SW Environmental Fire Damage

Werebat

Explorer

• Sep 1, 2014

• #1

Can someone walk me through this one?

There is a racial in SW that gives you +4 to rolls involving environmental fire damage.

How exactly does this help you? How are environmental fire damage rolls made?

If you are standing in a burning room, what damage do you ordinarily take? How much would the +4 help you mechanically?

 

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Z

Zadmar

Explorer

• Sep 1, 2014

• #2

I assume you're referring to "+4 bonus to resist any single negative environmental effect (e.g., heat or cold)"? The rules are described in the "Hazards" section, so for example if you're walking through a desert and don't have sufficient water, you have to make a Vigor roll every four hours, or suffer a level of Fatigue. The racial ability would give you +4 to the Vigor roll.


There's no roll to resist fire damage, although you could apply it to the roll for resisting smoke inhalation. At the GM's discretion, you might also allow the bonus to apply to Soak rolls against fire damage, although I don't think that's really the intent.

 

MatthewJHanson

Registered Ninja

Publisher

• Sep 1, 2014

• #3

In addition to what Zadamar said, as of the Sci-Fi companion, environmental resistance also counts as armor against attacks of that type. (So +4 armor vs. fire damage). I think that would be appropriate to apply retroactively to older races.

 

Werebat

Explorer

• Sep 1, 2014

• #4

Actually, the new-ish Sci-Fi Companion lists the racial "Environmental Resistance" as granting "a +4 bonus to resist a single negative environmental effect." It also "counts as Armor against attacks based on that element", which sounds like it would grant +4 Armor against Heat/Fire if you took it as such.

That last bit actually makes it somewhat useful for operating in a burning room. Such a character could be "on fire" and taking 1d10 fire damage per round, and be very unlikely to ever actually take wounds from it.

Close enough for FTL rocks, I guess.

 

Werebat

Explorer

• Sep 1, 2014

• #5

MatthewJHanson said:

In addition to what Zadamar said, as of the Sci-Fi companion, environmental resistance also counts as armor against attacks of that type. (So +4 armor vs. fire damage). I think that would be appropriate to apply retroactively to older races.

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Ha, you must have posted this while I wrote my last reply!

I'm trying to design a race that is very tough (lots of "hit points" in more common RPG parlance) and is immune to (at least environmental) fire.

The +4 Armor vs Fire attacks racial makes sense.

If the race also has natural Armor as a racial, will that Armor protect against fire damage and stack with the Armor from the Environmental Resistance (Fire) racial? The description of fire damage says that only "sealed, fireproof armor" adds to a character's Toughness against Fire. The race in question is made of rock, and would have Armor from rocklike skin. My guess is that technically the racial armor would NOT protect vs Fire.

 

Z

Zadmar

Explorer

• Sep 1, 2014

• #6

Werebat said:

Close enough for FTL rocks, I guess.

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For a FTL rock I'd use Immunity from the SPC. As a +4 racial ability, they'd be immune to heat/fire background damage, and suffer half damage from heat/fire based attacks.

 

Werebat

Explorer

• Sep 1, 2014

• #7

Zadmar said:

For a FTL rock I'd use Immunity from the SPC. As a +4 racial ability, they'd be immune to heat/fire background damage, and suffer half damage from heat/fire based attacks.

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That's a good idea, but rocks also have 50% more hit points than most other races, which should also be modeled somehow. There simply wouldn't be any more room for racials granting Armor, Toughness, or anything else if we went with the ability you describe above.

Besides, if a "spot fire" does 1d10 damage, and a direct hit from a flamethrower does 2d10, we can make rocks practically immune to environmental fire damage by giving them the environmental resistance ability (+4 Armor vs fire damage) and some general toughness boosting abilities like size increase and a plain old boost to Toughness.

Edit: I'm new to SW and operating under the assumption that a character needs to take at least 4 damage in order to suffer a wound -- correct?

I was considering working Hardy into their racial (a second Shaken result in combat does not cause a wound), but at a +3 cost, I don't know. The Sci-Fi Companion did change some racial costs around a bit though so I'll see what I can do.

 

AngryMojo

First Post

• Sep 1, 2014

• #8

I normally rule that for armor to apply to a flamethrower or something of the like it needs to be thermally sealed in some way. For the rock-people it's really your call, are they fleshy on the inside or completely made of stone?

 

Werebat

Explorer

• Sep 1, 2014

• #9

AngryMojo said:

I normally rule that for armor to apply to a flamethrower or something of the like it needs to be thermally sealed in some way. For the rock-people it's really your call, are they fleshy on the inside or completely made of stone?

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In game it is strongly implied that they lack internal organs as we understand them, so I'd think they were completely made of rock.

Here's what I'm thinking of going with for them (using the SciFi Companion wherever it contradicts the Deluxe Explorer's Edition):

Environmental Resistance (Heat/Fire) (+1)
ArmorX2 (+2)
Size +1 (+1)
No Internal Organs (+1)
Slow (-1)
Obese (-1)
Outsider (-1)

The Rock people move at half speed in the FTL game, but have 150% normal hit points and are immune to (environmental) fire damage. Culturally they are known to be extremely xenophobic.

This write up gives them +4 Armor, +4 Armor vs Heat/Fire damage, a total of +2 to Toughness (+1 from Size and +1 from Obese), a Movement of 3 (+1d4 Sprint), and -2 to Charisma to most other races. They are also immune to extra damage from called shots.

Their effective defense against fire damage is 8+(1/2 Vitality) if we don't count their armor against fire, 12+(1/2 Vitality) if we do.

Working on the other races; current hang ups are how to portray the Zoltan ability to power ship systems and how to handle the Mantis ability to do double damage in combat. I THINK I've got a handle on the rest of them, and will post them here in time for review.

 

AngryMojo

First Post

• Sep 1, 2014

• #10

Werebat said:

Here's what I'm thinking of going with for them (using the SciFi Companion wherever it contradicts the Deluxe Explorer's Edition):

Environmental Resistance (Heat/Fire) (+1)
ArmorX2 (+2)
Size +1 (+1)
No Internal Organs (+1)
Slow (-1)
Obese (-1)
Outsider (-1)

Click to expand...

I would strongly recommend taking one of the pace penalties out. Having a pace go down by one or even two isn't too bad, when you get to a pace of three or lower problems happen. Wound penalties apply to pace as well as trait rolls, it really sucks getting wounded and being almost unable to move. I've had a lot of luck with simulating slow movement by decreasing a running die to a d4, or eliminating the ability to run.