Sneak Attack Criticals

If a target of a successful attack is completely unsuspecting until the moment the attack occurs, such as would be the case if a character has snuck up on them, then they have just suffered from a sneak attack critical. As a general guideline, sneak attack criticals require that the opponent has failed at least one perception roll to notice the attacker.

This sort of attack is automatically a critical hit as long as the accuracy roll would normally hit. Sneak attack critical hits deal damage as a normal critical hit with the weapon being used, unless that weapon does not normally have a base critical hit modifier greater than 1. If that is the case, the attack still deals double its normal damage. Like normal critical hit and locational bonus multipliers to damage, sneak attack critical hit bonus damage is multiplied before armor is taken into account.

After a successful sneak attack critical hit has been dealt, if the pony that dealt the blow was sneaking at the time, they may attempt to remain hidden. If they were using a ranged weapon, the new sneak MFD is 2 steps harder than it was previously; if they were using a close combat weapon, then the new sneak MFD is 3 steps harder. Thrown weapons take only a 1 MFD step penalty. Bonuses may be granted to this roll by the use of silencers and other stealth technologies.

Knock Down

There are certain circumstances in which a pony or other character will be knocked off their hooves (or claws or paws, as appropriate) during combat. A character who is knocked down (or who lies down prone) and who tries to get back up on their feet during combat must roll Agility MFD ¾ (or flight, if they have wings). They can stay down as long as they like (See the “prone” rules in the dodging section). If they fail the AGI roll then they still get up on their feet, but spend an action to do so.

There are two major ways to become knocked down in combat, other than voluntarily falling down. Characters who suffer a direct hit from an explosive or other AOE attack are automatically knocked down. The other significant way to become knocked down is when an opponent uses a melee slam, as enabled by the Super Slam perk.

As an optional rule, all characters who are within the first blast radius (5’) of an explosive when it goes off must roll agility MFD ½ or will be knocked down by the concussive force of the blast.

Weapon Degradation

Weapons in real life don’t remain functional forever; even with only light regular use and careful care parts will degrade and stop working eventually. One of the main tenets of gameplay in the Fallout games is periodic weapon maintenance, and as such it would be absolutely inappropriate to not include it as at least an optional rule set.

Weapons degrade with regular use. What constitutes regular use varies from weapon to weapon, however, so for the purposes of simplification this system measures regular use in terms of magazines worth of bullets fired, or number of times used in combat for melee and unarmed weapons. For every two magazines worth of ammunition a weapon fires (regardless of whether or not they hit),it degrades one step. For melee weapons, degradation occurs at one step when it has connected with a target a number of times equal to the degradation step value of the weapon. For ranged weapons, the amount of ammunition expended to degrade a single step does not change if the magazine size is increased, as by an external power source or extended magazine.

Generally speaking, each time a weapon degrades it loses one die of damage. A single die of damage is considered to be equivalent to a degradation step. Therefore, the number of dice of damage a weapon deals is also the number of degradation steps it has before it breaks down to the point of non-usability.

All weapons that deal more than 8 (so 9 or more) dice of damage degrade at double the rate of other weapons, losing a degradation step (and a die of damage) every time a full magazine worth of ammo is fired. The exceptions to this are single shot weapons; weapons with a single-shot magazine degrade one step for every 4 shots fired. If a weapon deals more than 8 dice of damage and has a single shot magazine, it degrades 1 die every two times it is fired.

Melee weapons have a degradation step number that is based on their durability. When used to attack an enemy that many times (they have to at least hit connect), they also degrade a step. When any weapon has degraded to the point that it no longer deals any damage (Strength and skill rank bonuses don’t count) it is considered broken beyond repair; it is now simply an equivalent weight of scrap metal.

A weapon’s degradation can be accelerated by enemies targeting a weapon specifically, rather than shooting at the wielder. For every 10 points of damage dealt, the targeted weapon degrades one step. More information on this process can be found under the ‘weapon’ hit location within the Hit Locations and Effects heading, earlier in this chapter.

Weapons can be repaired up to whatever step a character’s rank of repair most closely approximates as a percentage of that weapon’s total number of steps, rounded down. For example, a character with a rank of 75 in repair could repair a weapon with 4 total degradation steps up to its 3^rd step, given the necessary parts. If they were instead to attempt to repair a weapon with 5 total degradation steps, they could still only repair it up to its 3^rd step (because they’re not quite at 80%). Weapons dealing more than 10 dice of damage – i.e. having more than 10 degradation steps – will necessitate some minor extrapolation from the chart on the following page for full repairs.

Each weapon being used for parts contains enough usable parts to repair any other weapon of its type up to one additional step beyond the sacrificial weapon’s current condition.

The value in the cross of the matrix below is the minimum skill rank (add any roll bonuses to your rank for this one, just like for mercantile) required to repair up to that point.

Table XXIX: Weapon Repair, by Skill Rank

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1027