Cover and Environments

Cover

Determining Cover and Concealment

Not dying is a common goal in combat and cover helps greatly in achieving it. Cover and concealment are provided when an obstacle provides sufficient interference to an attack or other directed action. Rather than being a strictly calculated value, cover is typically subjective and based on what vital areas of a character are protected or hidden by the obstacle.

Below are the categories for Table: Cover and Concealment.

Level: The category of protection afforded by the cover or concealment.

Coverage: What parts of the target character are occluded by the obstacle.

Hide Bonus: Bonus to Hide checks—or penalty to incoming Spot—checks depending on the situation.

Reflex Saves: Bonus to Reflex saves afforded by the cover to the defender

Protection: AC bonus or percent miss chance afforded by the cover or concealment.

Table: Cover and Concealment
Level	Description	Hide/Spot Mod	Reflex Saves	Cover AC	Concealment Miss Chance
Total or 100%	All of body is covered or concealed	N/A	N/A	Cannot be targeted	50% and must guess target's location
9/10	Small exposed body part such as hands or feet	+4	+4	+10 AC	40%
3/4	Leaning around a corner	+3	+3	+6 AC	30%
1/2	Half to a third of vital areas covered	+2	+2	+4 AC	20%
1/4	Small obstacle blocking non-vital body areas or slightly blocking vital areas	+1	+1	+1 AC	10%

 

Bypassing Cover

If we're being honest, almost nothing is bulletproof—more like bullet resistant. Cover follows the same Soft and Hard target rules as any other object. These rules can be found in the Weapons document. Soft targets are Soft Cover and Hard targets are Hard cover. Hard cover retains its protective qualities against a wider range of weapons and threats than Soft cover.

If the attacker is using a heavy or super caliber weapon or is firing warhead-tipped munitions, they can attempt to destroy or bypass a foe's cover. There are several ways to do so:

Destroying Cover: If the attacker specifies that they are attacking a foe's cover rather than the foe himself, then the cover itself becomes the target. In this case, inanimate simple objects such as thick trees or large rocks are treated as having AC 5 and hardness/hitpoint values according to their material and thickness.

Shooting through Soft Cover: When firing at a target in Soft cover, heavy caliber weapons ignore 1 AC from cover and super caliber ignore 2 AC from cover. Shooting at the target through cover means that the cover is instead treated as Concealment and the target gains miss chance accordingly.

Shooting through Hard Cover: Shooting through hard cover can only be done with some Warhead-tipped weapons like AP cannon shells or HEAT munitions. Smart weapons can be set to detonate after penetrating cover, but non-Smart munitions will simply react when they strike the cover itself. If the GM rules that the chosen Warhead can penetrate Hard cover, then the attack proceeds with no bonus and the cover is treated as Concealment instead.

Environments

Radiation

Radiation is common around high tech machinery and scientific equipment, in space, and around certain regions of eastern Europe. Unshielded fusion reactors, stars, and contamination are more common sources of radiation exposure. The tables below break down the exposure, effects, and symptoms of radiation exposure and poisoning.

Contamination and Exposure

As soon as a character encounters radiation, he is considered Contaminated. To remove the Contaminated condition, the exposed character must remove themselves from the radioactive environment or clean the radioactive material from himself. The effects of radiation sickness do not heal or wear off until he is no longer Contaminated.

Below are the categories for Table: Radiation Exposure

Radiation Level: The severity of radioactivity in the area or around the object.

Incubation Period: Time until the Primary Effect begins. Unknown to the exposed character.

Fort DC: DC required to halve the Primary Effect. Rolled at the end of the Incubation Period.

Primary Effect: Main effect of the radiation sickness once the Incubation Period ends. Unknown to the exposed character. See Applying Radiation Effects for details.

Table: Radiation Exposure
Radiation Level	Incubation Period	Fort DC	Primary Effect
Minor	6d6 hrs	10	1 CON Damage
Low	5d6 hrs	12	2d2 CON Damage
Moderate	4d6 hrs	15	3d2 CON Damage
High	3d6 hrs	19	3d3 CON Damage
Severe	2d6 hrs	24	3d4 CON Damage
Critical	2d6 x 10min	30	3d6 CON Damage

As soon as a character encounters enough radiation to be detrimental, a timer begins for their exposure. If the radiation is severe enough to have Instant Exposure effects, a second timer is also started to determine the Incubation Period for Instant Exposure effects. Neither of these timers are revealed to the exposed character.

Full: Complete exposure to a radiation level takes 3d4 minutes. Once Fully exposed, the incubation period for the Radiation Level's Primary Effect is rolled.

Half: Half exposure begins when a character has been exposed for half or more of the rolled exposure period. Half exposures use the Fortitude DC, Incubation Period, and Primary Effect one Radiation Level lower than what the character was exposed to.

Instant: Instant exposure begins the moment a character encounters a Radiation Level of Moderate or above. Instant exposure always has an Incubation Period of 2d10+10 minutes and uses the Fortitude DC and Primary Effect two levels lower than the current exposure level. A character can suffer the effects of both Instant and Half/Full exposure for the same radiation encounter. For example, a character who enters a radioactive room can suffer 2d2 CON damage 12-30 minutes after entering and then suffer an additional 3d3 CON damage 3-18 hours later.

Applying Radiation Effects

Once a character is exposed and the Incubation Period ends, the effects of Radiation begin to appear. The full Constitution damage rolled in the Primary Effect does not apply all at once. Instead, the Constitution damage rolled is kept as a pool. At the end of the Incubation Period and every hour thereafter, 1d4 points of the Primary Effect are applied. This continues until the full Primary Effect is applied. Accumulation rolls do not deal more ability damage than what was originally rolled—they only determine how much of that ability damage is applied. The exposed character has no way of knowing when the worsening effects will end until they stop accumulating ability damage.

For example, a character exposed to Low Radiation completes his Incubation Period, fails his Fortitude save, and is due to suffer 5 points of Constitution damage. The 1d4 accumulation roll determines that 2 of the 5 points apply immediately at the end of the Incubation Period. An hour later, 1 more point is dealt. Another hour later, the final 2 points are dealt.

Constitution damage from radiation starts healing only once the exposed character is no longer Contaminated and all ability damage from Primary Effect have been applied. After that, the Constitution damage from radiation heals at one point per day.

Secondary Effects and Sympoms

Every third point of Constitution damage—3nd, 6th, 9th, and so on—dealt by radiation sickness requires the exposed character to roll on Table: Radiation Secondary Effects. Roll a 1d5 to determine the secondary effect applied. If the irradiated character already suffers the rolled effect or its condition, use its next stage.

Table: Radiation Secondary Effects
Effect Type	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4
Nausea	Fatigued	Sickened	Nauseated	Reroll
Headache / Pain	Dazzled	Fascinated	Dazed	Reroll
Weakness	Fatigued	Exhausted	Paralyzed	Reroll
Disorientation	Flat-Footed	Shaken	Dazed	Reroll
Internal	One point of dealt CON damage is permanent and will not heal.

Radiation symptoms are optional to use and do not apply any additional stat effects, but can provide information on symptoms suffered by irradiated characters. A player or GM may roll on Table: Radiation Symptoms or simply refer to it for loose descriptions of a character's symptoms as Primary Effects worsen.

Table: Radiation Symptoms
Symptom Type	Stage 1 (1-5 CON Damage)	Stage 2 (6-10 CON Damage)	Stage 3 (11+ CON Damage)
Skin	Skin redness / irritation	Open lesions	Sloughing
Hair Loss	Loose strands	Clumps	Totally bald patches
Bleeding	Coughing blood	Swollen / bleeding gums	Bleeding from orifices

 

Zero Gravity

Zero gravity environments are common in space both outside starships and aboard unpowered craft or stations. Many smaller, older, or cheaper vessels also lack onboard artificial gravity.

Movement in Zero-G

A character's land movement speed is irrelevant in zero-G. Instead, all movement is done either across or off of surfaces. Exceptions to these rules will be addressed at the end of the section.

Surfaces: Floors, walls, ceilings, and handles are all ways for a character to stay connected to a surface. Without a surface a character cannot move.

Crawling: Characters who wish to stay attached to a surface must crawl across it. Crawling on a surface is a move action and provokes attacks of opportunity. Crawling characters cannot —run— or otherwise increase their crawl speed. All characters' base crawl speed is calculated as:

10ft. + [5ft. per point of Climb bonus]* - [10ft. per occupied limb]
*Negative Climb skill cannot reduce crawl speed below 5ft./round.
**Max 40ft./round.

Launching: Launching is the act of pushing off of a surface to move through open space quickly. Launching is a move action and provokes attacks of opportunity. Once a character launches, they are considered Floating until they reach another surface. Launching characters cannot —run— or otherwise increase their launch speed. All characters' base launch speed is calculated as:

20ft. + [5ft. per point of Jump bonus]*
*Negative Jump skill cannot reduce launch speed below 10ft./round.
**Max 100ft./round.
***Halve if using one leg or both arms. Quarter if using one arm.

Floating: Characters not attached to a surface are considered Floating. Floating characters are Flat-Footed and unable to move in any direction. If a Floating character is moving from a prior launch, they keep their launch speed and direction until they reach another surface.

Actions in Zero-G

Players must be mindful of the actions they take in zero gravity unless they want to end up stuck helplessly twirling across a zero-G hangar while everyone points and laughs at them—a truly horrific fate.

Spin: Characters who are Floating must be mindful of Spin. Any physical action or attack made by a Floating character imparts a point of Spin. If two or more characters are attached while Floating, the penalties of Spin are halved but apply to all of them. If two or more characters are grappling while Floating they are considered attached. When attaching or grabbing onto Spinning character(s), use the Spin score of the heavier character(s).

Spin serves as a penalty to Dexterity and Wisdom. It also affects any actions taken by the Spinning character(s) requiring the manipulation of physical objects. Some examples include searching for items in a bag, trying to craft or repair an object, or performing an attack against an unattached target. Listen checks are unaffected by Spin as long as the listener does not try to locate the sound.

Characters with 5 or more Spin must pass a DC 14 Fortitude save each minute or be Sickened until they grab a surface and 1d6 minutes thereafter. If the spin was 10 or more the character is instead Nauseated.

Once a Spinning character grabs onto a surface, their spin is cleared.

Weapon range in zero-G: Weapons can be used out to 20 range increments in Zero-G, though they can only score critical hits within 10 increments. If the environment is both a vacuum and Zero-G, weapons can be used out to 100 range increments. Range penalties still apply, so good luck hitting anything at those distances.