Inquisitor Character Story

Before there was a Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying game, we used to sometimes use the Inquisitor rules to do some action heavy roleplaying campaigns. This is the background story I wrote for my character in one of our campaigns.

Cameron Frist was born on the relatively backwater colonial planet Abraxis, located on the outer rim in the Donorian sector. His parents were successful merchants, and his family was relatively well off. Cameron had an older brother named Donovan, and a younger sister Selena. They lived in a rural area outside the city where his parents worked.

From a very early age Cameron showed an interest and curiosity in animals. He loved going into the nearby woods and just watching the animals all day long. He studied their characteristics and their behavior intently. When he was old enough to go to college, Cameron chose to study anatomy and biology. However, since there was no money and no real point in knowing about animals, Cameron's parents insisted he learn something more practical. So Cameron studied human anatomy and went into the medical field, which his parents led him into.

With his natural curiosity and natural aptitude for anatomy and physiology, Cameron learned quickly. He became a very good and very successful surgeon. He was making a good living, and his parents were quite proud of Cameron's successes. But before long, his normal life would change forever.

In the far outskirts of the city, in the very wilderness areas, mutilated bodies began turning up. The bodies appeared to have been torn apart by animals. People generally avoided the areas far from the cities, as they were very dangerous and wild areas that the people knew nothing of. Cameron became curious about what was going on and what creatures lived out in the unexplored wilderness regions.

The bodies continued turning up, and with increasing frequency. Even more alarming, they were turning up closer and closer to the outskirts of the city. The pattern of bodies moved in from the wilderness towards the city. Cameron had seen some of the bodies, and wondered what manner of creature could make the grievous wounds he saw.

Then Dr. Frist got a patient that would change his life. A man had survived an attack by what was believed to be the same creatures that caused all the killings. The man was severely wounded, and barely survived. Some farmers found him as he deliriously fled the creature that had attacked him. The man was brought to the city hospital. The surgeons there were his only hope of surviving. Dr. Frist managed to save the man's life, although he remained on life support machines. In his brief periods of consciousness, he described to the fascinated doctor the encounter he had with the hellish creature that nearly killed him.

Government official, seeing that this was getting out of hand, reported the incident and the other killings to imperial authorities. Before long an imperial commando team showed up, accompanied by Tech Priest Nikolai Tesla. Nikolai was an expert in alien creature and was there to investigate. He went to talk to the man who had survived being attacked. This is where he met Doctor Frist. They got along immediately. Frist was fascinated by Nikolai's knowledge and experiences with all manner of alien creatures.

After taking Nikolai to talk with the injured man, Frist told him everything else he had managed to learn about the attacks. They then talked at great length about their theories of what kind of creature they were dealing with. Nikolai told Dr. Frist that he believed the attacks were being committed by creatures known as clawed fiends of the Donorian sector. Very little was known about them. Only that they are found on many planets throughout the sector, and no one knows how they got there. They normally show up in large groups and seem to act in a highly organized manner, similar to a hive of bees.

Frist was fascinated by this. He offered to help Nikolai, saying that his knowledge of the planet and its animal life and ecosystem could be useful to him. Nikolai was happy to meet a like-minded, inquisitive individual. Very few such people exist in this galaxy. He agreed to work together.

They spent much time going over the pattern of attacks, examining the mutilated bodies, going over the survivor's testimony, and studying all the data they had. Meanwhile, the attacks continued to occur, and with increasing frequency. They didn't seem to be moving closer to the city anymore, but instead spreading out in a ring around it. They still had no pictures or good accounts of what these creatures were or where they were coming from. Cameron Frist suggested that if they could capture a living specimen they would be able to obtain invaluable information from it. Nikolai was against the idea, but eventually agree when it became clear that they weren't getting anywhere with the information they had.

Frist, Nikolai, and the Imperial Guard Commando team (which was 2 squads of 10 men) set out to capture a living specimen. They traveled way outside the city into the unexplored wilderness outside civilization. They went only a little way into this area, being as cautious as possible. When they needed to camp, the perimeter was always guarded by 5 of the men. Frist was given a weapon and taught how to use it by the soldiers, in case he would need to defend himself.

After a few days, they came upon a cave and went inside to explore. They moved slowly and quietly. Deep in the cave, they came upon an area that looked like many cambers had been dug out of the rock. They saw in one of the chambers what appeared to be a nest, with a creature sleeping in it. It was the size of a young bear, with enormous claws. The soldiers got into position aiming at the creature and waited for the Nikolai to make his move. Nikolai fired a device that was built into his bionic arm. It fired off a massive electric discharge, which struck the creature. The creature leaped up, then it's body immediately seized up and it collapsed to the ground, smoking slightly. Nikolai checked the creature and founded it to still be alive. He instructed two of the solders to carry it. They tied it up and began to carry it.

Suddenly, one of the soldiers yelled out "we've got live signals all around us. They're everywhere." Nikolai shouted back, "It's a trap! Get out of here!" That's all the time they had before the creatures were upon them. They sprang out of all the surrounding chambers with a speed that was incredible for their immense size. From every direction, the massive creatures poured out of their chambers and attacked. The soldiers began firing off in all directions. Frist was stunned and terrified as the hellish firefight erupted. Through the carnage, Nikolai yelled to the soldiers with the captured fiend to follow him. Several of the soldiers had already been attacked and ripped to shreds by the monsters. Blood and guts covered the floor and walls of the chamber.

Once he had begun to recover his wits, Frist began to fire away randomly at the beasts. One of them leapt down from the ceiling at Frist, and with one brutal swing the creature severed Frist's arm with it's claws. Frist screamed in pain as his right arm, still clinging to his weapon, fell to the ground. The creature then back-handed the doctor, who flew across the chamber into the far wall. Many of his ribs were crushed and pierced his internal organs. Frist landed on the ground, unconscious. Nikolai, blasting away at the creatures, saw Cameron fly across the room. He looked over to see his friend and student lying on the ground. He yelled "FRIST!" One of the creatures leapt onto Frist and began devouring his legs. Nikolai ran towards Frist, blowing the creature's head off with his autopistol. Nikolai pushed the creature off his friend. He discovered that Frist was still alive. Nikolai picked Cameron up on one arm, turning around to gun down another of the creatures with the autopisol in his other.

"We've got to get out of here," Nikolai shouted to the troops. "There's too many of them!" The captain of the team shouted that they'd hold the creatures off. He instructed Nikolai to take a few men and get out of there with the specimen. The two soldiers carrying the fiend and two other soldiers went with Nikolai. Five stayed behind to hold off the creatures. The others were already dead.

The five brave men who stayed behind sold their lives courageously, and managed to buy enough time for the others to get out. Most of the creatures were held up by these five men for the precious couple of minutes it took for the creatures to overwhelm and slaughter them. But it was enough. The others blasted their way out past the creatures that had surrounded them and ran for their lives. Another of the soldiers was killed when a wounded fiend, lying on the ground, lashed its claws out at him as he ran. The rest made it out of the cave. The remaining solder not carrying the captured specimen dropped all his grenades at the cave entrance as they ran out. The resulting explosion killed several creatures and collapsed enough of the cave entrance to stall the pursuit.

As soon as they had a chance, Nikolai set Frist down to check on him. At his point, Nikolai was coated in his friend's blood, but amazingly Frist was still alive. Nikolai set to work sewing up Frist's terrible wounds so that he would survive the trip back to civilization. Nikolai managed to stop his bleeding and stabilize him. They then wasted no time getting back to the city as quickly as possible.

A few days later, Cameron Frist regained consciousness. Nikolai had saved his life by repairing him with bionic parts. Utilizing his skills as a tech priest, Nikolai gave Frist a bionic right arm, bionic legs, and some bionic organs. Once Frist recovered, he could function normally with his new bionic parts. After explaining this to Frist, Nikolai moved on to some more disturbing news.

After having spread out in order to encircle the city, the clawed fiends had finally made their move. In one swift, coordinated attack, they all swarmed forward out of the wilderness. Everyone was fleeing in terror towards the city in the face of this massive onslaught. The sheer distance the beasts had to cover meant that there was still time before the horde reached the city. The suburbs and rural areas would surely be lost, but the planetary defense forces were mobilizing to set up a defensive perimeter around the city itself. It may still be possible, Nikolai explained, to defend the city from them.

Frist was stunned at the news. Everything was falling apart. Could those nightmarish creatures be stopped before they overran the city? Or would everyone be slaughtered? Frist became determined, more than ever before, to find a way to stop them. Frist and Nikolai set to work studying the living specimen they had, keeping it alive but performing all manner of medical and scientific tests on it. They worked frantically against the clock as the tide of clawed fiends flowed toward the city.

Meanwhile, the defense of the city was being organized by Donovan Frist, who had become a Captain in the Planetary Defense Force. They hadn't had much time, but did the best they could to set up makeshift defenses and try to defend the border of the entire city while letting through the thousands of fleeing refugees. Camps were set up within the borders to house the fleeing citizens, but it wasn't enough to prevent complete chaos from breaking out in the crowded streets.

Then, sooner than anyone had hoped, the creatures were upon them. The loyal defenders were able to take out many of them at long range, but it didn't seem to matter. There were overwhelming numbers if the monsters, and they just kept coming in a massive, unstoppable swarm. The defenders held at their posts as long as they could. Eventually they had to fall back. Donovan ordered that defensive fire be kept up while they moved the defensive lines further into the city.

As this was happening, Frist and Nikolai were making their breakthrough. Combining their knowledge of alien life forms animal physiology, they managed to come up with a way to kill the creatures. They had created a poison that was relatively harmless to humans, but would kill the clawed fiends. They came up with this by realizing that they clawed fiends, being not from this planet, had a completely different physiology from the life of this planet. So they were able to some up with a chemical mixture that the life on this planet had adapted to but that would, in the proper mixture, kill the clawed fiends.

They were very confident they had the perfect weapon to use against the monsters, so they tested their chemical on their living specimen. Sure enough, it killed the creature almost immediately upon inhaling the substance. Unfortunately, they didn't have the materials or the facilities to mass-produce the gas in the city. They would have to go somewhere else, make enough of it to wipe the creatures out, and come back with it. Frist and Nikolai took the instructions on making the chemical and a sample and set out of the spaceport.

When they went outside, they were greeted with complete chaos. The creatures had just broken through the military's defensive line. The Planetary Defense Forces were now fighting running battles with the monsters in the streets of the city. All hell was breaking loose. Clawed Fiends were running rampant in the streets while people screaming and fled in terror. Gunshots were heard everywhere in every direction. Just then, Cameron's brother Captain Donovan Frist showed up at the lab.

Donovan asked Frist if he knew where their parents and sister were at, and if they had managed to escape. Frist, having spent the past week in the lab, had no idea what had become of his family. "You've got to get out of here, Cameron," Donovan said. “They've broken through. We can’t hold them off any longer.” Cameron quickly explained to his brother that they had discovered a poison that could kill all the clawed fiends. They needed only to make it to the spaceport so they could escape with the formula and return with enough poison to rid the planet of the beasts. Donovan understood the importance of preserving this discovery.

Unfortunately, the defense of the area around the spaceport had been devastated. The entire area was completely unsecured and likely overrun with the clawed fiends. Donovan still held out hope. He ordered all the troops he could round up in the area to escort Frist and Nikolai to the spaceport. Donovan led the mission personally.

Gathering up the last of their ammo, the beleaguered troops set out on their most desperate mission. Donovan led them in an insane charge of deadly fire and blood and death through the streets of the city. Many of the soldiers were killed as they charged through the hordes of creatures permeating the doomed city. But none of them broke. They continued to run through the city, screaming madly and gunning down dozens of fiends in a running battle.

Donovan himself, leading the charge, was brutally slaughtered by one of the beasts. But Frist had no time to even mourn his brother’s death. The men continued sprinting and firing until they had finally reached the spaceport. The few remaining soldiers, perhaps some of the last in the entire city, set up a perimeter. Frist and Nikolai made it to their ship. Luckily, the remaining three Imperial Guard Commandos managed to protect the ship from being stolen by rioting mobs. It was one of the only ships left in the city. The periodic evacuation ships had stopped coming once the city’s defenses failed. Everyone else was now trapped. Those who had come here hoping to catch one of the last transports out all lay dead in a heap outside the spaceport.

But there was no time to think about the devastation that had been wrought. Frist and Nikolai escaped in the ship. They made their way as quickly as possible to the nearest Imperial world…

A few weeks later, Cameron Frist and Nikolai Tesla returned to Abraxis at the head of a small Imperial fleet. By this time, the city where Frist had spent most of his life was gone. His family was dead, and everything he knew was gone. His home was completely overrun with clawed fiends who had begun digging caves and tunnel complexes where the devastated city used to be. They had consolidated and started regrouping, perhaps in preparation of spreading out to attack another city. Frist noticed that they fought in a highly organized and coordinated manner for such primitive beasts.

As Frist and Nikolai watched, the entire city and its outskirts and massive areas of wilderness were saturated with chemical weapons from the orbiting fleet. The poison they used was not fatal to humans, but would prove devastating to the environment and very harmful to the population. But it had the intended effect of killing hundreds of thousands of clawed fiends.

For Frist, it was a bittersweet victory. He had already lost everything. And deep down, he knew that many of the fiends had likely survived the attack, hiding deep within their cave labyrinths. And from the behavior of the clawed fiends, Frist strongly suspected that somewhere on this planet was a queen that was controlling their behavior in their coordinated attacks on the city. They would be back. He knew it. If not on this planet, then certainly on others. His work was just beginning.

In the aftermath of this incident, Frist chose to stay with Nikolai. He had nothing to go back to on Abraxis. Nikolai was so impressed with both the courage and intelligence of the doctor that he offered Frist a position as a tech priest. He would have the same job that Nikolai did: to study and collect data on alien races in order to identify their weaknesses so they could be purged from the galaxy. Frist gladly accepted, and has had this position ever since, performing it quite successfully.

Dr. Cameron Frist had already seen much turmoil and violence, but he would soon discover that his adventures were just beginning…

Inquisitor Motorcycle Rules

For a few missions in an Inquisitor campaign that I was gamesmaster for, I needed to have some characters on motorcycles. In one, the player characters had to fight off a hive biker gang. So I had to come up with some rules for riding motorcycles in Inquisitor. The rules I came up with are simple, but worked really well. If anyone else still plays Inquisitor, these rules might come in handy.

Bike Rules
Speed:
There are four speeds that someone can travel at on a motorcycle. They can be not moving, going 20 yards/turn, 40 yards/turn, or 60 yards/turn. A character can spend their first action in a turn to speed up or slow down one level. This will take effect immediately, so the bike moves at the new speed this turn. The bike movies straight ahead the entire speed distance in a turn. The player may use actions to turn the bike as described below. It takes one action to get on a bike and start it. The next turn the player will be moving at the slowest speed and can accelerate that turn if they wish.

Actions:
When riding a motorcycle, a character rolls their actions before declaring them. Actions can be used on normal things and combined as normal. Characters can’t do anything that would require their right hand, since it must be used to operate the motorcycle.

Turning:
An action can be spent to turn up to 45 degrees. This can be done at any point during the movement of the bike. Any number of actions can be spent this way in a turn. Some other actions can be combined with turning, such as shooting, but the success chance of these actions will be halved. Accelerating or decelerating cannot be combined with turning. An action can be spent doing a skid turn of 90 degrees. If this is done, the rider takes an initiative test with a negative modifier equal to half their speed. If they fail, they fall off the bike.

Shooting:
When shooting at or from a speeding bike is difficult, and therefore there is an additional negative to hit modifier. To determine it, determine which is moving faster, the shooter or target. The number of yards/turn they are moving is the to-hit modifier.

When a shot hits someone riding a bike, the shot may either hit the bike or the rider. Roll a D10 and consult the chart to determine what was hit:
1-4: The rider. Determine damage as normal. If knockback damage is done or the rider takes any damage the must pass an initiative test or fall off the bike.
5-6: Tire. Randomly determine if it was the front or back tire. If the shot penetrates the bike’s armor, the tire goes flat. The rider must pass an initiative test or he falls off the bike. The max speed of the bike also goes down by one level. Further hits to the same tire have no effect.
7: Gas tank. If the shot penetrates the bikes armor, it is now leaking fuel. The top speed of the bike will decrease by one level each turn until it is out of gas and can no longer move. Any flaming or exploding attacks that hit the bike will cause it to explode with the effect of a frag grenade and the rider crashes.
8: Hydraulics. If the shot penetrates the bike’s armor, the bike can no longer turn.
9-10: Nothing. The shot hits the bike in a non-vital spot and has no effect.

Assaulting:
It is impossible to maintain an assault against someone on a bike who can just drive away. When charging a bike, the charger only gets one attack. There is a negative to-hit modifier in combat that is the same as when shooting at someone on a bike. The rider cannot parry or dodge the attack in any way. If an injury level is done to the bike rider, the rider must pass an initiative test or fall off the bike. If knockback damage is done, the rider automatically falls off the bike.

Bike riders can do hit-and-run attacks. If they pass by within 3 yards of someone, they can have one hand-to-hand attack against them. The defender can dodge but not parry. If the attack hits, it does normal damage plus extra damage equal to the bike’s speed (in yards/turn) divided by 10.

Bumping:
Bike riders can nudge each other. If a bike passes by within 3 yards of another, the rider can choose to ram the other bike. If so, the rider takes an initiative test. If he fails, he falls off the bike. If he passes, the amount he passed by is a negative modifier on the other rider’s initiative test. Either way, the rammed bike rider takes an initiative test (no modifier if the rammer failed his test). If he fails, he falls off his bike.

Falling/Crashing:
If a bike hits a wall or another bike head on, the rider crashes. If a rider crashes, he takes (speed/10) hits at D6 + (speed/10) damage. If a rider falls off his bike, he takes (speed/10) hits at D6 + (speed/20). The bike and rider skid along the ground so that they go the distance the bike would have traveled this turn.

Inquisitor House Rules

The following are some house rules my gaming group used when we played a few Inquisitor campaigns. Some of these rules we came up with ourselves, others we found and compiled. Let me know if you have any good house rules you've used in your Inquisitor games.

SHOOTING
Semi-auto shooting
Rather than -10% per shot, the penalty for firing on semi auto is the weapon’s weight. Each shot fired below the maximum reduces the penalty by 10, to a minimum of -10. Plasma weapons firing in the semi(2) mode are an exception and follow the normal rules (-20 to hit).

Auto shooting
Apply modifiers for distance, aiming, and movement to character’s BS and then divide the result by 4. Add +5% for each additional target above one in the target group. This is the required to hit roll for all the shots. Divide shots equally amongst the targets in the group, then roll to hit.

Pistols
A pistol that is being held in both hands counts as a rested weapon when fired (+10 to hit).

Pinning
-10 semi-auto fire
-20 full auto fire
-10 loud weapons (bolters, stubber, revolver, shotgun, etc.)
-20 flame weapons
-10 heavy weapons

Any characters, friend or foe, within 3 yards of the character being shot at must also test for pinning with all the same modifiers.

Shotguns and stubbers
Shotguns, sawn off shotguns, and pump action combat shotguns do 2D6+4 damage rather than 2D6+2. In addition, shotguns firing normal rounds count double damage for knockback. However, at ranges above 20 yards they do 1 less damage per 2 yards over 20. The pump action shotgun loses its semi (3) mode. The Automatic Combat Shotgun is single/semi (2/3).

Stub guns have range E, not F.

Basic weapons fired in one hand
Characters can only fire basic weapons in one hand if their strength in that arm is greater than or equal to the weapon’s weight. Characters firing a basic weapon in one hand suffer an extra -20 to hit penalty, unless their strength in that arm is double the weapon's weight.

CLOSE COMBAT
Dodging
Try using Initiative instead of Weapon Skill for dodging. Do not add the +20 from the rulebook; instead add +1 per point of WS over 50, up to a maximum of +20.

When doing an “advance and attack” action in close combat, the attacker adds +10 to hit.

Weapon Reach
Weapon Reach does not count when parrying - only when rolling to hit.

Using two weapons
If you have two weapons and manage to counter attack after parrying with only one of them, you can use the other to make the counter. If you do this, your opponent suffers -20 to parry or dodge. If they have two weapons as well they can parry the counter with the one they didn’t use for the initial attack, in which case they do not suffer the penalty.

Blunt Close Combat Weapons
Blunt weapons (rifle buts, unarmed attacks, staffs, etc.) can’t do more than the third level of damage to any location.

INJURIES AND RECOVERY
Hit location
Characters are not allowed to make placed shots to the groin.
Do not add the +20 to the location roll when in close combat.

Leg wounds
The penalty for a Heavy leg wound is -1 to movement rates and -10 to Dodge in Close Combat, rather than -1 Speed.

Fatal Damage
If a hit inflicts an amount of damage (after armor deductions) equal to half a character's Toughness, that's Fatal Damage. What this means is that the location has been absolutely blown apart or ripped to shreds by the hit.

If it's the head you're dead anyway so it doesn't matter (although you can imagine the head is severed and sent flying somewhere); if it's the groin, you're bleeding VERY badly and so add 2D6 to your injury total per recovery phase instead of D3; if it's the chest or abdomen; you're dead; and if it's a limb, the limb is torn off. Also, because your injury total is now equal to half your Toughness, you'll always suffer system shock too.

Recovery
A character only tests for recovery at the end of a turn in which he was wounded (had points added to his injury total).

When performing recovery actions, a character can only heal a location injury down to one level below the highest level it has been at in the current battle. Location injury levels that the character started the battle with can’t be healed during the battle. A character must have their hands free to perform a recovery action.

The character must spend at least an entire turn performing the recovery action. For each action they successfully roll above the first they add +10 to their toughness for the recovery test. For each level of injury they have above the first in the location they are trying to heal, they get –10 to their toughness for the recovery test. If failed, the location cannot be healed this battle. Rolls of 96-100 always fail.

If they pass the recovery test, they location they were healing recovers on injury level. The character also subtracts 2D3 from their injury total (+1 for each full 10 pts of toughness over 50, +1 for each level of injury above light that the location had).


MISCELLANEOUS
Encumbrance
A character can carry a certain amount of equipment before their performance is impaired. The amount a character can carry (their Encumbrance value) is equal to their strength x 2, after all modifiers. Add up the weight of all the weapons and equipment carried. Close combat weapons count as having a weight of five times their reach. Chain weapons and power weapons double this. A character’s armor weighs one per point of armor they have. All other equipment without a specified weight is treated as having a weight of five.

The total weight of a character’s equipment is compared to their Encumbrance value. If their weight is less than or equal, it has no effect. If the weight is up to 25 points higher, the character is at –10 to their initiative. For every further 25 points, or part, that their equipment is more than their encumbrance value, the character is at a further –10 to their initiative and reduces all movement rates by one yard. No model may carry more than twice their Encumbrance value.

The Psi-Track power
The psyker can only initiate a Track on someone they have detected by some means (including the Detection psychic power).

Primitive weapons
Knives and bayonets do D10 damage instead of D6.
Where the primitive weapon chart lists a D3 for damage, call it a D6; however, armor counts double against them (heavy clothing = 4, flak = 6, mesh = 8 etc.).

Knockback
A quick one: hits to the arms count half damage for knockback.

Characteristic advancement
When you do something in a game you have a chance of getting better at it. This is handled by comparing what you did in the game to the criteria for advancement; if you did that thing, you can make a characteristic test to determine if you improve at it. The criteria are as follows:

Characteristic - Criteria
Weapon Skill - Made a critical Close Combat attack
Ballistic Skill - Hit with a placed shot
Initiative - Performed amazingly well in the battle
Willpower - Successfully cast or dispelled several psychic powers
Nerve - Passed many pinning tests
Leadership - Achieved a scenario objective

You make a characteristic test by rolling a D100: if you score over your current skill in that characteristic, you improve; add +1% to that stat (the better you are, the less there is left to learn).

Talented characters
Some characters are simply more gifted than other people. For this reason, here's a rule for talented characters.

When creating the character you can opt to check to see if the character has any innate ability in a given area. Each of the stats that can be improved with experience (WS, BS, I, Wp, Nv, Ld) has a 10% chance of being an area that that character has the potential to excel in. If a character has a talent for a particular stat, roll 2D10; the result is the bonus the character receives when making experience tests for that stat. This means they should both improve more quickly and reach a higher total ability than characters who aren't talented in that area (the 2D10 roll represents the extent of their talent).

You can record this in the Campaign Notes section of the WD261 campaign character sheet; for example, if you'd got talents in Ballistic Skill and Nerve, you could write "Talents: Marksmanship (12), Courage (8)".

TALENTS
Astropath
Astro-telepaths are blind, but posess an uncanny psychic sense of location and have the ability to feel the very souls of others. For most purposes Astropaths count as fully sighted, with the following exceptions:
Astropaths have a 360 degree sight arc for the purposes of awareness. When taking vision-based awareness tests, use the astropath's Willpower characteristic rather than their Initiative; the stronger the astropath, the more likely they are to sense the presence of others.

Note that because this ability partially relies on sensing the environment as well as the life-force of other characters, Astropaths do suffer a modifier for covered locations although it is reduced to -2 per location covered, rather than -5. Characters who would be completely out of sight behind an obstacle cannot be detected in this way. The modifiers for movement and environmental conditions do not apply; other modifiers apply as normal.

Automaton
We devised this ability for things like robots and mind-wiped servitors, who would be slow and ponderous but unlikely to be suddenly distracted. The character (or robot, or cyborg etc.) halves their Speed, but automatically passes all their action rolls. This makes Automatons very predictable, which can be a benefit for their controllers but is also handy for the their opponents!

Brawler
The character is adept at street fighting, dirty tricks and the impromptu use of makeshift weaponry. A Brawler inflicts +D3 damage with unarmed and improvised attacks, including knuckledusters and gauntlets (for a total damage of 2D3 plus any weapon and Strength bonuses).

Hipshooting
A modification of an existing skill, this one. Hipshooting is a bit weird because, although it's possible for a character to be good at shooting on the move, surely they would never be quite as effective as when shooting standing still?

For this reason we tend to say that Hipshooting, rather than completely negating the movement penalty, changes it from -5% per yard moved to -1% per yard. In this way the character with the skill has a big bonus, but it's still slightly to their advantage to stay still.

Jump Up
The character is very agile and can spring to their feet with a quick flip or roll. If the character is prone and not stunned at the start of his turn, he can stand without using an action if he passes an Initiative test.

Stealth
The character is used to moving silently and making the best use of cover to stay out of sight. Other characters halve the range at which they can hear a character with this ability moving if they are walking or sneaking. Sneaking is not a Risky action for characters with Stealth. Vision bonuses for movement are halved, and penalties for covered locations are doubled.