The term Tech refers to abilities related with electronic and biological systems. These abilities don’t derive from special features of a character’s body, they are trained and learned through a character’s life and career. Tech abilities are based around reverse engineering, hacking technologies or biology knowledge. Tech powers are deployed with omni-tools.

Only some classes allow a character to improve his Tech powers by providing Tech Specialization. These allow the character to gain specializations, gaining new ranks in Tech powers, thus use a specific Tech power. A character can also take the Extra Tech Training feat to gain one extra rank in one Tech power. The same feat may be chosen several times, each time improving the ranks in a Tech power by 1 (provided the character meets the prerequisites to gain the rank).

Alternatively, a character can take the Simple Tech Training to gain access to a single Tech power, which is a valuable feat for characters of classes that provide no Tech powers but wish to use Techs.

A character increases his ranks in a specific Tech power by spending one tech specialization to increase his rank by one step for that power. All characters are considered to start with 0 ranks in all Tech powers. Until the Rank 1 in a Tech power is gained, characters are not allowed to use that power. Once a rank is attained, the character can still choose to use a lesser rank of that power. He can also decide the lower the statistics of the power’s rank he is using (such as damage, area or effect, etc) but not cooldown or the tech point cost of the rank he uses.

Tech powers have prerequisites that have to be met in order to gain the 1st rank in a specific Tech power. The prerequisites are present in each Tech power description, below. To gain additional ranks, only skill prerequisites must be met, which increase by 2 for each additional rank beyond 1st. Thus the 5th rank in AI Hacking requires the character to have 10 ranks in the Hacking skill.

Tech powers possess a Tech Cooldown. This cooldown represents the amount of time during which no Tech use can use Tech powers. Tech Cooldown only kicks-in once the power is used, unless otherwise stated, or once certain conditions are met.

Some Tech powers also have “maintenance”. Maintenance removes tech points from a character’s biotic points pool for as long as a power with maintenance is active. If during an encounter the character performs something to recover points, the points reserved to maintenance return only after the powers with maintenance have been removed or dismissed.

Some Tech powers can be dismissed with 1 free action. These present a (D) in the target entry. The following provides information about each power. In the table below is also a list and short description of each power.

The Engineer’s, Infiltrator’s, Sentinel’s and Scientist’s tech points are equal to her (Intelligence modifier+1) times Class level (minimum of 1).

The Engineer, being fully focused on tech gets +1 additional tecb point/engineer level.

At the start of each encounter, the the tech has a number of Tech points as mentioned above. If those points are expended during an encounter, she can no longer use tech powers for the remaining of the encounter’s duration. At the end of the encounter, she regains all lost tech points.

By spending 2 actions, the Tech can recover a number of Tech points equal to her Wisdom modifier. She can do this any number of times per encounter. Doing so provokes attacks of opportunity. If any damage is dealt to her Shields, Plating or her Hit Points, the entire effort is expended without effect.

The sentinel also recovers biotic points with the same recovery action.

complete table

Incinerate Launch a blast that sets target on fire Electronics 3 ranks Invasion Infect enemies with a virulent VI that disrupts their shields, armors and weapons Damping 5 ranks, Decryption 5 ranks, Hacking 5 ranks Neural Shock Paralyze the target Medicine 5 ranks, Knowledge (biology) 5 ranks Overload Deal damage to Shield HP, synthetics or mechs Electronics 2 ranks Proximity Mine Deploy a mine that explodes when enemies are near Electronics 5 ranks Sabotage Overheat target’s weapons Decryption 3 ranks Sentry Turret Deploy a small stationary turret that attacks on its own Electronics 5 ranks, Engineer class or Quarian Machinist class Shield Block Create a a shield that increases defense Electronics 3 ranks, Proficiency with Medium Armor Submission Net Entangle enemies in an electrified net Electronics 8 ranks, Knowledge (physics) 4 ranks, Batarian race, Sentinel class Tactical Cloak Become invisible for a short period of time 4 ranks, Infiltrator class or Turian Agent class Tactical Scan Reveal weaknesses in defenses, increasing all damage done to the target and slowing its movement speed Decryption 8 ranks, Damping 8 ranks, Electronics 8 ranks, Hacking 8 ranks, Quarian race Team Support Improve defenses of whole squad Decryption 4 ranks, Electronics 4 ranks, Knowledge Knowledge (tactics) 2 ranks, Repair 4 ranks Tech Armor Create a protective armor Electronics 3 ranks, Sentinel class

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