Character Stats

Your character is defined by a number of abilities and scores, all recorded on your character sheet.

Ego vs. Morph

The most important distinction in your stats is the distinction between ego and morph. Your ego represents your mind, personality, memories, inherent traits, and learned skills. It represents your mental state and true self and transfers with you from body to body. Your morph is your physical (or sometimes virtual) form, the body you currently inhabit. Your morph may change or die, and is sometimes considered expendable, but your ego lives on. Your consciousness’s continuity may sometimes be interrupted by an unexpected death, however, or split off onto divergent paths by forking. Both ego and morph may be customized and modified, though mind hacks are a trickier and more dangerous affair.

Your aptitudes, skills, and some derived stats and traits all belong to your ego. They stay with you throughout your character’s development. Your morph provides you with pools to enhance your skills, Durability to represent your health and constitution, implants or robotic enhancements, and some traits and derived stats of its own. These change when you switch to a new morph. It is important to keep your ego and morph stats distinct, especially when resleeving.

Ego Stats

  • Aptitudes
  • Aptitude Checks
  • Skills
  • Initiative
  • Lucidity
  • Trauma Threshold
  • Insanity Rating
  • Ego traits
  • Motivations
  • Some Flex Pool

Morph Stats

  • Pools
  • Durability
  • Wound Threshold
  • Death Rating
  • Morph traits

Aptitudes

Your aptitudes represent your natural, inherent abilities. They are the foundation for your skills.

There are 6 aptitude scores:

  • Cognition (COG) represents your intelligence, problem-solving talent, and capacity for logical analysis.
  • Intuition (INT) is your gut instinct and ability to evaluate on the fly. It includes physical awareness, creativity, cleverness, and cunning.
  • Reflexes (REF) is your coordination, manual dexterity, nimbleness, balance, and reaction speed.
  • Savvy (SAV) represents your social awareness, adaptability, empathy, and ability to influence others.
  • Somatics (SOM) is how well you can exploit your morph’s physical capabilities, including strength, stamina, and sustained positioning and motion.
  • Willpower (WIL) is your self-control, mental fortitude, and strength of personality.

Aptitude Checks

You will sometimes rely on your aptitudes to make tests rather than learned skills. Aptitude checks normally only come into play in situations where no skill applies, but raw talent does. Some examples:

  • Cognition (COG) Check: Recall a memory, memorize a number, or resist mental manipulation.
  • Intuition (INT) Check: Evaluate a situation, see through an illusion, or grok alien intentions.
  • Reflexes (REF) Check: Catch a thrown object, balance, avoid blinding glare, or stop yourself from falling.
  • Savvy (SAV) Check: Evaluate a social situation, express empathy, follow etiquette, or resist social manipulation.
  • Somatics (SOM) Check: Exercise brute strength, endure hardships, or break free from grapples.
  • Willpower (WIL) Check: Keep your composure, steel your resolve, or resist fear or emotional manipulation.

Aptitude checks are a derived stat, based on your aptitude × 3.

Skills

Skills represent abilities learned and honed through education and practice. They are described in detail under Skills.

Morph

Your morph is your character’s current biological, synthetic, or digital form. This may be the body you were born in or one you sleeved into. Morphs come pre-loaded with specific traits and implants, noted in the morph description. Morphs. Don’t get too attached to your morph: you are likely to move to a new one at some point during gameplay! Acquiring Morphs.

Derived Stats

A number of your stats are derived from other stats or aspects of your character. These include:

  • Initiative (INIT): Initiative determines the order in which people act during action turns. Initiative & Order of Actions.
  • Wound Threshold (WT): The amount of damage you can take before receiving a wound. Physical Health.
  • Durability (DUR): Your character’s health, determined by your morph. Physical Health.
  • Death Rating (DR): The amount of damage it takes to kill you, determined by morph. Physical Health.
  • Trauma Threshold (TT): The amount of stress you can take before receiving a trauma. Lucidity and Stress.
  • Lucidity (LUC): Your character’s mental health, based on Willpower. Lucidity and Stress.
  • Insanity Rating (IR): The amount of stress that will drive you insane, based on Willpower. Lucidity and Stress.
  • Pools: Your Insight, Moxie, Vigor, and Flex pools, mostly derived from your morph, with a Flex bonus from your ego. Pools.
  • Infection Rating: If playing an async, your Infection Rating indicates the strength of the virus’s hold over you. Infection Rating.

Derived Stat Formulas

StatFormula
Initiative(REF + INT) ÷ 5
Aptitude ChecksAptitude × 3
Wound ThresholdDUR ÷ 5
Death RatingDUR x 1.5 (biomorphs)
DUR x 2 (synthmorphs/infomorphs)
Trauma ThresholdLUC ÷ 5
LucidityWIL × 2
Insanity RatingLUC × 2
Infection Rating (Asyncs Only)Psi trait level × 10

Traits

Traits are inherent qualities, features, or flaws that help define your character. Positive traits give you bonuses in certain situations; negative traits apply detriments to your character. Traits either belong to your ego or morph. Traits.

Rep

Your character has a reputation score in different social networks. This rep will help you score favors, gather information, and acquire necessary gear. Rep scores are used as your target number for Rep Tests. There are seven rep networks to choose from:

  • @-rep: The Circle-A List, for autonomists, anarchists, Titanians, scum, and Extropians.
  • c-rep: CivicNet, used by the Planetary Consortium, Morningstar Constellation, Lunar-Lagrange Alliance, Jovian Republic, and other hypercorps and capitalists.
  • f-rep: Fame, the media network used by metacelebrities, journalists, socialites, artists, and glitterati.
  • g-rep: Guanxi, the network for triads, cartels, gangs, and other criminal groups.
  • i-rep: The Eye, Firewall’s secret internal network.
  • r-rep: Research Network Affiliates, used by Argonauts, scientists, technologists, and researchers of all stripes.
  • x-rep: ExploreNet, the social network for gatecrashers and exoplanet colonists.

Gear

Your character will have access to different types of useful equipment: weapons, armor, robots, drugs, smart animals, tools, and more. To simplify things, your starting gear is grouped into gear packs based on your starting career. Gear Packs. You will have several options for acquiring gear during gameplay. Acquiring Gear.

Motivations

Your motivations define your character’s personal agenda, beliefs, and long-term goals. They help you earn Rez Points for character advancement and cope with mental trauma. Step 13: Motivations.