Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

[Sean Waters]

I had this idea I posted on the current 'killing attack' thread...not entirely new, it has been floated before in one form or another, but it kinda grew in my head.

 

What if, I thought, rather than tinkering, we replaced a section fo the game wholesale?

 

I am categorically NOT suggesting there is anything wrong with the current rules, or that they need to be changed, but I think a different approach might give a very different feel to the game, and, in keeping with the 'toolbox' approach to Hero, I present the idea here to you.

 

It is just out of the egg, so no playtesting and, as I'm not in a game right now, not likely to be for a little while, but I'd be interested to know what you think.

 

There's quite a lot so I'll post it as separate bits.

 

Sean

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Iron Age Hero

 

 

Certain genres have a different feel. Iron Age emphasises the mortality of characters, and, often, the brutality. The Hero damage rules, specifically the way in which we calculate Body damage, do not lend themselves to the feel without extensive modification to the build of characters, especially in more ‘powerful’ characters: superheroes rarely take Body damage unless targeted by an attack specifically designed to circumvent the defence rules.

 

After a certain point it is nigh impossible to do Body damage with a normal attack, and that point is…well, the basic character: 2 PD, 10 STR: you can manage 3 or even 4 Body, and put 1 or 2 through defences…but there are few PCs who would ever take Body damage from a normal attack.

 

Once we progress to super heroic levels, it is nigh impossible to do Body damage at all except with specially advantaged killing attacks.

 

Of course we wouldn’t want normal attacks routinely doing much Body, but the possibility should exist and scale with the game. Equally, killing attacks should be properly feared by all but the most heavily armoured characters, and not simply because you might roll a 5x stun multiplier.

 

 

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

So, here’s a rules modification suggestion for this particular genre. The idea is that Body damage is more likely (and Killing Attacks more likely to actually cause Body damage) without simply upping the Body total or making damage more random.

 

It is not enough to simply up the Body damage or tinker with Stun:Body ratios. Well, I suppose part of the problem is that the Stun:Body ratio is determined BEFORE defences.

 

Surely if you get hit and take 20+ damage AFTER defences, that is a hard hit, and it should have some real lasting impact on you. Before defences, there is an average Stun:Body ratio of 3.5:1. What would happen if we applied the ratio after defences?

 

Carnage is what: 20 damage after defences equals about 6 Body, at that ratio. I like the way we roll Body, but it doesn’t lend itself to this sort of situation.

 

OK, so, that’s the preamble, here’s the idea:

 

• Roll damage as normal. Body is ONLY used for determining KB though.
  
• Apply the relevant defence to the stun total. Take that amount of stun.
  
• Assuming the attack is capable of doing Body damage, divide the stun through defences (STD) by the lethality factor, which we will be assuming is 3 for most games. Round in favour of the attacker if the damage is .5 or more.
  
• Apply the relevant defence/3 to the Body damage, rounding in favour of the attacker if the result is .666. Take that amount of Body.

That’s it, basically. Killing attacks are just like normal attacks but with a +1/2 advantage. ONLY resistant defences stop both Stun and Body. KB is –2d6 for Killing Attacks; they still actually do less KB because you are rolling fewer dice.

 

Example 1: 6d6 normal energy attack against an energy defence of 10.

 

6d6 averages 21 stun, 6 Body. Use the 6 Body for KB purposes. Apply the defence to the stun 21-10=11. Take that much stun.

 

Now 11/3=3.667, or 4 Body damage.

 

10 Defence is 3.333 or 3 Defence.

 

Take 1 Body damage.

 

Example 2: 4d6 killing energy attack (i.e. 20 point EB with the +1/2 ‘Killing Attack’ advantage) against 5 rED.

 

4d6 averages 14 stun, 4 Body. Use the 4 Body for KB purposes. Apply the defence: 14-5=9. Take that much stun.

 

9/3=3 Body damage.

 

5 rED/3=2 defence.

 

Take 1 Body.

 

The same attack against an opponent without rED would do 14/3=5, no defence = 5 Body damage.

 

Assuming that defences are related to average damage (def = approx 2xDCs, for example) then the same sort of result will be obtained at all power levels, and you can beat someone to death with your fists.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Damage and the effects of damage

 

 

Another thing about Iron Age is that even heroes are less ‘heroic’: they get tired, they get banged up, and they do die, occasionally.

 

Hero has two extremes of damage, Body, which heals very slowly, and END/STUN which heal very quickly.

 

I’m going to suggest we use Long term Stun and END (LTS and LTE). We already have LTE, but this is a little different.

 

LTE is taken in the same way normal END is taken, but recovers much slower: REC per hour. If you are not resting and in optimal conditions, then the GM may rule that LTE recovers more slowly or not at all..

 

You take LTE when:

• You push: all END used for a push is LTE.
  
• You burn STUN for END: all END gained by burning Stun is LTE
  
• You are in combat: each turn in combat, so long as you take significant action, one of the END you have used should be considered LTE.
  
• You use more than your REC in END in a single Turn: one (or one for each REC multiple) of the END used should be considered LTE.
  
• The GM rules that extended action burns LTE. This might include any situation when you have to make a CON or EGO roll to keep going.
  
• At the GM’s discretion you make take LTE from other sources, including exhaustion and disease. The GM might rule for example, that you take 1 LTE for each hour of sleep you miss.

LTS represents cuts and bruises of a non-life threatening nature, that nonetheless are not trivial: they recover at REC/day, or longer in sub-optimal conditions at the GMs discretion.

 

You take LTS when:

• You take Body damage: each point of Body damage ‘includes’ 2 points of LTS, from the stun you will have taken (or, if you somehow avoided taking 2x Body in Stun from an attack, you take that much anyway, in LTS).
  
• Each 10 points of STUN you take from a single attack includes 1 LTS, even if you take no Body (in a Heroic game you might want to make this 5 Stun = 1 LTS).
  
• At the GM’s discretion you can take LTS from other sources: including disease, exhaustion, or maybe a point every time you push (it is a strain).

Body – well you know when you take Body. Body recovers at REC/month.

 

Now I’d suggest that, to slightly tone down the mortality rate, the first point of any Body damage does 2 Long Term Stun ONLY, or that one point of Body per wound recovers with medical attention immediately (although the LTS has to be healed normally.

 

Making the Lethality divider 2 makes killing attacks generally more dangerous, making it 4 makes them generally less dangerous.

 

The Environment

 

 

This method makes damaging objects far more likely. I’d suggest that you double the DEF of objects, entangles and Force Walls. You might make that all resistant, or part normal defence, to better model a particular material. For simplicity make it all resistant.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Powers and abilities

 

 

Some people can recover faster than others. You can move the recovery rate up the ‘time table’ for an advantage, although as each increment is disproportionately useful, the advantage increases every time:

 

1 place (month to week, day to 4 hours, hour to 20 minutes): + ¼ advantage on REC

2 places: + ¾ advantage on REC

3 places: +1 ½ advantage on REC

4 places: + 2 ½ advantage on REC

5 places: + 3 ¾ advantage on REC

6 places: + 5 ¼ advantage on REC

7 places: + 7 advantage on REC

8 places (month to a turn) + 9 advantage on REC

 

Thus, 1 point of REC allows you to recover 1 point of Stun and END a turn, 1 point of LTE an hour, 1 point of LTS a day and 1 point of Body a month.

 

For a + ¾ advantage (3 points, well 3.5 rounded down), 1 point of REC allows you to recover 1 point of Stun and END a turn, 1 point of LTE in 5 minutes, 1 point of LTS an hour and 1 point of Body a day.

 

It costs 20 points to have 1 point of REC recover 1 Stun, End, LTS, LTE and Body per turn. Given the increased likelihood of Body damage, I’d say: bargain. This replaces the regeneration rules.

 

You may wish to allow an advantage on attacks so that they do increased LTS (or LTE with an END adjustment power), or to allow healing of them. I’d suggest at least +1 on the power, and careful monitoring of multipowers. Alternatively simple healing heals the dice total in Stun and the Body total in LTS, and Body has to be healed separately.

 

Damage reduction, if allowed, applies once damage has been calculated after defences as usual.

 

Armour piercing can be pretty dangerous, but works as normal. NND and AVLD works as normal but, obviously does no Body unless you have the ‘Does Body’ advantage.

 

Hit locations, disabling and impairment

 

 

Use these as normal, hit location damage multipliers use the ‘normal damage’ column (even for killing attacks) and the multipliers for Stun and Body are AFTER deduction of all defences.

 

Character builds and DEF ratios.

 

If a character has roughly DCx2 in normal defences they shouldn’t take Body on an average Stun roll, but may take a point or two on a good roll. If they have DC in resistant defences they should take a very small amount of Body on an average hit.

 

It is probably quite sensible to build characters with low defence with some sort of healing ability and possibly with extra CON that requires an EGO roll, no figured characteristics, to simulate the ability to tough through a hit that might otherwise stun you. Alternatively, don't use stunning, but treat any stun damage that exceeds CON as LTE AND LTS.

[nexus]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Very interesting set of mods that could be pretty useful for "grittier" settings over all not just Iron Age supers.

[JmOz]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Overall I like it,

[Markdoc]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

I had this idea I posted on the current 'killing attack' thread...not entirely new, it has been floated before in one form or another, but it kinda grew in my head.

 

What if, I thought, rather than tinkering, we replaced a section fo the game wholesale?

 

Actually, I'm not at all convinced we need any changes to simulate this - I've referred to a dark Champions (no, not Dark Champions) game we played before where the players ended up trying to establish their own nation as a safe haven for supers: sort of Iron Age before the term Iron Age had been coined.

 

Killing attacks abounded and without any rules changes, we had a few deaths among the PCs and far more among the NPCs. It was not al *all* unusual for a battle to end with most PCs having taken body (even my character, and I was the party Brick) - occasionally "heroes" had to be rushed off to hospital at the end of or even during superbattles. And the casualty rates among normals and agents ..... well.

 

Frankly, that was grim enough for me - we had PCs (mine for example) who could throw an 8d6 HKA (though at the cost of dropping his defences significantly). Haymaker that and even with 30 points of rDEF, there's going to be blood. And there were NPCs who had worse attacks than me

 

And we didn't set out to be Iron Age Heroes - my brick started out with a 20 point code against killing, fer pete's sake! and Gecko, the team's martial artist and first fatality didn't have *any* rDef. It's just that in an unrelentingly grim setting, the characters naturally evolved into killing machines.

 

cheers, Mark

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Actually, I'm not at all convinced we need any changes to simulate this - I've referred to a dark Champions (no, not Dark Champions) game we played before where the players ended up trying to establish their own nation as a safe haven for supers: sort of Iron Age before the term Iron Age had been coined.

 

Killing attacks abounded and without any rules changes, we had a few deaths among the PCs and far more among the NPCs. It was not al *all* unusual for a battle to end with most PCs having taken body (even my character, and I was the party Brick) - occasionally "heroes" had to be rushed off to hospital at the end of or even during superbattles. And the casualty rates among normals and agents ..... well.

 

Frankly, that was grim enough for me - we had PCs (mine for example) who could throw an 8d6 HKA (though at the cost of dropping his defences significantly). Haymaker that and even with 30 points of rDEF, there's going to be blood. And there were NPCs who had worse attacks than me

 

And we didn't set out to be Iron Age Heroes - my brick started out with a 20 point code against killing, fer pete's sake! and Gecko, the team's martial artist and first fatality didn't have *any* rDef. It's just that in an unrelentingly grim setting, the characters naturally evolved into killing machines.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Oh I agree you don't need the rules, you can do it with character set up, but I'd be interested to know what (normal) defences you were toting if you had 24+DC attacks. To be honest I've seen 30 rPD in 12DC games. I think the advantage (if it is an advantage) of this idea is that it doesn't step up the KO rate, just the Body rate. I mean, 24d6 (or 8d6 KA with a x3 stun mutliplier) averages 84 stun.

 

You could do it instead by (taking a 12DC game as an example) you limited resistant defences to, say, 16 points - you would get Body damage through on an above average roll, and all but the best protected could take quite a lot of damage to Body.

 

The difficulty (to my mind) is that, well, normal attacks NEVER do Body to PCs, which, given that they might be getting hit hard enough to one shot KO them - and, to my mind, Stun represents force just as much as Body does. Normal and killing attacks have similar effect on inanimate objects (KAs are only slightly more effective) but against characters, normal attacks have no 'Body' consequences.

 

Also we have this massive disconnect between Body and Stun damage. That may not bother anyone but me However, I feel that calculating Body from the stun through defences gives a closer relationship between the forcve of the hit and how much damage it does.

 

Finally there feels to be a real difference between KA and normal attacks: KAs do less damage, but it is more effective at destroying the target.

 

It needs a playtesting and polishing, and may turn out to be rubbish, but it just might work.

[Markdoc]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Oh I agree you don't need the rules' date=' you can do it with character set up, but I'd be interested to know what (normal) defences you were toting if you had 24+DC attacks. To be honest I've seen 30 rPD in 12DC games. I think the advantage (if it is an advantage) of this idea is that it doesn't step up the KO rate, just the Body rate. I mean, 24d6 (or 8d6 KA with a x3 stun mutliplier) averages 84 stun.[/quote']

 

Sure: in the game in question my character had the highest potential defences among the PCs with (IIRC - this was a long time ago) with 30 PD/ED (50% resistant) and a multipower with a 60 point reserve and a 30/30 forcefield, so he could go up to 60/45 DEF/rDEF. The drawback being that if he was using his multipower to generate those big HKAs, then he cut his defence in half or by 2/3rd vs KAs. In other words, if he went fully defensive, it was rare (though not unknown) for him to take body. We also had an armoured suit who had (IIRC) 30 rPD/rED. He was pretty tough, but he not only took body on a regular basis - he ended up as one of the fatalities.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, was Gecko (RIP) who had normal PD in the 10-15 range but no rPD. He relied (unwisely, as it turned out) on his 40+ DEX and CSLs to keep him alive. I don't recall his attacks but our other martial artist, a mystical type - could throw 14d6 AP "negative chi"attacks. Again, that's not going to generally hurt the bricks, who were pretty much by definition in the 30+ DEF range, but it'll break bones on most other archetypes. And haymakered - which it often was - anyone under 40 DEF is going to take body.

 

I think the whole "people don't take body" thing is only relevant to games with DC caps. Without them - even though defences are cheaper - people tend to buy larger attacks, simply, I think because playing "Invulnerable Boy" is less fun than playing "Hulk Smash". We actually had a PC called Invulnerable Boy and he was, in truth nigh-invulnerable. But he was retired early, since apart from being invulnerable he wasn't good for much. He tended to get buried in the rubble of buildings, to be dug out after the fight

 

And note, we ended up in this situation without any plan at character setup to make Iron Age characters - it just happened when we ran up against malignant foes who had no compunction about killing innocents: it became a question of "Take them down fast before they kill half of Manhattan". The non-iron agers were rotated out or buried.

 

My own feeling is that the suggested rules changes are simply a response to caps, which introduce a bias in the game system towards defences.

 

cheers, Mark

[OddHat]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

As alternate rules, I don't object to them.

 

That said, I run some "gritty" games, and I generally find setting lower PD and ED limits to be more than adequate to ensure characters take Body, at least from killing attacks. Also very useful here, in my experience, is the "One Body Always Gets Through" limitation, especially with the Bleeding, Disabling and Severing optional rules in place. Since One Body Always Gets Through includes the Does Not Prevent Penetration limit, the chance of disabling or severing a limb is calculated before rather than after defenses are applied.

 

In those games, I also rule that cinematic bruising, bleeding, etc, does not necessarily represent body loss, and encourage players to describe their characters injuries in gruesome detail.

 

If I wanted to guarantee some Body get through even from normal attacks, I'd use an idea Jim Oz (iirc) once advocated; for every 10 Stun that gets through your defenses from a single attack, you also take 1 Body. Being knocked out becomes much more of an issue.

[OddHat]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

My own feeling is that the suggested rules changes are simply a response to caps, which introduce a bias in the game system towards defences.

 

Pretty much. My own campaigns, both gritty and non, are run without caps, and I've never run into the "Supers can't be hurt" issue.

 

For that matter, I've never had a problem with Supers who couldn't, where necessary and appropriate, smash tanks.

[JmOz]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

As alternate rules, I don't object to them.

 

That said, I run some "gritty" games, and I generally find setting lower PD and ED limits to be more than adequate to ensure characters take Body, at least from killing attacks. Also very useful here, in my experience, is the "One Body Always Gets Through" limitation, especially with the Bleeding, Disabling and Severing optional rules in place. Since One Body Always Gets Through includes the Does Not Prevent Penetration limit, the chance of disabling or severing a limb is calculated before rather than after defenses are applied.

 

In those games, I also rule that cinematic bruising, bleeding, etc, does not necessarily represent body loss, and encourage players to describe their characters injuries in gruesome detail.

 

If I wanted to guarantee some Body get through even from normal attacks, I'd use an idea Jim Oz (iirc) once advocated; for every 10 Stun that gets through your defenses from a single attack, you also take 1 Body. Being knocked out becomes much more of an issue.

 

I don't think that was me, but not a bad idea for certain games.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

As i hope I expressed in the original post, I'm not suggesting that we need to change the rules, I'm asking for comments on these ones.

 

I've read through what Markdoc says and - yes - you can set up a game where superheroes take Body but, with respect, there is a brick there who, to duke out the damage, falls to 30 pd: against a 24 DC attack, that's 54 stun and no body, on average. Even with defences up in full he's taking 24 stun and no body - again it seems lie a pretty extreme impact garnering relatively little actual 'destruction'.

 

Sure you can take some Body, but there is no correlaltion between 'destruction' and 'pain'.

 

I appreciate that you can make up rules to allow Body through. That's what I've done

 

Another 'problem' I perceive with current KAs is that they solve the problem of delivering damage by simply upping the damage delivered: I'm not sure that is a great way to do it: it means that it is very difficult to build armour that cperforms consistemtly against similar munitions, for example. In any event I'd probably take some convincing that real world' killing' attacks do more damage than real worls normal attacks - you tend to knock down walls with a sledgehammer, rather than a pickaxe. Normal atatcks of equivalent power are often as or more destructive than killing attacks, although killing attacks may be better at causing SOME damage. It is not straightforward to model that with the current system.

 

I mention allt his for context though - I'm going to say again, I'm not having a pop at the system - I'm really lookign for comment on this mechanic - the good, the bad, problems real and perceived. For any comments I would be garteful.

[OddHat]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

* Roll damage as normal. Body is ONLY used for determining KB though.

* Apply the relevant defence to the stun total. Take that amount of stun.

* Assuming the attack does Body, divide the stun through defences (STD) by the lethality factor, which we will be assuming is 3 for most games. Round in favour of the attacker if the damage is .5 or more.

* Apply the relevant defence/3 to the Body damage, rounding in favour of the attacker if the result is .666. Take that amount of Body.

This seems overly complex to me. I'm totaling BOD once, checking knock back, applying defenses, then doing something not really clear in step 3 (did you type "Assuming the attack does BODY when you meant "Assuming the attack does STUN?), then applying defenses again. I think a simpler alternative is a flat "For every 10 STUN you take after defenses, you take 1 BODY."

 

If that's what you were trying to say, it wasn't clear.

 

The alternate REGEN rules look fine; always liked just treating it as a time chart mod to REC.

[nexus]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

The Environment

 

 

This method makes damaging objects far more likely. I’d suggest that you double the DEF of objects, entangles and Force Walls. You might make that all resistant, or part normal defence, to better model a particular material. For simplicity make it all resistant.

 

Perhaps limiting the X amount of Stun equal 1 body rule done to things that can take Stun damage might be simpler?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

This seems overly complex to me. I'm totaling BOD once, checking knock back, applying defenses, then doing something not really clear in step 3 (did you type "Assuming the attack does BODY when you meant "Assuming the attack does STUN?), then applying defenses again. I think a simpler alternative is a flat "For every 10 STUN you take after defenses, you take 1 BODY."

 

If that's what you were trying to say, it wasn't clear.

 

The alternate REGEN rules look fine; always liked just treating it as a time chart mod to REC.

 

I meant if the atatck is CAPABLE of doing Body i.e. is not stun only - I'll change the original to make it clear. Thanks

[Warp9]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Generally I think these are some very cool ideas.

 

I don't want to get too far off topic here, but on the "people not taking BODY thing," I tend to feel that it is a bit of a larger issue.

 

It seems to me that the amounts of STUN and BODY differ by too much.

 

As has been pointed out, a character with 25 PD will probably take decent amounts of STUN from a 10d6 attack, but is unlikely to take any BODY from a 20d6 attack.

 

But it is not just that the character's don't take BODY, it is sometimes that they take STUN when they should not. If my character can crush tanks and take 20 DC attacks without being seriously hurt, bullets from a .44 magnum should bounce off him like pop-corn.

 

I would look at changing the way people do defense. I'd bring in the ability to get DC subtraction. With defenses that take off 12 DCs, a 12d6 becomes 0d6 and therefore does no STUN or BODY, but a 16d6 becomes a 4d6, which will do on average 14 STUN and 4 BODY.

 

That character will bounce a 6 DC attack (such as a .44 magnum) everytime, but would be seriously hurt by a 20d6 EB.

[schir1964]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

OK' date=' so, that’s the preamble, here’s the idea:[/font']

 

• Roll damage as normal. Body is ONLY used for determining KB though.
  
• Apply the relevant defence to the stun total. Take that amount of stun.
  
• Assuming the attack is capable of doing Body damage, divide the stun through defences (STD) by the lethality factor, which we will be assuming is 3 for most games. Round in favour of the attacker if the damage is .5 or more.
  
• Apply the relevant defence/3 to the Body damage, rounding in favour of the attacker if the result is .666. Take that amount of Body.

That’s it, basically. Killing attacks are just like normal attacks but with a +1/2 advantage. ONLY resistant defences stop both Stun and Body. KB is –2d6 for Killing Attacks; they still actually do less KB because you are rolling fewer dice.

To simplify things, your are basically going to have the following:

LF (Lethality Factor) = 3

 

nSD (Normal Stun Defense) = Defense (vs Normal Attacks Only??)

nBD (Normal Body Defense) = RoundAtTwoThirds ( nSD / LF ) (vs Normal Attacks Only)

 

rSD (Resistant Stun Defense) = Defense (vs Normal Attacks and Killing Attacks)

rBD (Resistant Body Defense) = RoundAtTwoThirds ( rSD / LF ) (vs Normal Attacks and Killing Attacks)

 

So if character had purchased both nSD(10) and rSD(6) they would have the following:

nSD = 10

nBD = 3

 

rSD = 6

rBD = 2

 

Could you run the sequence for both Normal and Killing Attacks for the following character that has "both" defenses up (normal PD = 10, Armor = 6rPD)

 

I want to make sure I understand the method with this combination. Thanks.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Warp9]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

Damage and the effects of damage

 

 

Another thing about Iron Age is that even heroes are less ‘heroic’: they get tired, they get banged up, and they do die, occasionally.

 

Hero has two extremes of damage, Body, which heals very slowly, and END/STUN which heal very quickly.

 

I’m going to suggest we use Long term Stun and END (LTS and LTE). We already have LTE, but this is a little different.

 

LTE is taken in the same way normal END is taken, but recovers much slower: REC per hour. If you are not resting and in optimal conditions, then the GM may rule that LTE recovers more slowly or not at all..

 

You take LTE when:

• You push: all END used for a push is LTE.
  
• You burn STUN for END: all END gained by burning Stun is LTE
  
• You are in combat: each turn in combat, so long as you take significant action, one of the END you have used should be considered LTE.
  
• You use more than your REC in END in a single Turn: one (or one for each REC multiple) of the END used should be considered LTE.
  
• The GM rules that extended action burns LTE. This might include any situation when you have to make a CON or EGO roll to keep going.
  
• At the GM’s discretion you make take LTE from other sources, including exhaustion and disease. The GM might rule for example, that you take 1 LTE for each hour of sleep you miss.

LTS represents cuts and bruises of a non-life threatening nature, that nonetheless are not trivial: they recover at REC/day, or longer in sub-optimal conditions at the GMs discretion.

 

You take LTS when:

• You take Body damage: each point of Body damage ‘includes’ 2 points of LTS, from the stun you will have taken (or, if you somehow avoided taking 2x Body in Stun from an attack, you take that much anyway, in LTS).
  
• Each 10 points of STUN you take from a single attack includes 1 LTS, even if you take no Body (in a Heroic game you might want to make this 5 Stun = 1 LTS).
  
• At the GM’s discretion you can take LTS from other sources: including disease, exhaustion, or maybe a point every time you push (it is a strain).

Body – well you know when you take Body. Body recovers at REC/month.

 

Now I’d suggest that, to slightly tone down the mortality rate, the first point of any Body damage does 2 Long Term Stun ONLY, or that one point of Body per wound recovers with medical attention immediately (although the LTS has to be healed normally.

 

Making the Lethality divider 2 makes killing attacks generally more dangerous, making it 4 makes them generally less dangerous.

 

The Environment

 

 

This method makes damaging objects far more likely. I’d suggest that you double the DEF of objects, entangles and Force Walls. You might make that all resistant, or part normal defence, to better model a particular material. For simplicity make it all resistant.

 

I really like the LTS concept. Many of the results of damage seem to be very well described under this concept. IMO normal Stun comes back too fast to really simulate the results of getting beaten up.

 

The same thing with LTE, if I've been put in a situation where I've gotten really worn out, it stays with me for a while.

 

I agree with nexus, these are ideas which would work well in any gritty game.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero Mod: Iron Age Hero

 

To simplify things, your are basically going to have the following:

LF (Lethality Factor) = 3

 

nSD (Normal Stun Defense) = Defense (vs Normal Attacks Only??)

nBD (Normal Body Defense) = RoundAtTwoThirds ( nSD / LF ) (vs Normal Attacks Only)

 

rSD (Resistant Stun Defense) = Defense (vs Normal Attacks and Killing Attacks)

rBD (Resistant Body Defense) = RoundAtTwoThirds ( rSD / LF ) (vs Normal Attacks and Killing Attacks)

 

So if character had purchased both nSD(10) and rSD(6) they would have the following:

nSD = 10

nBD = 3

 

rSD = 6

rBD = 2

 

Could you run the sequence for both Normal and Killing Attacks for the following character that has "both" defenses up (normal PD = 10, Armor = 6rPD)

 

I want to make sure I understand the method with this combination. Thanks.

 

- Christopher Mullins

 

 

OK. 2 examples: 6d6 normal/4d6 killing attack and a 12d6 normal/8d6 killing attack, using average stun results, means 21/14 and 42/28.

 

So:

NORMAL 6d6: 21-10=11 stun delivered. 11/3=4 Body before defence. 4-3=1 Body delivered.

KILLING 4d6: 14-6=8 stun delivered. 8/3=3 Body before defence. 3-2=1 Body delivered.

 

NORMAL 12d6: 42-10=32 stun delivered. 32/3=11 Body before defences. 11-3=9 Body delivered.

KILLING 8d6: 28-6=22 stun delivered. 22/3=7 Body before defences. 7-2=5 Body delivered.

 

NB if the normal defence had been 1 point higher, then no Body would ahve been delivered with the 6d6 normal attack and 8 with the 12d6. Defences are most 'efficient' under this syetem (at least v Body) when they are 2, 5, 8, 11 (and so on +3).