New Generation Skinjob

[krispy]

New Generation Skinjob

One of my small houses has always had to break the rules to survive. This is just one of their creations, a new breed of human, created not altered

Inspired by mystique & the mimic octopus

These new Skinjobs look completely human, not the monstrous appearance of the original SJ

Skin: the SJ has Chameleon Skin like the original but via a different way –
Additional smooth muscle imbedded in the skin and colour altering cells in the form of chromatophores, iridophores & leucophores

Thus the SJ can change their skin to any colour & many different textures

Skeleton: the skeleton has been completely redesigned (The general height of the SJ is 5’2 to 5’6)

An ingenious Hydraulic Osseous Muscle (HOM). 100s to 1000s of these HOM units make up each bone – a spherical bone core (anchor point) with long fluid filled tubes covering its surface with muscles attaching to the bone & end of the tubes

What this does is enable the SJ to alter their physical shape in a limited capacity. They can alter their height by one foot in either direction so 4’2 – 4’6 to 6’2 – 6’6.

They can’t turn into a puddle but they can completely contort their body to fit into nooks & crannies, slide through pipes (as small as 4in wide), look like a pile of rocks or completely blend with a tree (ninja scroll), completely change facial features

Basically with their skin & skeleton they can impersonate nearly anyone (not as good as mystique though)

Others:
• HP = MDC and they also have bio-force field
• 2 hearts
• The respiratory system of birds (extremely superior to humans)
• The ability of the crocodile to shut blood being pumped to the lungs and redirect it to the body, where they can stay submerged motionless for hours with just one breath
• Retractable claws in hands & feet (2d4 mdc) & retractable fangs
• Enhanced Mirror Neurons & flexible vocal cords to better mimic others mannerisms & voice
• Stealth field
• The internal workings of their reproductive system do not exist. They still have functioning genitals. This was implemented by the L. that designed them to stop them procreating. They are human but they are also a tool
• Enhanced senses, reflexes, speed, endurance, strength, agility & power
• Feign Death
• Silent Prowl

Question for the board: unsure if I should or how to advance this new SJ as it goes up the levels??

[krispy]

im getting a sense of Deja vu, like my photonic nervous system post

i really would like to hear your opinions

[89er]

Sorry, busy with finals before break.

This new design is amazing, forget Skinjob 2.0, this is skinjob 3.0

Great work as usual. I like the crocodile part the best.

[krispy]

Sorry, busy with finals before break.
This new design is amazing, forget Skinjob 2.0, this is skinjob 3.0
Great work as usual. I like the crocodile part the best.

good luck with your finals.

crocodiles have always amazed me, they are one of the most perfectly evolved predators

if my memory serves me, though the Skinjob is a great design it cant advance...it doesnt get bio-e to improve itself as it goes up the ranks.

should this new Skinjob be able to advance with bio-e installments each level or will that make it too powerful??

oh and in my original post i said that the skinjob can impersonate nearly anyone but not as good as mystique. what that means is that if they impersonate someone you cannot distinguish between the 2 but the Skinjob is limited in the way that they cant turn into a 3ft 8yo child or a 7ft 400lb warrior like mystique could

i should of added to the original post
- eagle eye vision (see ant crawling around from a mile up) that has polarized vision and an underwater membrane (second eyelid)
- enhanced regenerative capability

[Blindscout]

Weeeell

Krispy,

All I have to say is.....wow...excellent stuff. This is how the Skinjobs ought to have been.

[krispy]

Weeeell

Krispy,

All I have to say is.....wow...excellent stuff. This is how the Skinjobs ought to have been.

thank you kindly for the compliments Blindscout im flattered you think so highly of the design.

now the Skinjob can be an even more dangerous weapon for a House

[Blindscout]

Weeeell

As for level progression I would suggest perhaps giving them limited BIO-E, perhaps similar to a biotic for things like further enhancing optics, maybe buy up to augmented or splicer strength. Or perhaps something similar to the way the Tormentor goes, a number of abilities that they may choose from at certain levels. I will point my brain at it and perhaps come up with something more specific.

[krispy]

Weeeell

As for level progression I would suggest perhaps giving them limited BIO-E, perhaps similar to a biotic for things like further enhancing optics, maybe buy up to augmented or splicer strength. Or perhaps something similar to the way the Tormentor goes, a number of abilities that they may choose from at certain levels. I will point my brain at it and perhaps come up with something more specific.

thanks for that mate. i can see your point

since i posted this idea i had thought that it would make them way too powerful if they got bio-e every level.

this way they get a bit (to allow some personalization) but not becoming too powerful

[Blindscout]

Also the upgrades could be restricted to various categories optical, biological, etc. that is assuming the BIO-E route was taken.

[krispy]

Also the upgrades could be restricted to various categories optical, biological, etc. that is assuming the BIO-E route was taken.

your right. nothing that would affect their outward appearance

[Lord Z]

The abilities they already have may be upgraded as well. For example, that regeneration mentioned could increase proportionally with experience. Off the top of my head, a New Gen SJ could regenerate M.D.C. = XP level x 2 per hour. Bio-E could still be used for upgrading, boosting the regeneration rate to MDC = XP level x2 +Bio-E spent.

Let's remember that most of what a Skinjob is built to do is done through skill rolls in this game. Prowling, setting demolitions, and recognizing traps are all percentile scores which increase per level anyway.

Upgrading optics is a good suggestion, but what I would want to do if I were a SJ is this -- granting my stealth effects to the equipment I was carrying. A gun made from a worthog is cool, but a worthog gun that can change colors with me and not give me away is seeing-my-own breath cool.

The plyable skeletal system is a great improvement, but 4 inches wide seems small even for that.

This class works as a new species, but nothing in the descriptions requires them to be so. Instead of removing the skin of a volunteer, the surgeons could harvest the nervous system and internal organs only from a volunteer, placing them in a new body with its own skeletal system, muscles, and skin. I'm just observing that it could go either way.

[krispy]

The abilities they already have may be upgraded as well. For example, that regeneration mentioned could increase proportionally with experience. Off the top of my head, a New Gen SJ could regenerate M.D.C. = XP level x 2 per hour. Bio-E could still be used for upgrading, boosting the regeneration rate to MDC = XP level x2 +Bio-E spent.

Let's remember that most of what a Skinjob is built to do is done through skill rolls in this game. Prowling, setting demolitions, and recognizing traps are all percentile scores which increase per level anyway.

Upgrading optics is a good suggestion, but what I would want to do if I were a SJ is this -- granting my stealth effects to the equipment I was carrying. A gun made from a worthog is cool, but a worthog gun that can change colors with me and not give me away is seeing-my-own breath cool.

The plyable skeletal system is a great improvement, but 4 inches wide seems small even for that.

This class works as a new species, but nothing in the descriptions requires them to be so. Instead of removing the skin of a volunteer, the surgeons could harvest the nervous system and internal organs only from a volunteer, placing them in a new body with its own skeletal system, muscles, and skin. I'm just observing that it could go either way.

Thanks for the suggestions Lord Z

I like the idea of increasing their existing abilities as they go up the ranks especially their regenerative capability (I forgot to ad that their MDC increases 2D4 ple)

With this SJ design I was considering 2 options – make a new SJ with a new role or increase the role the existing SJ (a hidden, unexpected SJ) people see a SJ and automatically know what they do and are weary, with this SJ you wouldn’t have that

With the skeletal design I wanted to give them human form with something close to the flexibility of the octopus (its cool that if their beak can fit through a hole their whole body can) how about a 6 inch pipe?

I never thought of just transferring part of a volunteer into a new body (good idea) I had envisioned them to be a new species, that’s why I gave them 2 hearts, the respiratory system of birds the crocodiles adaptation, the enhanced mirror neurons in the brain

[Lt. Holmes]

The part that I like is, as you said, this breaks all the rules that most of the Great Houses hold sacred; especially the ones involved with human "desecration". The Biotics exist solely as a means to deal with problems that the Resistance simply doesn't have the resources to properly (and humanely) treat. This... this goes far, far beyond that.

That, in turn, brings up the question of how would the other Houses accept this... abomination.

[krispy]

The part that I like is, as you said, this breaks all the rules that most of the Great Houses hold sacred; especially the ones involved with human "desecration". The Biotics exist solely as a means to deal with problems that the Resistance simply doesn't have the resources to properly (and humanely) treat. This... this goes far, far beyond that.

That, in turn, brings up the question of how would the other Houses accept this... abomination.

ahhh, i had thought about this when i designed them. i doubt many would accept them at all. they represent a serious manipulation of the human genome....highly taboo, if they discovered their full capability they would be deemed a serious threat.... which begs the question if they look completely human and we discovered this one by sheer chance 'how many are in our House?' the paranoia, the doubt, the upheaval

if they do their job right a House would never even know that they were infiltrated until it was too late (if malicious intent)

[Lord Z]

Okay then, if your goal as a gamemaster is to create tension, then engineering the new race of humans is probably the way to go.

[krispy]

Change of plans. I have had a change of heart. this new skinjob is not a new species of human

i had originally created it, thinking that it would be a new species due to its complexity. but you got me thinking Lord Z & while i was looking through all my Splicer material i read the Metamorph (great design) again and remembered that it is a highly manipulated/modified Human Being, but it is still Human

so my New Skinjob (name change pending - i was thinking maybe 'Shifters' ??) is a heavily modified human

[Lord Z]

Now that I think about it, the four inch or six inch thin squeeze might be the wrong way of me viewing the problem. The minimum size through which a modified human could squeeze would depend on the size that the human was before squeezing. No measurement is unfeasible that way.

As for the name of the class, I liked New Generation Skinjob. 'Shifter' is already the title of a popular Rifts class and a specific breed of mutated lab mouse in After the Bomb. How about naming the class after after a particularly stealthy animal? How about something from criminal slang like 'matchstick men', 'second story men', or 'grease men'?

[krispy]

Now that I think about it, the four inch or six inch thin squeeze might be the wrong way of me viewing the problem. The minimum size through which a modified human could squeeze would depend on the size that the human was before squeezing. No measurement is unfeasible that way.

As for the name of the class, I liked New Generation Skinjob. 'Shifter' is already the title of a popular Rifts class and a specific breed of mutated lab mouse in After the Bomb. How about naming the class after after a particularly stealthy animal? How about something from criminal slang like 'matchstick men', 'second story men', or 'grease men'?

when i put the size of the hole they could fit though, i was thinking of the flexibility/plyability of the new skeletal design and imagining the ability of an octopus to fit through any whole if their beak could fit though it.

i knew of the Rifts class but not of the After the Bomb, i was thinking of their ability to shapeshift when i tentatively put that name to it... thanks for the suggestions

ooh, i just thought of the name from Young Guns 'Regulators' (just joking)

[krispy]

if you havent seen this before here is the youtube link that inspired me to create this new Skinjob

enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8UMBoyMScA

[Aramanthus]

I think this is a very interesting new generation SJ.

[krispy]

I think this is a very interesting new generation SJ.

Thank You kindly...i expanded this and submitted it for the Rifter

[Aramanthus]

Cool. Congrats.