Aberrant 2.0 Combat Alterations

Rules Changes

• Area Attacks: Area attacks have an Area rating, which adds to the difficulty to dodge them. In lieu of increasing dodge difficulties, an area attack may be targeted on up to (Area rating) additional secondary targets for full damage instead. These two may be combined-a character with Area 4 may attack two additional enemies, while still inflicting +2 difficulty to dodge said attack on both the primary and secondary targets. Area attacks do not gain additional damage from successes on the attack roll. Because good tactics implies good spacing, the secondary targets of an area attack add their Tactics to the difficulty of hitting them. In the event a character needs to find out how large of an area the attack covers (for mass destruction purposes perhaps) assume most powers have an area of effect radius of 5m per level of Area (so an attack with Area 5 would have a 25m radius).

• Explosive Attacks: The Explosive (Exp) rating of an Explosive attack is how many dice (and damage adds) of damage the attack is reduced by per net success on a defender's dodge roll. Like an area attack, an Explosive attack may target multiple enemies. In this case, each secondary target reduces the damage all targets take by the Exp rating. Like an Area attack, secondary targets may use Tactics to further reduce damage, and explosive attacks do not gain additional damage from successes. To calculate the blast effect of an Explosive attack, divide the total of the attack's damage + damage adds by its Explosive rating and multiply that by 5m per dot.

• Death: A character is not always irrecoverably dead after being incapacitated, unless the deed is done by truly horrific or irreparable forms of damage. Typically there is a window equal to the character's (Stamina) in minutes to resuscitate them via a (Dexterity + Medicine) roll with a base difficulty of +1, +1 for each minute the character has been "dead", +1 for each additional level of damage past Incapacitated the character has taken. This stabilizes a character and prevents them from dying, but does not heal any damage.

• Dodging Bullets: Baseline characters may not dodge bullets-they must dodge the aim. A character without Mega-Dexterity may only take dodge actions against bullets, lasers, or other such high-velocity ranged weapons if he or she has higher initiative than the shooter-you have to know someone's aiming at you to dodge their aim. Alternatively, a character may take a "dodge action" if the character is sprinting from cover to cover or some other method to minimize exposure. Novas may dodge bullets without an issue at Mega-Dexterity 1, but may have increased dodge difficulties for things such as speed of light weapons (which may add +1 difficulty to dodge rolls).

• Instant Death: Being killed by some attacks may cause instant death and prevent any resuscitation without techniques such as Healing or Iatrosis 5. Instant death happens from one of several methods. Obviously, even a dead character who could be resuscitated might not be, if the circumstances of their death prevent it.
  • The character is killed by a called shot to a vital organ. CPR doesn't work if the heart or brain is destroyed.
  • The character is killed by Aggravated damage. Any attempt to resuscitate in this case via mundane medicine merely prolongs the character's agonizing death.

• Healing Times: A character who has taken damage heals each level at the rates given below. Novas heal at at least double normal rate by default, which increases via Mega-Stamina. Furthermore, Novas with Mega-Stamina 1 reduce wound severity by 1 category when calculating healing times, Novas with Mega-Stamina 3 reduce wound severity by 2 categories when calculating healing times, and Novas with Mega-Stamina 5 reduce wound severity by 3 categories for healing. A character heals an additional 1 category faster with competent medical care (a small clinic with decent provisions) and 2 categories faster with expert care (a top of the line trauma ward).
  • -0 HLs: 1 hour (bashing)/1 day (lethal)
  • -1 HLs: 2 hours (bashing)/1 week (lethal)
  • -2 HLs: 4 hours (bashing)/2 weeks (lethal)
  • -4 HLs: 8 hours (bashing)/1 month (lethal)
  • Incapacitated: 1 day (bashing)/3 months (lethal)
  • Dying: 1 day (bashing)/5 months (lethal)

• Health Levels of a Corpse: A corpse typically has (dead person's Strength + Stamina) total health levels. Mega-Strength and Mega-Stamina each add an effective +2 per dot-even after the M-R node connection dies, something remains (which is how Soma and Mite work). This is generally only relevant in the case of attempting to resuscitate a dead character, given above.

• Human Shields: If using a person as a shield (generally a human shield is Superior cover for +3 difficulty) and the attack hits the person (this happens if it rolls enough successes to hit but not enough to overcome the cover), damage from an attack is reduced by the person in question's soak + 1 before your soak applies. If this reduces the attack's damage to 0L or less, you take no damage. Damage is rolled for both parties. Taking a human shield requires a Grapple maneuver. A character may parry with a human shield, a successful parry negating the attack as normal (the human shield takes the full force)

• Incapacitation: A character is Dazed if he takes more than (Stamina) levels of damage in a single turn or Stunned if he takes more than (2*Stamina) levels. A Dazed character is at +2 difficulty to any actions taken on his next turn (and may not take multiple actions), while a Stunned character loses his next turn, or his next two turns if he takes more than (3*Stamina) levels.

• Range Increments: The range increment is the short range of the attack. Medium range is up to double the range increment and +2 difficulty, Long range is up to quadruple the range increment and +4 difficulty, and an Extreme range shot is up to eight times the range increment, at +6 difficulty.

• Thrown Attacks: Thrown attacks use Dexterity + Athletics, and generally have a range bracket of (Strength + Might) * 5 meters for objects massing less than 1 kg, with each additional kilogram reducing this by 5m due to unwieldiness. Particularly aerodynamic objects (frisbees, etc) may add +1 to +3 to the character's effective Might skill. Novas with Mega-Strength add an additional 50m of range per dot of Mega-Strength and divide the effective mass of an object for calculating distances by 10 at Mega-Strength 1, and add 10 to the divisor per additional dot of Mega-Strength (so a character with M-Str 5, Str 5, and Might 5 can throw a 50 kg object with a range bracket of 350m.

• Stun Damage: Some attacks do stun damage, which is essentially "virtual" damage. These attacks fail to do any lasting harm, and the worst they can inflict is unconsciousness. Stun damage is entirely healed at the end of each combat turn and does not deal any lasting effects. However, they may Daze (net Stamina levels of damage) or Stun (net 2*Stamina levels) the victim. A point of spent Willpower may reduce damage by 1 for the effects of unconsciousness. In general, stun damage is soaked as bashing damage, although certain attacks may deal unsoakable stun damage (such as Stun Attack).

Damage

Damage Adds

Some particularly brutal or extremely powerful weapons (explosive or expanding bullets, vehicular weapons) are so powerful that they can tear through most targets particularly well. Other weapons can deal massive trauma to a target but are relatively easy to defend against-any target which can soak the damage is well off, but if they cannot, the damage such a weapon can cause is traumatic. These weapons have damage adds, or automatic levels of damage.

As long as a weapon penetrates the enemy soak (i.e. final damage is not reduced to 0 or less) the target takes a number of levels of damage equal to the damage add of a weapon. The damage add of a weapon is listed in brackets-a weapon that deals 10L [4] deals 10 dice of damage, and 4 automatic levels.

Note that a weapon with damage reduced to 0 or less still does 1 die of ping damage.

Natural Lethal Soak

All characters, baseline and Nova, have natural lethal soak equal to Stamina/2. Novas no longer gain natural lethal soak as one of their special abilities-their increased toughness is represented by additional health levels. All Stamina soak stacks.

Health Levels

A baseline human has a health track of -0/-1 x 2 /-2 x 2/-4/Incapacitated. This is the standard 7 level health track.

Novas channel Quantum through their body, increasing the toughness of their skin, muscles, and bones due to such rigors of channeling, and as they become more adept at channeling such energies their body becomes tougher in turn to allow them to make use of their mastery. Each point of Quantum a Nova possesses gives the Nova an additional -0 health level. Furthermore, each point of Quantum adds +1B/1L/0.5A (round soak down) to the Nova's natural soak. Quantum-granted soak stacks with Stamina and Mega-Stamina soak, although it is not doubled by purchases of Resiliency.

A Nova has a natural Aggravated soak of (Quantum/2).

Grievous Injury

The human body (and by extension, the transhuman body) can survive surprising amounts of injury as long as there is immediate medical care provided to prevent infection or death via blood loss. When someone is taken out of the fight, it is quite common for horrific damage to have been rendered that is not directly life-threatening. After all, as long as the heart, lungs, and brain are intact, someone may be salvaged.

When a character takes more than half of his health levels in a single attack, the player (not the character) may choose to take a grievous injury instead, reducing the damage to 1 health level in exchange for being maimed. The bullet misses your character's heart but shatters her elbow joint instead, leaving her incapable of moving that arm for the rest of her life without significant reconstructive surgery. A bouncing betty mine malfunctions, removing both of a character's legs at the knees instead of tearing his chest open. A bone-breaking blow snaps the spine rather than driving a broken rib into the lung. So on. The only exception is if the attack deals enough damage in a single blow to convert the character from healthy to paste (so if an attack does enough HLs of damage to kill the character and then destroy his corpse) the character is irrevocably dead.

In any case, these wounds are always horrific in nature, and grant a character 5 points of physical (and possibly mental or social, depending on the potential cause) flaws. If a character takes more than 3/4ths of their health levels (so 6 levels or more for a baseline, more for a Nova character), then the character suffers 7 points of flaws instead. These grievous wounds cannot be healed naturally by baselines-the damage is too widespread, and it is only due to modern medical care that survival and continued function is even possible. Instead, they must be bought off, healed via more esoteric means such as psionic or quantum powers, or mitigated-prosthetics can mitigate missing limbs, and cybernetics or vat-grown biotech can restore other forms of damage.

Novas with Regeneration can heal grievous injuries on their own, regrowing damaged body parts. Generally each individual flaw takes the Nova the same amount of time to heal off as a missing limb or organ.

Armor

Armor is destroyed if an attack has raw damage equal to its Destruction rating. An armor's penalty decreases the user's dice pool for actions such as running, dodging, leaping, and so forth. It also adds to the difficulty of all rolls to resist exertion. Furthermore, the heavier and more tiring the armor, the harder it is for a character to act. A character must have both (Strength + Might) and (Stamina + Endurance) equal to (2 + total mobility penalty), or takes a -1 dice penalty to all rolls for every dot he falls short of this requirement.

Some particularly light armor is now considered to be "lightweight" and has no strength or stamina requirements. Armored T-Shirts, Reinforced Clothing, and Eufiber are the only lightweight armor in the core.

Armor Stacking

Each "layer" of armor past the first increases the difficulty penalty of all worn armor by +1 if it has a penalty of 1 or more. Stacking multiple layers of armor with -0 penalty is somewhat less harsh, as it only adds +1 difficulty for each layer of penalty-free armor past the first. More importantly, stacked armor becomes encumbering and poorly balanced-the total Penalty Rating now applies to all physical actions, rather than merely just movement.

Armor Concealability

Armor can be concealed under clothing if so stated in its description. For the purposes of advancement, only armors of a certain mass can effectively be hidden under clothing. Unconcealable armor can be of any mass.

• Heavy Clothing (i.e. winter gear): 10kg or less
• Normal Clothing (i.e. jacket, jeans, loose-cut suit): 5 kg or less
• Scanty Clothing (i.e. lingerie, swimsuit): 5 kg or less, must be capable of acting as a "second skin" (a la Bioweave armor, certain Novatech devices).

Stacked Defenses

Stacking defensive powers becomes less and less effective the more of them you have. To allow the reduction in stacking effectiveness, there are now three categories of soak. Soak always rounds down.

• Natural soak: Natural soak comes from Quantum, Stamina, and Mega-Stamina.
  • Without Enhancements, Natural soak should equal (Quantum + Stamina + Mega-Stamina)B, (Quantum + Mega-Stamina + Stamina/2)L, and (Quantum/2)A.
• Power-Based soak: Power-Based soak is gained from Quantum (or Psi) powers.
• Armored soak: Armored soak comes from body armor or eufiber, or body modifications.

Any character may only gain the full defensive value of one source of each soak type (normally the highest soak value). The second source of said soak is halved, the third source has its value divided by 4, and so on, to a minimum of +0L/0B from stacking. Round stacking soak values down. Note that some soak is noted to be Stackable, primarily soak gained from body modifications. This means you add up all sources of stackable soak and treat it as one source of soak.

Example: A Nova with Eufiber 4 (+4B/4L soak), Advanced Body Armor (+6B/6L soak), and Subdermal Armor (+2B/2L soak) with a Hyperdense Skeleton (+2B/1L soak) calculates his armored soak by taking the full value of his Advanced Body Armor (6B/6L), then halving the value of his Eufiber (4B/4L halves to 2B/2L), and then quartering the value of his body modification soak (4B/3L quarters to 1B/0L), giving him a total of 9B/8L soak from armor, rather than 14B/13L.

Non-Soak Defenses

Similarly, all additional defensive powers become less effective the more of them you have. A character with multiple powers which increase their resistance to quantum powers, mental powers, or increase the difficulty to be hit use the highest bonus and gain an additional +1 bonus for every additional source of the same bonus that is meaningful.

A meaningful source has a bonus equal or greater than 50% of the total bonus given. For example, if a nova adds +5 difficulty to all enemy attack rolls, a power that adds to the difficulty of enemy attack rolls is not meaningful unless it adds +3 or more to the difficulty of enemy attack rolls. If the nova had 1 such meaningful power, he would increase that difficulty penalty to +6. If the Nova wished to increase that to a +8 penalty, he would need the basic +5 difficulty power, and 3 powers with +4 difficulty.

Compressed Combat

This is a system used for less-narratively important fights, compressing the effect of a fight into one roll. Compressed combat uses (attack roll + base attack damage - enemy soak) for every character in question. In other words, it's (attribute + ability + damage - soak). For example, a police officer with Dexterity 3, Firearms 2 + 1 accuracy, weapon damage 6L, and soak 4L has a total of 12d and subtracts 4d from the opponent's pool. The opposing gangbanger with Dexterity 2, Firearms 2, weapon damage 5L, and soak 1L has a total of 9d and subtracts 1d from the opponent's pool. Automatic successes are removed first by "soak" in this system. If facing multiple opponents, use the highest opponent's soak.

In general, the henchmen rules should be used to model combatants. Up to the henchmen limit add to the dice pool, but each additional henchman past that is an effective extra health level for the character in question.

Modifiers

Listed below are some potential modifiers. Note that modifiers can never more than double the base (attack + damage) pool before soak is factored in.

• Higher Tactics than opponent: +1d
• Dodge pool higher than opponent attack pool: +1d
• Superior Position: +1-5d
• Cover: -1-3d to the opponent's pool (equal to normal +difficulty)
• Relevant Supporting Power: +1-5 successes (equal to power dot rating)

Quantum Powers

In general, if a quantum power is used for the attack pool, it is assumed that the power is used for the majority of combat. Maintenance and Concentration powers cost double, while multiply the cost of all Action powers by x5 and all Instant powers by x10. In the event that the character has an insufficient quantum pool for the use of all powers he/she chooses to apply, the character ends the combat with 0 points of remaining Quantum but suffers no other penalties.

Strange Interactions

Some powers may not have actual damage ratings, or may be resisted differently. In that case, the user's pool is either (2 * attack roll - enemy resistance pool) or (attack roll + damage roll - enemy resistance roll). Combat-relevant powers which may fall under this category are powers such as Dominate, Mental Blast, Biomanipulation, Entropic Manipulation, and various others. Powers which may be tangentially beneficial (such as say, telekinesis or Invisibility) add +1d to your basic combat roll for each dot in the power.

Forcefield and other sources of ablative soak subtract 1 success from the enemy attack roll per dot (+1 additional success subtracted for forcefield proper rather than a suite power), same with any power which increases attack difficulty. Any relevant defensive extras increase forcefield's success-subtracting properties.

Resolution

Timeframe

The timeframe of a compressed combat is equal to the highest (attribute + ability) dice pool of the combatants in question, in turns. Each dot of a Mega-Attribute counts as 2 dots of a normal attribute.

Victory

The winner is the side which rolls more total successes. The winning side achieve their intent, which should be a one sentence goal. "Driving the enemy to retreat" is a valid goal, or "I want to survive", or "I want to show dominance" or so on. A tie is resolved by base initiative-the character with the higher initiative wins the fight.

Damage and Death

The total successes rolled by a "side" equal the levels of damage a character takes. In the event that both characters take enough damage to be incapacitated or killed, the character with the higher base initiative survives on their last -4 health level, while the character with lower initiative is killed. Against multiple important opponents, total damage successes should be divided as seen fit (generally evenly).

The ability to win without rolling sufficient successes to kill an opponent means it is often possible, in compressed combat, that a victory is won before someone dies on one side. Most conflicts are not resolved with the death of one of the participants, after all. Fights "to the death" should generally be resolved normally, 'blow-by-blow'.

Mass Combat

These mass combat rules are enhancements which allow people to use extras and other things in large scale combat.

Henchmen

Henchmen are irrelevant, faceless mooks who don't even have the status of an extra. They are used as enhancements to the actions of a leader figure, who may benefit from up to (Charisma + Command) * 2 henchmen at a time during most situations. Certain situations (wide open battlefields with no cover) may increase the number of henchmen that can be effectively used, while tight quarters may reduce or even eliminate the option of using henchmen.

• Dice Pool: Each henchman adds to the commander's pool for attacks and defenses (the defensive bonus is generally represented by suppressive fire, fire and overwatch tactics, and other options that allow for increased survival rates). This bonus is generally +1d, but increases to +2d if the henchman in question has an attribute and ability total in that area over 7d. If the henchmen have Psi or Quantum powers (generally only for sub-aberrants and universally psi-capable aliens like Chromatics), this bonus is given to Psi usage as well, or adds to the dice pool for Quantum powers that both parties have.

• Damage: Each henchman adds +1 to the damage of the commander's weapon. Henchmen with bigger guns than the commander are considered to have Support Weapons, and have their own rules. In normal operation, they simply add to damage, firing their light weapons.

• Support Weapons: Instead of attacking himself, a commander can use a henchman's heavy weapon. This could be anything from molotov cocktails and AK-47s for the leader of a rioting mob armed with clubs and knives, to pulse cannons and plasma guns for a Trinity-era Legion strike team. This attack is made at full dice pool with henchmen accuracy/damage bonuses. Weapons capable of firing bursts are assumed to fire the largest possible burst they can. This attack can only be done once per combat per henchman equipped with a heavy weapon. The rest of the time, the henchman is assumed to be missing dramatically.

• Damage Soak: Until all henchmen are eliminated, the leader cannot be targeted. When targeting a squad with henchmen in it, the squad's soak is assumed to be the representative soak of the most numerous henchman type. Each point of damage dealt removes from play one of these henchmen, until only the commander is left and can be engaged normally. Some squads may be all-henchmen, which means the commander himself is eliminated like a henchman. Note that outside of area attacks, most henchmen don't die, they just surrender/drop their weapons and cower in fear/are too shocked or confused to contribute meaningfully for the fight. Well-trained and fanatical henchmen may divide losses by 2 or 3, being harder to intimidate into surrender, pin down, or incapacitate.

• Area Vulnerability: Area attacks have increased effect on squads. Generally, all post-soak damage is doubled for area attacks, although particularly large ones may triple or even quadruple post-soak effects on henchman squads. Area attacks are dangerous things against groups, and the shock and noise can often scare poorly-trained henchmen into surrendering.

Warfare

The Warfare rules roughly model that there is a war going on around you, and that you are not the only participants in this battle.

Force Attributes

All forces have three attributes generally rated from 1-10:

• Size: Size represents the size of a fighting force, and roughly how much firepower they can bring to bear. Every level of Size represents roughly 2 times the number of people above it, with Size 1 being roughly platoon-level (~40 men). Size 5 is therefore a roughly battalion sized unit while Size 10 is ~20,000 combat personnel, or roughly an entire Corps. Size grants numerous advantages.
• Firepower: How much firepower a force can bring to bear and how good it is at surviving it. Firepower is the lethal damage that a successful attack on the party by an opposing armed force deals, ignoring soak. Soak is ignored because higher priority targets get more firepower-a tank or Nova gets engaged by RPGs and artillery, while infantry are generally not hit by things like mass 155mm howitzer bombardment or the like.
• Skill: A unit's skill is how well it handles its weapons. This is its base dice pool for most purposes. The unit's skill rating is used for attacks of opportunity. Skill is an average of personal combat skill, tactical acumen, and organizational efficiency.

All forces also have at least two tracks and possibly three rated from 0-10:

• Morale: A unit's morale is essentially a unit's willpower track. A unit may spend 1 Morale to add 1 success to all actions the unit takes in that round.
• Support: How much "off-board" firepower a unit possesses. A unit with Support 0 has no actual support and has to make do. A unit with Support 5+ is generally a first world military with more than enough firepower to throw at any issue it wants to. 1 point of this track can be spent to add the permanent support track size to the Skill dice pool, and add 1 automatic success to firepower rolls. Certain types of support may have additional effects such as tactical nuclear weapons turning damage aggravated or tactical recon assets adding +1 to accuracy for all enemy attacks on the turn.
• Power: Certain forces are predominantly made up of creatures with Psi or Quantum-based powers. These forces have an attribute, roughly representative of their rating in that ability. A horde of sub-Aberrants has Power 1, while an all-Doyen force would have Power 10.

Attacks of Opportunity

The military setup above is not intended for high-level conflict resolutions-it is intended to modify the low-level situation around the party. As such, the first thing the larger war does is add attacks of opportunity.

A unit gets as many attacks of opportunity as its Size, representing the hordes of men and materiel found in a battle and how they often can engage important targets, but only up to (Intelligence + Command) attacks of opportunity can be used on the battlefield. Other attacks tend to be wasted on lower-priority targets, bogged down by clever enemy feints, or fired off but used ineffectively.

These attacks use a unit's Skill + Size + Support (if support is used) versus the enemy's Wits + Tactics as a defense. Success deals post-soak damage dice equal to Firepower + Size, ignoring soak or other factors (the rationale for such is given above). Note that against squads, these attacks are always considered Area attacks, with an x3 multiplier.

For ease of resolution, the attack/damage pools can be divided by 3, then rounded up.

Power Overwhelming

Some units have a Power track. The Power track is an abstraction of the force's ability to alter the battlefield via psionic or quantum means. This track has various uses.

• Boost: A commander can spend 1 point from the Power track and roll its permanent rating. Successes temporarily increase the effectiveness of all units with the same powers, adding a temporary +1 Psi for 1 turn for Psions. For Quantum users, this instead adds +1 to power rating and +1 to Quantum for the same turn.
• Recharge: A commander can spend 1 point from the power track to add 1 Quantum or Psi to all his soldiers. This is a narrative fiat. The soldiers under his command aren't actually recharged-it's just that with others to assist in the fight, they never had to push quite as hard in the first place.
• Firepower: A commander can use his force's noetic or quantum ability as support, with identical rules, save replacing Support for Power. The combined actions of dozens of Psions or Novas can be incredible. High-magnitude storms, rains of fire or lightning, suddenly overcharging everyone's weapons beyond normal abilities, summoned giant robot attacks, so on and so forth. This can be used alongside Support as well, for truly awe-inspiring levels of carnage.

Quantity is Quality

The larger a unit is, the deadlier it is, even if outdated and poorly led, numbers can be effective. The net difference in size can add several complications on the tactical scale.

• Reduced Defense: Even on the tactical scale, the sheer number of threats arrayed by a numerically superior foe can be a deadly distraction. Most of them might not even be engaging, but they are still potential threats. The net size difference inflicts a +1 difficulty penalty per point to any defensive or awareness rolls. It's not so hard for a group of commandos to sneak past you when you're a platoon surrounded by 20,000 men.
• Reduced Morale: A horde of foes is a very visceral threat, an unending swarm of foes heading down like locusts. Each point of size may be used to reduce the smaller unit's Morale track by 1. This affects temporary and permanent Morale.
• Attacks of Opportunity: As seen above, a unit's size plays a significant role in the lethality of attacks of opportunity. Large numbers of even poorly trained combatants can rapidly attrition small, elite units to nothingness.