Fractional SPD (No, not _that_ again)

[Simon]

Steve -

 

A question recently came up in the Hero System Discussion board that got me wondering:

 

If a character has, say, a 27 DEX and does not buy up his SPD (or sell it off), does the "fractional SPD" portion of his base SPD come into play against Drains and the like?

 

To (perhaps) be a bit clearer in what I'm asking:

 

A character with a 27 DEX has a 3.7 base SPD. He can buy it up to a 4 SPD for 3 points or he can leave it at a 3 SPD for 0 points. Let's say he remains at a 3 SPD.

 

This character is now hit by a Drain against his SPD. The Drain does 6 points of effect. Does this reduce him to a 2 SPD (3 - .6 = 2.4 which rounds down to 2) or does he remain at a 3 SPD, with the Drain acting against the "fractional SPD" portion of his base SPD (3.7 - .6 = 3.1 which rounds down to 3)?

[Steve Long]

You’d treat him as having SPD 3. If the Drain removes 6 points, it reduces him to a putative “SPD 2.4” — but he still has SPD 3, because as the rules on 5E 73 indicate, a Drain or the like has to remove enough points to remove an entire increment of a Characteristic or Power to reduce it. Until the Drain has a full 10 Character Points’ worth of effect, the character remains at SPD 3.

 

Although the rules on 5E 73 only refer to the reduction of Characteristics and Powers, the same logic applies in reverse — adding an increment of an incremental Characteristic or Power requires an Aid (or the like) that applies a full increment’s worth of Character Points.