Sleeping and Sleep Deprivation

Staying awake can often mean the same thing as staying alive, out in the wasteland. Your average pony (or zebra) needs to sleep around 4 hours a day, and is capable of doing so while standing up. Most ponies sleep in short, 15-30 minute intervals for the majority of their rest; they need to lie down to sleep for only about two consecutive hours every 48 hours, but are otherwise capable of sleeping comfortably in a standing position. For the purposes of gameplay, most sleep is assumed to occur during travel time. Only prolonged sleep periods (longer than an hour) need to be actually talked about and planned around within player groups. 8-hour sleeping periods

Ponies which do not lie down to sleep for at least two consecutive hours every two days will be forced to make endurance checks every hour following the end of the 48 hour period or will fall asleep in the middle of what they’re doing. They will remain asleep until they have either suffered at least one wound (which will wake them up for another hour before they begin to need rolling endurance again), or will fall asleep until they’ve gotten their full necessary three hours.

Other races handle sleep differently; for simplification purposes, it can be assumed that all non-equine races need to sleep as frequently as 8 hours out of every 24. All races that stay awake longer than a full 24 hour period are forced to use endurance rolls to stay awake every hour, just like ponies. Even with that simplification, bear in mind that sleep patterns aren’t the same for all races. Griffins, for example, need at least 8 hours out of 24, but rather than total unconsciousness they remain in a semiconscious ‘alert’ state for that length of time, from which they are still aware of their surroundings. Diamond Dogs wake up every 1-2 hours.

Some, like ghouls and alicorns, don’t actually require regular sleep (unless they haven’t been exposed to at least 100 rads of radiation in the last 48 hours, in which case they need to sleep just like their ‘original’ race).

All races can use certain items (Like Daturana or Coffee) to extend the period of time they can stay awake. Used properly and appropriately, these items can extend the period of time a character can stay awake without having to make endurance rolls.

For every two hours a character stays awake past their natural sleep cycle, they take a -1 penalty to INT and END (and associated linked skill penalties). This penalty is cumulative, meaning that at four hours it increases to a -2, and at 6 it increases to a -3, etc. Like most penalties, it is also cumulative with any other penalties to attributes.

Characters that stay awake for a full 48 period beyond their race’s normal limit will succumb to exhaustion. They must roll END, MFD ½. Critical successes may stay awake for another hour before rolling once more; successes merely pass out. Failures and critical failures die.

Spotting Trouble

One of the most important things required to survive in a hostile environment is knowing from where the hostilities originate. Ponies that can spot trouble a mile away have time to prepare for it, and have a better chance of being ready for it as a result.

A character can reliably spot items, objects, or enemies from as far away as ten times their perception score in feet; this distance is the maximum range at which any character can make a perception roll to spot an item, object, character or creature about the size of a pony or smaller (with obvious exceptions for particularly large objects such as buildings or for very large creatures). Binoculars or a scope can extend this range by their factor of magnification if used properly.

E.F.S. stands for Eyes Forward Sparkle, and is an integrated motion tracking spell that comes as a standard feature in the Pipbuck 2000 and later models. EFS (and the Detect Movement spell from which it is derived) automagically detects robots, constructs, and any living creatures or characters out to twice the distance a normal set of eyes could – up to ten times a character’s perception score in feet.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1009