House Rules

## Attributes

ST
The cost of Strength has been halved to 5 points per level. Hitpoint cost is still 2 per level.

Sw damage is fixed at Thr+2 for all levels of ST.

SM other than 0
Increased SM is a disadvantage, at -10 per level. Size Modifier still affects the cost of Strength and its parts as per RAW.

Reduced SM is an advantage, at +10 per level.

## Advantages and Disadvantages

Arm ST
Arm ST costs have been modified. Arm ST for One Arm is 1 pt/level. Arm ST for Two Arms is 2 pts/level. Arm ST for Three Arms is 2.5 pts/lvl.

Extra Attack
Extra Attack comes with Multi-Strike for free; there's no requirement to use a different limb for each attack.

*Requires Different Limbs* is a -20% limitation on Extra Attack.

Gunslinger
Gunslinger includes all the benefits from Gun-Fu p 15, but only costs 20 points.

Lifting ST
Lifting ST is 1 pt/lvl.

Rapier Wit
Rapier Wit is a free action, performed on your turn. If you have ATR, you can still only perform one Rapier Witticism per turn, no matter how many maneuvers you take. Rapier Wit has an additional modifier of the Range Penalty to the target and you are at -4 to affect a foe with Hard of Hearing. Repeated attempts to stun the same person within 24 hours are at a cumulative -2 per attempt.

Striking ST
Striking ST is 2 pts/lvl.

Wealth
Increasing levels of wealth improve starting funds and job income by a factor of 3. Reduced levels of wealth decrease starting funds and job income by a factor of 1/3.

## Perks

### Combat Perks

These perks are limited: 1 perk per 20 points in combat related skills, plus 1 per 10 points in combat related skills if the perk is from a style that the character has a style perk for.

Burst Fire Training
If you have this perk, you do not have the -2 to Guns or Gun Weapons for firing full-automatic (RoF 4+).

### Non-combat Perks

There are no restrictions on buying these perks.

Fast-Draw Training
If you have this perk, you may treat your skill in a melee weapon as Fast-Draw (that weapon) when attempting to fast-draw or fast-sheathe that weapon. You may also treat your skil in a ranged weapon as Fast-Draw (that weapon) and Fast-Draw (that weapon's ammo) when attempting to fast-draw that weapon or its ammo.

This perk does not allow you to attempt to fast-draw things that are cannot normally be fast-drawn, such as axes or polearms.

Forced Entry Training
If you have this perk, you may treat your skill in a melee weapon skill or striking unarmed skill as Forced Entry when using that skill to attack inanimate objects.

Shotgun Training
If you have this perk, you get +2 to Guns or Gun Weapons when firing shot shells at non-stationary (Move 3+) targets. This does not increase your effective skill when firing slugs.

Studied Culture
You must specialize by culture, which is usually Columbian, European, or Asian. You have a +2 on using any of the skills listed under Cultural Familiarity against someone of the specialized culture unless that person also has this perk for your culture. Everyone is assumed to have this perk for their native culture for free.

## New Racial Templates

Beastkin
Beaverkin
Boarfolk
Catfolk
Dogkin
Elephantine
Rabbitkin
Sheepfolk
Tauren
Other Non-Humans
Dwarfs
Elfs
## Skills

Technique Costs
Each level of a Technique now gives you a +2 bonus, not a +1. All Techniques should be treated as Average Techniques for simplicity.

Fast-Draw and Forced Entry
These skills are largely replaced with the Fast-Draw Training and Forced Entry Training perks. Fast-Draw still exists for Fast-Draw (Potions) and Forced Entry is still valid for non-combatant characters who are skilled in using crowbars, fire axes, and boots against inanimate objects.

Guns specialties
Guns is divided into Guns (LAW), Guns (Longarms), and Guns (Pistol). Guns (Pistol) covers all 1 or 2 handed use of handheld weapons without shoulder stocks. Guns (Longarms) covers all use of handheld weapons with shoulder stocks. Guns (LAW) covers any two-handed weapon that is braced over the shoulder.

Weapon Skill Categories
The Melee Weapon skill categories on Basic 208-209 (Fencing Weapons, Flails, etc) can be taken as skills in their own right, at one difficulty higher than the skills in that category. Weapons in the category default to their category skill at -0.

ie, a character with Impact Weapons-18 can default Axe/Mace and Two-Handed Axe/Mace to 18, also.
*Gun Weapons* is a DX/A skill that covers Guns (LAW), Guns (Longarms), and Guns (Pistol).

*Innate Attacks* is a DX/A skill that covers all varieties of Innate Attack.

Filch, Pickpocket, and Sleight of Hand
Filch and Pickpocket are optional specialties of Sleight of Hand.

Panhandling, Savoir-Faire (Criminal), Streetwise, and Urban Survival
Panhandling is an optional specialty for Streetwise or Urban Survival.

Savoir-Faire (Criminal) is an optional specialty for Streetwise.

New Skills
*Engraving (IQ/H, specialized by crafting skill, prerequisite crafting skill 15)*: This is the skill of engraving, tattooing, embossing, embroidering, or painting a mystic pattern on an item or a person's flesh in a way that creates a temporary magic effect. See Engravings for details. Engraving gets a bonus for High Manual Dexterity.

New Techniques
*Armor Tailor (IQ/A, default to Armoury (Body Armor) -4, up to default -2)*: This technique is used to remove half the penalty to make new Fine armor or to retailor existing armor to Fine.

*Master Weaponsmith (IQ/A, default to Armoury (Melee Weapons) -4, up to default -2)*: This technique is used to remove half the penalty to make a new weapon Fine (Damage) or to sharpen and reinforce an existing weapon to Fine (Damage).

*Weapon Balance (IQ/A, default to Armoury (Melee Weapons or Small Arms) -, up to default-3)*: This technique is used to remove half the penalty to make a new weapon Fine (Balanced) or to balance an existing weapon to Fine (Balanced). It is a separate technique for melee and ranged weapons.

## Magic

Magic exists on Erd. See Magic Guidelines for the details.

Magical Healing
Healing generally requires the patient to spend 1 FP per 2 HP healed. For Healing (Cure Affliction), half of the FP cost is spent by the caster and half by the patient.

A person can only be healed once per set of injuries per day, and only once per day after the day the injuries are received. Magical healing is penalized by the location specific Severe Bleeding modifiers (Martial Arts p 138), though the penalty for general HP damage doesn't apply.

Anyone who has a mortal wound has the new "Mortal Wound" affliction with the effects described on B423. Anyone with the Mortal Wound affliction cannot recover HP (via first aid, Regeneration, the Healing advantage, or magical effects) until the condition is removed, either by stabilizing the mortal wound (B424) or removing the affliction, which has a +350% modifier and an -7 penalty to be removed via Healing (Cure Affliction).

## Equipment

Soul Stones
Soul crystals are precious crystal formations, often found near orichalcum deposits. Soul crystals are valuable because they can be used to hold souls for use in enchanting.

A cut soul crystal is valuable, worth $400 x ( C \* C + 4 x C), where C is the number of carats. An uncut soul crystal is worth half as much as a cut crystal.

A soul smith can pull a person's soul, killing them, and then force the soul into a soul crystal, making a soul stone. The soul provides 1 EP per 20 CP of the victim and a soul crystal can hold 2 EP per carat.

A soul stone is worth $5,000 per EP plus the value of the cut soul crystal.

In civilized countries, having your soul pulled is a punishment reserved for great criminals: traitors, mass murderers, and the like. Soul smiths who pull innocents' or lesser criminals' souls get their own souls pulled upon discovery and conviction.

Magical Enhancements
Armor, clothing, skin, tools, and weapons can have magical Engravings to provide a limited, temporary magical effect. Engravings are expensive, but much cheaper than enchantments.

Armor, clothing, skin, tools, and weapons can have permanent magical Enchantments to provide magic effects. Enchantments are extremely expensive, as there are only around 400 people in the entire USC capable of performing enchantments.

Some magical effects can be captured in Alchemical potions or herbal concoctions and activated by consuming the potion. Potions are expensive, especially given that they are single use. Herbal concoctions are cheaper, but the potency of magical plants is unpredictable and concoctions do not always work as intended.

Armor
All armor uses the Easier Armor Design rules.

Meteoric Iron
Meteoric iron items are immune to magic and cannot be enchanted or engraved. Magic cannot detect anything fully enclosed in meteoric iron, nor even notice that it cannot detect that area. Projectiles and hand weapons made from meteoric iron penetrate magical defenses without interacting with them in any way.

Meteoric iron items cost 30x as much as normal.

Modern meteoric iron is rarely actual iron from meteors. Instead, various engravings, enchantments, alchemical processes, and spells are used to drain magic from a metal. However these metals are made, they are broadly referred to as meteoric iron, even if something is actually made from alchemically mana reduced bronze.

Orichalcum
Orichalcum is an extremely rare, naturally occurring metal that is less dense than aluminum but stronger than steel. It can be melted over a charcoal fire using lead as flux, but otherwise has a higher melting point than tungsten. Orichalcum is easy to craft and easier to enchant and engrave.

Orichalcum is worth $14,000 per pound, about twice as much as gold. Orichalcum items (other than armor) weigh 1/3rd as much as steel items, and have a +124 CF - making them cost about 125x as normal, but making them comparatively cheap to make as Fine or Very Fine. Orichalcum weapons do full damage despite their lighter weapon, and are unbreakable when parrying heavier weapons. Enchantments on orichalcum items require half the normal EP, and engravings done on orichalcum items take half the ingredients and half the time as normal. Orichalcum items, regardless of quality, are always treated as Very Fine when determining how many engravings they can hold.

*Example*: An orichalcum large knife costs $5,000 and weighs 1/3rd of a pound. A fine orichalcum large knife costs $5,120 and weighs 1/3rd of a pound. Either of them could parry a 7 pound greatsword without breaking.

Making Weapons, Armor, and Other Items
PCs with the Armoury skill can craft weapons and armor. PCs with the Demolitions skill can craft explosives. PCs with other craft skills can craft items appropriate to the skill. Material costs are 50% of the list cost of the item and labor is the other 50% but the PC can choose to absorb the labor cost. Roll against the appropriate skill. Success creates the item; failure by 3 or less creates a Cheap version of the item; failure by 4 or more wastes half the materials and produces nothing; critical failure wastes all the materials and produces nothing. On a success by 6+, the item is one quality level better than normal, and on a critical success, it is two quality levels better than normal (melee weapons become Very Fine (Damage) and Fine (Balanced)).

Gadgeteers can improvise materials and only spend 25% on materials; they also craft faster. Quick Gadgeteers can improvise a great deal of material and only spend 10% on materials.

Success on the Armor Tailor technique improves armor quality to Fine, and success by 6+ improves armor quality to Very Fine. This is technique is rolled at +2 if used when first crafting the armor.

Modifying Weapons and Armor
A successful roll on Armor Tailor improves the quality of an existing armor one level. Using it requires materials equal to 1/4 the difference between the current cost of the armor and the new cost of the armor and has a labor cost equal to the material cost. Failure on the roll changes the armor quality to cheap or destroy cheap armor.

A successful roll on Weapon Balance adds the Fine (Balance) quality to an existing weapon. Using it requires materials equal to 1/4 the difference between the current cost of the weapon and the new cost of the weapon and has a labor cost equal to the material cost. Failure on the roll changes the Balance quality to to cheap or destroys weapons that are already cheap.

A successful roll on Master Weaponsmith improves the damage and breakage quality to an existing weapon. Using it requires materials equal to 1/4 the difference between the current cost of the weapon nd the new cost of the weapon and has a labor cost equal to the material cost. Failure on the roll changes the quality to to cheap or destroys weapons that are already cheap.

Converting Labor Cost to Time
Every $50 in labor costs translates to 8 hours of effort. Gadgeteers convert $100 in labor to 8 hours of effort, and Quick Gadgeteers produce $200 in labor costs per 8 hours.

Anyone can spend up to 60 hours/week on useful tasks (training, jobs, crafting armor in the spare time) with no difficulty. Spending up to 80 hours/week requires an unmodified Will roll. Spending up to 100 hours/week requires a Will at -1. Spending up to 120 hours/week (or 17 hours/day) requires a Will roll at -1 every day. Spending up to 20 hours/day requires a Will roll at -2, cumulative per day.

A typical TL8 job is assume to take 40 hours/week, and completely covers Cost of Living without producing a surplus. Anyone can choose to not work at a job for 1 week/year without penalty (cashing in vacation, comp time, etc.) but any additional time spent away from the job requires that other funds go into paying Cost of Living. For simplicity, Cost of Living is $750/week or $3000/month.

Repairing Equipment
Damaged equipment can be repaired at 2% of the base cost per 1% of functionality restored, so it's always cheaper to replace anything that has suffered more than 50% damage. This cost can be reduced normally by buying materials and doing the labor.

## Success Rolls

Fright Checks
Outside of combat situations, use Fright Checks and the Fright Check Table as written on B360.

In combat situations, there is no +5 bonus to Fright Checks for "heat of battle." Instead, failing a Fright Check creates a fear penalty on all die rolls for interacting with the object of the fright check, equal to the 1+MoF of the fright check. Halve the fear penalty when making defense rolls against the subject of the fright check, or when dealing with any allies of the source of the fright check. In the case of multiple sources (ie, a horde of zombies), take the worst MoF and apply it to all sources equally.

This penalty can be modified by several ways:

* If an ally takes the Do Nothing action to shout encouragement and makes a successful **Leadership** test, reduce the penalty by 1.
* The first time an ally attacks the source of the fright check and does damage, reduce the penalty by 1.
* The first time the victim of the fright check defends against an attack from the source of the fright check (or is undamaged by an attack that slips through defenses), reduce the penalty by 1. Increase the penalty by 1 the first time the source of the fright check lands a damaging attack.
* Each time the victim of the fright check attacks the source of the fright check and does damage, reduce the penalty by 1. But increase the penalty by 1 if the attack fails to hit, is defended against, or fails to do any damage.
* Each turn the victim of the fright check takes a Do Nothing maneuver, reduce the penalty by 1, or by 3 if the victim voluntarily chooses to be Mentally Stunned. Roll to recover from Mental Stun as normal.

Example: Evan sees a bunch of zombies, and rolls an 18 against his Fear of 10. His MoF is 8, and he has a -9 on all rolls to interact with the zombies, and a -4 on all defenses. He tries taking a shot with his trusty shotgun, but with a -9 penalty on the hit roll, he fails to connect and increases his penalty to -10. Since the zombies are slow shamblers, Evan's player decides to be stunned and hope that he can recover from stun before the zombies reach him. After 3 seconds, Evan has reduced his penalty to only -1, but he fails to recover from stun, and the zombies are on him. A zombie bites him while he is still stunned, and Evan's fear penalty increases to -2.
### Researching and Rumor Gathering

Anyone may attempt to gain rumors or background information (and possibly clues for investigations) by researching. Researching takes a day and access to a popular tavern, library, or newspaper morgue. The GM secretly rolls against Carousing to gather rumors in a tavern or Research to find facts in a library or newspaper morgue.

On success, the researcher discovers 1 + MoS / 2 pieces of true information and 1d-3 pieces of false information (minimum 0). On a critical success, the researcher finds 5 pieces of true information. On a critical failure, the researcher finds 5 pieces of false information.

Casting Widely and Cross-Referencing
A researcher may choose to cast widely when researching, giving a +2 bonus to skill. However, on a success, the researcher receives 1d pieces of false information as well as the true information.

Alternately, a researcher may choose to cross-reference when researching, taking a -2 penalty to skill. When cross-referencing, any potential pieces of false information are canceled on a 1:1 basis by true information, and the researcher only receives the remaining true or false information.

*Example*: Jamie is researching vampires and cross-referencing. He succeeds with MoS 2 and rolls poorly for false information, so he would normally receive three pieces of false information. The two pieces of true information he would normally receive cancel out two pieces of false information, and he receives one piece of false information. If he hadn't cross-referenced, he would have succeeded with MoS 4 and received three pieces of true and three pieces of false information.
## Combat

Knockback
Knockback should be based on the static friction of the object and be relative to weight and the amount of of surface in contact with the ground. So a standing human is relatively easy to knock around, while the same human lying on the ground is very difficult to move.

Basic knockback value is weight in lbs raised to 2/3rds and divided by 10, or BL/2 for living things, BL/8 for unliving things, and BL/32 for homogeneous things. Halve that value for people who standing on two legs, flying, levitating, or for objects held in one hand. Use the base value for people or creatures standing on four legs (or their arms and legs), or for objects with 4 points of contact with the ground or objects held in two hands. Double the value for prone people or objects lying on the ground or tracked vehicles. A person or object moves 1 yard for every full multiple of its adjusted knockback value.

Hitting the Wrong Target with Ranged Attacks
Potential wrong targets are not just the targets in the line of fire, but in the cone of fire. The cone of fire is a 30 degree cone of infinite length, starting at the center of the attacker's hex and expanding on either side of the line going through the center of the target's hex.

Automatic Fire Penalty
Anyone making an automatic fire attack (base RoF 4+, not including multishot attacks like shotguns at 2x9) without the Burst Fire Training has a -2 penalty on the attack. The penalty applies to Ranged Rapid Strike or Ranged Rapid Fire if the total RoF used is 4 or more.

Enhancement Imbuements and RoF attacks
An enhancement imbuement that adds bonus damage or a follow-up affliction can only affect a single damage instance when making an RoF attack. The attacker may choose which damage instance gets affected, before rolling damage but after seeing the attack and any defense rolls. The same applies for magical spells that add bonus damage.

An enhancement imbuement that does not add damage or follow-up afflictions affects all the shots in a single RoF attack.

All transformation enhancements affect all the shots in a single RoF attack.

*Example*: Alya has a fine shotgun engraved with Bank Shot (non-damaging enhancement), Drugged Weapon (bonus damage enhancement), and Binding Shot (transformation), each with 41 shots remaining. She makes an Attack maneuver to fire at RoF 2x11 to bank her shot off a wall and hit her target behind cover, and all her engravings now have 39 shots remaining. She hits with 8 pellets, doing 8 instances of 1d+1 binding and 1 instance of 1d-1 fatigue. On average, her target is encased in a ST 11 binding and loses 3 FP.
Ranged Rapid Strike
A ranged rapid strike is a ranged attack with a weapon with RoF 2+, used to attack two separate attacks. You must take the Attack or All-Out Attack maneuver, and you must target two separate opponents. Make two attacks, both at -6 to skill. Gunslinger or Weapon Master halves the penalty. You may not attempt a Ranged Dual Strike with the same maneuver, but you may use Ranged Rapid Fire. If you use Ranged Rapid Fire, you must split your RoF equally between both targets.

Ranged Dual Strike
A ranged dual strike is a ranged attack with two separate ranged weapons (usually one-handed weapons such as pistols). You must take the Attack or All-Out Attack maneuver, and you may target two separate opponents. If you target two opponents, make two attacks, both at -4 to skill (off-hand weapon penalties apply). If you target a single opponent, make two single attacks at -4 to skill (off-hand weapon penalties apply), and combine the number of shots hit when the foe has to defend. You may not attempt a Ranged Rapid Strike with the same maneuver, but you may use Ranged Rapid Fire. Absent an advantage such as Enhanced Tracking, you do not get the Aim bonus for more than one weapon, even if you are firing both weapons at the same target.

Ranged Rapid Fire
Firing a large number of shots per attacks gives a bonus to hit. Look up the number of shots fired on the Size and Speed/Range table, and use the half the Size modifier (rounded up) for that number of shots in yards as bonus to the attack roll. You must success by at least 0 in order to hit your target, and if you do, calculate your Margin of Success normally.

If the target defends successfully, subtract the defender's Margin of Success from your Margin of Success. If your net Margin of Success is less than 0, the target has successfully defended against the attack. If your net Margin of Success is 0 or greater, you have hit the target. Subtract 2 from your Margin of Success and look up that value in the Size column of the Size and Speed/Range table. The resulting Linear Measurement in yards is the number of shots that actually hit. If your weapon has a Rcl of 2+, divide the number of shots hit by Rcl, rounding down but never less than one or more than the number of shots fired. If the target defended successfully, reduce the final number of hits by 1.

You can't hit with more bullets than you fired. Subtract 1 from these results if the target makes their Dodge roll at all.
Example: Corporal Martin unloads his trusty M14 at a charging Soviet super-soldier at 10 yds. Martin has Guns-14 and is firing 12 shots after aiming for 1 second, so he is rolling against 14 - 4 (for range) + 5 (for Acc) + 2 (for RoF 10+). He rolls a 9, and succeeds by 8. The Soviet super-soldier rolls his Dodge of 11, and gets a 9, succeeding by 2. Martin's MoS is reduced by 2 to a 6. Subtracting 2 more and looking up on the SSR, Martin potentially hits with 10 shots, but after dividing by the Rcl of 3 and subtracting 1 for the successfully defense, he only hits with 2. If he'd fired a single round of 3" buckshot from his M500 trench gun, the Rcl would have been 1 and he would have hit with 6 of the 7 pellets.
Leadership, Tactics, and Soldier
One character (the leader) per side with Tactics may attempt a skill roll at the start of combat, with a +1 bonus per combatant on his side with at least 1 point in the Tactics or Soldier. Success grants 1 Tactics reroll, +1 per MoS.

A Tactics reroll can be used to reroll a failed combat skill, active defense, or Fear check. This is a free action by the leader, who rolls against the Leadership skill or the highest skill of Tactics or Soldier of the character receiving the reroll, whichever of those 3 skills is lowest. There is a +1 bonus if the leader has at least a point in Leadership when rolling against Tactics or Soldier and a +1 bonus when rolling against Leadership if the character receiving the reroll has Tactics or Soldier. If the roll is failed, the reroll is wasted and lost.

A Tactics reroll can also be used to cancel another side's reroll, as a free action that succeeds automatically. The decision to cancel the reroll is made when the reroll is declared, before any other rolls.

If a side's leader is killed or knocked unconscious, all remaining Tactics rerolls are lost but a new leader may step into her place. The new leader makes a Tactics roll at -2 and a further penalty equal to the number of rerolls already used, and gets 1+MoS Tactics reroll on success. The rolls made to use those Tactics rerolls are made at -1 for each leader that has been replaced this way.

*Example*: Corporal Martin has stepped up to replace Sergeant Brent and Sir Miles in leading a scratch squad made of three soldiers, a professional delving scout, and civilian priest. Sergeant Brent and Sir Miles had used three Tactics rerolls, so Corporal Martin rolls Tactics at -5 and critically succeeds, giving him more rerolls to use. If he attempts to give a Tactics reroll to the priest, he rolls against the priest's Soldier default of 9 with a +1 bonus for his Leadership training and a -2 for being the squad's third leader.