House rules

[IKI]

These are some house rules I will test in my group (Many of these rules are adapted from the Connan RPG). Any comment is more than welcome.

Minor injury-related complications: If a character suffers 3 of the same or more than 5 in total of injury-related complications (minor wound, poison, sick, dehydration, heatstroke, hypothermia, starvation) the character suffers an Injury. The gamemaster chooses if this is lethal or non-lethal damage.

Fatigue Level: There are many threats beyond combat. Even the climate can present a challenge, from the intense heat of the Vulcan deserts that can sear unprotected skin, to the uttermost cold of the Andorian planes, where life is nearly impossible. If you are isolated for too long from shelter, you may face the threat of thirst or starvation. Another threat is of overexertion: if forced to go without sleep or rest for long periods, you will suffer. Life is at risk for anyone exposed to one or several of these problematic conditions for too long. You gain levels of Fatigue for enduring environmental conditions and similar effects. Fatigue affects Stress, but does not inflict damage. Instead, each level of Fatigue reduces your maximum Stress by 1, causing you to tire faster. If your maximum Stress is reduced to 0, then you are exhausted beyond any ability to continue, and you will suffers a non-lethal injury. If you take any further Fatigue once you have a non-lethal injury, immediately turns that into a lethal Injury instead. Continuing exposure when you have suffered a Lethal injury results in death at the end of the scene. Recovering from Fatigue does not take long. Once removed from the source of the Fatigue (taking shelter from heat or cold, finding food or water, sleeping, etc.), removes 1 level of Fatigue, plus 1 per Momentum spend (Repeatable) after eight hours of rest. Someone may help (Medicine = treating, Security = survival) with your recovery. This is a Difficulty 2 test. With success you remove 1 fatigue plus 1 per Momentum spend (Repeatable). If you have received Fatigue from more than one source — for example, heat and thirst from prolonged exposure while in a desert — you must remove yourself from all sources of Fatigue before recovery can begin.

Cold and Heat: As the millennia have passed, the extremes of temperature have been the eternal threat to plague to any life-form, herding them across their world in search of refuge from intolerable climes. Extreme cold or heat poses a serious risk to the unwary, and those exposed for too long without proper protection (shelter, protective clothing, etc.) can be incapacitated or killed. You suffer 1 fatigue/hour if you are unprotected in an extraordinarily cold or hot environment (temperatures below 0˚ Celsius or above 35˚C) and your exertion level goes up 1 level (see sustained activity). Severe cold or heat (below -20˚C or above 45˚C) increase this to 1 fatigue/10 minutes and all activity is considered extreme (see sustained activity). Deadly cold or heat is another thing, you suffer XA/round or minute of lethal damage when exposed to this kind of temperatures.

Thirst and Starvation: Lack of basic sustenance is a major concern in the wilds, particularly if you are unskilled in survival techniques. Depending on your body mass and level of activity, you will require at least one and a half liter of water a day (or its equivalent) to avoid suffering from the effects of thirst. After going without adequate water for a prolonged period (Fitness + 24 hours) you suffer 1 fatigue/hour. This requirement is tripled in extremely hot environments, though natives to these areas have various means of alleviating this need. Furthermore, the game master may choose to adjust the time if a minor, but less-than-adequate, amount of water is consumed. Starvation is a little more forgiving. After three days without food, you suffer 1 Fatigue/day. An adult Humanoid requires at least one reasonable meal (or its equivalent) each day in order to avoid the risk of starvation.

Forced March: Pushing yourself to travel further or faster than normal can overwhelm you with Fatigue. You normal pace is considered standard activity (see Sustained Activity), and double pace is demanding activity, and a forced march (triple speed) is considered extreme activity.

Sleep Deprivation: Lack of sleep is perhaps the easiest source of Fatigue to recover from, but it comes with its own risks. If you have been awake constantly for 48 hours, you suffer 1 level of fatigue every additional eight hours of sleeplessness as your mind and body weaken. You will require eight hours of sleep in order to begin recovering from sleep deprivation.

Sustained Activity: Sustained activity can result in fatigue. There are 3 levels of activity reflecting your exertion: Standard, Demanding, and Extreme. You can perform standard activity for a number of hours per day equal to your Fitness. For each additional hour, you suffer 1 level of Fatigue. You tire faster with higher levels of activity. Demanding activity cuts that time in half, and extreme activity reduces it to one quarter. You must rest for at least eight hours to recover from sustained activity. The gamemaster can adjust your fatigue recovery accordingly when you didn’t rest enough.

Atmospheric Pressure: High- or low-pressure atmospheres can cause difficulty in breathing, “bends” or total system failure. On low-pressure worlds, characters have problems breathing because the atmosphere’s simply too thin. By contrast, high-pressure worlds put a strain on circulatory and respiratory systems because the gases strain the limits of the body. In either case, discomfort and death can result. Variations in pressure can quickly render characters unable to function. There’s no real need to go into the specifics of atmospheric pressure values; it’s sufficient to determine that a planet is high- or low-pressure compared to a given character’s home world. (This is especially true because pressure tolerance tends to vary widely from individual to individual.) In slightly high or low pressure, you tend to become winded more easily, and recover more slowly. Characters from worlds with standard atmospheres suffer these effects on worlds with thin or thick atmospheres; characters from thin or thick atmospheres (who must evolve stronger rib and lung muscles in the first place) suffer them only in thick or thin air, respectively. A Humanoid suffers these effects on thin-aired Vulcan or thick-atmosphere Ferenginar, for example, but Vulcans would only suffer on Ferenginar and not on Earth. You gain 1 level of fatigue to all exertions, and it takes twice as long to recover fatigue levels. In very high or low pressure (trace or dense atmospheres), you not only suffer from extreme fatigue, but you eventually suffer from hemorrhaging and other problems. Add 2 levels fatigue to all exertions, and you don’t recover fatigue levels at all with rest. No Class-M world has very high or low air pressure to any Humanoidoid; worlds with damaging pressure are considered Class-K or Class-H. Super dense atmospheres do one 1A/round until the character dies, is rescued, or enters a safe environment. Surviving in and medically treating pressure differences is a lot harder than dealing with temperature extremes. The most that you can really do is try to pace yourself and hope that an injection of tri-ox or a similar compound can make up for respiration difficulties. No Survival test is possible to negate the penalties for extreme atmospheric pressure. Special compounds from the 23rd and later centuries may mitigate pressure problems for four to eight hours, at the Narrator’s discretion. Obviously, a character with an artificial environment regulator (like an EVA suit) doesn’t need to worry about the problems of temperature and pressure as long as the environment remains controlled.