Environment
Environmental Hazards
Falling: A creature or object of roughly human density falls 900 meters per round. Falling 2 meters or more deals 1d6 Physical damage. The damage increases by 2 and the demolition by 1 for every doubling in distance, to a maximum of 1d6+14 damage with 7 demolition at 256 meters fallen. Damage taken is adjusted by a weight-dependent modifier from the table below: this change is applied after the maximum. Soft surfaces like sand or grass reduce the damage by 1, very soft surfaces like hay bales or bushes reduce the damage by 2, and sharp objects like spikes increase the damage by 2. Falling creatures and objects also damage whatever they land on, and use an accuracy of +0 to hit creatures in their path rather than the ground below those creatures.
Weight | Damage Modifier | Demolition |
---|---|---|
Less than 1 kilogram | -6 | -3 |
1-10 kilograms | -4 | -2 |
11-40 kilograms | -2 | -1 |
41-200 kilograms | +0 | 0 |
201-1000 kilograms | +2 | 1 |
1001-5000 kilograms | +4 | 2 |
5001-25000 kilograms | +6 | 3 |
25001 or more kilograms | +8 | 4 |
Light Wind: Light wind interferes with projectiles, causing penalties to attack rolls.
Strong Wind: Strong wind interferes with projectiles, causing penalties to attack rolls. It also flings creatures in the area 5 meters at the beginnings of their turns unless they succeed on a DC 6 Muscle check. Flying creatures are flung 10 meters, which is reduced to 5 meters on a DC 6 Muscle check. Strong Wind also gives creatures in the area a -3 penalty to Agility checks.
Heavy Rain: Heavy rain grants concealment to any creature that is more than 10 meters away from its observer or attacker, and creates sufficient sound to count as significant ambient noise for Auditory Stealth.
Hail: Hail functions as Heavy Rain, but also deals 1d6-2 Physical damage to each creature and unattended object at the beginning of its turn. Damage increases to 1d6-1 for more severe hail.
Lightning Storm: Each round, 1d6-4 (minimum 0) lightning bolts strike beneath the thundercloud. Each lightning bolt picks a random 5 meter wide cylinder beneath the cloud, and strikes the highest creature or unattended object in that cylinder, for an attack with a +3 Accuracy and 1d6+3 Electricity damage; wounded targets are stunned for 1 round.
Lava: Anything that touches lava is lit on fire, and a creature that spends any part of its turn partly or fully immersed in lava takes 1d6+4 points of Heat damage.
Toxic Waste: Toxic waste is swum through rather than walked on. Anything that touches toxic waste takes 1d6 Acid damage, and a creature that spends any part of its turn partly or fully immersed in toxic waste takes 1d6+3 points of Acid damage instead.
Toxic Fumes: At the end of each creature's turn, if that creature has toxic fumes in its lungs, it takes 1d6+2 Acid damage. If the creature (or an object) is merely surrounded by the fumes, it takes only 1d6-2 Acid damage instead. Completely exhaling all air from one's lungs removes the toxic fumes.
Extreme Temperature: Extremely hot or cold atmospheres or metal surfaces are unpleasant to touch. At 100° C, the atmosphere or surface deals 1d6-2 Heat damage per round. This increases by 1 damage for every 50 additional degrees.
- At -20° C, the atmosphere or surface deals 1d6-2 Cold damage per round. This increases by 1 damage for every 50 fewer degrees.
- In the vacuum of space it is very cold but doesn't chill all that quickly. As long as a creature keeps active, it is unharmed. If it remains still (not burning energy to stay warm), then it takes 1d6 Cold damage every ten minutes.
Vacuum: Extremely low pressure environments are low on friction, and breathability. Any creature that ends its turn holding its breath with more than one-tenth of its total number of rounds remaining in a vacuum takes 1d6+2 Noise damage. Projectiles can travel unlimited distances in a vacuum: unless a projectile speed is specified they travel 8 times their maximum range per round.
Decompression: Going from a higher-pressure area to a lower-pressure one during the course of a single round can be quite dangerous. If a character goes down one atmosphere very rapidly (as by opening a relatively small room to the outside, or teleporting from an area with one pressure or another), they take 1d6-1 Noise damage, with a +2 bonus to damage for every additional atmosphere of change. If the change is more gradual over the course of the round, the damage is decreased to 1d6-2, +1 for every additional atmosphere.
Materials
Sometimes, people may wish to destroy objects. Objects have an AD (and GD) of 2, unless otherwise noted. Attacking an object or series of objects typically destroys approximately a 2x2 meter square of it (unless it's an area of effect attack, in which case it destroys the touched regions, or a Piercing attack, in which case it destroys a 6x6 centimeter hole), with depth depending on the damage dealt: every point of damage it takes to wound an obstacle is subtracted from the current damage of the attack (only one damage roll is made, no matter how many layers there are). If the remaining damage is insufficient to inflict another wound, the attack stops there.
However, if the attack has more than 0 Demolition, the attack deals bonus damage against objects, which is subtracted first when attacking through objects and ignored for creatures. Piercing attacks get +2 Demolition.
The Demolition of an attack is normally 0.
Demolition | Bonus Damage | Demolition (continued) | Bonus Damage (continued) | Bonus Area (continued) |
---|---|---|---|---|
0 | 0 | 9 | 128 | x2 |
1 | 1 | 10 | 256 | x2 |
2 | 2 | 11 | 256 | x4 |
3 | 4 | 12 | 512 | x4 |
4 | 8 | 13 | 512 | x8 |
5 | 16 | 14 | 1024 | x8 |
6 | 32 | 15 | 1024 | x16 |
7 | 64 | 16 | 2048 | x16 |
8 | 128 | Every+2 | x2 of 2 less | x2 of 2 less |
At higher Demolition levels, the area destroyed gets wider at the expense of less damage and therefore less depth. At 9 it doubles (to 4x4 for a normal attack, or twice the radius of an area of effect), and piercing attacks are raised to make a hole 1/4 as big as a non-piercing (now doubled) attack would.
Against Armor: Piercing attacks do not cause significant harm to the armor itself.
If trying to attack something with a higher AD behind an object, critical hits only count if confirmed against the higher AD, and you get all attack penalties for attacking either target, other than cover or total cover granted by the obstacle itself.
For example, Bobby "Sledgehammer" Stone is trying to kill a guy wearing fullplate hiding behind a quarter meter of brick with a single swing of his massive hammer. Through the use of Sniper, he easily gets a critical hit on both the wall's AD (2) and the guy's (4), for a relatively low amount of damage, considering his 4 Strongman, of only 21. Since he has 3 Demolition, he gets 4 bonus object damage. The smashed granite's 3 HP and 5 Toughness takes away all the bonus damage and 11 of the normal damage (the 21 goes down to 10). The poor sod's fullplate takes all the remaining damage exactly, so the guy's armor shatters but he is fine. Bobby's reputation is ruined.
The guy turns around and stabs Bobby in the face with a sword, accepting the Cover penalty to avoid Bobby's armor. His Demolition of 2 gives him 2 bonus object damage, but it doesn't help him hurt Bobby at all, so his pathetic damage roll of 3 does nothing to Bobby. The guy had no reputation, so he's fine.
The sound created by a breaking object is audible at a distance equal to the original damage roll plus demolition damage, squared, in meters, or only a quarter that for Piercing weapons.
Name | Toughness | HP per meter | Can be lit on fire |
---|---|---|---|
Dirt | 2 | 30 | No |
Wood | 4 | 15 | Yes |
Ice | 4 | 4 | No |
Brick | 6 | 12 | No |
Granite | 8 | 10 | No |
Iron | 7 | 15 | No |
Steel | 8 | 15 | No |
Gold | 6 | 17 | No |
Salt | 6 | 5 | No |
Bone | 4 | 15 | No |
Glass | 4 | 7 | No |
Water | 1 | 5 | No |
Timestone | 6 | 5 | Yes |
Cherelith | 6 | 8 | No |
Airsteel | 8 | - | No |
Water: Water is difficult to see through. 100 meters of clear water or 5 meters of murky water grants concealment, and it's impossible to see more than 10 times that far through it.
Timestone: Timestone is a material much like sandstone, aside from its unique interaction with [ time ] effects: If an object would be affected by a [ time ] effect, all timestone in contact with that object is affected as well.
Cherelith: Cherelith is a type of marbled rock, part dark and metallic, part transparent and glowing blue. Any significant quantity of Cherelith emits bright illumination out to 2 meters, and deals 1d6+1 Light damage to creatures in a 10 meter spray each round.
Airsteel: Airsteel is air that has been linked to form a single solid shape. 1 wound is enough to break the link and shatter the Airsteel, independent of its size. Airsteel, being air, looks like air.
Attacking Projectiles
Unless otherwise specified, projectiles have AD 6, GD 6, 1 HP, and 6 Toughness. The Toughness, AD, and GD get adjusted according to its weight following the Fall Damage Modifier by Weight table, with Toughness getting the demolition modifier as a bonus, while AD and GD get it as a penalty (Thus, a < 1 kilogram projectile like an arrow or bullet would have AD 9, GD 9, and Toughness 3, while a 100 kilogram projectile like a small boulder would have AD 6, GD 6, and Toughness 6). Lasers and beams of light are not projectiles, and so cannot be attacked.
Blaster weapons fire weightless projectiles with AD 6, GD 6, 1 HP, and 1 Toughness. If they would be destroyed, they are deflected instead, and the deflector can use that attack roll -5 to hit whatever they want within the remaining range of the projectile.