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Old 01-12-2016, 11:29 AM   #2
Kromm
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: How Vulnerable is Vulnerability

Vulnerability cares only about its chosen descriptor. If the descriptor fits, then whether you experience a deliberate attack, an incidental hazard, or plain bad luck, Vulnerability multiplies the harm you suffer. And unless that descriptor is also a damage type – as in "Vulnerability (Cutting ×2)" – multiplication applies to HP loss from all damage types, FP loss from the fatigue damage type, and all losses to things that cause direct HP and FP depletion without a formally defined damage type. If only FP are multiplied, you must add Fatigue Only, -50%.

For instance, Vulnerability (Heat/Fire ×2) means you suffer double HP loss from standard burning heat and flame, whether it's from a dragon, a flamethrower, a bonfire, or a critical failure while doing something with a flaming cocktail, hot stove, Roman candle, or cutting torch. You also lose double HP to weird-science "heat rays" that happen to be defined as corrosion, cutting, or impaling instead of burning. You suffer double FP loss on hot days. And Fire-college spells or pyrokinetic attacks that blast away FP or HP directly without mentioning a damage type would cause double effect as well.

BUT . . . Vulnerability applies strictly to things that could inflict HP or FP on anyone. It's for effects that are baneful to everyone and extra-nasty for you. If something that doesn't normally harm most people harms you just by being nearby, you have a Weakness.

You can have both. There's nothing wrong with a werewolf having Vulnerability (Silver ×4) – which means that silver daggers and bullets that would harm anyone hurt her more, and that silver nitrate that would burn any living tissue is nastier for her – and Weakness (Silver, 1d/minute) that causes her to lose HP if she wears silver jewelry, picks up a silver sword, or is put in a cell with silver bars. However, the triggers are unrelated. Vulnerability is set off by events that would cost anybody HP or FP, while Weakness is activated by proximity to a substance or a condition that's harmless to most people in normal concentrations.
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