6 Million Dollar Men

[christ0pher]

Does anyone have experience running a campaign similar to this idea:

A loose remake of the Six Million Dollar Man, set in the modern day, a group of healthy military volunteers are subjected to a year long process of surgeries and daily injections of nano-machine packages that gradually alter and enhance them. The soldiers (PC’s) are now operatives for a government agency that handles all manner of special situations from augmenting existing troops/federal agents to dealing with international crisis. Their status as bionically enhanced has to remain a closely guarded secret.

Here’s the package of enhancements that I worked up for the game:

Bionics (-10% Super Science) Total: 720
Breath-Holding 2 B41
Damage Resistance 5 Tough Skin B47
Damage Resistance 20 Limited (Crushing) B47
Enhanced Move (Ground: Running) 2 B52
Enhanced Time Sense B52
High Pain Threshold B59
Increased Dexterity 5 B15
Increased Health 10 B14
Increased Strength 40 B14
Infravision B60
Nictitating Membrane 1 B71
Parabolic Hearing 4 B72
Regeneration Regular B80
Resistant Metabolic Hazards B81
Subsonic Hearing 5 B89
Telescopic Vision 4 B92
Temperature Tolerance 4 B93
Unusual Biochemistry B160
Secret (Nano-Bionically Enhanced) Possible Death B152
Maintenance People Required: 1 person, Frequency: Monthly B143

Possible baddies include: high-tech ninjas, villains with TL9 Battlesuits (UT182), rogue US bionically enhanced soldiers unhinged by the process, Russian and/or Chinese bionically enhanced assets…

I’m looking for critiques or suggestions, please.

[ericthered]

The ETS does feel a little out of place ...

Its a good concept. Frankly a lot of that is just being able to walk around with a bunch of gear without people noticing -- which is a fun game.

You can also have a good amount of fun in situations where the foes' threat to the players aren't near as important as their threat to others if the attack is detected.

If I was running the program I'd pick a special ops team and use them to rescue hostages and raid high stakes facilities. You can bend it towards action rather than supers.

[Minuteman37]

A group of Biologically augmented soldiers from a previous generation of the program. Their augmentation isn't as advanced as the PC's, but it did include a dramatic life extending serum that's allowed the Super Soldiers to remain in top fighting shape for longer then the PC's have been alive. So they're far more experienced and skill to make up the difference.


Questions that need answering

• Why have they gone rogue?
• Why isn't the program using this method any more?

Maybe the program is morally ambiguous if not strait up evil and the Super Soldiers are true patriots who went rogue to write their previous wrongs. In this scenario the formula involved secret nazi methods to produce the chemicals that we still can't replicate so the only super soldiers are from the first batch created just after WWII.

Or perhaps the method isn't used because it produces mental instability in it's subjects and the Super soldiers are Vietnam Vets who've gone rogue do to a combination of PTSD, regret and paranoia from their actions in the war and the side effects of the treatment.

Also you could even use both these examples in the same game. The program managed to replicate the formula, but with an additional side effect that caused mental instability. The WWII vets go rogue when they found out the program knew about the flaw in the formula and still when through with it to produce soldier to fight the Russians in the event the Cold War heated up.

[christ0pher]

The ETS was meant to show some of the neurological/reflex improvement from having some manner of nano-bionic stuff going on in the brain.

Those are the types of "dungeon crawl" missions I'm leaning towards, hostages and raids, but I want to throw in serious threats like some of the baddies I listed. Give them something they can't push around so easily once in awhile.

[christ0pher]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

A group of Biologically augmented soldiers from a previous generation of the program. Their augmentation isn't as advanced as the PC's, but it did include a dramatic life extending serum that's allowed the Super Soldiers to remain in top fighting shape for longer then the PC's have been alive. So they're far more experienced and skill to make up the difference.

Oh, I like that! That's going on the list. Thank you.

[mlangsdorf]

HT +10 and ST +40 is a lot. ST 50 gives BL 250 and 5d+2 thr damage, which means they can lift football players off the ground one-handed and casually and then punch them as hard as a 5.56mm hits. That's a lot. Meanwhile, HT 20 gives them near immunity to common disruptive agents like pepper spray and to death in general - come to think of it, it'll take about 300 injury to kill one of them, which means ... huh, it looks like they can take the HEAT round from a T-72 without dying (6dx7 (10) cr ex is ~150 injury, plus another 80 from the explosion). Fine if that's what you're visualizing, but that might be a bit much.

Surprisingly, they don't have Fit. Might not matter with those HT numbers, but I'd still expect them to have it.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

HT +10 and ST +40 is a lot. ST 50 gives BL 250 and 5d+2 thr damage, which means they can lift football players off the ground one-handed and casually and then punch them as hard as a 5.56mm hits. That's a lot. Meanwhile, HT 20 gives them near immunity to common disruptive agents like pepper spray and to death in general - come to think of it, it'll take about 300 injury to kill one of them, which means ... huh, it looks like they can take the HEAT round from a T-72 without dying (6dx7 (10) cr ex is ~150 injury, plus another 80 from the explosion). Fine if that's what you're visualizing, but that might be a bit much.

Surprisingly, they don't have Fit. Might not matter with those HT numbers, but I'd still expect them to have it.

the ST isn't going to be a big deal -- ST is not a skill based attribute, and as long as your happy with causally lifting up football players things will be fine. Strength is on a scale from 0 to whatever -- and I can point to ST 200 things.

HT is different. HT is tied to the bell curve of 3d6. And +10 HT is fairly boring. It means they'll never get sick, never stop moving until they are dead dead dead, and gives them sex appeal 15 by default. If you want unkillable, give them unkillable. you already gave resistant to metabolic hazards. And while a bonus to HT is appropriate, +10 isn't. Even in a supers game.

[christ0pher]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Surprisingly, they don't have Fit. Might not matter with those HT numbers, but I'd still expect them to have it.

I thought it made sense to build the normal soldier first then drop that bionics package on them. The soldiers mostly had fit or very fit on their regular character sheet and I did think it fit on the bionics package, maybe I was wrong about that.

Originally Posted by ericthered

HT is different. HT is tied to the bell curve of 3d6. And +10 HT is fairly boring. It means they'll never get sick, never stop moving until they are dead dead dead, and gives them sex appeal 15 by default. If you want unkillable, give them unkillable. you already gave resistant to metabolic hazards. And while a bonus to HT is appropriate, +10 isn't. Even in a supers game.

What would you suggest, +5 instead of a +10? Or lower?

Thanks!

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

What would you suggest, +5 instead of a +10? Or lower?
Thanks!

+5 is probably about right, bringing it to match the dexterity.

I would probably throw in a quirk or something to indicate that it doesn't raise sex appeal or singing, or that it doesn't boost them by 5 at least... HT based skills can be weird.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

I thought it made sense to build the normal soldier first then drop that bionics package on them. The soldiers mostly had fit or very fit on their regular character sheet and I did think it fit on the bionics package, maybe I was wrong about that.

That's fair enough, but if I'm building nano-bio-cybernetic super soldiers, one of the first things I'm adding is increased cardio-vascular endurance. Which is Fit.

The second thing I'm adding is Super Jump, because having a 10' vertical jump is just awesome. Though, again, you may have gotten that for free with ST 50.

Originally Posted by christ0pher

What would you suggest, +5 instead of a +10? Or lower?

I'd probably go with HT +5, Fit, and Immunity to Metabolic Hazards +3. It'd net out to similar levels of "I'm immune to your pepper spray and other nonsense" but make them slightly easier to knock out. With ST 50 and that HT package, there's a reasonable chance they'll fall unconscious a couple of seconds after taking a LAW rocket to the torso. They still won't die, but they'll at least fall over.