The Sprawl Doc

Intro

The past three class deep-dive blogs covered the Street Samurai, the Agent, and the Netdiver. Each of these three classes is the premier class for combat, stealth/covert, and netdiving gameplay respectively, in House of Eidolons. That leaves the next two classes to fill what I like to call the generalist role, they can be built to operate well in several spheres of play but are not as directed as the classes mentioned above.  

The Sprawl Doc, in its own way, is another classic character of the cyberpunk future. They are the clinicians of the future working clinics and cyberware parlors, hooking the common man up with tech, mutations, and medical attention. They are specialists in the human body and the human condition. In a world where the body is just another commodity you can upgrade, swap out, and customize, the sprawl docs are never short on business. The Sprawl Doc class is House of Eidolons' answer to a support-based class and as you will see further on, it can play that role exceedingly well. 

Design Philosophy

In general, the sprawl docs in both literature and games have always been present in a cyberpunk setting but rarely are they the main characters or get any kind of real attention. We thought that these characters were cool and interesting and should get more attention in cyberpunk worlds, so we made a class out of them! Just like in the fiction, they are experts in modifying, enhancing, and revitalizing the human body and we designed them to do just that, both in and out of combat. 

As mentioned above, the Sprawl Doc is perhaps best categorized as a support class, though it certainly is not limited to just that. Because the Sprawl Doc is a support class I would say that it is a bit more difficult to play, not because it has terribly complex mechanics or interacting with abstract spaces but because whenever you play the support role it can often feel less impactful than doing direct damage or being a key piece of the puzzle. Instead, as a support, you boost, protect, and keep your team going in a multitude of different ways, this can often be more impactful than any other role but will almost always feel less. 

The Sprawl Doc class also has a strong directionality that makes it want to be very active in between missions becoming an economic powerhouse for themselves and the party. We wanted the Sprawl Doc to offer the team support both in-mission and out, this often looks on the surface like sub-par abilities but when applied correctly can really boost the team.

Ability Tree Deep Dive!

In House of Eidolons, we handle classes a little differently than many other TTRPGs. Opting for a class multi-tree approach that allows the player agency in ability choice and progression. Each class (except for the Psion, more on that in the future) has 3 ability trees to choose from and progress down. All classes also have a universal Passive Ability that the character receives when choosing their primary class. For the Sprawl Doc, these trees are the: Cyber Doc, Chem Chef, and Field Medic trees. Each of these trees emphasizes a different way to support the team with some favoring the support much more than others. The Cyber Doc tree is for those who love cybernetic augmentation and really want to go ham with Cybernetic modification. It is the least “supporty” of the trees but supports by being the strongest economic engine of the three trees. The next is the Chem Chef tree and this tree is for those who want to really explore the world of pharmaceutical drugs in the cyberpunk future. This tree favors the constant use of drugs to enhance yourself and your team or to mess with your enemies. Not only so but its ability to craft custom drugs allows you to make drugs never before seen and with unparalleled effects. Lastly, the Field Medic tree is for those who really want to play the class healer role. It is a strong support role that uses drugs and reactive gameplay to keep your team alive and effective at all times. 

Passive Ability:

The Sprawl Docs passive ability is called Gutter Work and unlike most other passive abilities it is built for in-between missions and allows the class to be the most economically powerful class in the game. Gutter Work:

In between missions, you may make a Streetwise (Illegal) or Civics (Legal) check to peddle and procure pharmacy, organics, and cyberware above or below value. The result of the check is the % increase to sell value (over book) and the % discount to purchase items (under book) rounded to the nearest 5.

This passive might not seem like much or very interesting to the untrained eye but in the right hands, the Sprawl Doc will be repoing cybernetics, collecting gear, and crafting what they can and then selling those items/gear at far higher prices than any other class could dream of. In a game where everything comes down to crypt, it turns out that more crypt in your pocket helps, a lot!

Cyber Doc

The Cyber Doc, as the name implies, is all about cybernetics. Putting them in, ripping them out, and upgrading them again, and again. When it comes to cybernetic self modification there simply is no class that can do it better or take cybernetic body modification as far as the cyber doc can. Like all ability trees, it has 3 abilities that are unlocked progressively and a 4th focused ability for those who choose not to sub-class but stay focused in the Sprawl Doc.

The first ability of the Cyber Doc tree is called: Cybernetic Savant

• All Cybernetics and Cybernetic Modifications have +5 to their CSV

• You may spend 1 edge dice and a free action to activate one of the following:

• Leg Cybernetics: Gain a +5 bonus to your next Athletics skills check.

• Arm Cybernetics: Gain a +3 bonus to your next  Combat skills attack check with Strength or Dexterity.

• Torso Cybernetics: Gain a +5 bonus to your next Reaction check

• Head Cybernetics: Gain a +5 bonus to your next Awareness check

If you have read through my Omni-N and Netdiving blog here then you know that any and every piece of technology is connected near-always to the Omni-Network and that anything connected to Omni-N can be hacked by Netdivers. The same goes for cybernetics and losing control of your cybernetic arm to a netdiver to have them aim it and shoot your ally is not something you or your ally really want. Cyber Security Value is the innate defense of tech and thanks to Gutter Work the Sprawl Docs cybernetics are simply the hardest to hack. In addition, the ability allows the Sprawl Doc to push his cybernetics further than any other class, providing strong skill check bonuses depending on where the cybernetic is located. When starting a Cyber Doc it is encouraged that you spread out your cybernetics to make full use of this ability. 

The second ability of this tree is called: Repoman

• You gain a bonus of +5 to all Technician and Medical checks made to craft, repair, and install cybernetics.

• You gain a bonus of +5 to all Technician and Medical checks made to remove and preserve cybernetics and organics salvaged from a creature.

• You may choose to give any attack you make the [Neutralise] tag and upon neutralizing a body segment of a target you may choose to remove all damage tags previously applied to that body segment. (Neutralised Body segments are only ever considered incapacitated for injury/repair purposes).

Repoman like many of the Sprawl Doc abilities might not seem all that great until you start to look at the class as a whole. What Repoman allows the doc to do is craft (yes there is crafting in this game!) cybernetics and modifications for himself and his team for greatly reduced prices thanks to the hearty bonuses he gets with this ability, supporting economically. In addition, the second two functions of this ability are all about helping the doc preserve tech, mutations, and organs of downed enemies to harvest and sell when the mission is over, yay! This ability is all about crypt and in combination with the passive ability makes the Cyber Doc a crypt machine. 

The third ability in the tree is called: Cyberware Affinity

• You may support an additional 15% of your body mass as cybernetics

• AKA: Your cybernetic threshold increases by +15%

• At the start of a mission, you gain +1 edge dice for every S-Class Cybernetic installed (Body segment that is fully cybernetic).

In House of Eidolons, a character may only ever have 60% of their body replaced with cybernetics. Anything more than that drives a person mad and the character will be lost. Like everything else in the Cyber Docs kit, it can take cybernetics further and in this way too, the cyber doc can self-modify itself to 75% cybernetics, allowing there to be quite a bit more machine! In addition, the more body segments that are fully cybernetic means the more edge dice for the doc to toss out, probably to enhance their cybernetics with Cybernetic Savant. 

• There may be a way to increase your Cybernetic threshold even further, *cough*

Lastly, the fourth and final ability (only available for Focus Classed characters) is called: All but Human

• If a body segment is S-Class cybernetic (fully cybernetic) that body segment gains +2 hard/soft points.

• These hard/soft points may be allocated to any subsegment of the body segment.

• If this ability is not selected for a mission, any cybernetic modification installed using these hard/soft points is uninstalled and the +2 hard/soft points are removed.  

All but Human seems subtle and not very much like a focused ability but boy that would be wrong. This ability opens up modification potential that no other class could ever achieve and the combinations can and will get bonkers. The cyber doc becomes the most robo of boys/girls out there, capable of a terrifying amount of cybernetic shenanigans, it is epic!

The Cyber Doc tree, as you can see is a tree that supports through being an out-of-combat economic engine for themselves and the team. In addition, with the strong emphasis and ability to install and overdrive cybernetics, the Cyber Doc can become a terrifyingly dangerous foe with strong versatility. Lastly, because cybernetics can take a character in so many different directions, how the cyber doc modifies themselves can allow them to play in a lot of spheres of play. A great tree for actualizing your cybernetic hero power fantasy! 

Chem Chef

The candy-man can~! The Chem Chef tree is all about pharmaceutical drugs and this Sprawl Doc has all the good stuff that everyone wants. This tree can play a strong support role or just selfishly utilize those sweet chemicals for maximum self-enhancement. It takes the power of drugs in the game and steadily turns them up to make you and your allies stronger than ever or to debilitate your enemies. You will see in the abilities below the Juice Boxing word, this is the process of crafting/combining two drugs together to make a custom drug, and the Chem Chef loves to cook these up. 

The first ability of the Chem Chef tree is called: Break Bad

• Juice Boxing: While using items to aid in juice boxing (Chem Still, Distillery, Centrifuge) you gain an additional +5 bonus to your Medicine or Academia check.

• You may administer a dose of pharma using a sub-action or reaction (instead of using an action)

• You may prepare and draw/stow pharma with a free-action

• When purchasing, crafting, or juice boxing pharma you always receive 2 doses of that drug instead of 1 dose

Break Bad primarily adds a great deal of utility and flexibility to using drugs in mission. The ability to administer drugs with a sub-action or reaction and draw/stow them with a free action allows for quick support and enhanced action economy. The other two elements of this ability enhance the economic and crafting abilities of Chem Chef, giving them more custom chemicals for less and with more potency and kick. Because this class favors consumable items heavily they must have abilities that help them swing the cost of transient items. 

The second ability in this tree is called: Quality Chemicals

• Juice Boxing: You may remove a single hangover effect before completing your juice box

• Juice Boxing: You may choose the J.Duration and H.Duration of the finished product by adding +5 to the threshold value for each duration you would like to choose.

• You select from the pharma profiles being used to Juice Box with

• When administering a pharma or having a pharma administered to you, you may pay 1 edge dice to adjust the potency value by +1 or -1.

• This ability may take the potency value to 0. Potency 0 has no effect and is inert.

Quality Chemicals continues the Juice Boxing enhancement trend, allowing the Chem Chef to further stretch and tailor their juice boxes to make them more pure with fewer negative effects while ensuring they have longer positive effects and shorter negative effects. In addition, the Chem Chef can get more or less out of an administered drug, allowing them to really push the utility and versatility of their drugs in mission. 

The third ability of this tree is called: Mr. Cool-Aid (Oh Yeah!)

• Juice Boxing: You may combine 3 different drugs into a single juice box. Adjust crafting rules for three drugs instead of two.

• You ignore any penalties for addiction

Mr. Cool-Aid takes chemical crafting one step further, allowing the Chem Chef to craft concoctions that no cook could come close to. Not only so, but the Chem Chef simply ignores the penalties for becoming addicted to drugs, allowing them to get the most out of these powerful drugs without most of the penalties that everyone else would be dealing with.  

Lastly, the fourth and final ability (only available for Focus Classed characters) is called: Junky Monkey

• Juice Boxing: You may remove 2 Juiced effects before completing your juice box

• Juice Boxing: You may Juice Box using juice boxes you created

• For every drug classification that you have reached Junky in, you gain +1 edge dice at the start of a mission.

Junky Monkey is the cherry on top for cooking the perfect chemical delicacy. Through this ability, it becomes possible for the Chem Chef to concoct no-penalty drugs or extremely toxic and debilitating ones. In addition, the more the Chem Chef samples their own supply the more edge dice they have to work with in future missions. Bon Appetite!

The Chem Chef tree does not have a lot of direct impact abilities which means it is often overlooked until you and your allies realize just how great drugs can be on the battlefield and for any sphere of play in the game. Having the ability to tailor drug formulas to serve niche and exact functions makes for incredible support capabilities or self-enhancement potential. When you take the tree in its entirety, in between missions you will be cooking and juice boxing like crazy to make amazingly powerful drugs to fit every situation you might come across, and let me just say this, pure strain Razor mixed with two other drugs is going to be wild! 

Field Medic

The Field Medic tree is as the name implies, all about support and saving the sorry assess of all your teammates who get themselves in endlessly bad situations. This tree is for those who want to be the lifeline of your team and keep them going through situations that they have no right to survive. It is heavily focused on healing your allies and boosting their capabilities, usually while in combat. 

The first ability of the Field Medic tree is called: Fast Medicine

• When you use an item or skill that adds hp to yourself or another target you may use and roll an edge dice to increase the amount of health restored by the value of the edge dice.

• You gain a +3 bonus to medicine checks when made for an ally.

Fast Medicine immediately solidifies your role as a team healer and signals that this class is a hard support class. The ability to slap on a few more hp might not seem super great (especially if you are used to a meatbag system) but in House of Eidolons where each body segment usually only has 10 hp it makes a significant difference. In addition, having a little extra boost to medicine checks helps with stabilizing and supporting allies who are hurting. 

The second ability of this tree is called: Immune Booster

• You gain a +5 bonus to Medicine checks when growing or administering genetic mutations and a +5 bonus to Medicine checks when regrowing organic sub-segments.

• Whenever administering a pharma item it also provides +1 edge dice to the target that had the pharma dose administered. A single character may only benefit from this 3 times per mission.

• In addition, you may use a sub-action when within 5ft of an ally, making a Medicine Threshold 15 check. On success, you transfer a single edge dice from your character to theirs.

Immune Booster allows your character to grow and administer genetic mutations to the party, like a Cyber Doc but for organic modification. In addition and most importantly, this ability is one of the few ability trees that can act as an edge dice battery for your team and does it better than any other class period. The ability to give extra edge dice with drug doses is very strong and when coupled with Hypo (healing) or Stim (more edge dice) will make you very loved by your allies, especially your team's Psion(s). Lastly, you may even give your own edge dice to your allies, driving home the edge dice battery statement for this class. 

The third ability of this tree is called:  From the Brink

• When an ally has a body segment reach the mortally wounded or dead injury condition you may immediately make a reaction and make a full movement towards them. If within 5ft of them, you may also make a Medicine Threshold 20 check and heal the segment 1 hp. This can bring a segment back from the dead injury condition. Lastly, you may administer a single dose of a pharma item if you have one.

• After performing this reaction your next turn may only be a half-movement and then end.

From the Brink is for that situation when the battered team street samurai gets a frag grenade to the chest and is bleeding all over the place. This ability can reverse a mission-failing situation and get your ally back into the fight or operable to complete what they need too. Though you lose your turn to do this it is an amazing fail-safe ability that you will be happy to have for that (hopefully) rare situation. 

Lastly, the fourth and final ability (only available for Focus Classed characters) is called: Emergency Made

• You gain +1 edge dice the first time an ally is wounded in a mission.

• Once per mission, you may use a sub-action when within 5ft of an ally and make a Medicine Threshold 20 check and provide +1 Capstone to that ally.

Emergency Made helps the Field Medic get back edge dice that are often doled out to heal up allies or replenish their edge dice stores. In addition, any ability or thing in House of Eidolons that can give a Capstone is both rare and very powerful. The Field Medic is quite simply the strongest support class and a class everyone will appreciate having while they take the glory and get all bloody and buggered up doing it. 

As you can see, the Field Medic tree is truly all about sacrificial support and wants to use their action economy to support their allies. Their ability to heal and function as an edge dice battery is unparalleled allowing your team to take on more dangerous and taxing situations then they ever could have done on their own. If you love playing the support and being their to keep your team going then this tree is for you and pairs very nicely with the other two trees in this class. 

Conclusion of the Class

So there you have it! The Sprawl Doc class is a strong support class that supports its team in a multitude of ways, from economic to direct support. If you love the cyborg nature of cybernetics in cyberpunk settings then no class will do it better in House of Eidolons. In the same way, if you enjoy buffing and debuffing then the Chem Chef is for you and the things you will cook will be legendary! Lastly, at the end of the day if support is your shtick, then the Field Medic is for you and will keep that frown upside down on all your mates, guaranteed! 

I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the class and I hope you consider giving this class a try. It is a great class for those who really enjoy support, cybernetics, and drugs and is also a great class for leaning into the out-of-mission crafting and selling systems of House of Eidolons. There is a lot to explore in this game and Sprawl Doc helps you do that with many of the systems that will get overlooked at first. 

Next week, we dive into the Psion, and boy will that be a doozy, might even require two blogs! Hope you join me again for that class and don’t forget to follow me on social media for more news and updates! Social links can be found on the right-hand side of the page.

Also, come join us on our official discord channel. Both Gunvald and I are on often and would love to talk and chat more about the game!  

https://discord.com/invite/areGQRtc 

Lastly, if you want to see this game become a reality more quickly and want to have opportunities to play before release then go check out our Patreon! It is newly live and scarce at the moment but there will be more coming soon.

https://www.patreon.com/HouseofEidolons

Until next time Eidolon! 

 

Consumables

 

Mass Consumption

For today's blog, we are going to tackle the consumable item concept and explore how House of Eidolons handles consumables. This will be a shorter blog but will give a glimpse into our thoughts around consumables and how we handle them.

First, let me say flat out, that there will be NO ammo counting. No fretting about the ammo count in your clip, the arrows in your quiver, or anything like that. We believe that ammo counting is an antiquated system that seems interesting at first but just becomes a major headache for most people for a pen-and-paper game tabletop. If you are really into that sort of thing, by all means, add it back in but our system is really not built to have to fuss about ammo count, we feel that is an anti-fun system and one that works against a player's power fantasy.

However, we are playing in a Cyberpunk universe where consumerism is rampant and a part of everyday life and many items in the game do get consumed upon use. Before we jump into what these are and how we handle them let's look at the issues with consumable items in TTRPGs and explore our thoughts around them. 

The Problem with Consumption

So, the classic problem with items that you consume is that you spend money for an item that has one or a few uses and then is gone. It is not like a weapon or armor that sticks with you. So naturally, to be spending money on something that doesn't last means it needs to be useful or essential enough to justify the cost and temporary nature of it. This is where consumables usually live and die. They are either not good enough to justify the cost or too good that they are required and just become a sort of tax on the character. 

In either situation above, consumables become an anti-fun mechanic and often find themselves on an endless roller-coaster of adjustments to try and make them just right. In House of Eidolons, we avoid much of this tumult through the general Plug-&-Play design philosophy. Consumables are allowed to be powerful but ultimately do not make or break a character unless you want them to be a key element of the character. 

Second, consumables like special ammunition types get consumed upon use but stay active and usable for the entire mission. This allows the player to get the most out of their purchase without having to count bullets, it's just assumed that enough was purchased to last you the single operation. 

Lastly, classes with ability trees that focus a bit more on consumables, like the Chem Chef tree of the Sprawl Doc, have abilities that greatly increase the capacity to purchase and manufacture consumables that the class likes to use making it a much more economically friendly endeavor and ramping up the power for those consumables. 

What We Consume

So what are the consumable items in House of Eidolons?

Firstly, there is what we call Special Ammunition. Special Ammunition is a kind of ammunition that can be loaded into any normal ballistic firearm and shot. It provides some sort of bonus damage or effect helping increase the versatility and lethality of your firearm weapon of choice. An example of special ammunition would be Incendiary Rounds. This ammunition type applies the [Burn:2] tag to enemies hit by the rounds, effectively starting them on fire. As mentioned above, special ammunitions are consumed at the start of a mission execution and last for the entire mission. This way, we circumvent bullet counting and you can just enjoy catching your enemies on fire with napalm bullets, yay!

Second, are explosive ordinance. There is a nice array of, primarily, grenades available for purchase that can really help in combat, both offensively and defensively. Grenades are one-use thrown weapons that explode in all kinds of fun and destructive ways and are a great choice for any character who finds themselves in combat regularly. They are especially effective at dealing with mobs and helping control the board. A grenade in the right situation can be a game-changer. In our last mission, for example, one character tossed out a poison gas grenade right as a major security unit came out of their room. This de-buffed the entire unit making them much easier to contend with and ultimately making a substantial difference in the team's ability to deal with the major threat. 

Finally, pharmaceuticals are the last consumable in the game. These are all the colorful drugs you can inject into yourself or another for a wide range of effects. Drugs, like explosives, are one-use items that substantially buff or hinder the target they are injected into. They can range in effect, from adding bonuses to skills or attributes, granting bonus edge dice, or even healing back hp. Drugs, like all the other consumables, are just additional systems you can choose to interact with and spend money on. They can have a significant impact but by no means are essential. In the right hands though they can be extremely powerful. 

There are a few other general items in the game that are consumed but, generally speaking, the above three categories are the only consumables in House of Eidolons. They are fun additions that help round out a character or add some extra “umph” and are powerful enough to warrant the costs but by no means are necessary. They also open up character and class options that hinge on their consumable items making for a fun and powerful play option that does manage resources, if that is what the player doesn't mind doing. 

Like everything in House of Eidolons, the agency is given to the players to determine how they play and what they want to deal with. Consumables are just another option that some will love and others will dislike but either way, the choice is the players and either choice is good and powerful in its own ways. 

Thanks for joining this brief foray into House of Eidolons' consumable items! 

Until next time, Eidolons.