Eclipse Phase Pregenerated Characters

[kigmatzomat]

Back in 2010 Rob Boyle said EP started out as an idea for "Shadowrun 2660" but they didn't want to develop a setting they didn't own and evolved it into EP. Brian Cross said something similar.

We haven't run the hacking (and I'd hope that in EP they fix some of the SR4 hacking issues) but EP combat is procedurally the same as SR combat. Ranged combat is opposed test, using a reduced pool when not doing a full defense. Margin of success increases weapon damage, armor reduces damage, certain quantities of damage apply modifiers. Bursts are wide or narrow, full-auto, single shot, semi-auto. There are differences but they tend to be in the details, like a "wide" burst being able to hit adjacent targets instead of reducing the target's dodge roll.

My only real beef with the conversion is that they went with d100; a mechanic that suffers all the problems of a multi-die system but lacks the advantages of a bell curve. As someone who is a GM 90% of the time, I really, really, really like bell curves. On d100 a 01, 55, and 99 all have a 1% chance of occurring. But on 2d10 (same dice) an average roll of 11 has an 11% chance vs the 1% of a 2 or 20. Having a 10x greater likelihood means I, as a GM, can make assumptions on success levels you can't do with a curveless dice mechanic.

If I'm not going to get a bell curve, I'd just as soon use a single-die system. You can easily run EP with the rules as written by dividing everything by 5 and using a d20. Make 20 the "bad" crit and make an "exact" hit on your effective skill rating a "good" crit.

Which doesn't make EP a bad system; it's not worse than any other d100 system. But to me that's like saying "it's not any smaller than any other subcompact sedan".

The setting, however, is the real gold of EP. I will put up with a mediocre mechanic for a rich, flavorful setting.

 

[Karak]

Agreed about the rules being the second most important part. Ala Rifts.
I don't personally desire to assume a specific amount of failures but I can see where that would make it hard if you did.

 

[Sadras]

Its all well and good translating it to d20, but how do you deal with the doubles mechanic which either accentuates your failure or success like rolling two 1's for 11 or two 7's for 77?

 

[JustinAlexander]

Bursts are wide or narrow, full-auto, single shot, semi-auto. There are differences but they tend to be in the details, like a "wide" burst being able to hit adjacent targets instead of reducing the target's dodge roll.

But the devil is in the details. The different handling of firing modes between the two systems is actually a good example of how EP streamlines the SR4 system down in almost every single aspect.

When you break down SR4's firing modes, for example, you discover that there are 11 different ways you can fire a firearm: Single shot, semi-automatic, narrow short burst, wide short burst, narrow long burst, wide long burst, narrow full burst, wide full burst, full-auto vs. 2 targets, full-auto vs. 3 targets, and full-auto suppressive fire. Some of these are simple actions and some of them are complex actions. Several of them require you to resolve multiple attack rolls with different modifiers for each attack roll.

In EP there are only 9 different ways you can fire a firearm and they're organized in a more intuitive way: Single shot, semi-automatic, burst fire (choose +1d10 DV / +10 modifier / 2 targets), full-auto (choose +3d10 DV / +30 modifier / 3 targets), and suppressive fire. All of these use the same type of action. Only a single attack roll is made.

This is a minor example, of course, but the entire system is like this at both macro- and micro-levels.

My only real beef with the conversion is that they went with d100; a mechanic that suffers all the problems of a multi-die system but lacks the advantages of a bell curve.

I'd have to strongly disagree here. The biggest problem with a dice pool system like SR4 is that it obfuscates probability. A percentile system completely eliminates that problem.

Having a 10x greater likelihood means I, as a GM, can make assumptions on success levels you can't do with a curveless dice mechanic.

Whereas I hate bell-curve resolution mechanics because they make it difficult to apply universal modifiers and/or set target numbers.

You can easily run EP with the rules as written by dividing everything by 5 and using a d20. Make 20 the "bad" crit and make an "exact" hit on your effective skill rating a "good" crit.

Here you've maintained the 10% total chance of scoring a critical, but you've eliminated the effect in EP's system where the more skilled a character becomes the more likely they are to score a critical success instead of a critical failure.