Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

[Kraven Kor]

For those who have read the Miles' books by Lois McMaster Bujold, you'll already know about this fearsome weapon.

 

For those who haven't...

 

A Nerve Disruptor is a nasty weapon in her setting. It fires an energy bolt of some type (she avoided techno-babble, thankfully) which literally fries the nervous system of whomever it strikes. Near misses can cause numbness or "pins and needles" in the area the bolt passed. Solid hits to extremities can cause years of disability or even paralasys. Solid hits to the torso or head are almost always lethal -- if the victim survives, they are likely to be crippled, paralyzed, or just plain brain dead.

 

The question is: How to build it right?

 

I've been toying with the idea of a DEX drain with the recovery time bought up to 5 points per year. But this does not accurately represent the fact that most damage from Nerve Disruptors is irreparable. One character in the book had taken a nerve disruptor to the leg over 20 years in the past, and still walked with a cane and had very little use of that leg (Commodore Koudelka.)

 

Should I just bite the bullet and go for the ultimate cheese-maker, transform? Or can someone think of a better way to build these diabolical devices?

 

Also, can I use the hit location table to modify the effects of a drain?

[Karmakaze]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

Part of the problem is that HERO really doesn't do permanent damage all that well. Bullets can cause permanent injury and paralysis, too, but in HERO they're just RKAs and nobody's ever stuck in a wheelchair for life after being shot in the spine with an RKA (except by GM fiat, for dramatic purposes.)

 

I would tend to just go with an energy RKA or possibly an NND does BODY and leave the permanent (non-death) effects to dramatic license.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

How about a Transformation?

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

Probably an NND does body EB or RKA (with limit only affects targets with neural systems - doesn't work trying to blast open a door). If you use hit locations, the BODY effects from hitting extremities vs head would reflect pretty well. I'm with Karmakaze that it would be part of the special effect/dramatic license regarding crippling, etc. Given the lethality available in that universe, crippling injuries would be fairly common. For other things, the medical tech available can fix many of them, just not the Nerve Disruptor.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

A RKA, Only To Cause Impairment/Disabling? That way, if the BODY Damage is high enough, the area hit is Impaired/Disabled, but otherwise, nothing happens. I'd say the Lim is a -1/2 . . .

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

Yeah, but I hate using Transform if I can at all avoid it. Though, a partial transform would work beautifully for this campaign.

 

The characters shouldn't have to worry about them much in combat. They'll have the full line of defensive options (Anti-nerve disruptor mesh suit, hard armor, and plasma screens.)

 

The main reason I want them to be mechanically frightening is so I get a psychological impact when one is brought into play while they are not in their combat suits. I don't intend on the characters ever being hit with one -- but I do intend on them being used to pin down the characters in ambushes and such.

 

Gamers have a tendency to feel invulnerable, what with all the normal healing options in most games, and I want the Nerve Disruptor to strike fear into the player's hearts, so as they will roleplay that same reaction on their character's part.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

The main reason I want them to be mechanically frightening is so I get a psychological impact when one is brought into play while they are not in their combat suits. I don't intend on the characters ever being hit with one -- but I do intend on them being used to pin down the characters in ambushes and such.

 

Gamers have a tendency to feel invulnerable, what with all the normal healing options in most games, and I want the Nerve Disruptor to strike fear into the player's hearts, so as they will roleplay that same reaction on their character's part.

 

If you want them to be really frightening, don't bother with normal mechanics. Just base results on if it hits, if target has the appropriate defense, and where it hits. Hit in hand? Disabled. Hit in head? Dead.

 

Sometimes NO dice is the scariest thing.

[Tom Carman]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

For those who have read the Miles' books by Lois McMaster Bujold, you'll already know about this fearsome weapon.

 

For those who haven't...

 

A Nerve Disruptor is a nasty weapon in her setting. It fires an energy bolt of some type (she avoided techno-babble, thankfully) which literally fries the nervous system of whomever it strikes. Near misses can cause numbness or "pins and needles" in the area the bolt passed. Solid hits to extremities can cause years of disability or even paralasys. Solid hits to the torso or head are almost always lethal -- if the victim survives, they are likely to be crippled, paralyzed, or just plain brain dead.

 

One character in the book had taken a nerve disruptor to the leg over 20 years in the past, and still walked with a cane and had very little use of that leg (Commodore Koudelka.)

What happened to him was a good bit uglier than a shot in the leg. He was one of the very lucky, very few survivors of the central hit. Ensign Koudelka got what amounted to an experimental prosthetic nervous system. He avoided being invalided out of the service by Admiral Vorkosigan putting him on staff, but he still spent much of Barrayar in a suicidal mood.

[Curufea]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

You definately need to be using the optional rules for hit location and impairement.

I would make it an NND - defense is a forcefield or armour with an anti disrupter mesh built into it. The NND only does body for the purposes of determining impairment (instead of the usual +2 for an NND doing body, make it a +1 instead)

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

You definately need to be using the optional rules for hit location and impairement.

I would make it an NND - defense is a forcefield or armour with an anti disrupter mesh built into it. The NND only does body for the purposes of determining impairment (instead of the usual +2 for an NND doing body, make it a +1 instead)

 

No, if I did it as a standard attack, I'd keep the stun.

 

I'll toy with it some and post something.

[McCoy]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

RKA vs ED, I'm tempted to say PEN, or perhapse AP, STUN based on hit location chart, no STUN multiplier. custom +0 limitation, affects only living tissue / does not affect inanimate objects. Likewise no KB. This weapon became popular in combat in space ships, space stations, and other enviroments where a slug thrower or needler could create a hole that could let the vacuum in.

[Curufea]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

It hasn't stopped Miles from occasionally using, or having his crew use, Plasma Arcs onboard though

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

OK, a few "versions" I'm toying with:

 

NND Transform (defense is special armor, healed back by advanced medical care -- I'm setting this in a Vorkosigan-esque world so I think I will say they have a chance of recovering from Nerve Disruptor damage)

 

Transform (since this isn't supers, Power Defense will only be available via equipment, so why waste points on NND?)

 

Or, NND RKA with a +1 "disabling" advantage (meaning it automatically wounds the location struck, and disables if it does enough BODY on a single hit -- 25% of total for limbs, 50% of total for torso, IIRC.)

 

-----

 

NND Transform

Nerve Disruptor: Major Transform 2d6 (Normal nerve tissue into dead nerve tissue (wounds or disables location struck), Major, advanced medical treatment only), -2 OCV, Uses targetting (+0), Partial Transform (+1/2), 4 clips of 32 Charges (+1/2), NND (Electromesh Armor, EM Force Fields; +1) (81 Active Points); OAF (-1), Beam (-1/4), Cannot Be Used With Multiple-Power Attacks (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4), Limited Target Living Creatures only (-1/4)

 

Transform

Nerve Disruptor: Major Transform 2d6 (Normal nerve tissue into dead nerve tissue (wounds or disables location struck), Major, advanced medical treatment only), -2 OCV, Uses targetting (+0), Partial Transform (+1/2), 4 clips of 32 Charges (+1/2) (54 Active Points); OAF (-1), Beam (-1/4), Cannot Be Used With Multiple-Power Attacks (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4), Limited Target Living Creatures only (-1/4)

 

"Disabling" RKA

Nerve Disruptor: RKA 2d6, 4 clips of 32 Charges (+1/2), Disabling (+1), NND (Special Armors or EM Force Fields; +1), Does BODY (+1) (135 Active Points); OAF (-1), Limited Power Works on living creatures only (-1/2), Beam (-1/4), Cannot Be Used With Multiple-Power Attacks (-1/4), No Knockback (-1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4)

 

-----

 

Thoughts? I tend to like the last one now that I think about it.

[Curufea]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

I do think they have sufficient medical technology to recover from most of the damage done by disrupters - cloning limbs/body parts or cybernetic replacements

[McCoy]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

I do think they have sufficient medical technology to recover from most of the damage done by disrupters - cloning limbs/body parts or cybernetic replacements

Remember medical technology on Barrayar is about a generation behind Beta Colony, which itself is probably a generation behind Cetaganda.

[McCoy]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

It hasn't stopped Miles from occasionally using' date=' or having his crew use, Plasma Arcs onboard though [/quote']

True.

[Curufea]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

Remember medical technology on Barrayar is about a generation behind Beta Colony' date=' which itself is probably a generation behind Cetaganda.[/quote']

It would certainly be a different flavour/sub genre of game depending on where the players' characters came from-

 

Barrayar - Noble politics

Beta Colony - Political Correctness and High Tech

Cetaganda - Bene Tlailaxxu-like politics

Dendari Mercenaries - Mix of all three with lots of pulp action thrown in and melodrama.

[McCoy]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

It would certainly be a different flavour/sub genre of game depending on where the players' characters came from-

 

Barrayar - Noble politics

Beta Colony - Political Correctness and High Tech

Cetaganda - Bene Tlailaxxu-like politics

Dendari Mercenaries - Mix of all three with lots of pulp action thrown in and melodrama.

Jackson's Whole.

 

Does set the power level when a legitimate decision is do you start at the North Pole and carpet-bomb down, or at the South Pole and bomb up.

[Curufea]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

Free marketing taken to extremes. Give people what they want, how can that be wrong?

heh.

 

It'd be similar to Dune as well - many assassination attempts by the "differently moral"

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

The campaign is set in a "Vorkosigan-esque world." I'm borrowing her governments and cultures because I am not as smart as her and don't feel like making several governments from scratch.

 

The game is set a touch "in the future" from her setting, there are some other technologies available (like "blasters" -- focused plasma weapons), etc.

 

The premise in my campaign, however, is that it is the Sol jumpgate that collapsed, cutting off this entire region. Those planets already fully terraformed, those that had industrial capabilities, faired very well and ended up founding the "big three." Those that were still mostly dependent on off-world supplies and support suffered a lot.

 

The players will basically be the chief players in a "Dendarii Mercs" style campaign. Lots of odd jobs on the periphery. Starting them out with just two ships and a marine squad, if it goes well I'll let them add more to it for larger tactical scenarios.

[Tom Carman]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

Jackson's Whole.

 

Does set the power level when a legitimate decision is do you start at the North Pole and carpet-bomb down, or at the South Pole and bomb up.

Waste of bombs, doing it that way. As I recall, the tropics are no more than temperate. The non-glacial zone probably isn't more than 1000 miles wide.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

Waste of bombs' date=' doing it that way. As I recall, the tropics are no more than temperate. The non-glacial zone probably isn't more than 1000 miles wide.[/quote']

 

Right, but many of the facilities used by the various "lords" of Jackson's Hole are located outside of that zone for "privacy."

 

Or at least that is the impression I got when Mark escaped during his attempts to rescue Miles.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

I'd just build it as an RKA vs. ED, limited to Only Against Targets With Nervous Systems, No Knockback. Give it a fair number of dice, and employ hit locations and the impairing/disabling rules.

 

Special effect is that instead of "blown off", the affected limb is "still attached but useless."

[McCoy]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

Waste of bombs' date=' doing it that way. As I recall, the tropics are no more than temperate. The non-glacial zone probably isn't more than 1000 miles wide.[/quote']

Obviously you don't remember just how pissed Quinn was when she was considering that. Are we wasting bombs would not have been the first question. Or the thirteenth question. Probably wouldn't make the top 100.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Vorkosigan Hero -- How to make a Nerve Disruptor?

 

This is getting me in the mood to go back and re-read these sometime.