OK, let's all say what we want in EABA2.

Mostly I hope it is very similar to EABA 1.0 as it's a damn good system with a few rough edges that need a little smoothing.

The powers system is already being rebuilt for ASE so no need to mention that.

I'd like more low point cost options to help use of the last couple points when you're making a character as in some cases raising an attribute of skill level can cost more than a few points, and when you're just trying to spend those last <5 points you really can't raise a skill or attribute but would like to have some little quirk to use. Yes you can save them, but some people like to use all their points during chargen.

Making some of the addenda rules from EABA worlds books official core rules. Examples would be the insanity rules from "Code:Black" made core rules to reflect characters going insane due to thinks like combat fatigue or excess horror. I seem to recall a rule for allowing people to get quick proficiency in certain relatively simple things like basic gun combat under crisis conditions. (Like Ripley learned to use a gun PDQ in 'Aliens'.) That might be a good core rule. (Maybe we could call it "The Ripley rule" if a snappy title will help sell it.)


Of course I still hope for a critical success/fail system as those rules make things much easier for GM. I like the idea of the player knowing he has a real chance to make a totally epic fail if he tries something hard with little chance of success, and of the sudden unexpected critical success to save the day. I'd hope a system like that would vary the numbers of both possibilities in proportion to the odds of success as I'm no fan of clockwork criticals that are unaffected by skill or difficulty.

Basically a crit system works in a lot of cases that come up. Just one example might be "OK, you want to shoot the terrorist in the head and not hit the hostage he's using as a shield? Here's the mods to that and your chance of succeeding. On a normal success you hit the terrorist in the head but he might still squeeze the trigger on a reflex. On a fail you miss and he will probably shoot the hostage. On a crit fail you hit the hostage. On a crit success you shoot the terrorist dead so fast he won't get to pull the trigger. Still want to try it?"

Some changes to the armor rules might be nice too. Maybe optional rules so that a 2d+0 vest does not always automatically and completely stop a 2d+0 bullet. Some rule to reflect a particularly accurate or lucky hit penetrating armor it should not normally have penetrated. When federal marshals tried to arrest gordon von kaul for the last time, for example, he managed to kill one by shooting him even tho he was wearing body armor as the bullet hit a seam and penetrated.

I would say that if a piece of armor is at least 1d greater than an incoming attack, unless we're talking AP here, it should block it completely, (barring flexible armor and blunt trauma) as if the armor is 1d greater than the bullet it has twice the stopping power needed to match the bullet using the EABA scale rules.

Above all, keep the pizza principle system intact and make any new rules, even ones I'd use automatically, optional. That's one thing I love about EABA, the customization levels of it.

I think that a lot of what you want will be there. And knowing you, a lot of what you want won't be there, either.

I did something of a critical success system to EABA at one point (I didn't devise a critical failure system, because I tend to impro those anyway, depending on how badly the roll is failed), to allow our slightly pulpy variation of Code:Black to display amazing feats of heroism.

It basically worked so that if any two dice came up 6's in your roll, you got to roll another die, and add that to the total, after counting the best three. Sort of limited Larger Than Life. If you only had one die, you'd roll two (obviously choosing beforehand which one represents your skill/attribute). With two dice, getting that extra die was a 3% chance, while at higher skill levels it became far more regular (at 5d the chance was 20%).

admin wrote:


Really, there's not a whole lot I want. I'm pretty happy with the fundamental system and what I mostly want would be optional add ons.

As to fundamental system changes, I think you were discussing secondary stats that were derived from the primaries and I'm jiggy with that Maybe some sort of "reflex" stat that was the average of agility and perception as you need to perceive a threat to dodge it, for example.


Skills could use a tweak if you want to. I'd favor limiting very broad skills to a 1d+0 maximum, like firearms for example, then having branch skills such as projectile, shotgun, automatic, etc, that could be up to the stat limit, with specializations like autopistol at the bottom of the pyramid.

But nothing that really redoes the system, no. Just some tweaks and options. You got it mostly right with EABA on the first go. And Stuff is pretty much OK as is. I found out working on teleporters it's fairly easy to modify to make stuff not covered in the current rules so it's Ok as is.

I was thinking of a system where you got a bonus to your critical success chance based on how many dice you were rolling for the success, because I feel a critical success should be more likely the better your initial success chance is, and generally the more dice you're rolling the better your chance is.


The thing is that some rules in some game books allow for critical failures based on rolling well under the success #, but not a critical success for rolling over it. Since EABA is a roll under system it's hard to roll over the highest success numbers but easy to roll under them, sort of making the chances f a bad failure go up as difficulty increases, which I like in general but it doesn't allow for brit successes on tough rolls.

I was thinking of adding a bonus to your roll based on the # of dice rolled, but that needs some tweaking. Maybe add +1 for every die you rolled that comes up a 4+, so you could roll maybe an 18 or even a 20 with a +2 mod, then get OVER that IF you rolled really good and had several 4+ results on the dice outside your best 3. (Or 4, etc, if using LTL. Of course using LTL would add to your chance of getting a critical success, which is as it should be.)

My main wish for EABA 2 is that it remains simple, elegant and intuitive - but even more so!
A key thing is that any additions mesh well with the overall system. I like the pizza principle mentioned earlier, but the key element here is that the "toppings" don't feel like bolt ons, but an integral part of the system when you include them. Any extra complexity should pay for itself in terms of what it adds to the game.
There are a few things I would like to see:
rules for spray fire and scatter for area effect attacks - I know these have been discussed on the mailing list and it seems surprising they are not in the main rules (especially since I think there were equivalent rules in Timelords and CORPS)
a brilliant initiative system, the current system is ok, probably one of the better ones I have seen, but I have yet to see a roleplaying system with a really good initiative system
change the cost of weaknesses (I already do as a houserule)
most of the other things I would like to see probably belong in supplements
I cannot say I see the need for a critical system. I have played systems with critical systems in the past and cannot see that it would really add anything but complexity - YMMV

I believe that some of the clunkier advanced combat options have been streamlined and include topics like covering fire. The initiative system is not going to change much, but the way in which combat is done will both be much like the old EABA, but also something that has not to my knowledge been done in any other rpg. Those of you on the old Google Wave discussion for EABA v2 know what I mean, but the rest of you will have to wait for that draft chapter to be posted for comment.

I'm sure whatever you do will be good. Your products are mostly creative, innovative and enjoyable.

As for combat, I hope bleeding and hit location rules remain. Those two are part of any good combat system, IMO.

Oh, one other thing I personally think could do with fixing is throwing range - the whole max range limited by max you can roll in EABA generates some significant break points each time strength increase to the next die which is something I dislike - keep it smooth!