Still don't know what to do with this so I'm moving it here.
BB notes: Firefox has been very good to compile these rules, but they are very complex. I would prefer something simpler, and am considering how best to approach it. For the time being, I will default to these rules if it seems appropriate and plot-important.
I've been doing some more thinking about element resistance tests (e.g. do your grenades blow up when you get engulfed by a fire elemental). Unfortunately if we want to make things somewhat realistic, it's going to be very hard to come up with a single rating for a given material that applies to all types of element attacks. What I'd therefore suggest doing is coming up with a generic set of categories reflecting "vulnerability" of that substance to a given element. The GM makes a determination of how "vulnerable" a substance is to the related element. For example, an open jar of napalm would be quite vulnerable to fire, but pretty much invulnerable to acid.
Vulnerability scale would be "severe", "serious", "moderate", "mild", and "invulnerable". The scale would work as follows:
- damage level experienced by the substance would need to be at least L for severe, M for serious, S for moderate and D for mild to have any danger of ill effects.
- For each damage level above the minimum, there's a +1 chance of ill effects happening. For example, deadly damage to something with a severe vulnerability would have a +3 modifier.
- Base target number would be the power of the attack divided by 5.
- Finally, there's a +1 modifier for each turn the substance is exposed, including the first turn.
- A negative modifier is applied for "effective armor", such as 1/2 impact for fire. Only content beneath armor is protected by armor. E.g. Grenades strapped to an armored vest get no benefit from the armor.
- Damage level and power is based on the effective damage after dodge roll but before armor is applied.
Summary:
Roll 2D6 against (Power/2) + number of turns exposed (including this one) + 1 per damage level above minimum based on vulnerability - effective armor.
The roll is made once per character per attack, with the result determining what types of items get damaged.
Suggested vulnerabilities:
Vulnerability | Effective Armor | Severe (Min L) | Serious (Min M) | Moderate (Min S) | Low (Min D) |
---|
Acid | Impact | Unprotected electronics (e.g. chips) | Protected electronics, plastics | ballistic armor | Firearms, Blades |
Blast | Impact | | Unprotected electronics | | Grenades, explosives |
Fire | 1/2 Impact | Open gunpowder, napalm or other highly incindiary substance, regular EX rounds | Ammunition, dynamite, unprotected electronics, gas tanks | Grenades, ballistic armor, protected electronics | impact armor, firearms |
Ice | Impact | Unprotected electronics | Protected electronics | | |
Light | Flare comp | Unprotected electronics | | | |
Lightning | Impact | Unprotected electronics | Protected electronics, plastic explosives | Ammunition and grenades | Ballistic armor, Firearms |
Metal | Impact | | electronics | | impact armor |
Sand | Impact | unprotected electronics | electronics | | Firearms |
Smoke | Respirator (halves power or -2, whichever is greater) | | | | |
Water | Impact (respirator for breathing effects | | unprotected electronics | electronics | Firearms |
Some examples:
A character is carrying a couple of regular grenades, a predator loaded with a clip of regular ammo, clip of standard EX ammo and a 5/3 armored jacket. They're also wearing a tranceiver with the radio clipped to their hip pocket.
On round 1, the character is hit for 4 net successes by a force 6 fire elemental for a total of 6D. That means that the targets are as follows:
5 for the EX to go off
4 for the ammo in the gun and the grenade to go off
3 for the ballistic armor to melt
2 for the gun to melt (which doesn't really matter because if the bullets in the gun go off, the gun is fragged anyhow)
On round 2, the elemental engulfs the character, doing 6M. That means:
Gun and ballistic armor are safe
4 for EX to go off (6/2 = 1 + 1 for Moderate dmg + 2 turns of fire damage)
3 for the ammo and the grenade to go off
On round 3, provided the character stays engulfed, the chances would be:
5 for Ex
4 for ammo and grenade
Another character (same equipment) is hit by a force 6 D lightning spell with 4 successes. (The mage is hurting, but so is the character :>) Total damage is 10D. The character lucks out and with their armor and body resistance manages to survive. Targets would be as follows:
4 for the radio
3 for the fire arm and ballistic
In practice the probabilities are probably lower than they should be. However, given that multiple characters can be impacted and we don't want everyone to be losing equipment left right and center, this is probably the best we can do. If people think it's still two high, we could make it 3d6 instead of 2d6.