Winter Clothing

[Sketchpad]

How do you handle winter clothing? Is it just a definition of clothing? Do you build it using Change Environment? Or just use Life Support's Safe Environments? Inquiring minds would like to know.

[unclevlad]

In general, my thought is, why does it need definition at all?  It's off the rack cold-weather gear, it's trivial and reasonably inexpensive to buy.  Not everything needs definition in game terms;  common sense is enough.

EDIT:  to expand on this, I feel like, if I start assigning game terms to things, then I have to abide by them.  I'd rather not.  What did you get, how good is it?  Are we talking a winter coat, or gear to run the Itidarod or something equally insane?  Conditions matter, too.  Went shopping earlier...well, yesterday now.  42 degrees, intermittent light rain...so humidity was high.  Little bit of wind.  Raw kind of day...felt quite a bit colder than 42, but dry and decently sunny with no breeze.  As long as I'm not stuck with game terms, I can say "oh man, you really want an extra under layer for your patrol tonight" and be done with it.

[Sketchpad]

10 hours ago, unclevlad said:

In general, my thought is, why does it need definition at all?  It's off the rack cold-weather gear, it's trivial and reasonably inexpensive to buy.  Not everything needs definition in game terms;  common sense is enough.

EDIT:  to expand on this, I feel like, if I start assigning game terms to things, then I have to abide by them.  I'd rather not.  What did you get, how good is it?  Are we talking a winter coat, or gear to run the Itidarod or something equally insane?  Conditions matter, too.  Went shopping earlier...well, yesterday now.  42 degrees, intermittent light rain...so humidity was high.  Little bit of wind.  Raw kind of day...felt quite a bit colder than 42, but dry and decently sunny with no breeze.  As long as I'm not stuck with game terms, I can say "oh man, you really want an extra under layer for your patrol tonight" and be done with it.

 

Well, if you're running a game where weather takes on major role, it could be useful to know. For example, a pulp game where a plane crashes into an arctic climate, or running a fantasy game where survival is part of the game. How would someone build something like this? 

 

EDIT: Another interesting example are the X-Men costumes, which had a rated weather resistance in the MSH RPG. They protected to an extent (as well as providing some armor, communications, etc.).

Edited February 11 by Sketchpad

[Grailknight]

If you truly must build it, then use LS-Cold with Focus, Doesn't work if soaking wet. It's either a major plot point or a trivial add in a story.

 

[LoneWolf]

Not everything needs to be explicitly defined in the rules.  Even in a survival focused campaign you don’t need to explicitly define every single detail.  For a cold environment you can define the attack as an NND with the defense and list winter clothing as one of the defenses.   There are a lot of things in the game that do not have power based builds, but are still used.  Food and water are going to be even more important in a survival-based scenario than clothing, but I have never seen a write up for ordinary food and water.  

 

My advice is to focus on the attack portion of the survival challenges instead of the defense.  Write up the cold attack and leave it at that. 
 

[Sketchpad]

Yeah, I've used that in the past. I was looking at trying something ranked. Like maybe having a EVO Suit that's rated for certain levels of environment, or levels of gear that protect against certain parts of an environment (but maybe not extreme levels). LS always comes off as one-and-done, which is great in some games. 

[Lord Liaden]

Rather than actually building the clothing with Character Points and Powers, I would suggest relating it to the effects of Temperature Levels per the rule book chapter on Environmental Effects. (Sorry, I don't have 6E book access now, so I can't give you a page number for that.) The rules define Temperature Levels beyond the "comfort zone," and their effects on a character, +X for hot weather, -X for cold weather. They also specify that one can wear clothing designed to resist up to a particular Temperature Level. For example, if one is in Level -2 cold and wearing clothing rated for -2 protection, one would suffer no negative effects. If the temperature is at Level -3, the character in that same clothing would experience the effects equivalent to Level -1. And so on.

 

So, for the kind of specifics you're looking for, you could give particular suits of cold-weather clothing a ranking for what Temperature Level they protect against. If you want to set some sort of standard of difficulty for PCs to acquire the clothing, I would recommend using the monetary price to buy it, as with other types of mundane equipment. Better gear is more expensive.

[LoneWolf]

The problem is that life support is fairly cheap.  2 point gives you safe in intense cold or heat.  This is because for the most part these types of attacks are usually minor obstacles, not major challenges.  2 points to protect vs a rare NND or hostile environment is about right. 

 

If you really want something to protect vs less severe cold you could buy it as +5 ED only vs cold, OIF.  This would cost 1 point and give the character protection vs normal cold; it would still not stop an NND, but it still cost the same as LS immune to intense cold OIF.  If this is for a heroic game and it is not costing points it does not matter and you can vary the amount of ED.

Edited February 11 by LoneWolf

[unclevlad]

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Rather than actually building the clothing with Character Points and Powers, I would suggest relating it to the effects of Temperature Levels per the rule book chapter on Environmental Effects. (Sorry, I don't have 6E book access now, so I can't give you a page number for that.) The rules define Temperature Levels beyond the "comfort zone," and their effects on a character, +X for hot weather, -X for cold weather. They also specify that one can wear clothing designed to resist up to a particular Temperature Level. For example, if one is in Level -2 cold and wearing clothing rated for -2 protection, one would suffer no negative effects. If the temperature is at Level -3, the character in that same clothing would experience the effects equivalent to Level -1. And so on.

 

So, for the kind of specifics you're looking for, you could give particular suits of cold-weather clothing a ranking for what Temperature Level they protect against. If you want to set some sort of standard of difficulty for PCs to acquire the clothing, I would recommend using the monetary price to buy it, as with other types of mundane equipment. Better gear is more expensive.

 

The base TL is left to DM discretion.  1 TL is given as 10-20 degrees F (6E2 145);  I just split it and call it 15 degrees.  (Note that there is errata for this;  the 3-5 degrees C is wrong, and the errata makes it 5-11 degrees C.)  

 

Note that cold weather gear is often given in a similar manner..."good to +20 degrees F" is everyday winter gear, "keeps you warm to -40 degrees F" is expedition wear...and is likely fairly pricey.  

 

The two are effectively the same.

 

My personal preference, I'll add since LL brought it up, is to rework Life Support using the TL approach...but I also sharply limit what "environmental protection" can mean.  Environmental damage is slow;  if something is intense enough to do fast damage?  I don't treat it as being covered, even if LS: Heat or Cold is left at 2 points.  2 levels of TL tolerance is 1 point...can be +2, +1/-1, or -2.  I'd call the base comfort zone as 60-80 degrees, so 2 points means you're fine from about 30 degrees to about 110 degrees...and note that lightweight clothing can improve the cold weather tolerance by 1 level *easily*.  I prefer the granularity this provides.  YMMV.