Nuclear Beasts

More Damage System Brainstorming

I still want to figure up a good damage system for Nuclear Beasts. It's a pretty arbitrary decision... I just need to look at all of the possibilities and decide which one comes closest to the flavor I want. Let me list off some ideas I've been toying with.

Wasteworld Style: when you hit someone, you'll do damage equal to your margin of success plus the damage rating of your weapon probably plus some modifier for strength. Hard-to-aim weapons might cut the MoS in half, while particularly easily controlled weapons (like a stiletto) might have really crappy base damage but double the MoS.

What're the upsides/downsides of this?

• Accuracy can count more than weapon-mass, enabling small but agile characters to be more effective. I have to be careful so that the Big edge doesn't make you easier to kill than normal, but that should be doable.
• Allows for some weapon balancing by having damage ratings like 5+M/2 vs 1+M*2 vs 8+M/4 vs 3+M.
• The attacker only has to roll once and calculate once. Ideally, the defender's soak would be a set rating too, so that there's only one opposed roll per attack.
• Damage numbers will be high... compared to Ironclaw at least, where one wound could be significant.
• Bare-handed blows would just use your strength mod and so would be inferior to weapons.
• Really good hits would probably be able to kill folks, especially if they have bonuses and are attacking an unsuspecting foe. Even a punch might take someone out with a high enough MoS.
• There's no easy way to handle stun/fatigue damage, though.

Let's go with it for a bit just to see how it works out.

Damage bonus = Muscles level minus one (d4 is 0, d6 is 1, d12 is 4). Small subtracts. I'm not sure Big should add, since it increases your Muscles rating anyway. Perhaps Small shouldn't subtract either. Hm.

Kick adds +2 but is -1 to hit.
Claws/Knives add +1.
Swords adds +2.
Bite adds +3 but is -1 to hit.
Tusks/Big Swords adds +3.
Guns often add +4 or higher. Or would it be better for guns to add MoS x 2 instead?

Improved natural weapons adds a further +1 (First Gen Beasts get this automatically; Hyenas get it for Bite).

Your Soak (innate armor) is Muscles level plus Guts level minus 2. Ranges from 0 to 8+. Size adjusts it. Hm. Average person would be Soak 2. Second Generation Beasts would often be Soak 0 or even a negative number (if I allow that).

Alternately, your HP could be based on your Guts... hm. How about this... Soak is Muscles level adjusted by Size (minimum zero). The damage you can take is equal to your Guts or perhaps Guts + Spirit/2 or Guts + Spirit. Let's see... just Guts would give us a range from 4 to 12, average 6. Guts + Spirit/2 would give 6 to 18, average 9. Guts + Spirit would give 8 to 24, average 12. Well, regardless, just Guts alone is probably too low unless I give them at least 4 extra points. I don't want "eggshell-elf" syndrome... where the weaker PCs always eventually die just because an attack which might wound a tough character will one-pop them.

Hm. This isn't bad... I wish I had a "favorite" sort of damage system right now. Might make this sort of decision easier.

Posted by Kiz at June 17, 2004 11:19 AM