d20 Future: Mutants as a Separate Species

[Aussiegamer]

just put a maximum limit that the increase can happen. A lot of the extra STR and CON comes from size increase any way for the creatures, and don't forget the free ability point every 4 HD.

 

[Wik]

Well, in my post-apoc game (which is based more off Omega World d20 than d20 Future, at least concerning mutations), you just roll randomly for mutations, good and bad. It's a system I love, because players get weird mixes -we've had warriors with awesome search skills that are unable to stabilize HP, mechanics with acid resistance that suffer intelligence penalties, and more. Lots of fun, too.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Holy necropost, Batman!

First, there's already mechanisms for having a high ability score -- roll it, pick it with ability points, or buy it up as you level.

Certainly. However, there's a difference between a high human ability score, and a superhuman ability score-- like the difference between a strong human Barbarian, and an Orc Barbarian. If the super-strong mutant just drops a few more points into Strength, there's no real difference from a human... and the "super-strong" mutant might even be weaker than the strong human, especially if random rolls are used.

An increase in power has to be paid for somehow, but allowing that power to be increased in different ways allows the price to be paid in different ways as well.

Second, ability scores can be worth more or less depending on how you assign them. If +2 ability score is worth 4 mp, +4 ability score is worth more like 16 mp, and +6 is worth 36 mp.

You're absolutely correct, here. I might play around with the numbers a little-- been a long time since I've thought about this-- but I think 5/11/18 or 6/14/24 might work pretty well.

Next time I start working on a setting with mutants in it, I'll have to start testing things.

As for things like reinforced skeleton, the whole point is to make those separate from ability scores. A creature with a reinforced skeleton has certain advantages over other creatures of the same Constitution.

I can see it, yeah. It's just that it seemed natural to me to have a character with Reinforced Skeleton also have an increased Constitution, not as part of the power, but as an extension of the same concept.

Reinforced Skeleton with Ability Decay (Constitution) is an interesting concept, and more compelling than Reinforced Skeleton with an improved Constitution... but it's nice for the system to support the cliches as well as allowing them to be broken.