 pounds over everything costs 1 more point from a pool, 16-30 2 points and so on. A player cannot move over or use abilities or effort if encumbrance is double 10 x might. If we wanted to get really into the weeds we could have this a floating number but I think that could get really tedious and frustrating for the players.