[FOCI]

Conducts Weird Science

Cypher System Rulebook 1e

Your preternatural insight and ability make you a scientist capable of amazing feats. As someone who Conducts Weird Science, a PC in a modern-day setting could be given the “mad scientist” label by the media if news of their exploits becomes public. Whether they conduct their science ethically or with disregard for the safety of others (or whether they really are insane) is the only true measure of how “mad” they are.

You could be a respected scientist, having been published in several peer-reviewed journals. Or you might be considered a crank by your contemporaries, pursuing fringe theories on what others consider to be scant evidence.

Truth is, you have a particular gift for sifting the edges of what's possible. You can find new insights and unlock odd phenomena with your experiments. Where others see a crackpot cornucopia, you sift the conspiracy theories for revelation. Whether you conduct your enquiries as a government contractor, a university researcher, a corporate scientist, or an indulger of curiosity in your own garage lab following your muse, you push the boundaries of what's possible.

You probably care more about your work than trivialities such as your appearance, polite or proper behavior, or social norms, but then again, an eccentric like you might turn the tables on that stereotype too.

Paradoxes make the most obvious mad scientists.

Connection

If this is your starting focus, choose one of the following connections.

1. Pick one other PC. The character believes your experiments once cured someone close to her of a fatal condition. You're not sure if you did, or if the condition just went into remission.
2. Pick one other PC. You created a scientific instrument designed to give this character a restful night's sleep, but you now fear unanticipated long-term side effects.
3. Pick one other PC. You're pretty sure that one of your experiments when you were younger and brasher is responsible for giving him a connection to the Strange. The PC might know this, or he might just vaguely remember you from long ago.
4. Pick one other PC. She asked you to design a gun that could shoot through walls. You took the cash, but you are still working on the prototype.

Equipment

Street clothes, science field kit, light tools, a pen knife, a smartphone, and $2,000.

Minor Effect Suggestion

You learn one additional piece of information in your analysis.

Major Effect Suggestion

Foes within sight are dazed for one round upon seeing your strange creation or its results. During this time, the difficulty of all tasks they perform is modified by one step to their detriment.

Tier 1

Lab Analysis (3 Intellect points) Action

You analyze the scene of a crime, the site of a mysterious incident, or a series of unexplained phenomena, and maybe learn a surprising amount of information about the perpetrators, the participants, or the force(s) responsible. To do so, you must collect samples from the scene. Samples are paint or wood scrapings, dirt, photographs of the area, hair, an entire corpse, and so on. With samples in hand, you can discover up to three pertinent pieces of information about the scene, possibly clearing up a lesser mystery and pointing the way to solving a greater one. The GM will decide what you learn and what level of difficulty is needed to learn it. (For comparison, discovering that a victim was killed not by a fall, as seems immediately obvious, but rather by electrocution, is a difficulty 3 task for you.) The task is eased if you take the time to transport the samples to a permanent lab (if you have access to one), as opposed to conducting the analysis with your field science kit.

Action to initiate, 2d20 minutesto complete.

Knowledge Skills Enabler

You are trained in two skills in which you are not already trained. Choose two areas of knowledge such as history, geography, archeology, and so on. You can select this ability multiple times. Each time you select it, you must choose two different skills

Tier 2

Modify Device (4 Intellect points) Action

You jury-rig a piece of mechanical or electrical equipment to make it function above its rated specs for a very limited time. To do so, you must use spare parts equal to an expensive item, have a field science kit (or a permanent lab, if you have access to one), and succeed at a difficulty 3 Intellect-based task. When complete, using the device eases all tasks performed in conjunction with the device, until the device inevitably breaks. For example, you could overclock a computer so research tasks using it are easier, modify an espresso maker so that each cup of coffee made with it is better, modify a car's engine so that it goes faster (or modify its steering so it handles better), and so on. Each use of the modified device requires a depletion roll of 1–5 on a d20.

Action to initiate, one hour to complete.

Tier 3

Better Living Through Chemistry (4 Intellect points) Action

You've developed drug cocktails specifically designed to work with your own biochemistry. Depending on which one you inject, it makes you smarter, faster, or tougher, but when it wears off, the crash is a doozy, so you use it only in desperate situations. You gain 2 to your Might Edge, Speed Edge, or Intellect Edge for one minute, after which you can't gain the benefit again for one hour. During this follow-up hour, every time you spend points from a Pool, increase the cost by 1.

or

Incredible Health Enabler

Thanks to a dip in a magical pool, an injection of artificial antibodies and immune defense nanobots into your bloodstream, exposure to strange radiation, or something else, you are now immune to diseases, viruses, and mutations of any kind.

Tier 4

Knowledge Skills Enabler

You are trained in two skills in which you are not already trained. Choose two areas of knowledge such as history, geography, archeology, and so on. You can select this ability multiple times. Each time you select it, you must choose two different skills.

Just a Bit Mad Enabler

You are trained in Intellect defense tasks.

Tier 5

Weird Science Breakthrough (5+ Intellect points) Action

Your research leads to a breakthrough, and you imbue an object with a truly amazing property, though you can use the item only once. To do so, you must buy spare parts equivalent to an expensive item, have a field science kit (or a permanent lab, if you have access to one), and succeed at a difficulty 4 Intellect-based roll to create a random manifest cypher of up to level 2. The GM decides the nature of the cypher you create. Attempting to create a specified cypher hinders the task by two steps. Creating a cypher does not allow you to surpass your normal cypher limit. In addition to the normal options for using Effort, you can choose to use Effort to increase the level of the cypher you create; each level of Effort increases the level of the cypher and the difficulty of the Intellect task to create it.

Action to initiate, one hour to complete.

Tier 6

Incredible Feat of Science (12 Intellect points) Action

You do something amazing in the lab. This takes parts and materials equivalent to three expensive items. Possible incredible feats include:

• Reanimate and command a dead body for one hour.
Create an engine that runs on perpetual motion.
Create a teleportation gate that remains open for one minute.
Transmute one substance into another substance.
Cure one person with an incurable disease or condition.
Create a weapon designed to hurt something that can't otherwise be hurt.
Create a defense designed to protect against something that can't otherwise be stopped.

Action to initiate; a full day of work to complete.

Inventor Enabler

You can create new artifacts in half the time, as if they were two levels lower, by spending half the normal XP.

or

Defensive Field Enabler

Thanks to subdermal implants, a permanent spell, alien modifications, or something similar, you now have a force field that radiates 1 inch (2.5 cm) from your body and provides you with +2 Armor.