Activities

Climbing

Characters who are climbing add their own weight to the weight they are carrying. If the character is climbing at an angle, you are free to use this angle, divided by 90 (straight up), as a multiplier for the character’s mass. This additional weight is as if the character is wearing it.

Collisions

When one object runs into another object, both will usually take damage. Choose the lighter of the two objects. Square its speed (in m/segment, in relation to the object it has collided with), and multiply by its mass. Look this up on the Doubles Chart, and subtract 5, for the d6 damage done by and to the object. Note that 1 meter/segment is equal to 15 kmph. Collisions are often also Death Shots and Massive Body Attacks. So don’t drink and drive, y’hear?

Example: A small automobile (weighing 800 kg and going north at 88 kmph) runs headlong into a semi-truck (weighing a whole lot more, and going south at 88 kmph). Who survives to talk to the news crew?

Answer: Total speed is 176 kmph, which is 12 m/segment. Twelve squared is 144, times 800 (the mass of the lighter object), is 115,200. On the Doubles Chart, this is 17, and subtracting 5 gives 12d6 damage. The truck and the car take 12d6 damage each.

Crawling

Crawling reduces the EP cost for mass carried by 2 Rows. It also halves movement, and looks real silly.

Diseases

Diseases are treated in the same way as wounds--they have a Type, just as wounds do, and this determines how hard it is to cure the disease. Some diseases have no known cure. If the doctor does not know the cure to a specific disease, the doctor cannot cure the disease (unless the doctor creates a cure).

The Editor is allowed much leeway in deciding how a disease acts. Usually, a disease will start at 1 point and increase by 1 per day (or hour, for fast-acting diseases), until the number of points equals the Type of the disease.

Viral Diseases: Viral diseases reduce strength by half Type, and constitution by half Type. Viral diseases usually increase by 1 point per 6 hours. Each day, the victim is allowed a save vs. constitution on 2d10, with a penalty to the Bonus Pool equal to the Type of the disease. If successful, the disease’s Type is reduced by the Quality of the success. There is an additional penalty of 1 to the save if the character does not sleep a lot, and a penalty of 2 if the character remains active.

Chronic diseases do not actually have the Type reduced with a successful save. For that day only, the type is merely effectively reduced. At the end of the day, the Type increases back to maximum.

Cold/Flu: A cold is a Type 2 viral disease. The flu varies from Type 1 to Type 6. A character with a cold or flu will have a penalty of the cold’s Type directly to all Action Rolls.

Earthquakes

Small, flexible things (such as most characters) do not take damage from earthquakes, but large, inflexible things (such as most buildings) do. Use the Richter scale, and subtract three from the magnitude, for the number of d6 to roll for damage, each round. Earthquakes of less than 4 do not cause damage.

Eating

Characters who go for long periods of time without eating will start taking damage and losing EP. They will also not be able to heal normal damage properly. Each full day that a character goes without eating, subtract 1 from EP lost (heals per hour), and this EP doesn’t start to heal until the character has eaten for at least as many days as were missed.

The number of days of starvation is also used as a penalty to the bonus pool for Healing Rolls.

One point of DP (penetrating damage) is lost at the end of each 3 days. This damage is not affected by skin temper or ignore damage, and completely ignores VP.

Fire

Flammable objects can continue burning after being hit by a fire attack. Particularly flammable objects will burn out of control until they’re destroyed.

To determine the chance that a fire attack starts a fire, look up the number of points damage done, on the Sphere Chart. Multiply this by the Flammability number on the Materials chart. Roll 2d10. If less than or equal to this number, a fire has started. (Ones do not affect this roll.)

The amount the roll is made by is the amount of damage that the fire does, to the object and to anyone touching the object. Fire damage is halved if the person is not touching the object, and halved again for every meter away from the object the person is. This damage is per round, and the damage is reduced proportionately if exposure is less than a round. Round down each time.

If the intensity of the fire is greater than the object’s flammability, the intensity of the fire drops by half each round, until it equals the flammability of the substance, at which point the fire continues until the substance is destroyed or the fire is extinguished. If the intensity drops to less than one, multiply by 100 for the percent chance, per round, that the fire does not extinguish itself.

If the intensity of the fire is less than the object’s flammability, continue rolling for flammability as if it had taken that much damage in an attack. If the roll is failed, half the intensity for the next round, until the intensity drops to less than one (at which point, see above paragraph).

Example: A wooden building takes 10 points of fire damage. Rolling 2d10, get a 9. The wood is on fire for 11 points in the first round, 5 in the second, and 2 in the third and subsequent rounds, until it burns up or is put out.

Example: A load of 15 DP paper takes 3 points damage. Round 2: Paper’s flammability is 6, so 6 times 3 is 18. Rolling 2d10, get 15. Paper is on fire for 18 minus 15, or 3 points per round. Round 3: Since the paper has a flammability of 6, and six is more than three, we roll again, vs. 18, and get a 19. The roll “fails”, so this round, the paper burns 1 point (3, halved, rounded down), and, Round 4: we roll again, this time vs. the 1 point times the flammability of 6, so, 6. Rolling a 12, another failure, the intensity is down to half a point, which gives it only a 50% chance of staying on fire. Round 5: Rolling d100, we get a 55. The fire has gone out. The paper went from 15 DP to 8 DP (seven and a half, but we’ll be nice to it).

Falling

Falling doesn’t actually cause damage. Landing does. Falling is the fun part. For the amount of time a falling character or object is in the air (on Earth), look up the distance from the ground on the Square Chart, and multiply by 2. This gives the number of segments it takes to reach the ground.

For the damage the character takes, multiply the character’s mass by the distance the character fell. Look this up on the Doubles Chart, and subtract 7, for the number of d6 to roll for damage.

Falling is a Massive Body Attack, and almost always a Death Shot. Duh.

Electricity

Electricity is a Massive Body Attack that does damage according to voltage and frequency. Standard U.S. electrical outlets provide 110-120 volts at 50-60 Hz. Electrical attacks from powered heroes or weapons are not Massive Body Attacks, and are treated normally.

Look up the voltage divided by 10 on the Doubles Chart, for the number of d6 to roll for damage. Look up the frequency on the Doubles Chart, for the subtraction to the damage. Standard house current will thus do 4d6-7 points damage.

Characters must either be grounded or touching both leads, in order to take damage from electricity: the electricity must go through them.

Only flesh targets divide the voltage by 10. Metal targets divide the voltage by 2. Most robots will take 6d6-7 points damage from house current. Plastic/Ceramic targets divide the voltage by 100.

If more than one target is in the electricity’s circuit, only the one(s) with the highest resistance (highest divisor) take any damage.

Some sources of electricity simply do not have the capability to cause damage. A lantern battery is an example of this: At 12 volts, frequency 0, it should do 1d6 points of damage per round. It doesn’t, though, because it can’t generate the current required to cross high-resistance things such as flesh. A 12 volt car battery will do d6 points of damage. Car batteries can generate enough current, though smaller ones won’t do so for over a minute.

Holes

When characters blast large flat things (such as walls) they create holes. Usually, holes will be about the size of the character’s hand. Look up the amount of extra damage done to the object on the Square Chart. Multiply this by the size of the character’s hand, for the size of the hole created. Extra damage is damage beyond what was needed to go through the wall or object.

Under normal circumstances, this “extra” damage cannot be more than the damage that was actually done to the wall: the weaker the wall is, the more likely it is that you’re just going to make a hole the size of your hand, no matter how much force you put into the punch.

Load and Agility

If a character is lugging around enough mass to use EP, the character will have a penalty to Agility-based Bonus Pools, equal to the EP Use Row. This will apply only to Agility Rolls that require gross motor movement, such as the Combat Roll, the Movement Roll, the Jump Roll, and any Agility-based saving throws.

Massive Body Attacks

Massive Body Attacks are any attacks which hit all of the body at the same time. Radiation, temperature extremes, electricity, and falling are all examples of Massive Body Attacks. Almost all explosions will be Massive Body Attacks. The Editor is allowed a large amount of leeway in deciding whether a specific situation is a Massive Body Attack.

Random Body Location Chart

01-15 Head 16-20 Neck

21-30 Left Arm 31-40 Right Arm

41-80 Body

81-90 Left Leg 91-00 Right Leg

Most Massive Body Attacks will also count as Death Shots to the body parts they hit.

Roll d5 times on the Random Body Location chart for the body locations that take the rolled damage. If the same location is rolled twice, roll again (if 5 locations are required, don’t roll: each location has a chance of being injured).

Massive Body Attacks use the Sphere Chart, not the Doubles Chart, to determine the Injury Roll. However, when determining the size of injuries, use only the damage lost to the Massive Body Attack.

For example, the Rainbow Wizard (Resist Death 4, Body DP 7, Arm DP 4) is at 3 Body DP. She takes 7 Bludgeoning DP from falling. On 1d5, the Editor rolls 2, so two parts take the damage. From the Random Body Location chart, the Editor determines that these are the Body and the Right Arm (rolls 53 and 32). She has a Body DP of -4, and Right Arm DP of -3. The Injury Roll for them will be 3 and 2, respectively (the negative DP, on the Sphere Chart, minus 1 because it’s all Bludgeoning). She has to roll 2d10+4 (her Resist Death). For the Body, she rolls 5+6, or 11, +4, or 15. She is not injured there. For her Right Arm, she rolls 1+2, or 3. Rerolling the 1 gets 8, for -5. Adding her 4 Resist Death brings it to -1. This gives an Injury and a Permanent Injury. Rolling d100 for the Injury, it is 35% of the damage lost (7), or 3 points. Her Permanent Injury is, rolling d100, 59% of that, or 2 points. She now has a 2 point Permanent Injury, an extra point of Injury, and 4 points of Bludgeoning damage in her Right Arm.

Pressure

When characters are in an atmosphere with a higher pressure than they are used to, they will be affected by it. Some powers also can change the pressure around a target. Look up the character’s density (usually 1.4 g/cc, for flesh) on the Sphere chart. Subtract this from the atmospheric density (on the Sphere Chart). Add 10. If positive, this is the penalty to the Bonus Pool for the Combat Roll, the Movement Roll, and the Jump Roll. Also, move the result for falling damage down this many rows.

If pressure is really high, the character will take damage. For every 5 points above 10 the Bonus Pool penalty is, the character takes d6 points of bludgeoning damage each minute.

Standard atmospheric density on earth is .00129 g/cc, and this is reduced by a factor of 3 approximately every 10 kilometers. Water is 1.0 g/cc. This doubles every 10 kilometers of depth.

Characters can swim in any liquid whose density is greater than or equal to half their own density. Characters who know how to swim can reduce the Move Roll penalty by up to their Swimming Score on the square chart.

Characters can float on any liquid whose density is greater than or equal to their own density. They can walk on any liquid whose density is greater than or equal to twice their density (and movement penalties are then negated).

Extreme reductions in pressure over a period of less than a round can also cause problems to breathing creatures (such as humans). Look up the percentage that the new pressure is of the pressure the victim was normalized at. Look this up on the Square Chart, and subtract from 10 for the number of d6 points of stun damage lost each round. One out of every 5 points are bludgeoning DP. After d6 rounds, pressure has normalized inside the victim, and no more damage is lost.

Pressure damage will usually be considered a Massive Body Attack.

Radiation

Radiation is pretty keen stuff. Without it, there’d be a lot less heroes and villains. Also, it’d always be dark and cold.

What we’re talking about here is what’s normally referred to by radiation, which is nuclear radiation, or, more technically, gamma radiation. This is the stuff that causes your hair and teeth to fall out and makes you glow in the dark.

Radiation is classified by its intensity. The intensity at the site of a nuclear explosion is generally the damage rolled at that spot (Square Chart). Dirty bombs will cause greater radiation, and clean bombs (such as the neutron bomb) will cause less. Neutron bombs cause an intensity of half what a normal bomb causes.

When a character encounters nuclear radiation, roll 2d10 vs. constitution, with a penalty equal to the radiation’s intensity. If unsuccessful, the character has a radiation problem, equal to the negative Quality of the roll.

Half of the Quality goes to radiation sickness. Radiation sickness is a chronic disease of type equal to half the quality. It starts at Type equal to half it’s maximum, and increases by 1 point per day until at maximum. Radiation sickness affects constitution, physical beauty, and Damage Points (Body).

There is a chance that the character will gain a mutation percentage. The chance is half the Quality, on 2d10. If this roll is successful, the character’s mutation percentage is increased by half the Quality. For areas where the character is not already mutated, roll for mutations, with the increase as the percentage. This increase is also the chance that the character’s current mutations will need to be re-rolled (at the full percentage). New mutations will show up in 2d10 weeks.

The Radiation Problem Quality increases the longer a character remains in an irradiated area. Look the intensity minus 10 up on the EP Use Chart. This is the rate the Quality is increased. At 0, the increase is 1 per week. At -1, it’s one per month. At -2, it’s one per year, and at -3, it’s one per decade. At -4, it’s one per century, etc.

Temperatures

If it is too hot or too cold, characters will lose EP and DP. Add the character’s constitution to the character’s maximum DP (Square Chart). Subtract from 25_ Celsius for the minimum safe temperature for the character. Add to 25_ Celsius for the maximum safe temperature.

If the temperature is greater than the character’s maximum temperature, subtract maximum temperature from actual temperature, and look this up on the Square Chart. This is the EP Use row. Do the same for low temperatures, but subtract actual temperature from minimum temperature. For the amount of penetrating DP lost, move this down 8 rows.

Characters can get used to higher or lower temperatures: if a character spends over a week in an area with a temperature that causes EP loss, a saving throw must be made vs. constitution, at a penalty equal to the number of adjustments already made. If successful, shift the 25û up (or down) by 1û. The character can choose not to adjust, by staying in an air-conditioned/heated area whenever possible. This save is made every week (Sphere Chart). The save is unnecessary when shifting towards the character’s average (25û).

If you want to get really complex, people can have different averages (other than 25û) depending on where they’re from. The average is unlikely to move more than 5û in any direction, however.