B.O.N.E.S.
This Power Class does NOT allow the character to remote access or control machines, hijack computers, or mess with other peoples cybernetics or bionic systems. It allows them to (nearly) spontaneously sprout the genetic equivalent from their own bodies. Think Splicers without all that gross body armor and poop guns, only less powerful.
Bio-Organic Nanite Enhancement System (a.k.a. B.O.N.E.S.)
The character is injected with a biodegradable, symbiotic, protein based nanite colony. These nanites will reproduce, but only have an operational lifespan of about 100-150 years (typically injected at birth or in infancy), and will go dormant immediately (within 5 minutes at the most) if unable to locate and rejoin the main colony (player’s character). This is done for safety reasons, so that the nanites won’t spread beyond the original host, and so that they won’t keep the character alive longer than they should (Though there is a 2% chance of them being passed on to their offspring, in which case those nanites would mutate to match the child’s lifespan and DNA). Blood transfusions or organ donations from these characters should NOT be attempted under any circumstances, as the nanites would either regard the new body as an invading virus, or the host body horribly mutated. In the 5 or so minutes before they shut down, they would cause a lot of damage, possibly lethal, and most likely irreversible. These nanites will give the characters injected with them the type of strength and endurance normally seen in cybernetic enhancements, implants, and replacements. As the character ages, they gain Nanite Power Slots, and when they level up, they can trade them in for new features. So a character could buy a new eye, heart, and arm, to start off with, and get better legs next time, and so on.
Build the character the way you would for a bionics character, only all the changes are made on a cellular level and made out of the characters own flesh and blood. So if you wanted a super strong arm, when in use it would take on a steely aspect, night-vision eyes would glow red in the dark, etc. Built in weaponry and armor will be ‘retractable’, but they will be neither as strong or as damaging as its mechanical counterparts, but with the added bonus of healing on its own and replenishing its own ammo (missiles and explosives cannot be duplicated, but can be launched from existing ports, the weapons barrel will bulge and warp, and within 3 melee actions will be ready for use).
Character can select up to four minor powers, or four million in ‘bionic’ parts at character creation, or a combination of both (three minors and one mil in parts, two powers and two mil in parts, etc.), but keep in mind that all powers or money left over cannot be spent until the next level advancement (kind of like Splicers in this regard). A limb can be enhanced at the cost of a power slot, and will a P.S. and P.P. of 16 +2d6 (considered extraordinary, but if two mil/powers are used it would be superhuman, cannot do SN), and the limb (if enhanced in this manner) will regenerate within two months if completely destroyed or severed (this time can be cut down to a bare week if the removed limb is found and surgically reattached). An armored arm or leg will have a normal appearance (unless you bought knuckle spikes or something), and will count as a super power, not a nanite ability as it is a permanent effect.
An eye can also be replaced, in which case they get the genetic equivalent of the Multi-Eye from Rifts, or three minor supervision abilities (only one can be used at a time though). If a character has both an arm and an eye, the can choose to have the arm linked to the eye, so that any weapon programmed into the system (costs $200,000 for each weapon type) will gain a natural +2 to strike, and an extra attack when using that weapon. EE or minor ME type powers will have one or two places they can be fired from, chosen at creation, and those places must be activated (costs one melee action to prep them) before they can be used. So Joey the B.O.N.E.S.-Borg can choose EE-Light, but would have to prep the launcher in his arm before shooting or risk blowing his arms off.
At levels 3, 6, and 9, you will gain either another million dollars in enhancements (00-75%) or a minor power (76-99%) slot to use. However, powers gained in this fashion are originally very weak, taking 1d4 weeks to fully manifest themselves, and intentionally attempting to use them prematurely will likely (95% chance) result in a painful failure, costing the user 1d4 Hit Points in damage, loosing 4 melee attacks (carries over to the next round if necessary), and looses initiative for the next melee round. If minor powers are chosen instead of enhancements, they only gain in strength at the aforementioned levels, though the range will increase normally (character has trouble ‘powering’ these abilities). Nanite abilities will only be accessible for 15 minutes per level of advancement every 8 hours (so a character who’s level 6, would have 45 minutes of ability every 8 hours), and each nanite ability has its own clock, so keep a record.
Abilities are not constant unless chosen as a minor power, enhanced limb or eye, and have to be activated to be used; so choosing heavy-duty combat armor that won’t always be in use might not be the best choice if the character is a spy, but extra P.P., light armor, and some sensors would be fine. If the character has more than three nanite features, they can choose to activate them all if the spend an entire melee round doing so. When a nanite power is activated, the flesh bulges and morphs into whatever the item is, armor, weaponry, exposed sensors, etc., but all made out of flesh, blood and bone. This also gives the character a minor type of shape-shifting, by cutting their abilities ‘run time’ in half, they can alter their looks to be something other their standard appearance (no good for close scrutiny, but for moderate to far distances it works great). Since the nanites are made out of protein chains, the character is 14+1d4% (15-20%) heavier than normal, and will have a thin layer of hard ‘muscle’ just under the skin that ripples and vanishes when nanite abilities are in use.
The nanites aren’t ‘aware’ (one exception, explained below) of things, other than their bond partner, in any sense of the word. They provide the necessary power in this binary unit, and their partner provides the commands and creativity. The nanites are, literally, ‘dumb computers’ that cannot do anything without their partners explicit command, and cannot be hijacked, influenced, or interupted by Mechano-Link or Machine Merge, but will be affected by mental attacks (though they use their partners savings throw at +3, and are only affected for one quarter the duration).
The nanites have a strange awareness of the tech-level of the world around them, and strive to match their solid state brethren as best that they are able. This means that a character that gets rifted into the middle of the Chi-Town Burbs would be able to gain C.S. and maybe even Triax level bionics and cybernetics. Oh, and in M.D.C. environments, their armor and weaponry are converted over on a 1:1 basis, so they are still able to fight and defend themselves.
Any equipment from the Bionics section, as well as Ninjas and Super spies can be used, but reduce all armor ratings by one, but make it natural when transformed (it is, after all, a part of the characters body), and reduce S.D.C. by 10-15%. Damage to armor, sensors, and parts heals at the twice the normal rate, and ammunition is healed at the same rate (three rounds for the equivalent S.D.C. point) after the extra S.D.C. is refilled. The solid rounds made by the nanites are made from excess blood, fat, anything that is not immediately needed, but is rendered genetically neutral and virtually untraceable within half an hour of being expended. The weapons that fire said ammunition can also fire regular ammo as well, but it takes a full melee round to swap over, and can only be done once all ‘organic ammo’ has been expended (cannot override this, and ammo replenishes automatically in any case). Organic rounds due less damage than their technological counterparts; they do one less die per weapon, unless it does a damage multiplier, in which case it does lower sided die of damage (1d6x10 would do 1d4x10). ‘Normal’ rounds fired from these weapons do normal damage.
The B.O.N.E.S. technology came about after a high level government official was nearly beaten to death by a super powered protester, despite the presence of several Secret Service agents. He knew for a fact that the government was sitting of several trillions of dollars worth of alien tech, and ‘borrowed’ a few of the necessary items. A few years later, he had a series of working prototypes, and demonstrated them to great effect, by hiring an assassin to come after him, while he was in the presence of P.O.T.U.S. Not only did he succeed in disarming and defeating his ‘attacker’, but he did so with nary a scratch on him. The down side was that he a much too strong a dose of the nanites, and they literally ate him up from the inside out less than a decade later. The process has since been refined to a far greater degree, granting powers that are less impressive and lacking in oomph, but making up for it in stability, concealment, and flexibility.
Mega-Characters (should be very rare, even for Mega Beings) have double the starting budget, and are not limited in their choices of minor abilities. Alternative paths could be the get one Major power for two minor (something obvious and explainable, like APS: Metal or Control Electricity), or boosting the stat ceiling for the bionic parts.
Stats: Roll as normal.
Character gets a whopping +5 to save versus disease, drugs, and alcohol, due to the nanites constantly purging impurities from the blood stream. While this is greatly beneficial, it is no healing factor, and won’t help against broken bones or ruptured organs and such.
Character heals twice as fast as a normal human, with minimal scarring, and can pick up and figure out what most cybernetics/bionics are supposed to be used for within 1d4 +2 minutes (“Yeah, that there is a ‘multi-phase onomatopoeia blaster’ with a variable barrel-length”) with an 84% +2% per additional level accuracy rating [not that the average B.O.N.E.S. character will know how they know, just that they do].
Character needs to eat more often/more mass in order to their powers. An extra meal during the day, or a lot of munching on snacks will counter act this need; if they enter into heavy combat, or sustain serious damage to their armor, they may need to consume twice, at the minimum, what the normal person would.
Determine Education and Skills as normal. Character may or may not have an aptitude for mechanics, but is not necessary for this character, as he can fix, clean, and maintain his ‘parts’ with next to no effort at all.
If they have weapon systems on any limb, they can use it as if they have the proficiency for it, but only at level one regardless of how high a level they go. If they already have that W.P., it is used at one level higher.
If the character has a hardened limb or eye, it has a N.A.R. of +1 of what is normal, and it appears to be the ‘human’ normal, except when using weapons or sensors that cannot be simply explained away.
As stated before, characters that fall under this power category enjoy a +3 to save vs. mental attacks and effects due to having a duel ‘mind’.
Characters with this power class will (unless inheriting them) have gotten an injecting several years before and the powers laid dormant (1d4+2 years minimum, most likely more), waiting until reaching full maturity before exposing itself initially to its host. If the character has inherited this ability and doesn’t know about it, they’ll most likely go nearly crazy wondering why their body keeps warping and twisting at random times. For several months (before they are effectively a level one) they have no control over when their abilities pop up or arm themselves. Most likely there will be more than a few misfires when instinctively reacting to minor threats (“Oh CRAP man! I just blasted your cat!”).
One obvious benefit is that 98% of most passive security scans unless preparing for battle. Professional bodyguards and security experts both adore and detest this, as it makes their job so easy and so darn hard at the same time. They can pop out a laser cannon or gattling gun with just a thought, but so can everybody within eyesight. Unknown to 99.98% of all those who undergo the B.O.N.E.S. modification is that the first thing the nanites do is to make a kill switch in the brain; one push of a button from the cranky temp in the Pentagon, and agents naughty head goes BA-BLooie! That’s not entirely accurate, there is a scanner roughly the size of refrigerator (can easily be loaded into the back of a van or truck) and only works up to a five mile diameter circle.
Unfortunately, with all this ability to be armed and armored at a moments notice, comes a rather drastic drawback. Electrical attacks either due half damage direct to hit points, or double damage, halves attacks per melee for one minute, and inflicts a -1 penalty to all combat rolls for two melee rounds. Since the nanites are directed by the carriers’ nervous system, anything that disrupts that causes the nanites to go haywire. They are unable to harm their host, but will certainly cause more problems than the unaltered persons system.
The Minor abilities are a bit restricted, no hyperdensity, no disintegration, no EE: Plasma, no Superhuman strength. The first four are too powerful for this class, the last because it would be too hard to make work with the nanite basis. Extraordinary Speed cannot be chosen unless both legs have been turned into hardened limbs. Alter limb, indestructible bones, anatomical independence can be worked with, but the powers I mentioned above are going to throw things out of whack. Healing factor or other curative powers count as TWO power slots due the in-depth and pervasive nature of their abilities (as well as making the whole ‘nanites that only effect me’ thing rather redundant and obsolete). Remember, the whole point is concealment, adaptability, and surprise, not straight up combat (though they can still fight). So choosing something like winged flight would be a rather strange choice for this (unless you wanted to pretend to be a mutant), the choice is yours, just choose wisely.
