Resistance to Poison/Disease

[Armitage]

I was thinking about characters who are resistant to poison or disease, but not completely immune. You can do it with Damage Reduction, but it costs more than being completely immune, assuming the attack is built as an NND.

 

Assuming a poison designed like this:

Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6, Attack Versus Alternate Defense (Life Support: Immunity; All Or Nothing; +1), Does BODY (+1), Damage Over Time (5 damage increments, damage occurs every Turn, +2) (75 Active Points)

 

It will inflict an average of 18 BODY and 36 STUN to a normal human over the course of a minute.

 

Resistance could theoretically be designed like this:

Life Support (Immunity: All terrestrial poisons) (5 Active Points); Requires A Roll (11- roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -1)

 

Every Turn that the poison would cause damage, the roll is made to see if the Life Support negates the damage. With an 11- Roll, the resistant character would effectively take 37.5% of the damage that a normal person would take.

i.e. 7 BODY and 14 STUN

 

The Required Roll could be adjusted depending on how resistant the character is to the attack, from 8- (13 BODY, 26 STUN) to 14- (2 BODY, 6 STUN). The cost ranges from 2 to 4 Real Points.

 

This allows a resistant character to muscle through a weaker poison that has a gradual effect, while he might still succumb to a stronger poison with a faster effect, since it does more damage per interval with less chances to resist it.

 

Opinions?

[Nevenall]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

I like your build, very nice.

Personally, I'd base the Required Roll on CON.

Somewhere I have a build for a disease with DoT where the defense was the target's CON value, instead of a NND. If you built poisons like that then, character's could buy extra CON just for Resisting Poisons.

[torchwolf]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

Very nice build. I've experimented a bit with static levels of this too (based of the percentages of the Rolls):

 

Poison Resistance (25%): Life Support (Immunity: All terrestrial poisons) (5 Active Points); Requires A Roll, Static Effect (8- roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -1 3/4); Total Cost: 2.

 

Poison Resistance (50%): Life Support (Immunity: All terrestrial poisons) (5 Active Points); Requires A Roll, Static Effect (10- roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -1 1/4); Total Cost: 2.

 

Poison Resistance (75%): Life Support (Immunity: All terrestrial poisons) (5 Active Points); Requires A Roll, Static Effect (12- roll; Must be made each Phase/use; -3/4); Total Cost: 3.

 

NOTE: Static Effect (using the above levels for the value of the limitation only, but just calculating the amount of damage done same as for Damage Reduction instead of making a Roll)

 

 

Obviously the downside here is that the 25% and 50% versions cost the same; this worked out better in that respect in 5th Edition.

[Matt Holck]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

Power Defense could be made to apply against all poison and disease related attacks

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

Power Defense could be made to apply against all poison and disease related attacks

It could, but that's less of a build and more of a house rule/campaign standard...

[Susano]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

It could' date=' but that's less of a build and more of a house rule/campaign standard...[/quote']

 

Power Defense could be used versus the Drain aspect of many diseases. Poisons not so much, since most of them are based off of RKAs.

[Escafarc]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

I don't have 6E yet but I have a group of characters all with the same Immortality powers which include LS vs poisons and toxins with the gradual effect 1 Turn limitation so they take damage until this kicks in but this only works because linked with regeneration and BODY only to prevent death from negative BODY. Also most poisons are built with gradual effect or continuous effects. and the "Instant Kill" one don't do enough damage to kill them in one hit. I not sure if this is still valid in 6E?

[Susano]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

I don't have 6E yet but I have a group of characters all with the same Immortality powers which include LS vs poisons and toxins with the gradual effect 1 Turn limitation so they take damage until this kicks in but this only works because linked with regeneration and BODY only to prevent death from negative BODY. Also most poisons are built with gradual effect or continuous effects. and the "Instant Kill" one don't do enough damage to kill them in one hit. I not sure if this is still valid in 6E?

 

I think so, because now poisons and the like use the "Damage Over Time" Advantage, which works pretty much the same way.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

Power Defense could be used versus the Drain aspect of many diseases. Poisons not so much' date=' since most of them are based off of RKAs.[/quote']

 

I'm not the one who suggested it, Matt was. I think it's a bad idea and was pointing out that it would be a house rule, not an aspect of the power by RAW.

[Armitage]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

If the poison or disease was designed with Attack versus Alternate Defense, like the RKA in my original post, Power Defense wouldn't work at all since that's the point of the Advantage.

However, you could leave the Drain acting against Power Defense and add a Limitation that it doesn't work against characters with appropriate Life Support, like the Entangles built into various chemical weapons in the 5E Hero System Equipment Guide. A Killing Attack would then only need to be AVAD at the +1/2 level to match.

But it is traditional to make poisons and diseases NND, which was the reasoning behind my original post.

[dmjalund]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

hence - one of the flaws of Power Defense, it has no intuitive rationalization. Any special effect you attach it to (e.g. Magic Defense) pretty much requires you to buy other defenses, just in case someone buys an attack as RKA AVAD rather than BODY drain.

[Lucius]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

BODY only to prevent death from negative BODY.... I not sure if this is still valid in 6E?

 

I don't think this part is. In 5th ed, BOD added to STUN. In 6th, "Only to prevent death" describes the entire function of BOD.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Did the palindromedary eat my tagline?

[Chimera 12]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

I don't think this part is. In 5th ed' date=' BOD added to STUN. In 6th, "Only to prevent death" describes the entire function of BOD. [/quote']

 

Well, yes and no. A character with 15 BODY will take longer to start dying and can soak up more damage total than one with "10 BODY, but only dies at -15". So I'd still call that a Limitation, though I'm not quite sure just how much it'd be worth both in terms of points and in practice.

[Escafarc]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

I don't think this part is. In 5th ed, BOD added to STUN. In 6th, "Only to prevent death" describes the entire function of BOD.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Did the palindromedary eat my tagline?

 

In 5E the BODY with this Limit. was not figured in vs. Tranformation Attacks. I'm going to have a lot of changes when I get 6E.

[Lucius]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

Well' date=' yes and no. A character with 15 BODY will take longer to [i']start[/i] dying and can soak up more damage total than one with "10 BODY, but only dies at -15". So I'd still call that a Limitation, though I'm not quite sure just how much it'd be worth both in terms of points and in practice.

 

You're absolutely right. I overlooked that.

 

In 5E the BODY with this Limit. was not figured in vs. Tranformation Attacks. I'm going to have a lot of changes when I get 6E.

 

And you're right. I didn't think of Transform either.

 

Pass the salt. I need to eat my words now.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is laughing at me.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Resistance to Poison/Disease

 

I have built poison resistance as LS:Immunity to Poison, blocks only half of Damage (-1), but I have to say I like the idea of using a CON roll because it makes a lot of sense and it doesn't require a custom limitation. Nice idea.