Skill Based and General Character Knowledge 9 page

Sentry Bot (3 Creation Points) – The earliest pony military response to zebra tanks were these black bulky four legged or wheeled robots. Equipped with both heavy armor plating and integrated heavy weapons (a minigun and a missile launcher), Sentry-Bots are mobile armored weapons platforms. Their AI is strictly utilitarian, not usually intelligent enough to hold a conversation but quite good at path-finding, basic military strategy, target acquisition and following orders. They are easily maintained, but replacing their armor and treads can be difficult as most of the replacement parts for these bots are quickly snapped up by the Steel Rangers or other factions with similar technological priorities.

Sense Magic –Your character has an uncanny ability to detect the presence and usage of magic around their person. This often manifests as a sort of burning or ache, possibly the end result of a magically-induced injury or an interaction they had with a powerful magical item at some point in their past.If they focus on it, they can actually use this ability to detect invisibility magic and dispel illusions. This ability can even allow them to detect magical poisons within any nearby food and drink, or highly magical creatures such as Alicorns. It’s passive to notice the presence of magic, but with a difficult (MFD ½) PER roll, they can pinpoint a source of magic to within a 10 foot radius, as long as there isn’t too much other magic going on around them. This ability doesn’t work on spell matrices or other artificially sustained magics, and only works if the magic is within PER*5’ of the character with the trait.

Illusion spells cast on characters with this trait are 2 MFD steps harder to cast, target or maintain (as appropriate).

Specialization (Cannot be taken with Illiterate) –You’re what some ponies like to call a specialist.Specialists were particularly common in the years leading up to the war’s end, in nearly every field worth its salt. Equestria had produced world renowned specialists in nearly every branch of the civil community capable of contributing to ponykind’s scientific and technological advancement - scientists, doctors, engineers, economists and mages, all among the best and brightest in the world.

The last 200 years, however, have not been ideal for the sort of higher education or advanced training required to produce a specialist in any field, save perhaps survival. Those places where formal education still occurs at all tend to focus on the preservation of any and all technology and on rebuilding, rather than on specialization and further advancement, technological or otherwise, within a specific field. In short, specialists are something of a rare breed these days (which is why old-ghouls and Canterlot ghouls may choose to receive this perk at no additional point cost).

Being a specialist means that you’re extremely focused in one or two closely interrelated branches of a specific non-weaponry related skill (don’t get me wrong, there are certainly plenty of explosives and guns ‘specialists’ out there, but they’re not rare or valuable enough to warrant taking a trait to become one). The survival, mercantile, speechcraft, magic, medicine, repair, and science skills are all fair game for a character to specialize within. Within each of these skills, there are a large number of smaller sub-fields – specializations – that a pony with this trait can select from. A summary list of a few different example specializations and their overarching skill is provided below. This list is not comprehensive. Note that between skills there may be some specializations that overlap. To specialize within any skill, that skill must be one of your character’s tagged skills!

Table X: Example Specializations within Non-Combat Skills

*Air, Land or Sea

Specialists receive a +15 roll bonus on any and all skill or attribute rolls made when dealing with their specialization. This bonus cannot be applied to the direct use of any weapons, but can certainly be used to enhance the effect of weapons by improving their design. Similarly, this bonus cannot be used directly to cast related spells, but it can be added to rolls made to learn new related spells (despite the fact that that roll is technically neither a skill nor an attribute roll). If there’s any doubt whether the subject matter is closely enough related, then the decision of whether or not the bonus applies is up to the GM.

Stable Dweller (Cannot be taken by Alicorns, Sand Dogs or Hellhounds, or by Enclave or Dashite Pegasi. Cannot be taken with Organization, Cache Location, Illiterate or Abandoned) – Your character once resided in a stable, and has reaped the benefits of stable living. They had a steady supply of food, proper dental care, and even received training in at least one profession necessary within their stable, usually related to their cutie mark and tag skills. Many mares and stallions received minor implants as part of their life in the stable; sterility implants for mares, for example, or even smaller implants like subcutaneous tracking chips are not out of the ordinary for a character to have at creation if they have this trait (though the implants should align with the nature of the stable in question – no highly advanced brainwave regulator-implants in the stable populated entirely by hairdressers!). Stable Dwellers start play with a pip-buck, usually a 2000 or 3000-model, and a stable uniform that may vary based on their position within the stable – security ponies get a set of security barding, a cook might get an apron in addition to her stable jumpsuit, a maintenance pony would get utility barding, etc. Depending on the circumstances under which they leave the stable, stable dwellers might also get a weapon from their subterranean home, or perhaps a small supply of food, healing potions, or other useful supplies. This trait is recommended for first time players, as it gives a role-playing reason to initially know little to nothing about the background and history of the system.

GMs may want to give this trait to characters for no cost as part of a character’s background story, similar to the 0-point cost option for Organization.

Sterner Stuff (1-2 Character Creation Points) – Similar to the Toughness perk, your character is tougher than your average mare or stallion. Unlike Toughness, however, this isn’t represented solely by their physical form - they’re also tougher mentally. This can manifest in a number of ways for your lucky wastelander. Physically, characters with this trait gain +1 DT to all locations, which stacks with other DT effects such as Toughness, and get a +5 bonus to rolls resisting non-magical diseases, toxins, and health effects, including drug addiction (the END roll only) but not including taint. Mentally, they gain a +10 bonus on rolls to resist unwanted mental influences (such as might occur from an Alicorn or from a sentient evil spell book) and rolls made to resist the gaining of a mental hindrance. This roll bonus is applicable to both INT and CHA when making a willpower roll. For two character creation points, characters get both the mental and physical benefits of this trait. For one point, they only gain either the mental or the physical benefit.

“Tastes Fine to Me!” (Cannot be taken by Ghouls) – Characters with this trait enjoy a wider range of flavors than most of their compatriots – or indeed, most of their species. They were just born with a tongue that tastes things differently, and a nose to match. Bitter flavors taste fine to them, and they have less of an issue quaffing medicines or mixed drinks that might taste foul to other characters. This doesn’t mean they’ll eat anything; their tongues do not trick them into thinking that things that are extremely harmful are less so (with the possible exception of alcohol and certain drugs), but they have no problems eating food that might have been prepared improperly, such as horribly burned eggs. Spoiled or rotten food is still far off their radar – that falls under the Iron Stomach trait, earlier in this section.

This trait gives characters a +5 bonus on Survival rolls – they can eat stuff most others wouldn’t.

Touched by the Sun --You are blessed with remarkable talents, making your inherent abilities significantly more impressive than most ponies. All of your SPECIAL attributes are permanently increased by 1. However, this natural talent has made developing skills and training more difficult, and as a result all your skills begin 5 points lower, to a minimum of 0 (this is the only trait or hindrance which can reduce a skill to less than 5 at first level), and you gain 1 less skill point on each level-up. If a skill rank is reduced to less than 5, characters may only succeed in using that skill on a die roll of 1-5 (though such a roll is no longer considered a critical success).

Trained under a Medicine Mare (Cannot be taken by Zebra, by Enclave or Dashite Pegasi, with Illiterate or Prejudiced, or with Organization: Steel Rangers, Applejack’s Rangers, or Reapers. Requires GM Permission. ) – Your character trained their medical or other spellcasting abilities under a zebra shaman or medicine mare, who imparted to you a great deal of knowledge about their culture and perhaps even a few tricks. This trait grants non-zebra characters access to a single level-0 zebra recipe, but is otherwise strictly a knowledge-related trait. On a related note, your character may actually know how to speak, read, or at least understand zebra glyphs and language.

Characters with this trait may ignore the speechcraft penalties normally associated with talking to zebra who are non-party members, as may the zebra they’re talking to.

Wasteland Weirdo (Requires between 1 and 4 Character Creation Points) – Okay GMs and players, here’s your best opportunity to take this game and go nuts! As a word of warning, conservative or inexperienced GMs might want players to ignore this trait.

The Equestrian Wasteland is a very strange place indeed, and if your GM okays them taking this trait, your character fits right in. Perhaps your character is actually the result of some sort of science experiment gone wrong, or their vault was a successful testing ground for giving earth ponies advanced telekinetic abilities, or maybe they’re the culmination of years of genetic mutation on sea turtles to make them look like ponies. Maybe they selectively channel Princess Luna’s soul, trapped on earth by the necromantic radiation that saturates the atmosphere, or were bitten by a Manticore and absorbed and incorporated some of its DNA into their own. Whatever it is, they’re not crazy (well, unless they are), they just had crazy happen to them, and it left them permanently a little different. If they’re lucky, it was in a way that mostly benefits them.

Exactly what happened to your wastelander or what makes them special is between you and the GM, players, but you should try to make sure it isn’t something game breaking, even if this trait is basically here as a work-around for creating truly bizarre characters.

This trait should ideally be used to make a character’s backstory more elaborate or unique, such as by allowing an Alicorn character to be male, or allowing a character to max out a single attribute so as to be the very best at it at creation; these things can be detrimental to game balance depending on your situation, but they can be perfectly fine as long as players come up with a reasonable backstory justification for it. Solid reasoning and being within the realm of possibility (in other words, making the unbelievable into the believable within the setting) is key. Ideas for viable backstories more often than not might include killing joke, secret ministry projects, strange zebra magics, or extraordinarily lucky taint exposure.

This trait needn’t be something extreme, it just needs to be unusual – simply taking this trait to raise attributes above the normal soft-cap of eight or nine at character creation (i.e. your pony just happened to be freakishly strong, smart or tough) is enough to warrant it. That being said, you cannot use this trait to raise an attribute score above 10. (Though raising an attribute point with this can be quite expensive, as the minimum cost of this trait is 2 points!) If you do raise it to 10, and you’re absolutely set on raising it past that, we recommend getting an implant as per the Implanted trait above.

The GM always should have the final say when it comes to this trait, and they shouldn’t be afraid to say no. At the same time, GMs, try to give the characters at least however many character creation points they spent worth of net bonuses or cool effects and abilities. For example, if a wastelander with this trait was hit with some sort of magical beam that turns them into a part-Manticore abomination, the negative psychological effects, such as the loneliness they feel from driving away every pony they know with their now-horrible visage and carnivorous diet, should be less than any positive physical effects they might have gained, for a net gain of ability. A list of some example point costs is in a table below.

Table XI: Wasteland Weirdo Suggested Point Costs

GMs, if you do let a character take this trait, be sure not to let them make their character nigh-indestructible unless you give them a weakness you can exploit regularly enough to keep them on their toes. Do not let a player create an Alicorn direct descendant of Luna who’s more powerful than both the previous Princesses at level 1, and who wants to head out into the wasteland to start turning villages into pools of chocolate syrup. Even characters with this trait taken out to its extreme should still be able to be severely inconvenienced by things that would kill other characters. For an example in the fiction of a character that has this trait taken to its extreme - 4 creation points - check out Arloste Rampage from Project Horizons. Advanced characters may gain traits that resemble this at some point along the way simply as a result of surviving so long in the wasteland.

Zebra-Enhanced (Zebra Only; cannot take with Cyberpony, Ghoul or Canterlot Ghoul) – Your tribe survived the apocalypse, probably by residing within one of Stable-Tec’s mixed or all zebra stables, with the bulk of their traditions and knowledge intact. As a result, when they train their young to be warriors they administer the traditional means of improving upon a warrior’s strength and endurance. You were one such warrior, and you now know yourself to be much more physically able than your non-enhanced counterparts. You are extremely durable, which translates to your limbs being able to take one extra wound each before becoming crippled and an additional wound each before being removed, and you age at a greatly reduced rate. You also have a permanent increase to your damage threshold of +3, +10 DT versus fire, 10% radiation resistance, and have a +10 bonus on resisting poisons.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 841