This is for the folks with a copy of the book in front of them ... I'll break it down further for poppalee, via PM. I'll be selecting the final group this coming weekend, using whatever I have at that point to decide. I do not require a character sheet by then, though you are free to send me one.

Phase One

Step One:
I'm not bothering with Origin. Pick Virtue, Vice, and Allegiance as normal, and take a dot in Backing for whatever your primary Allegiance is. 'The Movement' is a legitimate Allegiance.

Step Two:
No changes in Attributes.

Step Three:
Add Computer to the Intelligence Abilities, and add Business to the Wits Abilities.

I'm using a rule from (I think) Trinity: You can take a breather in combat to roll Stamina+Resistance. If you succeed, your wound penalties are reduced by your Resistance for a number of turns equal to your number of successes.

Step Four:
Take each Ally as a separate background - the number of dots you invest determines the power of that Ally (two dots produces an equal, as per the Adventure rules). This makes more sense in terms of xp costs ... in the normal rules, your second Ally is more expensive to purchase than your first, which doesn't follow.

Gadgets should mostly be superscience, with only extraordinary exceptions - telluric energy is faint in this era, so it is rare for an object to become Inspired without a superscientist at work. Normal objects which an Inspired simply has a particular connection to may also be Gadgets (for instance, a gun that you've used so much it's practically an extension of your hand).

Janos' sword is still legal (grandfathered in, so to speak), and I'll allow Regan's bag (but the contents should be largely superscientific in nature, and some special rules will be necessary).

You can purchase Nemesis if you don't know who your enemy is, or if you otherwise would be unable to gain the Reputation bonus. However, you get no price break or special benefits.

Step Five:
No changes here.

Phase Two

Step One:
You do not have to choose an Inspiration type. If you are of the new generation, you have evolved beyond those limitations. If you're older, you simply worked your way around them over the years. Do keep a them running through your Knacks, though.

Also, your starting Inspiration should go up to 1 now. This should be in the Character Creation Table, but is not ... check page 120, paragraph two for the real skinny (I find that people miss this a lot, so I'm pointing it out).

Step Two:
Neither do you have to define a primary facet - your current primary facet is simply the highest one, or the highest ones (if there's a tie). It can change if one facet overtakes another.

Step Three:
Spend thirty (that's 30) transformation points. The costs are all as written.

Permanent Inspiration may go as high as 10, if you wish.

You can buy any Knack you want, regardless of type.

You may use the superscience rules to create supertech and pay for it in advance by spending temporary Inspiration, as per the rules in the book.

Phase Three

No changes.

Great Googly Moogly! 30 Transformation points!!

In keeping with my minimal Knacks ideas I'll probably end up with Skills and backgrounds coming out my ears. As such I was wondering; Any thought to a Reputation Background Enhancement?

Currently there isn't one but I think that in the modern age with telecommunications and such it is feasible for a person to be a household name and recognizable face the world over, I thought it might be fitting for the greatest scientific mind of the generation, and a man who's net worth has surpassed Bill Gates.

Let me know ... thanks

Maybe "Renown" could work as a Reputation background enhancement too?

The Resistance rule for pain is on 189, basically once a turn you can roll your Resistance pool and you can reduce the pain modifiers equal to your Resistance score (not successes) for a number of rounds equal to your successes, and you can't make this roll if you don't have Resistance.

Just out of curiosity, should we add Intrusion from Aberrant also, to represent sneaking through hi tech security systems?

Also (last one) are you allowing the 'heroic soak' option, meaning that you can add half your Stamina rounded down to Soak Lethal?

I am using the lethal soak option. And what the hell ... add Security to the Intelligence Abilities.

I don't know that a Reputation Enhancement is necessary, in this instance. It sounds like what you'd have would be Influence/Renown, with enough Reputation to get broad face recognition (probably 5, for you). Your lower-case letter 'reputation' is based in your scientific background, so Influence is more operative than Reputation.

I could be misreading you, though. What would you expect to get from a Reputation enhancement?

I have a question about specialties with brawl and Martial Arts. Are the various forms (i.e. King Fu, Boxing, Karate) taken as specialties or are the specialties just for specific actions (i.e. Grappling, Kicks, Throws) and the form or forms practiced just stated for colour?

Thinking about it I guess Renown would be more appropriate than a reputation enhancement anyways. Issue dropped

link

^ that is the thread that you go to in order to request that an avatar be added to your profile

You can take maneuver specialties (punch, kick, throw, tackle, etc) - no worries there.

You can also take a style as a specialty. That uses the appropriate rules from the Trinity Player's Guide ... in the likely event that a player doesn't have that book, you can name a style and I can come back to you with what that does for you.

In a nutshell, the styles all grant assorted bonuses to specific maneuvers. Some styles balance out particular benefits by imposing penalties on other maneuvers. However, you can only select one style, to begin with. If you have 5 dots in the relevant ability (martial arts or brawl), you can take a second style.

For characters with mastery in one of those abilities, I'll allow a third style. I don't allow stacking of benefits between styles - you can change styles on a round-by-round basis.

And ... another house rule (this is why I created a separate thread for this, rather than folding it into Character Creation).

The normal rules allow you to take up to three specialties for a given Ability.

In this game, you can take as many specialties as you like (within reason ... if I look at your sheet and see fifteen specialties in Firearms, I might disallow it). Additionally, you may purchase the same specialty up to three times.

So you could have two dots in Firearms, with three 'handguns' specialties, and have five dice when using handguns, but two when using any other type of gun.

Specialties do not stack, however, so a gunman with two instances of the 'rifle' specialty and three instances of the 'sniping' specialty would only benefit from three ranks of specialty when sniping with a rifle.

And, to more generally answer the earlier question ... it may be possible to create Background Enhancements for Backgrounds not already provided with Enhancements. Maybe Fuyuko has a giant robot purchased as a Menagerie enhancement. Such things could be discussed.

So is this the rule we are going to use?

Except that you must take a breather in order to do it, yes. In combat, that would be taking a turn behind cover. Out of combat, it works without any additional commitment.