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AtB2 does have Mutant Human listed as an available species. Just don't buy any mutant abilities if you want a normal human. You get a few nice bonuses to bring you inline with the other species (Plus to IQ, PB, and I think MA, I don't have my book handy), so you shouldn't feel overly out classed.

I also wrote up a couple new backgrounds for someone playing a human character (optional of course, the standard backgrounds will work for a normal human, though a few will give you some Bio-E to play with).
Give me a minute to find them...

Ah, here we go.

Human Renegade
Your average Empire of Humanity citizen doesn't have a whole lot of contact with your average mutant (except mutant dogs and the occasional slave of course). Your typical soldier on the other hand comes into contact with them all the time, though usually through the sights of their weapon. Every so often one of those soldiers realizes that maybe these upright walking and talking 'animals' might just be, well, people too. They also realized that trying to exterminate these 'animals' is, well, wrong. Due to the constant indoctrinization and propaganda of the EoH these attitudes rarely happen to new recruits. But after a campaign or two here, a purged village or two there, these attitudes start to creep in causing the once loyal soldier to leave the Empire of Humanity and become a renegade.

Apprenticeship: None.

Primary Skills: Hand to Hand: Expert, Running, Climbing (+5%), Wilderness Survival (+5%), Land Navigation (+5%), W.P. Pistol, W.P. Auto and Semi-Automatic Rifles, W.P. Sub-Machinegun, W.P. Energy Rifle, one Ancient W.P. of choice, Literacy (+15%), Basic Math (+10%), four Military skills of choice, and a total of two skills selected from Rogue or Technical.

Secondary Skills: Choose any 10

Special Bonuses: +5 BIO-E (for animal abilities or psionics only, more may be gained through the usual measures), +1d4 PS, +1 PE, +1d6 Spd, +3d6 SCD (plus the usual bonuses for a mutant human)

Money: The character HAD a sizable nest egg, 2d4 times 10000 EoH credits, but they were all confiscated the moment he deserted. So far he's only managed to scrape together 1d4 times 100 bucks.

Equipment: A nearly worn out EoH uniform (might work for a disguise, but not for very long or under close scrutiny), a set of civilian clothes, two modern weapons of choice (EoH Energy weapons are available with GM approval), EoH Flac Jacket (AR 11, SDC 80).

Relatives & Connections: May have a few friends in his new life. In the EoH he might have a close firend or relative who might provide assistance, but most humans will consider him a traitor.

Human Exile
You were an average citizen of the Empire of Humanity, going about your daily life with out a care in the world. Well, except for the growing population of monsters taking over the world, or so the news reels say. But then on that fateful morning something horrible happened that turned your world upside down. You pissed off the wrong person. Or you got convicted of a crime. Or they discovered you weren't "pure" enough by whatever standard they decided on that week. No mater the reason why the effect is the same, they kicked you out or you fled before they could kill you. So now you're living with the 'monsters' and trying to find a way to survive.

Note, do not use the bonuses for Mutant Human. Use the following instead.

Reason for exile...
1-20% You're an aspiring politician and your more powerful rival decided his chances of re-election was better with you gone. +2 MA, +1 IQ, +3 PB
21-30% In a fit of passion you committed a capitol crime (murder, rape, kidnapping, treason, etc) but managed to escape before your scheduled execution. Note: for good alignments the crime might have been justified (say having to kill a high ranking official in self defense), but the death sentence was still given for what ever reason. +1 MA, +1 ME, +2 PS, +2 PE
31+50% Falsely convicted of a crime. You are totally innocent but can't prove it (yet). You feel that if you can clear your name you can rejoin the Empire. But until then you're making do the best you can. +2 ME, +2 IQ, +2 PB
51-60% You worked as a researcher, accountant, technician, etc for the government, and now you Know Too Much and have been deemed a security liability. Luckily you found out about it before they could arrest you. You have 1d4 government secrets that many groups would kill for. +3 IQ, +2 ME.
61-70% Wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe you took the last donut in the cafeteria, maybe you laughed at the wrong joke, maybe some high up official just wanted to flex his political muscles, or maybe he didn't like the shape of your ears, but all you know is that one night some soldiers stormed into your bed room, tied you up, and threw you out the front gate with no explanation as to why. +5 BIO-E, +1 IQ, +1 ME, +1 PB.
71-100% Not 'normal' enough. During the latest purge they determined you weren't 'pure' enough (though they didn't mind the last 8 purges). Fortunately since you could convince them that you're 'mostly' human they couldn't kill you so they just kicked you out. +10 BIO-E, have at least one vestigial disadvantage (your choice), +1 IQ, +1 MA

Apprenticeship: None.

Primary Skills: Basic Math (+15%), Advanced Math, Literacy (+15%), Writing, History, Computer Operation, 2 Pilot skills of choice, 2 Domestic skills of choice, and a total of 6 skills combinedl from Medical, Scientific, and Technical.

Secondary Skills: Choose any 10 (Note, can only chose Hand to Hand Basic)

Special Bonuses: See above.

Money: The character HAD a small nest egg, 3d6 times 1000 EoH credits, but they were all confiscated the moment he you left. So far you've only managed to scrape together 1d4 times 100 bucks.

Equipment: A set of clothes, 1 simple ancient weapon scrounged up somewhere (club, knife, chain, staff, etc), 1d4 small high tech devices you managed to hide on you when you were exiled, and some basic survival gear you managed to trade for (matches, a blanket, etc).

Relatives & Connections: May have a few friends in this new life. In the EoH you still have a few close friends or relatives who might provide assistance, but most humans will consider you a traitor.

I don't think you really need rules to play a non-mutant human in AtB. Just follow the character creation rules dropping Step 2 and Step 4.

Average Humans are Size Level 11 (pg 119), so they have a base SDC of 40 (pg 20). Or you could go with the base SDC from Heroes Unlimited or Beyond the Supernatural which was 30 (I think).

Also, you can still you the general Backgrounds and Apprenticeships found in the book, just ignore the BIO-E bonuses.

If you want to play an old human survivor, from before the Crash, just use the education tables from Heroes Unlimited or Beyond the Supernatural. Actually, Beyond the Supernatural (first edition) had rules for "Victim Characters" that would make excellent pure humans.

As for the percentage of humans born with super powers, there is nothing specifically stating how many might have "super powers", and in the Human Mutants section it adds Super-Powers as (Optional!) with the note, "Only if the Game Master so desires it..." Psionics are, however, listed as normal, so that could be what the "born with unusual powers" was referring to.



As for not having rules in TMNT or AtB for creating humans (mutant or otherwise), that is rather forgivable since it is a game centered on... (wait for it) ...mutant animals.

Should they have included rules for creating super-humans because Emperor Christian had mutant powers or Bionics because of General Ulster's bionic implants?

I don't think Erick or Kevin "dropped the ball" on explaining that the majority of the AtB population are underpowered mutants, since most competent GMs aren't going to figure that every character in the game setting are created from the same templates that Player Characters are. The fact is most of the population are going to be expressed as 6-12 hp non-player characters with no exceptional qualities whatsoever.

But that's just my opinion...

Here's the thing. I've NEVER considered your standard mutant animal in any ATB setting to be a "minor super powered" character. I consider them to be PLAYER Characters. Sort of a general rule of thumb of all RPGs, the players character is always above average compared to Joe NPC. A game is a story of a number of heroes (the players, unfortunately many GMs forget this), NOT a day in the life of a random everyman. The slightly above average stats of a Human PC reflect that indescribable something that makes a person a Hero, who changes the world around them just by existing, instead of the guy who just exists day by day. It's also a question of perspective. For example, in Ninjas and Superspies a character with 100 SDC and a specialized martial arts is a force to be reckoned with. In Rifts, he's a slightly above average size blood smear on the sidewalk. In AtB, he's pretty equal to both the mutant animal population and the humans who were tough enough to survive a FREAKING APOCOLYPSE. The wide scale application of survival of the fittest tends to mean everyone you encounter is, well, rather fit. Either physically or mentally, something had to be better than normal to make it past the big death.

Of course there's nothing saying you can't gimp a character if you want to. Heck, somewhere in my character folder is a HU character with a drive skill locked at 12%. The 'rules' say he should have around 80% (going of the top of my head, book not handy), but the 'character' I made is a bad driver, so I lowered it. If in your campaign all non-mutant humans (and in AtB2 they do state that 100% pure humans are practically extinct, most have some amount of mutation, and a large percentage of people who 'say' they're human are actually mutant PIGS) to have a mere 10sdc and a max stat of 16 go right a head. Some players like a chalange.

macksting wrote:Yet the stated differences between PCs and the standard population of mutant animals doesn't state that most of the mutant population is as weak as pre-Crash humans.

I don't see why it would need to, it's always been a given in any RPG setting. Like Fubarius says, "the players character is always above average compared to Joe NPC."

macksting wrote:BtS defaults to 30 SDC for PC humans? I'll have to look into that. It's awfully high for a non superheroic setting.

My bad, I was at work and didn't have a BtS or HU book in front of me (yes, I do keep a copy of AtB 2nd Ed at work with me). I was thinking that it was close to the base SDC for size 11 characters in AtB.

BtS1 and PF put base SDC at 1D6, 2D6 and 3D6 (depending on profession/background). Ordinary People (Adults and Teens) in BtS1 also received a +2D4 SDC. BtS2 base SDC is 1D10+12.

I couldn't find anything in HUrev2. HUrev1 put the "Typical Average Man" at 12 SDC, but I think PC Humans would be anything but Typical or Average. Unless you want to run them that way.

Remember that there really isn't a strict balance between all the megaverse settings.

What do you think is fair for a non-mutant human PC in AtB?

I have a theory on some of the printed NPC stat discrpencies, like how an elite soldier has less HP and SDC than a random encounter thug. It's about numbers encountered.

Lets say your group of heros bumps into some thugs. Just a few of them, but you want to keep it a bit of a challenge. So their stats get bumped up a little.

Now lets say your group faces a SQUAD of soldiers. You don't neccesarily want your players automatically massacred. So you have to mook the soldiers down a bit to give your group a chance. It's the well documented "Stormtrooper syndrom", the more of a group you face, the easier each individual in that group becomes to defeat. This is offset by the near endless suply of reinforcements.

Also take into the consideration the power of 'plot'. A real world example (sort of, it's TV related): The creator of Babylon 5 is often asked how fast the spaceships in that series are able to travel. His responce, "The speed of plot". This means if they're supposed to make it somewhere, they travel just fast enough to do it. If they're supposed to make it somewhere late, then they travel slow enough to be late.

To relate this to our situation, if in a campain it would be a major plot element that a certain engineer type NPC could possibly be killed by a stray bullet, then he has a low enough SDC and HP for that to happen. If the plot would be better if he would only be injured by that stray bullet, then he would have a high enough HP to just survive. And you can bet that if ANY of the players roll a 1 to hit, then they of course happen to shoot the engineer.

Great explanation and example!


Also loved the backgrounds you posted earlier.

I have to admit, I've been wanting to use the "speed of plot" example for a couple years now. This is the first time I got to use it

As for the G9s? beats me, haven't analyzed them much lately. Could be equipment related, the canines don't get access to power armor.

I think there are normal humans and mutant humans after the bomb, much like there will be normal animals and mutant animals. Some strains of both types will resist mutation.

Normal humans are going to be straight 3D6. I think it would be reasonable, for balance purposes, to assign them to a certain size level (between 7 and 12) to give them a base SDC and PS modifier.

Mutant humans should be rolled like mutant humans.

macksting wrote:(again, it appeals to my fondness for Kommandi)

I probably missed something somewhere, but what is Kommandi?