Basics & Ability Scores

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Ability Scores

There are a total of 10 Abilities that make up your character, being normally the reference for every living thing in the world, these abilities are quite important and are treated as the fundamentals for your character, they affect absolutely everything that you do and can do and are very important. The average for an ability score, with no negatives and positives, is 0% or just 0, and the lowest you can have in ability score is -100%, while the highest is 100%. Certain characters and events can cause the percentage to change completely, such as shooting in close quarters combat with a sniper rifle, or trying to throw a weapon not designed for throwing, or defending yourself against a big weapon with a small weapon or some other scenario that affects your chances.

Generating Ability Scores

There is one main way to generate ability scores for your character, the one that works the most for us is the one that is named recommended, as it provides the most balance for a character.

Recommended: Every player starts with a predetermined amount of percentage (See Table: Ability Score Difficulty). They may input this percentage into any of their ability scores. For a maximum of +25% for their ability scores at character creation, they may take percentage out of their ability scores to gain more points to spread around their scores, but they cannot take more then -20% out of an ability score.

Table: Ability Score Difficulty
Difficulty	Percentage
Easy	80%
Normal	60%
Hard	40%
Near Impossible	20%

Random Chance: Every player rolls 3d20 and flips a coin to determine the value of each of their statistics. Choose only one of the rolls of the d20’s, any results that repeat must be rerolled. They do this for each statistic. If the coin is on heads, the modifier is a positive (+), and if the coin is on tails, the modifier is a negative (-)

Determine Bonuses (Or Penalties)

Each score has a number varying from -100% to +100% and even lower and higher, there can be changes to these initial bonuses through items, and levelling, aswell as racial modifiers. Ontop of a whole bunch of situational and environmental factors. Trying to use powers and perks with less than -20% in an ability fails to work.

Ability Modifiers

When determining certain actions, instead of a percentile bonus or penalty, you’ll need to use a modifier instead. For the case of these rolls, every +5% of your ability scores equal to a +1 modifier, +10% is +2, and so on and so forth. -5% is a -1 and -10% is a -2.

Abilities

Abilities are used as a general measure for the potential of your character and how they differentiate from other characters. The abilities here are used as a general guideline for how strong a character could potentially be, but the true skill relies solely on the player.

The 10 Main ability scores are:

• Muscle
• Fortitude
• Vitality
• Agility
• Intellect
• Psyche
• Social
• Nerve
• Senses
• Luck

Statistics

Your statistics are your most important and vital scores for determining your condition and vitals, it is paramount that these are done correctly when creating your sheet, as these are the most important over everything else. Every character in Metanoia Engine has Health Points (HP), Magic Points (MP), and Stamina Points (SP), in special circumstances, Characters may not have any of these, and instead use Ability Points (AP)

Morals

Everyone and everything in Metanoia Engine has a different set of beliefs or codes, the Universe isn’t designed to be so cut and dry, Good and Evil is vague, some define their actions as good, while others define their actions as evil. It is purely up to the mind of the person creating the character or the character itself to define if they are good or evil.

There are four categories that define someones morals, these categories are Actions, Beliefs, Ideals and Personality. These four categories are designed to help you shape a character that fits greatly within your ideas, and upon seeing a character’s morals, you’ll be immediately able to know how a character will act.

When choosing Morals, you may only have up to 4 descriptors – and a minimum of one – that do not conflict with one another (e.g. Pragmatic Idealist is not a valid Moral, but Pragmatic Altruist is.). The order of your Morals typically show which moral is one your character tends to do more (e.g. an Egoistic Collectivist is more likely to be disrespectful in a societal setting, while a Collectivist Egoist is more likely to benefit or focus on society while being disrespectful.). Morals are an easy way of telling a characters personality at first glance, and is to be used more as a guideline then a set standard of rules.

Carrying Capacity

Carrying Capacity determines how much a character is carrying slows them down, this is called Encumbrance. Encumbrance comes in two parts:

• Encumbrance by Armour: A characters armour is simply too heavy for them in some circumstances, A character’s armour determines how well they can dodge, their armour check penalty and their movement speed, Encumbrance by Armour normally is the hard limit for how fast you move and how well you dodge, however, if your character is weak, and you’re over your encumbrance rating in armour by any amount, you must calculate using Encumbrance by Weight.
• Encumbrance by Weight: If you want to determine if your gear is weighing you down more then your armour, calculate the total weight of everything you currently have on your character, compare the total to the characters Muscle modifier on Table: Carrying Capacity, Depending on how much you carry, you could be in a Medium or Heavy load, Like armour, how much you have on you affects your maximum dodge chance, grants an armour check penalty, reduces your movement speed, and affects how fast you can run, as shown on the Table: Encumbrance Effects. Like other tabletop games, a Medium or Heavy load counts as medium or heavy armour respectively for the purpose of determining encumbrance and restricting perks, powers or feats that are restricted by armour, Carrying a light load does not encumber a character.

If your character is wearing armour, look at which has the higher encumbrance for each category. Do not stack penalties.

Lifting and Dragging: A character can lift as much as their maximum load over their head and can drag and push five times as much as their maximum load. Favourable conditions can change the total multipliers for both, and unfavourable ones can do the opposite.

Description

The description of your character is fairly important for the Game Master, aswell as the Age, Height and Weight. Age, Height and Weight vary mainly on racial factors, and by the Player and Game Master’s choice.

Movement & Travel

There are a total of 4 kinds of movement in Metanoia Engine. They are:

• Space & Time Movement
• Planetary Movement
• Local Movement
• Combat Movement

These four kinds of movement are used for various different circumstances, such as travelling through the deep dark of space, or simply walking around a town. Movement largely depends on your race, size and your Agility percentage.

Common Terms

This game uses a large amount of terms, abbreviations and definitions in the rules of the game. The following abbreviations are the most common

What dice and modifier do I roll for this action?

In Metanoia Engine, especially for experienced players in the tabletop games scene, many are used to rolling various dice of sorts, Metanoia Engine is designed in mind for the player to not roll most dice. There are certain instances where players may need to roll dice.

For Players

Players will only rarely need to roll dice, Players only roll their weapon damage dice, which can range from multiple numbers, as they’re the one making the attack, they should be the ones that roll the damage for it! Add the weapon’s modifier that is used to hit the attack, the modifier can be found in the Feat of the proficiency.

• For Two Handed Melee Weapons, Throwing and Unarmed, it’s your Muscle Modifier and any Perks or Powers that grant an additional modifier, then finally, if any, your weapons modifier. For explosive weapons, you do not add your Muscle Modifier onto the attack.
• For One Handed Melee Weapons, it’s your Agility Modifier and any Perks or Powers that grant an additional modifier, then finally, if any, your weapons modifier.
• For Two Handed Ranged, it’s your Nerve Modifier and any Perks or Powers that grant an additional modifier, then finally, if any, your weapons modifier.
• For One Handed Ranged, it’s your Senses Modifier and any Perks or Powers that grant an additional modifier, then finally, if any, your weapons modifier.
• Special Weapons are a strange group and follow the rules above, depending on how the weapon is used! Their chance to hit is also determined by this modifier.
• For determining Powers, you just use their casting modifier and any perks or powers that would grant an additional modifier! The casting modifier increases all aspects where there is a number such as range (if not self, touch or melee), damage, and effectiveness of an ability.

For Game Masters

Game Masters roll the most dice in Metanoia Engine, you may be confused what to roll for with certain actions, in this case, it’s purely a case-by-case basis. If a player wants to do something and you’re lost on what modifier to give them, get them to explain it, and use the closest feat modifier and ability modifier that would be appropriate to grant them that benefit. You do not need to use the same ability modifier and feat under the same grouping. In most instances, the Game Master should roll a d% die, DC’s can be set however the GM likes, but players should typically strive to get above these numbers.

Using Abilities

Abilities in Metanoia Engine are your most fundamental skills, these are your perks, powers, feats and combination abilities, while each of these things have different functions, listed in their specific areas, each ability follows these rules and followings.

Actions

There are many actions one can take in Metanoia Engine, typically for combat purposes. Almost all creatures can perform these actions if they have the physical capabilities to do so. Typically, a character has about 5 Time Points, and gains another +1 TP Maximum every 10th level which dictates what kind of actions they can do. View the “Combat” section in Gamemastering for more information.