Mass Effect: Legends (My attempt at True 20 Mass Effect)

[paintedsamurai]

Hey guys its been a while since i have been on the boards lost my original information and life got in the way. Anyways i though i would harken my return with my WIP of Mass Effect True 20. Please let me know what you think.

So far i have all the player races ready to go still working out the roles, biotic and tech powers (tech might be feat based) and some new feats.

So here is what i got so far.

Asari
The asari were the first species to discover the Citadel. When the salarians arrived, it was the asari who proposed the establishment of the Citadel Council to maintain peace throughout the galaxy. Since then, the asari have served as the mediators and centrists of the councils.
An all-female race, the asari reproduce through a form of parthenogenesis. Each asari can attune her nervous system to a that of another individual of any gender, and of any species, to reproduce. This capability has led to unseemly and inaccurate rumors about asari promiscuity.
Asari can live for over 1000 years, passing through three stages of life. In the Maiden stage, they wander restlessly, seeking new knowledge and experience. When the Matron stage begins, they 'meld' with interesting partners to produce their offspring. This ends when they reach the Matriarch stage, where they assume the roles of leaders and councilors.

Racial Abilities: +1 Cha +1 Wis -1 Str -1 Con
Bonus Feats: Attractive, Talented (Bluff, Sense Motive)
Bonus Power: Mind Touch
Favored Power: Mind Touch (Treat total level as adept level for this power)

Krogan
The krogan evolved in a hostile and vicious environment. Until the invention of gunpowder weapon, 'eaten by predators' was still the number one cause of krogan fatalities. Afterwards, it was 'death by gunshot'.
When the salarians discovered them, the krogan were a brutal, primitive species struggling to survive a self-inflicted nuclear winter. The salarians culturally uplifted them, teaching them to use and build modern technology so they could serve as soldiers in the Rachni War.
Liberated from the harsh conditions from their homeworld, the quick-breeding krogan experienced an
unprecedented population explosion. They began to colonize nearby worlds, even though these worlds were already inhabited. The Krogan Rebellions lasted nearly a century, only ending when the turians unleashed the genophage, a salarian-developed bioweapon that crushed all krogan resistance.
The genophage makes only one in 1000 pregnancies viable, and today the krogan are a slowly dying breed. Understandably, the krogan harbor a grudge against all other species, specially the turians.

Racial Abilities: +1 Con +1 Str -1 Cha -1Int
Bonus Feats: Endurance, Tough,
Favored Feats : All Out Attack, Rage

Quarians
Driven from their home system by the geth nearly three centuries ago, most quarians now live aboard the Migrant Fleet, a flotilla of fifty thousand vessels ranging in size from passenger shuttles to mobile space stations.
Home to 17 million quarians, the flotilla understandably has scarce resources. Because of this, each quarian must go on a rite of passage known as the Pilgrimage when they come of age. They leave the fleet and only return once they have found something of value they can bring back to their people.
Other species often tend to look down on the quarians for creating the geth and for the negative impact their fleet has when it enters a system. This has led to may myths and rumors about the quarians, including the belief that under their cloths and breathing masks, they are actually cybernetic creatures: a combination of organic and synthetic parts.

Racial Abilities: +1 Int -1 Con
Eviro-Suit Dependent: Quarians require an environmental suit to survive outside the Migrant Fleet. A Quarian Environmental Suit is the equivilent of a Light Combat Hard-Suit. They receive this free at 1st level.
Bonus Feat: Armor Training, Talented (Craft, Kn: Technology)
Favored Feats: Jack of all Trades, Improvised Tools

Salarians
The second species to join the Citadel, the salarians are warm-blooded amphibians with a hyperactive metabolism. Salarians think fast, talk fast, and move fast. To salarians, other species seem sluggish and dullwitted. Unfortunately, their metabolic speed leaves them with a relatively short lifespan, salarians over the age of 40 are a rarity.
The salarians were responsible for advancing the development of the primitive krogan species to use as soldiers during the Rachni Wars. They were also behind the creation of the genophage bioweapon the turians used to quell the Krogan Rebellions several centuries later.
Salarians are known for their observational capability and non-linear thinking. This manifests as an aptitude for research and espionage. They are constantly
experimenting and inventing, and it is generally accepted that they always know more then they let on.

Racial Abilities: +1 Dex +1 Int -1 Con -1 Str
Bonus Feats : Lightning Reflexes, Skill Focus (Any Technical)
Favored Feats: Assesment, Skill Mastery

TURIAN
Roughly 1200 years ago, the turians were invited to join the Citadel Council to fulfill the role of galactic peacekeeper. The turians have the largest fleet in Citadel space, and they make up the single largest portion of the Council's military forces.
As their territory and influence has spread, the turians have come to rely on the salarians for military intelligence and the asari for diplomacy. Despite a somewhat colonia lattitude towards the rest of the galaxy, the ruling Hierarchy understands they would lose more than they would gain if the other two races were ever removed.
Turians come from an autocratic society that values discipline and possesses a strong sense of
personal and collective honor. There is lingering animosity between turians and humans over the First Contact War of 2157, which is known as the "Relay 314 Incident" to the turians. Officially, however, the two species are allies and they enjoy civil, if cool, diplomatic relations.

Racial Abilities: +1 Wis -1Cha
Bonus Feats: Dedicated, Iron Will
Bonus Skill: any
Drell
Drell are omnivorous reptile-like humanoids with an average lifespan of 85 galactic standard years. Drell appearance is very similar to asari and humans, but their muscle tissue is slightly denser, giving them a wiry strength. Many of their more reptilian features are concealed, however one unique characteristic is the hyoid bone in their throats, which allows them to inflate their throats and produce vocal sounds outside of the human range. They also have two sets of eyelids, like crocodiles. Drell possess the ability to shed tears.
Because the drell ancestors emerged from arid, rocky deserts, the humid, ocean-covered hanar homeworld of Kahje proved tolerable only when the drell stayed inside a climate-controlled dome city. The leading cause of death for drell on Kahje is Kepral's Syndrome, caused by cumulative long-term exposure to a humid climate. This syndrome erodes the ability of drell lungs to take in oxygen, and eventually spreads out to other organs. It is noncommunicable, and there is currently no known cure, though leading hanar scientific authorities are working on creating a genetic adaptation.
The drell possess eidetic memory, an adaptation to a world where they must remember the location of every necessary resource (vegetation, drinkable water and prey migration paths) across vast distances. The memories are so strong that an external stimulus can trigger a powerful memory recall. These recalls are so vivid and detailed that some drell may mistake it for reality. Thane Krios, for example, remembers every assassination he has ever performed and can describe them in flawless detail, and says he prefers to spend a lonely night with the perfect memory of another. This process can be involuntary.

Racial Abilities: +1 dex -1 Int -1 Con (In humid environments)
Bonus Feats: Eidetic Memory, Dedicated
Bonus Skills: Acrobatics, Survival

[FroshKiller]

It's interesting to see how your interpretations differ from mine. I came up with backgrounds for the alien races using the system in the Space Adventures chapter of Revised. I'm not big on ability adjustments, so I tried to keep mine very simple.

I gave the asari +1 Wisdom, +1 Charisma, and -1 Strength. The only bonus feat I gave them was Attractive, and I chose Move Object as their favored power. I figured that the mind meld they use to reproduce wasn't accurately represented by Mind Touch and chose to treat it as flavor text.

The krogan get +1 natural armor in lieu of ability adjustments. I gave them Endurance and Diehard as bonus feats. I considered Tough but decided that krogan are harder to kill than they are to hurt, so Diehard seemed more appropriate. Rage and Tough are favored feats, though.

I didn't give quarians any ability adjustments, but I struggled with how to represent their weakened immune systems. It's not a penalty to Constitution, per se, since there are plenty of tough quarians who are just susceptible to infect. I decided to just handwave it as a -2 penalty to Fortitude saves vs. disease. I'm not sure whether that's the right number, though.

They get two bonus skills of the player's choice and Salvage as a bonus feat. I tried to keep my backgrounds as core as possible, but since the Space Adventures information is in the core now, I though it'd be okay. Quarians also get access to Improvised Tools and Skill Mastery as favored feats.

Salarians get +1 Wisdom and -1 Constitution. I based this on the information on salarians in the Codex, giving them Wisdom over Intelligence to reflect their "observational capacity and non-linear thinking," since the bonuses would go to Notice, Concentration, etc. They get Eidetic Memory (easy to overlook in the Codex), Light Sleeper, and Improved Initiative as bonus feats.

Light Sleeper was a tough one. Technically, salarians only need an hour of sleep, but there wasn't anything in my True20 materials that approximated this, so I thought it'd be close enough.

Anyway, salarians also get access to Jack of All Trades and Seize Initiative as favored feats. My thought was that they think quickly and act quickly, hence the emphasis on initiative.

I should mention that I gave a lot of thought to giving them Assessment and Lightning Reflexes. Those seem like great choices, too.

Turians gave me the most trouble. According to the games, turians are stronger than humans and pretty formidable, but they look so fragile to me. I settled on +1 Strength and -1 Constitution specifically because the Codex says they're strong but can be decked by a fit human.

I also gave them a +3 natural attack to reflect their predatory evolution. One of the Cerberus Daily News updates mentioned a turian accidentally nicking a camerawoman's carotid artery, and she later died from it. Seems pretty serious.

Turians get Armor Training (light) as a bonus feat to reflect their compulsory military service. Similarly, they have access to Attack Specialization and Master Plan as favored feats.

I did consider Dedicated and Iron Will for them, but I think that was mostly because Garrus so strongly informed my view of turians. I tried to keep my backgrounds general to the races.

I gave the drell Eidetic Memory as a bonus feat (obviously) as well as Iron Will. I figure that they are so used to living in their own heads and experiencing perfect memories that they probably have decent Will saves. They also get a bonus skill of the player's choice to reflect hanar patronage.

I kinda wanted to say that humans had access to the occupational backgrounds in the chapter, but I settled on a bonus feat and bonus skill of the player's choice.

Batarians and vorcha didn't seem appropriate for PCs, and elcor proved to be way too fiddly, but I did stat up a volus background. They are Small, get access to Well-Informed and Elusive Target as favored feats, and receive three bonus feats: Wealthy, Connected, and Benefit, which I left wide open.

As far as quarian & volus armors go, I figure they get the basic environment suits (read: not armor) for free. Any playable race should probably receive the necessary equipment to move around the Citadel for free.

[kaimonkey]

I'm running a ME campaign and am going to use these as the backgrounds. I have been working on a few house rules to make the game more "Mass Effect" however.

Firstly I scraped adept and made (using the role creation rules) the biotic and the engineer. This allowed me to select the powers that fit the engineer that aren't skills (Reprogram Construct and EMP blast come to mind). I used split combat progression to allow the biontics to have better defense in combat in return for their limited powers, while engineers have slow combat progression, and have very weak combat defense bonus. To make up for this engineers have more skill points (7 + int) and access to both adept and expert feats.

I also added in a new damage track: Shields. Shields are based on int and have to be "burnt" through before you can damage their toughness. On a shield save against damage a save still results in -1 shields. A failure or 5 or less is -2 shields. 10 or less is shields deactivated, and 15 or less is deactivated and the same attack also hits the toughness of a character. While shields are up no powers can be used on the character, except for elemental blast (energy) and EMP blast.

[FroshKiller]

There's actually a feature for armor in the Space Adventures chapter called Ablative Shield that kinda works like that. Armor with this feature has its own damage track, and its protection dissipates once it's disabled. It gets +3 recovery check every other round.

[paintedsamurai]

thanks for the input currently working out whether or not make seperate roles or use career Paths to replicate the classes in ME 2