Although it's been a while since my last forum post, IRE has not at all been forgotten - I'm still trying to push towards a complete beta ruleset, in the hope that a playtest day can be held at Dark Sphere sometime in the not too distant future.
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System Shock is something I discussed before, and I've been sitting on the IRE rules text for a while:
System Shock
A character suffering a lot of damage at once will often pass out simply due to pain and shock. This is known as System Shock, and is one of the most common reasons a character will go out of action.
A character who takes 10 or more damage from one hit (after armour, etc) must pass a Toughness test or be taken out of action for the remainder of the game.
Characters may also be called upon to take System Shock tests or automatically suffer System Shock as a result of particularly traumatic location injury.
There are also higher levels of system shock, representing more major injuries:
Level 2 system shock is caused by taking 15 or more damage from one hit, and requires that they take an additional System Shock test (over the basic test required.)
Level 3 system shock is caused by taking 20 or more damage from one hit, adding a further System Shock test (over that for levels 1 and 2).
A character who is in good health is less likely to suffer System Shock than one who is already heavily injured. If a character's prior Injury total (i.e. before adding the current hit) is equal or less than his System Shock Value (equal to one fifth of his Toughness value - see the Characteristics section), then he gains a +20 bonus to his Toughness test.
Gamesmaster's Note:
Some characters may have special rules that increase their System Shock values. In addition to increasing their System Shock value, this also increases the thresholds for System Shock tests.
- Characters that are noted to increase their System Shock threshold by half treat the damage thresholds as 5 points higher (meaning that L1, L2 & L3 System shock are caused at 15, 20 and 25 points respectively).
- Characters that are noted to double their System Shock threshold treat the damage thresholds as 10 points higher (meaning that L1, L2 & L3 System shock are caused at 20, 25 and 30 points respectively).
As said before, this is intended to even out System Shock a little. It should remove the near-immunity that high toughness characters have had, as almost everyone now tests at 10 points of damage (although tough characters will still be much more likely to pass the test), but also give low toughness characters at least a moderate chance of not getting knocked out by one hit.
And with levels of system shock, a serious hit is now also actually a serious hit. Staying conscious if hit with a plasma gun will be a tougher feat than if hit by a stub pistol.
Playtesting may show that the thresholds need tweaking, but we'll see.
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I'm also looking at updating the injury charts.
First thing is that IRE plans to make injury levels cumulative. I, and quite a lot of others, already play this way (to the point it had mostly slipped my mind that he rulebook says that only the current injury level applies).
As the original rules are written, an Acute chest wound has a persistent penalty of just -1 speed and Bleeding, but a Heavy wound to both legs would be -2 speed. Now, to me, it just makes sense that "serious fractures, dislocations, vicious exit wounds and extensive muscle damage" to a character's heart, lungs and spine should probably be quite a bit nastier than cuts and sprains, even if they are to both legs.
With that change in mind, and also the fact that Speed penalties will be a bit meaner in IRE (as IRE uses 3+ action rolls), I may actually pull a few results off the injury tables.
These are the main changes I've got ear-marked:
- Exchange the -1 Speed penalty for a heavy leg injury for "Fall prone". (The speed penalty will probably be retained for higher injury levels).
- Dropping some of the "lighter" stunned results to 1 turn (or maybe D3-1 turns) rather than D3 turns. (As taking two injury levels and being stunned for 2D3 turns isn't that fun).
- Swapping some of the system shock results for different levels of System shock tests.
- Possibly injury total penalties for all levels of groin hits. (Partly because I'm considering reducing the severity of the stunning for heavy injury)
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And here's a passage I've been writing to put into the Awareness section:
Degrees of Awareness
Awareness is not a completely binary matter, and there are a huge number of ways in which a character can be partially informed. It is easiest to explain this concept through an example:
At the start of the game, Inquisitor Shyloque has no idea that Enforcer Barbaretta is in the area, and is therefore completely unaware of her presence. While his general paranoia (an Inquisitor doesn't live long if not wary) may cause him to act cautiously at any time, he won't be able to take any action that would be intentionally be acting against her.
Later on, Shyloque hears the sound of Barbaretta's footsteps on metal decking. He now becomes aware that someone is in the area and has a reasonable idea of her location, but will not know who she is or much about what she is doing. He can reasonably infer she is probably walking around, and also that she is probably not having a chainsword duel (as he'd have heard that!), but won't know more than he could have worked out by listening. He now knows that someone else is in the area, and can act accordingly.
Shortly afterwards, Shyloque moves into an open area, where Barbaretta is standing a few yards directly in front of him. As he can clearly see her, he is now fully aware of where she is, what she is doing and "who" she is.
However, as soon as she finds an opportunity, Barbaretta runs around a corner. Now Shyloque can't see her, he is no longer aware of her exact location or actions. However, he will remain aware of anything he has previously seen Barbaretta do. This includes which direction he saw her run off in, thus allowing him to attempt pursuit.
The rules will occasionally force a character to be or become unaware. In these circumstances, the character is unable to become aware of any new information (as limited by the given rule) but, as in the above example, will continue to remember any information he was previously aware of.
For a common example, the Engaged state forces a character to focus on their immediate surroundings. Should, before Barbaretta have run off, Shyloque have become Engaged in a melee with Sgt Stone then, with his attention fully on that fight, Shyloque would have been too busy to have seen which direction Barbaretta had departed in.
The GM should apply common sense to these cases. Shyloque may knock Sgt Stone back out of the normal Engaged area, but in this case his attention will probably remain on the Sergeant. Also, should something dramatic happen (such as someone flying/crashing a Valkyrie into a nearby building, or an entire ammo dump exploding just behind him), he will probably notice!
It's not introducing any actual change in the rules and it's the kind of thing veteran players are fluent in - but with Awareness being a very important concept in the rules, I thought the concept of
how aware a character was could do with a little elaboration.
I'm quite happy with the definition of being unaware of someone as "you don't know what they're doing
now"; even for me, being able to state it in clear terms is quite helpful.
Adding + and - categories to Reach.
Also, I've nicked this (or at least my version of this) from Alyster's CCW discussion. As integrated into IRE, weapons with a Plus reach double their ideal range bonus, but weapons with a Minus reach lose their ideal range bonus.
As I said over in his thread a couple of months back, I think the original close combat weapon profile is quite limiting (excluding special rules, CCWs have just three stats, one of which can only vary from 0-4); expanding the profile will hopefully make weapons play more differently, and therefore lead to more varied close combats and strategies.
For example, a character might have a Reach 2 short sword. Hence, he would therefore normally prefer to fight at his optimum 2 yard range. However, unlike in the current rules, facing off against a Reach 2+ axe or a Reach 3 sword will be strategically very different for him.