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Old 01-24-2021, 10:23 PM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Latent Affliction perk for humans : fling your own blood?

This is a -80% Affliction (2 points instead of 1) which is halved in value to 1 point by using the "Potential Advantages" rule "Latent Advantage" from PU8p9. Although the LA rule is "almost exclusively" for supernatural abilities, the way it's applied to the normally "exotic" physical advantage of Affliction feels appropriate.

+170% in enhancements:

Limited Enhancements +60%
Rapid Fire: Multiple Projectile RoF 5x3 +100%
Selective Fire +10%
-250% in limitations:

Blockable+Parryable -10%
Blood Agent -40%

Blood Agent, Reversed -40%
Costs 1 HP per 5-shot payload -10%

Inaccurate 3 -15%
Reduced Duration 1/60 -35%

Reduced Range 3 (tenth) -30%
Requires Will Roll -10%
Takes Extra Time -10%

Temporary Disadvantage: Unhealing -20%
Backlash: Tipsy -10%
Backlash: Moderate Pain -20%
The sum of the limited disadvantages (using Limited Enhancements rules) is from:

Blindness (Vision-Based -20%) +40%
Deafness (Hearing-Based -20%) +16%
No Sense of Taste/Smell (Taste/Smell-Based -20%) +4%
The concept of this is that if your blood is drawn, if you have the gumption (pass your will check) you are able to squeeze more out. Due to the "Latent" rules this is not merely unmodified Will to do this: which I'll explain at the end.

Squeezing it out into your your hand requires a ready maneuver (this causes an additional 1 HP of damage) which can be flung at foes within 10 yards (60 feet)

This has no effect unless you hit an enemy orifice. The standard option of hitting an open wound doesn't apply due to the variations of Sense-Based, Reversed applied to the "Disadvantage" enhancement trio. There are just four options:

*if you target the eyes, it can blind them
*if you target the jaw/mouth it can obstruct their taste
*if you target the nose/nostrils it can obstruct their smell
*if you target the ears it can obstruct their hearing
I could probably add something about open wounds transmitting a Social Disease if the attacker has one but that's too complicated for me to think about right now.

Each shot can only hit one orifice/location so except in weird situations like "an alien whose eyes also happen to be its ears" you can only affect one sense per shot.

- -

Targets have a HT roll (HT+3 if further than a yard away: air quickly dissipates the droplets) to resist these effects. They may have to make multiple HT checks if multiple "shots" hit them. If they fail, they suffer compromised senses for MoF seconds.

This uses B409's "Shotguns and Multiple Projectiles" rule (only takes effect at 10% range of less: so less than 1 yard) but since this is an affliction, instead of multiplying the damage (which is similar to multiplying the dice, or level, of an innate attack) I would treat it as multiplying the level of Affliction, meaning a singular penalized HT roll instead of multiple HT rolls.

Each HP squeezed out buys you 5 "shots" which split into 3 projectiles each. This allows Spraying Fire rules on B409 to be used to fling your blood at a group of several foes simultaneously, as well as use Suppression Fire.

If all five shots (effective RoF 15) are fired at a single foe you have +3 to hit and you hit with MoS droplets up to max shots.

- -

Due to Selective Fire you can opt to throw smaller amounts of 1-3 shots at a time. This done via a "closed-fist throw" which keeps most of the droplets still in your hand, which you can use on later turns without needing to spend additional HP (or Ready) to replenish (similar to Limited Use) while an "open-fist throw" fires all 15 (or all remaining, if following a closed-fist) shots.

During the time you're prepping your shots you can't heal normally (including regeneration) because you're actively forcing the wound on your body open and shedding your blood supply. This ends as soon as you throw the ability of course. This was priced at -20 instead of -30 since it's not a permanent thing.

The idea of being able to take Temporary Disadvantages applying only during prep time for a TET transient attack comes from P144's Leech.

You feel pain from squeezing the blood out (above and beyond the shock penalties) and tipsiness from the lost blood (cumulative with normaly drunkenness: why they say not to drink after giving blood) though you get HT rolls to shake these effects off.

- -

coming back to the Will roll: you need a CRITICAL success to do it at full power. On the plus side, you get +5 in emergencies, but there's also a -5 to do it in stress-free situations. People just aren't inherently prone to wanting to worsen an injury to themselves!

Failing this will roll means the standard "pay 1 FP to attempt again" : it's exhausting to try and work yourself up to something so gruesome! Also means you won't have the gumption to try this at all with less than 3 FP left.

Otherwise (if you merely roll a normal success with a margin of 10 or higher) it works at "half power". For these purposes I'll take that to mean you still suffer full negative effects (lose 1 HP, tipsy and painful) but you can't focus on cupping it in your hand, so you lose half your shots (only get 2x3 instead of 5x3) but otherwise do not reduce the ability.

On a success by 0 to 9 (or normal failure) you don't suffer negative side effects at all (no lost HP, no Tipsy/Pain) because you can't even bring yourself to do it.

On a crit fail I dunno, maybe you suffer all the negative effects but get 0 shots? You managed to will yourself to do it, but then freaked out and didn't follow through?

One option for this might be to treat it similar to a Fright Check and allow it to benefit from Fearlessness but be penalized from Fearfulness, since you can be afraid of pain or afraid of bleeding out.

- -

Shock from your initial wound penalizes this will roll to worsen the wound, but shock from the additional HP lost will penalize your DX roll to target, which you must obviously do immediately after... right?

I guess that means you need to do any possible Aim maneuvers prior to the Ready maneuver that TET requires precede your attack? Normally I don't think you could retain your Aim when doing something other than immediately doing an Attack afterwards (such as a ready) but in this case I think it would be okay since the Ready is considered part of the actual "attack time" so to speak.

That said "If you are injured while aiming, you must make a Will roll or lose your aim." sounds like something appropriate to apply here for the "Costs HP" injury.

- -

Having this perk represents actually having the idea of intentionally gathering your blood as an obstruction to enemy senses: simply a non-intuitive thing which dumb animals probably just don't instinctively do, so the perk should be limited to purchase by sapient creatures.

You can't do this with normal blood loss because that falls on the floor so you can't cup in your hand for flingy purposes.

This advantage shouldn't be usable if you lack a fine manipulator (a hand to cup some blood) and if you have poor grip (ie ham-fisted due to wearing a boxing glove) that should probably penalize your roll to hit as it would with a gun or thrown object.

I don't think ham-fisted normally penalizes your ability to hit with Innate Attack so I'm not exactly sure how to reflect this as a limitation. Anyone want to guess at a value like "suffers penalties for bad grip like held guns do" for Affliction/Binding/IA advantages?

Disadvantages like Cowardice will make this attack very difficult to use, as failing your self-control roll prevents you from self-harming (it endangers you) UNLESS it somehow prevents a greater danger (ie spending 1 HP blinding the mage so he won't hit you with his fireball for 1d burning)

Normal humans can't fling blood in large enough quantities fast enough to do big effects like "drown someone in blood", someone with Very Fast Regeneration might want to get an improved version of this Affliction but that's outside the scope of realism.

Last edited by Plane; 01-24-2021 at 10:27 PM.
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affliction, blood agent, bloody agent reversed, latent advantage, potenial advantage

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