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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DarkKestral" data-source="post: 3112244" data-attributes="member: 40100">(Psi): Yeah, but dispersal is often a factor with enzymatic actors like sarin and inhalants like mustard gas and chlorine which have short breakdown periods. Sarin, especially, has to hit the lungs almost immediately, or else it breaks down. Sarin is in fact quite deadly when a chemical warhead of appropriate design is used. Most of the major chemical weapons are simply designed to be ideal means of dispersal. Most, if not in a warhead, need some active dispersal system, as most are heavier than air. Otherwise, they may not function to gas one's target.Furthermore, it's really not THAT hard to design a system for releasing/preventing the spread of it... sealed ductwork and fans will do to spread it where you want it, if you can actively control what regions get air/gas ducted from one place to another. It's not even that unusual to see the basic systems in place in large buildings, for both safety and money reasons. Selectable route ductwork and sealed buildings? Featured in most skyrises, because it makes them safer in an emergency. Chem/Bio labs will almost always have the systems, as will many larger hospitals, and warehouses and factories that use dangerous chemicals will often have them too, for the same reasons. The reasoning is as follows: "We have something dangerous released into the air? Huh. Turn on the active ducting systems to create a vacuum and let it get ducted away to safety or let a fire smother itself without the oxygen it needs, while we evac the building and call the emergency services." (This might be a feature of the Tokyo subway system. I'm not sure. Probably is though, and is possibly a reason no one got killed, though many got injured, and it's supposed to be very well designed and resistant to attack. These sort of systems can easily turn 'deadly' attacks into much less severe events, if used properly.)wing: Reverse that system, and you now have a deathtrap. It's semi-esoteric knowledge to figure out the construction, though not hard to figure out the basics, if you think it through. Certainly, it's not DC 20 just to ACTIVATE. If there's knowledge of the system in the first place, it would not be hard to have it DC 1 or DC 5. If building a capacity to have a resettable trap, it certainly would be a bit higher DC to craft than the current belief of DC15 or so to build/design a system to make the chlorine and then disperse it, (+5 to the DC sounds reasonable) but it would be a very low DC to activate it, as they are designed to be rather easy to use, to ensure that no one accidentally can't use them when needed. The stronger vacuum versions are designed to be activated only by someone marginally trained in their use, though, since some of them could be deadly. It may not even need human intervention, being armed by a machine w/ a proximity sensor/chemical sensor that monitors the presence of certain chemicals in the room.Hero: Mustard Gas is similar in effect and purpose, but there are different versions out there of the mustard gasses. Different ones have different effects, and some are more lethal than others. Therefore, it could be better to use something more specialized. It'd do in a pinch, but I'd probably wanna build a more accurate version if I had time. Mustard gas is a more effective toxin, for one thing.Mustrum_Ridcully: I favor leaning over to the 'realism' side of things when using WMD. Gas attacks are not something I think the PCs should ignore, and they should pause and consider their options when they hear an opponent uses such systems as defense traps. They may be heroic, but unless they've got some Tough Hero talents (Acid Resistance, for one, would be appropriate) and levels under their belt, it shouldn't be something you just shrug off either. I also wish d20 had better capacity to deal with different doses and permanent effect poisons, because many have a kind of 3rd effect that tends to be somewhat permanent. I also believe you can make a balanced poison that has differing effects at differing dosage levels. Just assign a commensurately higher PDC and/or craft DC score and perhaps add a few levels to the restriction score (non-licensed may go to Res (+2) for example) to account for the additional difficulty in acquiring it in large enough dosages. (An example would be Chlorine could be used as Lic (+1) to own in enough quantity to use as a deathtrap, but the more powerful '10 dose' version would have a Craft DC of 22 to build it into a trap, a PDC of 20+, and additional restrictions, making the trap Ill (+4), so if you get caught, you're not just facing a few years of jailtime, but possible execution in some locales) It also doesn't mean you can't have poisons built at differing levels of 'lethality', where some are designed to challenge non-FX players, and some are designed to challenge Future or FX players, and some designed for players using Future+FX rules. (Future and FX rules generally do provide a player power boost. This being the case, to challenge players, you might have to use stronger stuff... there's no reason it can't be provided) Therefore, I deplore the poison rules because they aren't that good, and could be made better while sticking to the 'source material' that defines the genres Modern is designed to emulate, while also being more accurate w/ reality. This comes from my experience with poisons in real life. I have to take some pretty heavy precautions against them to work with them at all, and honestly, even in action movies, you don't see the heroes 'just shrugging it off' as PCs may be wont to do, but rather, they're coughing, nauseated, weakened... all the things I'm mentioning. Granted, they go ahead anyway, but they aren't really saying "eh, we'll just use an item later to get rid of the effects..." Thus, I favor a sort of 'I'm not gonna pull punches' approach. You want to attack that building which you know has a gas deathtrap system without an enviro-suit? Go ahead, but don't expect to live too long...</blockquote>

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