Just wondering

What happened to all the SURGE changelings after the crash?

they stay changed

Surge is mentioned a couple of times in the book (both incidences can be found in the index at the rear of the book). It's there, just not mechanicalized for player use yet

really there shouldln't be much SURGE occuring in the game since it was caused by the comet, although it obviously can come up in some cases (Ganges anyone?). We never really rolled in our games, the GM just came up with what happened by what seemed appropriate (my gargoyle shaman got some gargoyle features and wings for example. Pain in the @ss when trying to buy a new armor jacket lemme tell ya).

What he said.

So did SURGE cause any "standard" goblinization? (Never read YotC).

I made an ork for SR4 whose background is that he was a human up until the Year of the Comet and then goblinized into an ork (he was in his 20s at the time) due to SURGE. Is this in keeping with canon?

Yes it did! Allso standard Metatypes were sometimes transformed into Metavariants. But for Orks and Trolls Goblinisation can hapen anytime even without the Comet (usually in puberty though).

It is also interesting to note that SURGE can cause re-goblinization and de-goblinization, as well. This could have interesting consequencesfor a character, such as a Tir noble suddenly becomming an Ork or one of Lord Torgo's most trusted lieutenants suddenly becomming an elf.

Security: I don't know who you are, but this SIN belongs to a three-foot tall dwarf, not a six foot tall human.

Changling: It's me, honestly. I just woke up this morning and I was a human.

Security: Tell it to the guys in lock up. Hands behind your back.

I allso can´t remember this

Sureg was one of the greatest things to happen to one of my characters.

He had a heavy bounty on him and the surge according to the GM at the time change some of his physical features.

Now some of the Hunters figured this out after 6 years and are hunting again.


Stupid hunted flaw.

My mistake. That option only applies to humans and is just standard goblinization to ork or troll.

i'm pretty sure you can go to the doctor and say

" Hey look i just grew 3 feet and a coupl of hundred pounds last night doc, i think theres something wrong with me."

6th world doctors have more than once dealt with this.

I had been saving these for myself since no one really seem interested in unnofficial rule conversions from previous editions, but here we go:

B: SURGE characteristics:

Characters may also begin the game as Changelings. Changeling is a 5-point Quality. It may be applied to any Metatype. Metavariants, once thought to be special sub-subspecies, have in fact been confirmed to be “Spike” changelings. Once the changeling quality has been bought, the changeling character then may spend build points on changeling qualities. These changeling qualities do not count toward the limit of build points that may be spent on qualities. Any number and amount of SURGE traits may be chosen, but the total point cost of the changeling’s SURGE traits must be between 20 and –20 BP.


Positive SURGE Qualities:

Astral Sight: The character can see into the astral. Treat as the adept power of the same name.
Cost: 10 BP

Claws or Talons: The character has claws or talons on both their hands and feet. The character’s unarmed attacks do physical damage. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: 5 BP

Dermal Deposits: The character has dermal deposits, similar to those of a troll’s. (This stacks with a trolls normal deposits.) The character gains +1 ballistic and +1 impact Armor.
Cost: 5 BP

Fangs: The character has Fangs. They can make a bite attack that does physical damage. Fangs require an exotic weapon skill.
Cost: 5 BP

Feline Eyes: The character gains low light vision, but their eyes look like cat’s eyes. The character has horns on their head. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: 5 BP

Gills: The character can breathe underwater. The character can also still breathe air.
Cost: 10 BP

Horns: The character has horns on their head. They can make a head butt attack that does physical damage. Horns require an exotic weapon skill. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: 5 BP

Improved Hearing: Treat as rating 2 Audio enhancement, only without the ability to interact with technology (Since it is natural)
Cost: 5 BP

Improved Scent: Treat as a rating 4 olfactory booster, only without the ability to interact with technology (Since it is natural).
Cost: 5 BP

Improved Taste: Treat as a rating 4 taste booster, only without the ability to interact with technology (Since it is natural).
Cost: 5 BP

Long Tail: The character has a long tail that helps with their balance. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: 5 BP

Marsupial Pouch: The character has a pocket formed naturally in his skin somewhere on his body. Treat as Skin pocket bioware, only it can hold up to 2 kilos.
Cost: 5 BP

Natural Venom: The character generates a natural toxin in his body. The cost depends on the rating of the toxin, any side effects, and the method of delivery. The maximum that can be spent on a venom is 20 BP, the least is 5. Refer to the chart for costs:
Effect: Cost:
Damage:
Per 2 DV power: +5 BP
Stun damage only -5 BP
Physical damage +0 BP
Secondary Effects
Disorientation +5 BP
Nausea +5 BP
Paralysis +10 BP
Vector:
Contact +0 BP
Injection (requires a SURGE weapon quality (Such as fangs) for injection.) -5 BP
Inhalation (Within 2 meters of the character when he attacks.) +5 BP

Prehensile Tail: Unlike the balance tail, the prehensile tail is completely under the character’s control. It may be used as an extra limb, though it lacks any digits for fine manipulation. Use the tail’s stats for any test it makes, and apply a –2 dice pool modifier to any test made by the tail if it requires fine manipulation. The physical statistics of the tail are ½ of the character’s. No matter what a tail’s strength, however, it can support the character’s weight. The character must get specially adapted clothing to accommodate the extra limb. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: 15 BP

Retractable Claws: These act like the claws above, but can be retracted.
Cost: 10 BP

Satyr Legs: These legs add 10 meters to the running rate of a character. They also receive +1DV on kick attacks, and add 1 die to the character’s quickness for the purpose of jumping only. The character must get specially adapted clothing to accommodate the legs. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: 15 BP

Thermographic vision: The character has thermographic Vision.
Cost: 5 BP

Webbed hands/feet: The character is treated as if they have swim fins at all times.
Cost: 5 BP

Additionally, the following traits may be chosen as SURGE traits: Ambidextrous, Animal Empathy, Astral Chameleon, Double Jointed, High Pain Tolerance, Magic Resistance, Murky Link, Natural Immunity, Resistance to Pathogens/Toxins, Toughness.

Negative SURGE Qualities:

Altered Eye Color: The character has an unusual color of Eye. It might be bright red, pink, neon green, slit eyes, swirls, whatever. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

Altered Skin Color: The Character’s Skin is a weird color for their metatype. It might be red, blue, striped, polka dotted, or any other strange skin color and pattern. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

Astral Hazing: The character generates a background count around himself. (Awakened characters cannot take this flaw.) Every hour a person with astral hazing stays in an area, it develops 1 point of background count, to a maximum of 5 points. All spirits hate him (Treat as spirit bane for all spirits) and Paranimals are afraid of him (Treat as Critter Spook.)
Cost: -20 BP

Bio-Rejection: A character with this Flaw may not get any form of Cyberware or Bioware, ever. Their system simply will not accept the implant. Any replacement parts must be cloned from his or her own DNA.
Cost: -20 BP (-10 for the awakened.)

Chronic Osteocuspus: A character with this mouthful of a flaw sprouts thorn-like protrusions from their skin. These thorns are grown out of the bone, and pierce the character’s flesh and skin. The wounds caused by this never heal. Though the bones can be trimmed, they will grow back over a period of four weeks, during which the character suffers a –4 die pool penalty to all checks. All armor and clothes must be modified to accommodate the spikes, and the character has to be particularly careful not to harm others through everyday interaction. Sadly, they will probably never be able to share physical affection with anyone other than a hardcore masochist. This also makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities. The character may also not get any skin-based cyberware.
On the positive side (If you consider it such) the character gains the high pain tolerance quality at 3rd level for free. The character also does (Str/2 + 1)P in unarmed combat.
Cost: -20 BP

Critter Spook: The opposite of Animal empathy, animals are never comfortable around characters with critter spook. The character has a –2 die pool penalty to all interactions with animals or Paranimals. Animals will frequently sound the alarm at a mere sight of the character, and will either run away from him or attack if he comes too close. Apply a –1 die pool penalty to anyone’s attempt to interact with animals in the character’s presence due to the character’s effect on the animals.
Cost: -10 BP

Cyclops: The character has only 1 eye, causing them to constantly have no depth perception. In addition, they look strange. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -10 BP

Dual Natured: The character is dual natured, allowing them to see onto the astral, but leaving them open to attack from the astral as well. A mage who astrally projects is not dual natured while projecting, but is otherwise dual natured at all times, just like a mundane with this flaw.
Cost: -15 BP (-10 BP for awakened)

Feathers: The character grows feathers, often in place of hair or in very visible places. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

Pointed Ears: The character has pointed ears, like an elf’s. If the character is a metatype, their ears are particularly long, even for their race. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

Scales: The Character has scales all over their body, or at least in very visible places. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

Slow Healer: The character heals more slowly than others, due to changes to their system. Apply a –2 die pool penalty to all healing attempts, including magical ones.
Cost: -10 BP

Third Eye: This character has a third eye in the middle of their forehead. They may maintain depth perception even if one eye is injured. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

Tusks: The character has tusks like an ork’s or troll’s. If the character is an Ork or troll, they have unusually large tusks. They may not be used as weapons. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

Unusual Hair: The character has weird hair. It may grow in unusual places, be unnatural colors, or grow in odd shapes. This makes the character really stand out. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

Vestigial Tail: This is a tail, but unlike other sorts, it does nothing useful. The character must sit funny, buy special clothes, and put up with the stares of strangers. Such changelings may not have the human looking or Blandness qualities.
Cost: -5 BP

The following Negative Qualities can be chosen as SURGE Qualities: Allergy, Astral Beacon, Low Pain Tolerance, Sensitive Neural Structure, Sensitive System, Spirit Bane, Weak Immune System.

Chronic Osteocuspus was given a large negative value in the previous edition because it incapacitated the character for several months to get it, making the character unable to run and potentially lose their lifestyle and have to borrow money from team mates and such.

But in 2070, that just isn't going to happen. The comet passed by a long time ago, so the big incapacitation thing is years in the past - over and done with and relegated to character backstory. So the negatives are:

1. You have to get special pants (like a dwarf).
2. You heal slower (like a character with "slow healer")
3. You have to apply a belt sander to your body to have sex.
4. You stick out (like a character with non-retractable claws).

The positives are:

1. You do physical damage with your attacks (like a character with claws).
2. You get 15 BP worth of Pain Resistance.

---

Total scorecard: 20 BP worth of positives, 10 BP worth of negatives, and you need special pants and a half-hour thornicure if you want to get intimate with someone.

That sounds like it should be a zero, or even 5 BP positive quality.

-Frank

Wow, some of you posters have alot and i mean alot of time to put up some info like that!

Feh. It took like an hour sitting with the old rules, figuring 1 BP from the old edition came to 5 BP for the new one, because all the old edges and flaws were updated teh same way.

Fairly simple, honestly. You could have done it. I jsut didn't want to start my SR4 campaign without some of my favorite parts of the setting, and couldn't wait for the rules to be officially updated.

You think this is impressive? have you seen my cyberware conversions, or my adept power conversions? Those took effort.

And each player in my game received a copy of the rulebook, printed from the PDF, with all of my house rules and expansions added in at the appropriate locations.

If your GM won't put at least this much effort into the game, I'm a little sorry for you.

Am I the only one that really hates -- and I mean hates -- Chronic Osteocuspus? As a player, as a GM, as a person with decent aesthetic taste, as a human being, as a Shadowrun and Earthdawn fan... I just loathe it. Period. With a hatred so pure and white-hot Lucifer himself might have once used such energy to ignite the stars, millenia ago, I detest the idea of it as a SURGE trait.

Is it just me?

On the up side, at least two Immortal Elves would have expressed it. This is good, because we can point and laugh at their suffering.

Unless they figured out some way to alter it to do so. There's still a few thousand years left in the 4th World from Earthdawn time.

well, a big part of their worry about stopping the blood magic on the Wood was because it was so ingrainged to the Wood's pattern, that the only way to change it was to do antoher blood magic ritual. They'd already learned from previous attempts that changing something multiple times with blood magic was a big no no, so it's unlikely that they would change the ritual. Besides, could you imagine any reason why a Queen would want it changed so that babies were born with thorns?! Just imagine what that would do to the mother. The whole purpose of the ritual was to protect everyone, which would certainly include new borns . SO the best way would be to do the ritual just after birth.

The sad thing is that Blood Wood is unresolved in ED canon, so there's no real answer besides what you make up to the eventual fate of people like Aithne and Alachia, who, theoretically, could grow thorns again once the mana cycle gets high enough for the ritual to ocme back in to effect.

Well, maybe when the mana spiked, the Ritual came back into effect, and altered some of the adult descendents of Blood Wood?

so you're saying that Chronic Osteocuspus is just coincidentally just like the thorns of the blood elves, but not because of that? It's just coincidence? Come on, let's be honest. Someone just thought it would be a neat tie in to ED as a SURGE effect without thinking about it.

No, its not a coincidence, it's that during the downtimes things get mixed up. Somethings may express exactly as they did before, somethings may reappear but under different circumstances. Other aspects of the 4th world may never be seen again, other aspects of the 6th entirely new. Osteocuspus exists because of the rituals that created Blood Wood, those rituals created the original Pattern, but that doesn't mean that everyone affected by it has taken part in the ritual, or is descended from a Blood Elf, or is even an elf.

Now, obviously someone in the writing team did think it would be neat idea and probably didn't think about it that deeply. However, if you look at some of the philosophy of the mana cycles recorded in ED source, particularly the Indrisans, there's no real need for it to make absolute sense.

PlatonicPimp, most of your SURGE Qualities ideas are great, but you should drop the thing about the Eyes Negative Quality, since:
- cybereyes can be any colour, so it's not so uncommon to have strange eyes colour
- the character can take cybereyes and drop the surge'd eyes! (thus getting 5 free BP)

Wow, Thread Necromancy.

Though There was discussion lately about these conversions, so I'm glad they are up.

Now I wish I knew how to code a link into a post so that I could add it to the big conversions list.

In response, The eyes negative quality is A: you stand out and B: you can't take Blandness. Frankly a character who gets weird cybereyes would have the same problem. I see your point, but this was really just a point by point conversion, not new rules.

If I were to rewrite these today, I'd remove the pain tolerance from Cronic Osteocuspus and make the character buy it themselves. I'd remove the Astral sight thing since Street Magic covered that, and I'd remove every appearance based flaw and replace tehm with "Weird looking", a 5-15 point flaw. You describe how weird looking your character is. The GM determines how many BP it's worth.

As to the free BP, I'd suggest generating the character first, then figuring out how they Surged. Have the Surge BPs limited by GM disgression, based on the whole "Human mundanes are the most likely to surge, meta-magic users are least likely" thing. Of course, then it's all up to the GM. I, for one, would keep the strange eyes if I took them. Keep em for flavor. Lets also not forget the suggestion that the genetic traits tend to cluster together... The tail/hair/skin/eye/claw mix for the catgirl in the book. I believe it was stated in the interview.

(Sorry, no page references for the rules. I don't have my book handy at the moment.)

The real problem with CO is that it basicly give you a massive amount of BP in exchange for forcing you to have a power that would have otherwise cost you a massive amount of BP.

anyway, if not for PCs, those "rules" you made are very nice to use on NPCs or Prime Runners, where the "BP cost" is not a problem, but where having the character stand out is important.
I really like these qualities, and I'll use them for future NPCs

I can't wait to see how the people with multiple inputs and scads of playtesters handle surge. 'Till then this suffices.
And Fortune? thank you.

For horns and claws, do you use the standard unarmed damage, simply making it physical?

I would say claws and talons would be normal Unarmed because you are used to using your hands and feet already.
The horns thing would be up to your GM, cause I could see it both way: Unarmed and Exotic.

One thing I have a question about is the Long tail and Prehensile tail.
Since there is no true balance checks (used to be in Athletics skill in SR3) what is the bonus for having them? You are basicly paying 5/10 BP for something that gives you nothing but makes you stand out...

Rules for playing changlings will come eventually. For now it would be up to your GM to convert current changlings over. Appropriate edges and flaws will work. Also bioware that has no essence cost is another option.

Yeah, by the books, it isnt better than just buying some weapon and using it. The choices are there mainly for RP perposes and also the fact that they cant be taken away like brass knuckles can.

The same thing can be said about thermographic vision. It cant be taken away, but by the points, it isnt worth it.

Not to mention how you want your character to function. The pensile tail could aid to balance checks and act as an extra limb. You could hang upside down from it, or possibly fire a gun with it if you wish. It all depends on how you envision your character.

Now Saytr legs... that would suck I like my toes thank you very much!