Sources of Bio-E, and other questions.

[13eowulf]

So, aside from the starting Bio-E one gets based on animal type, and the Bio-E gained from taking Vestigial Disadvantages are there other sources for Bio-E out there?
(And I dont just mean in the ATB books, but the TMNT books, Rifters, or other Palladium material)

Further, aside from Traits (like Hands, speech, etc.), Animal Mutant Powers, and Animal Psionics, are there other things Bio-E can be spent on?
I know there is a table in Mutants in Orbit that you can roll on if you have 10 or more Bio-E not used in creation... are there other such tidbits I have overlooked?
(I am aware of the Mutant Animals in HU2, however buying powers from there means you cant get Animal Psionics, so I am looking to see what else is around).

Additionally, what other things have you (the community at large) spent your Bio-E on, or allowed it to be spent on in your games? Enhancements from Splicers? Magic? Something Else?

[Nightmask]

Time travel can provide Bio-E, but it's mostly only useful when drawing an immature lifeform (infant or fetus) from far in the past, mature lifeforms don't generally gain enough to provide more than a trivial adjustment and the range of time you'd most likely travel over isn't enough to even notice.

Doc Feral built a device that provides Bio-E but I think it was restricted like time travel to being most effective on creatures that have been exposed to it since infancy (likely a 'plot device, don't let the PC have a means of adding Bio-E to themselves' restriction you can always drop off).

Bio-E can be used to purchase actually super-powers (the cost of 5 Bio-E for enhanced senses is a bargain).

Magic is something that Bio-E really shouldn't have to be spent on (particularly as of After The Bomb RPG being released). Learning magic is something a sentient mutant animal has as much shot of learning as any other sentient species.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Transdimensional TMNT has multiple options for +10 ---- +20 or more BIO-E points. Depending on when you come from. You don't even have to be a full out 'Time traveler". It could be as simple as an accidental hitch hiker or fell through a time hole type thing.

If you read through the book (( Which I have been for the past day or two)) There's even an option in one of the future twits, where the 'super advanced and some what creepy eden type humans' have such advanced genetics that they can 'fix' or do pretty much anything they want. It's a bit of a hand wave but it's indicated they can 'help' you with your mutation. Like.. if you had hands or speech partial.. with very very very little efffort they could make them full. Ect. Again, it'd be a bit of a GM hand wave, but it's there.


Personally I usually give +20 to +30 Bio-E on creation. (( if a guy accidently falling through time can get it, so can anyone else)) Just to let players have 'Fun" wiith their mutant animals. I've never found mutant animals to be vastly over powered, even with loads of bioE. So it doesn't hurt the game.

[glitterboy2098]

rifter #26 has "Mutants of Rifts Earth", which offers alternate origins for mutant animals to let them be made as native of rifts. most of the article isn't useful for an ATB game, but it does offer a table of origins that provide extra bio-E, including things like exposure to magic energy, hazardous chemicals, etc.

no reason you couldn't adapt these options into a table or chart offering extra Bio-e due to enviromental issues. (like exposure to radiation instead of magic for example)

[Pepsi Jedi]

rifter #26 has "Mutants of Rifts Earth", which offers alternate origins for mutant animals to let them be made as native of rifts. most of the article isn't useful for an ATB game, but it does offer a table of origins that provide extra bio-E, including things like exposure to magic energy, hazardous chemicals, etc.

no reason you couldn't adapt these options into a table or chart offering extra Bio-e due to enviromental issues. (like exposure to radiation instead of magic for example)

Makes sense considering the ORIGINAL cause of mutation for the the Turtles. *Reaches for the rifter* man they need to like.. make 'Big book of rifter collections" HU/TMNT/ATB/BTS .... Nightbane/Splicers/Dead Reign.... Rifts.

Collect the articles and put them out as books. I'd buy.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Small note. I checked the article and it doesn't address Bio-E. What it does do is give the option to just... make it up on the fly. lol "Look at the animal, give it full biped, hands and speech, but no looks, and add on some natural weapons and stuff" type thing. lol It's meant to allow mutant animals if you don't have TMNT or ATB or what ever b ut it's kinda funny.

Other than that it's a good Article. Richards did a good job. both incorporating mutant animals and "Human mutants"

[DevastationBob]

Why not just sell the Rifter articles instead of the Rifter Magazines?

[Tor]

I believe TMNT Adventures had an option (the giant mice adventure) of a bio-E machine.

It also included Bio-E cost for super-powers which was a lot lower than the ones HU gives for minor. You could buy major powers and things like Animal Abilities were free.

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

I tried just adding 1D4 x 5 Bio-e to see what would happen. We did this because to make a mutant with even reasonable mutant abilities they all were shrunk down to 3-5 feet tall (most often on the smallish side). We wound up with a SL 13 raccoon with all animal powers, full human traits, and no looks. He weighed 300+lbs. We scrapped the idea as being no good.

Either you wound up with an unstoppable juggernaut of average size, or something enormously huge that didn't really need to be.

[Nightmask]

I tried just adding 1D4 x 5 Bio-e to see what would happen. We did this because to make a mutant with even reasonable mutant abilities they all were shrunk down to 3-5 feet tall (most often on the smallish side). We wound up with a SL 13 raccoon with all animal powers, full human traits, and no looks. He weighed 300+lbs. We scrapped the idea as being no good.

Either you wound up with an unstoppable juggernaut of average size, or something enormously huge that didn't really need to be.

Okay not seeing how that's possible, the max is 20 Bio-E and the cost for just the enhanced senses alone would eat all of that and more let alone the rest of the animal abilities a raccoon has available.

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

Okay not seeing how that's possible, the max is 20 Bio-E and the cost for just the enhanced senses alone would eat all of that and more let alone the rest of the animal abilities a raccoon has available.

TMNT&OSr Raccoon to be specific. Not nearly as many options as a AtB2 Raccoon.

(hope this doesn't get me in any trouble)

Raccoon SL 4 55 Bio-e
-5 for full hands (auto partial)
-10 full biped
-10 full speech
-0 human looks none
-5 adv touch
-5 adv hearing
----------------
55-35 = 20/5 for each SL
--------------
SL 4 + 4 more levels
-----------
SL 8 +20 bio-e. As odd as it seemed every time we tried it, it came out the max of 20. The idea was, 5bio is enough for a adv. sense. and 20 might be the extra nudge needed for the suped up animal power (thinking rhino, elephant..etc)
(nothing left to buy, all goes to growth steps)
----------------
SL 12 short build (ok so I was 1 size off) = 250+6D10LBs and 48 +2D6 inches for max of 5'0" tall and 310lbs

[Nightmask]

Okay not seeing how that's possible, the max is 20 Bio-E and the cost for just the enhanced senses alone would eat all of that and more let alone the rest of the animal abilities a raccoon has available.

TMNT&OSr Raccoon to be specific. Not nearly as many options as a AtB2 Raccoon.

(hope this doesn't get me in any trouble)

Raccoon SL 4 55 Bio-e
-5 for full hands (auto partial)
-10 full biped
-10 full speech
-0 human looks none
-5 adv touch
-5 adv hearing
----------------
55-35 = 20/5 for each SL
--------------
SL 4 + 4 more levels
-----------
SL 8 +20 bio-e. As odd as it seemed every time we tried it, it came out the max of 20. The idea was, 5bio is enough for a adv. sense. and 20 might be the extra nudge needed for the suped up animal power (thinking rhino, elephant..etc)
(nothing left to buy, all goes to growth steps)
----------------
SL 12 short build (ok so I was 1 size off) = 250+6D10LBs and 48 +2D6 inches for max of 5'0" tall and 310lbs

I do wonder where he can up with his figures for the short build option, a raccoon of that size with that weight wouldn't even be able to get around without help

[Tor]

the Bio-E gained from taking Vestigial Disadvantages

Were these introduced in the second edition of After the Bomb? I don't recall coming across them in TMNT or first ATB.

it's indicated they can 'help' you with your mutation. Like.. if you had hands or speech partial.. with very very very little efffort they could make them full

That's reading a little into it. The statement on pg 84 is "should any PCs complain of an illness or genetic problem, the humans of this era will find it enjoyable and challenging to fix it".

These guys are pros but let's keep in mind their experience is with plants, and we're still not clear on what they're able to accomplish with them.

[green.nova343]

I believe TMNT Adventures had an option (the giant mice adventure) of a bio-E machine.

It also included Bio-E cost for super-powers which was a lot lower than the ones HU gives for minor. You could buy major powers and things like Animal Abilities were free.

Yes, it did. The LFA/Life-Force Accelerator machine could boost Bio-E to be used to increase the Size Level, attributes (+1 to an attribute per Bio-E), and even S.D.C. (2 points per Bio-E), with any additional Bio-E added after that causing the "random super-powers".

Only problem was....it said you could get the results by putting the mutant animal in the machine "for 2 hours per day" every day, but you had to start when they were babies, & supposedly will be at the "monster" level within 6 months...but it doesn't say how long it takes to accumulate Bio-E (if I had to hazard a guess, though, I'd say 1 point/day).

As for the super-powers....it's based on the HU 1st Edition (i.e. pre-Revised, equivalent to the character generation for the Justice Machine sourcebook), where even HU characters only had 1 power. So, mutant animals get 50 Bio-E to spend first on a single super-power, with any leftover available for the usual Bio-E expenditures.

If you want to update it for HU Revised, or even HU2, rules, I'd say drop the extra 50 Bio-E, & for a super-powered mutant animal they roll on the super-powers table for Experiments. GMs that think that makes the animals too powerful can always cut the normal powers to half normal; however, given that mutant animals have a lack of education when compared to human characters, and that their "choose a single superpower" was equal to the old rules for human superheroes, I'd recommend just using the random roll as-is.

[Tor]

Yeah true, it's difficult to exploit the bio-e rules for the LFA without knowing the rate at which Bio-E is accumulated. We might be able to puzzle that out though.

If we can calculate how much bio-E the mice need to get the stats they have versus how much mice normally have, we would know how much 'extra' they got, and by dividing that extra by the amount of time they spend in the LFA, we get the bio E per time rate.

[green.nova343]

Yeah true, it's difficult to exploit the bio-e rules for the LFA without knowing the rate at which Bio-E is accumulated. We might be able to puzzle that out though.

If we can calculate how much bio-E the mice need to get the stats they have versus how much mice normally have, we would know how much 'extra' they got, and by dividing that extra by the amount of time they spend in the LFA, we get the bio E per time rate.

I would assume at least 50 Bio-E, since the "monster mice" had super-powers. IIRC, it also says you could use the extra Bio-E to boost stats, S.D.C., or even Size Levels...but mentions that after a certain point you start getting "side-effects".

At a guess, though, I'm going to say that it's probably something like 1 Bio-E per day of exposure, with at least 2 hours of exposure per day. That gives them 180 Bio-E (note that some of the powers that later end up being "Major" category in HU Revised/2nd Edition can cost as much as 65 Bio-E), so figure 50-60 points went to the powers & the rest were used to "super-size" them. That's just a very rough guess, though.

[Tor]

What category they're in in HU2 doesn't matter, we know the fixed Bio-E costs for the specific powers each of the three mice already has.

The major difficulty in calculating their Bio-E though is that since Bio-E can be used to increase attributes, we don't know how much of their attributes would come from the natural 3d6 rolls versus how much came from boosting.

Based on that, we would only be able to introduce a range (min v max) of bio-E that they have to give us an estimate of the bio-E rate per time.

Although getting the bio E per day rate during their growth period wouldn't necessarily tell us how many hours per day... whether it's 2 hours or 24 hours...