The different ways players can improve their stats and gain new abilities.
The Far Wastes is built with a focus on player character self-improvement.
Rolling poor stats is only a short-term issue, because there are a variety of ways to increase them.
At alternating levels, starting at Lv2, all classes get Honing. If played up to the maximum level of 25, players have 12 chances to Hone themselves.
Honing represents training, study, evolution, dedication, or any other method you can think of that improves and strengthens you. This is available to all players, whether their character is organic or artificial. While a flesh and blood character may improve their mind through diligent study, a robot might do it through defragmenting or the streamlining of their processing software. Mechanically it’s all the same.
<aside> 💡 Examples of Honing include +1 to a stat of your choice, gaining maximum health, quicker reactions, extra skill points, and new combat techniques!
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There is a long list of possible benefits gained from Honing, and players can pick one each time.
This is the primary method by which stats will improve, and is a way to lean into your preferred playstyle with exclusive abilities and tricks.
A very popular way of going beyond the limits of the flesh is to turn to robotics.
Cybernetics are the joining of high-tech machinery and organic tissue. Or for robots, the joining of high-tech machinery with…other, somehow even higher-tech, machinery.
The installation of cybernetic parts and implants give very tangible improvements over ordinary training, but the specific parts must be found in the world; making them rarer and more expensive.
Preparing one’s body for the traumatic experience of grafting tech into their nervous system is a vital step.
One Honing option is to gain a Cybernetic Slot. Without a free slot, cybernetics can technically be installed…but they will not function in any way.
One method of altering yourself is…outright mutating.
A somewhat random, and potentially negative, change, mutations are a truly biological method. Unlike Cybernetics, mutations are a definitive, life-changing part of you. This makes them very difficult to disrupt or disable.
Before injecting a mutagen or jumping into a glowing lake, it’s best to get some Mutation Slots.
One Honing option is to gain 2 Mutation Slots. These allow you to mutate…not without risk, but at a significantly lesser risk than without them.
Mutating without free Mutation Slots is possible, but almost always results in negatives; you roll 2d20, and then halve the lower roll to get your result.
There are lots of ways one can mutate in the radiation-filled post-poc.
Random, chaotic, unfortunate environmental corruption can trigger mutations, generally causing a single roll on the Mutation Table.
Deliberate - or even forced - taking of a mutagenic agent is more potent, causing two rolls on the Mutation Table.
All mutation is instantaneous; this isn’t a seed in your DNA, it’s the immediate sprouting of a fully grown tree.
Then it’s just sort of…there. Grown. Deeply rooted. Not going away.
Just having a mutation doesn’t guarantee that someone can be recognised as a mutant or as a mutated specimen of their species, especially by other genera.
Some mutations are subtle or completely unnoticeable – such as stronger organs or more intelligence – while others are immediately obvious – such as natural armour or an extra limb. It’s always possible, however, that normally obvious mutations could be hidden, disguised, or otherwise ignored. Similarly, the optional visual changes that come with mutations could make an internal mutation also influence one’s outward appearance.
Whether a mutation is recognised as such is left entirely to GM discretion, but certain results on the Mutation Table specify that they make a ‘noticeable physical change’ to indicate the traumatic nature of their effects. It’s also recommended that any outward change be reflected in a suitable visual alteration, but again this is left to GM discretion.
Beyond a certain point, the instigated changes at a genetic level can cause someone to cross the threshold from their former genus into being recognised as a ‘mutant’.
When a non-Mutant character gains their 5th total mutation (from any source), and again on all subsequent mutations, the GM rolls Body (RES) for Mutation against the character, using 1d20 plus their total number of mutations.
The character may choose to be beaten without rolling.
On a fail, the character’s **Genus changes** exactly as if they had rolled Genetics Rewritten (below).
Once a mutation takes root, it is very difficult to reverse it. Even if unsightly effects like bone protrusions are removed, the mutant’s genetic disposition towards them would always result in more growing to take their place. Anti-Mutagen serums are incredibly rare, expensive, and difficult to produce, but are able to target and reverse all effects of a single mutation, purging the body of it.
This frees up a Mutation Slot, if the mutation occupied one, and (often painfully) reverses any physical changes.