A quick review for those unfamiliar with the Eclipse Phase system: It’s a percentile system where you need to roll equal to or under your skill level in order to succeed. If you roll a success, your margin of success is equal to the number you rolled on the dice. If you roll a failure, your margin of failure is equal to the number you rolled minus your skill level.

(So if your Fray skill is 45 and you roll 27, your margin of success is 27. If you roll 89, your margin of failure is 89 – 45 = 44.)

Playing Eclipse Phase at Gencon this year, I noticed once again the difficulty some people have grokking this method of “calculating” margin of success. Part of the problem is that it’s discordant with how venerable percentile systems like Call of Cthulhu calculate margin of success (by subtracting the number you rolled from your skill rating). And part of the problem is that Eclipse Phase actually swapped methods between subtracting numbers and reading the die roll between printings. (The post-Catalyst Labs versions of the game should really have been clearly labeled a Revised Edition, frankly.)

But laying all of that aside, the huge advantage of the “read the die” method of calculating margin of success is that it completely eliminates calculation at the table when calculating margin of success: All you have to do is look at the dice. When you can get everyone to grok that (and to report their rolls as “XX out of YY” instead of just “succcess”) it makes the game run with incredible smoothness. (Margins of failure still require calculation, but the system doesn’t use them nearly as often.)

Having concluded that there’s a huge upside to calculating margin of success like this, without further ado I present several different conceptual frameworks that can help you (or someone else) grok the concept:

• Success starts at 00 and grows from there, so the higher you roll the better your success (assuming that you succeed).
• It’s like blackjack: You want to get as close to your target number as possible without going over.
• It’s like The Price is Right: The dice are naming a price and you want that price to be as close to the actual price (i.e., your skill rating) as possible.
  
• Your skill rating is like a gravity well: Successes start far away at 00, but the closer they get to your gravity well the faster they go and the bigger the explosion when you punch that guy in the face.

(For some reason face punching always features heavily whenever I’m teaching a new system to people.)

UNTESTED: MARGIN OF FAILURE

Okay, now that you’ve grokked how Eclipse Phase does margins of succcess, let me strain your credibility by proposing a similar method for handling margin of failure in the system. (This is really just a random thought that occurred to me as I was writing out the above.)

The key point here is that the system (a) rarely cares about margin of failure and (b) when it does, it only cares if you missed by either 30 points or 60 points. (The former are referred to as “severe failures” and in my system cheat sheet I refer to the latter as “horrific failures”, although I don’t believe the rulebook ever gives a formal term for them.)

So the method here is really simple:

• A roll of 70 or less is a severe failure
• A roll of 40 or less is a horrific failure.

The system also has a handful of effects which are determined “per 10 margin of failure”. (For example, shock damage can knock you unconscious for 1 round per 10 MoF.) To calculate that, simply subtract the tens digit of your result from 9. (So if you roll 77, you would be shocked for 9 – 7 = 2 rounds.)

If you’re looking for a conceptual framework, think of failure as emanating from 99 and growing in magnitude. Note, too, that higher is always better with this system: A higher success is a better success; a higher failure is a better failure. What my mind initially tries to interpret as a discontinuity actually makes sense if you just imagine success and failure emanating from opposite ends of the spectrum while the outcome is a linear comparison to your skill rating.

Well, in this case, mostly untested. Here’s a mechanic I improvised while running Trail of Cthulhu last night:

Mitigation Test:When making a mitigation test, instead of setting a difficulty number the Keeper sets a “worst case quantity”. The Investigator then resolves the test normally (spending points, adding them to their roll, and so forth), but the result of the test is subtracted from the worst case quantity to determine the actual outcome. (In some situations, you might choose to use multiples of the test of the result.)

Example: One of the investigators has been bitten by a Mythos creature and the creature’s poison is turning their flesh to stone. The team’s doctor decides the only way to save their life is to cut away the “infection”. The Keeper calls for a mitigation test using Medicine to determine how much damage the doctor deals to the victim/patient and sets the “worst case quantity” to 12 points of damage. The doctor’s player spends two points, rolls a 4, and manages to perform the procedure while only inflicting 6 points of Health damage (12 – 4 – 2 = 6).

Example: An orphanage is beginning to collapse. An Investigator is trying to rescue as many kids as possible before the building comes down completely. The Keeper calls for an Athletics mitigation test to determine how many kids survive and sets the “worst case quantity” to 6 dead kids. The player asks if he can spend Architecture points to assist (by judging which sections of the building are in most jeopardy) and the Keeper agrees. He spends 3 points and rolls a 2… He’s just not able to find Timmy before it’s too late.

Example: The player is trying to carve a forged copy of a stone tablet, but is under something of a time crunch to get it done. The Keeper sets a “worst case quantity” of 48 hours and calls for a Craft test. The Investigator gets a result of 6, which the Keeper multiplies by 5: It’ll take 48 – 30 = 18 hours to complete the duplicate tablet.

Thanks to Colleen Riley, Phil Henry, Tess Keen, and Sarah Holmberg for being my guinea pigs.

GRAPPLE: You can attempt to physically wrestle and restrain an opponent by attempting a Might task. Once a grapple has been successfully initiated, all physical actions are treated as opportunity actions requiring a Might task to attempt. A character can attempt to break out of a grapple by succeeding on a Might task as an action (without needing to make the opportunity check). Characters in a grapple defend at +1 difficulty.

(So if you’ve been grappled and wanted to throw a dagger at someone, you would need to first succeed at a Might task in order to gain the opportunity to throw the dagger. If you’re grappling someone who wants to punch you in the face, you would get an opportunity action to attempt a Might task to prevent them even trying to punch you.)

If multiple characters are grappling a single opponent, you can use the standard rules for helping. (The bonuses from helping would also affect the Might task for the opportunity action.)

FOCUSED GUARDING: If you’re attempting to stop a specific character from attempting a specific action (“I tackle him before he can run out the door!”), you can attempt a Speed task at -2 difficulty. On a success, the character you’re targeting will be prevented from taking the indicated action.

DESIGN NOTES

There are no rules for grappling presented in the Numenera rulebook. The closest you’ll get is a special ability possessed by a monster called a chirog, which looks like this:

Chirogs do not use weapons or tools, usually attacking with a savage bite. However, they can also grapple a foe, which is just like a normal attack except that rather than inflicting damage, it holds the foe immobile. The foe can take only purely mental actions or struggle to get free (a Might task at difficulty 4). Both the grappling chirog and the grappled foe are easier targets for other combatants, with attackers gaining a two-step modification in their favor.

At first glance, this looks like a decent place to start if you’re looking to make a ruling for grappling in Numenera. Unfortunately, upon reflection it turns to be fairly unbalanced as a generic mechanic. For example, the chirog’s ability is even better than stunning an opponent: Stunning means that you can’t take an action next turn and you defend at +1 difficulty. Chirog-style grappling means that you can’t take an action next turn, you defend at +2 difficulty, and are at risk of having the effect continue unless you succeed on a Might task. There is a trade-off insofar as the person initiating the grapple also suffers a +2 difficulty to defense, but since stunning also requires a much greater expenditure of resources than the single action required by chirog-style grappling it’s pretty clear that chirog-style grappling would be broken as a generic mechanic.

So I instead took chirog-style grappling as a loose guideline and improvised on a similar theme. When I was done I discovered that I had inadvertently created something pretty reminiscent of my Super Simple Grappling rules for D&D.

The rules for focused guarding are a bit more experimental. My basic thought process there is that, by the rules as written, a character can perform a Guard action which allows them to specify an action and prevent anyone from attempting it by making a Speed roll at -1 difficulty. Ergo, I’m concluding that stopping only a specific character from preventing that action should be easier. (So you can stop that one specific guy from running through the door, but all of his friends will still be free to do so.)

It may be too powerful, though. I’m specifically eyeballing the scenario where the PCs are fighting a solo monster. I’ve suddenly made it flat-out easier to counter that monster’s actions. So something to keep an eye on.

Some quick mechanical background for people unfamiliar with Numenera: In this system, you deal flat damage based on the type of weapon you use. (A light weapon does 2 points of damage; a medium weapon does 4 points of damage; and a heavy weapon does 6 points of damage.) You can increase the amount of damage you inflict by exerting effort or by rolling well on your attack roll. And, finally, you subtract the target’s armor value from the damage inflicted before applying it to their health pool.

This means that the key armor values in Numenera are 2, 4, and 6: At armor 2, you can’t hurt it with a light weapon unless you use effort. At armor 4, you can’t hurt it with a medium weapon unless you use effort. And so forth.

Now, let’s talk about items: Items are assigned a health pool and an armor value. The armor value for an item can be 1 (hard objects), 2 (very hard objects), or 3 (extremely hard objects).

This means that, mechanically speaking, the game is asking the GM to make an assessment: Can you hurt this with a dagger? Can you hurt this with a dagger if you use some effort?

Once you express it in those terms, it becomes pretty easy to see that, objectively speaking, the system is producing really unrealistic results. (If you’re wielding anything larger than a dagger, you’re going to be able to break literally anything in the game world. And you are probably going to be able to break it very quickly and with very little effort.) And from a mechanical standpoint, it would be much more interesting for the GM to have a richer panoply of assessments to trivially choose from.

My recommendation is to set the object armor values at the key armor values indicated above:

When characters want something in the Eclipse Phase universe, they hit up their social networks: PCs will make a Networking test to reach out through their friends, associates, and the sophisticated software that binds society together in the year 10 AF. And if they find someone who can help them, they’ll ask for help based on the reputation they’ve built for themselves.

In short, they’ll call in a favor.

But if the PCs are constantly reaching out to other people, doesn’t it make sense that people would also be reaching out to them? They’re skilled, well-connected, and possibly even well-known. Just the sort of people you’d want to ask a favor from.

The system presented here is a tool I’ve designed for an open table Eclipse Phase campaign I’m currently developing, but it should prove useful for almost any Eclipse Phase GM. The idea is to create unexpected complications (and synergies) by having the social networks of the PCs organically interrupt their lives.

RANDOM REPUTATION FAVORS

Rep Network Check: Each PC has a 2 in 10 chance of being contacted for a favor each session.

The GM should make this check at the beginning of each session and note which PCs will be receiving a request. These requests won’t necessarily happen immediately: The GM should decide during the course of the session when the call comes.

Optional Rule: If the initial rep network check indicates that a PC will be contacted for a favor, immediately roll another check to see if they’ll be contacted for a second favor. Continue rolling until they actually fail a check.

GENERATING THE FAVOR

1. Determine Reputation Network. Randomly determine which of the character’s reputation networks is making the request.

2. Determine Solicitor. Determine who’s requesting the favor by rolling on the Solicitor table. Note that this can be an opportunity to develop the PC’s personal life for play. For example, if the table indicates that the request is coming from a friend that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a friend who has been part of the campaign before.

3. Determine Favor Level. Determine the level of the favor being requested by rolling on the Favor Level table.

4. Determine Type of Favor. Roll on the Type of Favor table to determine the type of favor being requested. The exact nature of the favor is heavily dependent on the particular circumstances of the character and the campaign; the table is merely designed to provide a general idea that can help serve as a creative seed for the GM. Reference the favors tables on pages 289-290 of the Eclipse Phase rulebook to determine the scope of the favor being requested (based on the level of the favor).

Information: This can either be information that the character already knows or information that they are capable of finding out. (It could also be information that someone just thinks they know or can find out.)

Introduction: The solicitor would like the PC to introduce them to someone they know. At trivial levels, this is the digital equivalent of passing business cards. At higher favor levels, a physical meeting is likely (and, obviously, the person they want to be introduced to will be of some importance). If the PC agrees to make the introductions, don’t be afraid to let the consequences splash back on them. (“What the hell did you get me into?”)

Skill: Somebody would like the PCs to use their unique skills. You can randomly determine which of their skills is desired or simply choose one. Obviously this can range from the benign (“can you prepare a précis on the most recent discoveries in xenoarchaeology?”) to the criminal (“I need you to rescue my sister who’s indentured in a brothel”). Make sure to take note of the terms of service listed on the Acquire Services table (EP, pg. 290) – this favor could actually be a long-term job offer.

Delivery/Pick-Up: At low favor levels, this is most likely going to be a matter of convenience. For example, the PC happens to be standing outside a Coffee Star franchise and somebody a couple blocks away wants a latte. At higher levels, it becomes increasingly likely that the pick-up or delivery requires some special skill the PC possesses.

Transportation: Similar to the delivery, except in this case it’s someone needing to be delivered themselves. If the PC doesn’t have access to a vehicle, then it might be someone looking to hitch a ride in their ghost rider module. Or asking them to deliver a portable server filled with enslaved infomorphs.

Use of an Item: The PC has something somebody would like to borrow for a bit. They’ll give it right back. (Honest.) At trivial levels this is again likely to be a matter of convenience. (“Hey, I’m just across the plaza. The local spime spotted that you had a utilitool. Could I grab that really quick to fix my glide sneakers?”) At higher levels, it’ll be something expensive or the use of which the PC might need to supervise.

Buying an Item: The PC has an item that the solicitor would very much like to purchase. Pretty straightforward.

Selling an Item: The solicitor has something that he thinks the PC might be interested in. Wait… why does he think the PC is the sort of person who needs large amounts of explosives?

Borrow Money: 50 credits for a trivial favor; 250 credits for a low favor; 1,000 credits for a moderate favor; 5,000 credits for a high favor; and 20,000 credits for a scarce favor.

REWARDS AND PENALTIES

Cyberpunk Alley Pub – Brosa

If a character refuses to do a favor, there is a 10% chance that they’ll suffer 1-2 points of reputation loss. (Feel free to modify this chance depending on exactly how the PC handles the interaction: If they’re a real prick, their reputation is more likely to take a ding. If they apologize for being too busy at the moment and recommend someone who might be able to help, they might even gain a rep point. But, in general, most people don’t feel entitled to assistance and won’t ding someone for a simple refusal.)

Characters who fulfill a favor, however, will be rewarded with a reputation gain. Of course, characters who say they’ll do something and then fail to carry through on their promise are going to get hit with a reputation loss. See page 385 of the Eclipse Phase core rulebook for more information.