[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Unfit and Very Unfit

[johndallman]

Unfit [-5] and Very Unfit [-15] are mundane physical disadvantages. Your cardiovascular health is worse than average, which has a variety of negative effects on your durability in general. These appeared during the 3e period, but I’m not sure just where.

If you are Unfit, then your HT rolls to resist ageing, death, disease, poison, unconsciousness, etc., are at -1. This does not affect your actual HT attribute, nor any HT-based skills. You also lose fatigue points (FP) at “twice the normal rate” which appears to mean you lose two when someone without this disadvantage would lose one. This only applies to FP lost due to exertion, warm weather, and so on, and not to FP spent to power magic, psi or similar abilities.

If you are Very Unfit, you have all the problems of Unfit, the penalty to HT rolls is -2, and you also recover FP at half the normal rate. I presume that this means you need twice as much rest to recover each FP. By symmetry with the rules for loosing FP, I presume that FP replaced by other means, such as a Lend Energy spell, are not halved.

These disadvantages are reasonably common options on published character templates. They usually appear on nerdy or intellectual types, never on active-service soldiers or other physical types. After the End extends the fit:unfit scale beyond Very Unfit to handle hazards that reduce fitness, and Bio-Tech points out that these disadvantages can be the result of long-lasting diseases. There are also DF spore clouds, High-Tech psychiatric drugs, Low-Tech poisons, Martial Arts critical hits, Steampunk corsets, Supers psychic combat and Ultra-Tech cybernetics failures that can cause these disadvantages. Power-Ups 6 has a quirk-level version of Unfit with no HT penalty, and Power-Ups 9 discusses these disadvantages in relation to alternate versions of HT. Social Engineering: Back to School applies HT modifiers for Fit and Unfit to the requirement for HT12 to benefit from intensive training.

I’ve never used this disadvantage as a player or GM, but I have some real-life experience. In mid-2018 I started walking to work instead of taking a bus, and found my HT penalties to resist diseases improved in very little time, as I advanced from something like Very Unfit to merely Unfit. This was way less effort than 10 points of self-training. In COVID-19 lock-down, I’m drifting back to Very Unfit.

Has this disadvantage been influential in your games?

[RogerBW]

This doesn't fit well with the sort of actively-doing-stuff hero I tend to run and play. (Not, to be honest, that I care about fatigue points most of the time anyway, but just as with Fit one can judge when there's a difference in capability between members of the party.) On the other hand, I had a Shadowrun character many years ago who interacted with the rest of the party entirely via drones and other remote-piloted vehicles while hiding in a high-altitude electric aircraft, and it would have suited him very well.

[WingedKagouti]

In my experience most campaigns feature some amount of action or at least the potential for situations where injury and/or death are a possibility. Having -1 HT for almost all non-skill purposes tends to be a bad idea if you're directly interacting with others.

I haven't used either myself, but I also haven't played a netrunner who mostly stayed in their "command center".

[Rupert]

I've yet to see a PC with either, nor have I created an action-oriented human with them.

I do use both to model some species that very clearly lack human level endurance (and buy them up HT if necessary to counter the HT-check penalty).

[Anders]

I've used them as side effects for diseases.

[ericthered]

I need to remember these for modern NPC's more. Though I suppose most of the time I just don't have them try physical activity.

[coronatiger]

Originally Posted by Anders

I've used them as side effects for diseases.

Consider this idea stolen

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Anders

I've used them as side effects for diseases.

They're also sensible alternatives to attribute loss on failed aging rolls.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by johndallman

you also recover FP at half the normal rate.
I presume that this means you need twice as much rest to recover each FP. By symmetry with the rules for loosing FP, I presume that FP replaced by other means, such as a Lend Energy spell, are not halved.

*be mage spending 2 FP on 1 FP worth of sprinting*
"at doubled rate of 20minute per FP it will take me 40 minutes to recover that!"
*cast Lend Energy on self to recover the FP*
"I'm still down 2 FP, but that's FP which I spent on magic, so it will recover in 20 minutes"
"PROFIT"

How do you think Very Unfit interacts with Recover Energy? Or that Deep Breathing skill?

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Plane

*be mage spending 2 FP on 1 FP worth of sprinting*
"at doubled rate of 20minute per FP it will take me 40 minutes to recover that!"
*cast Lend Energy on self to recover the FP*
"I'm still down 2 FP, but that's FP which I spent on magic, so it will recover in 20 minutes"
"PROFIT"

How do you think Very Unfit interacts with Recover Energy? Or that Deep Breathing skill?

Do the 4e rules allow you to cast Lend Energy on yourself? O_o