Environment

This section rounds out the rules with guidelines for handling miscellany like disasters, hazards, hostile environments, and toxins. It also includes rules concerning feats of superheroic strength and power. While we can't address every possible scenario, the goal of this section is to provide a frame of reference to help you adjudicate situations that aren't in the rules.

Disasters

Heroes don't just fight evil. With your unique abilities, you are often called on to help the victims of natural and manufactured disasters. Events like avalanches, broken dams, burning buildings, collapsing structures, earthquakes, flash floods, mudslides, power plant failures, plummeting airplanes, rockslides, runaway trains, sinking ships, tidal waves, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and wildfires offer more than enough to worry about, even if the bad guys have taken the day off.

Battling a disaster is broken up into a number of goals. Minor disasters have 3 goals, while major ones have 9 goals. A goal is anything you need to accomplish to improve the situation: saving people, diverting floodwaters, fighting fires, supporting collapsing buildings, and so on. Most goals can be accomplished with a good idea and a successful challenge roll. Occasionally, however, a goal might be important enough to demand its own scene. This is up to the GM. The GM usually comes up with 2 of the goals in a minor disaster or 6 of the goals in a major disaster, leaving you and your fellow Heroes to brainstorm the others. Once all goals have been accomplished or failed, check the Disaster Results table to determine who narrates the resolution and aftermath of the disaster.

Disaster Results

Energy

Although there are many different kinds of energy in the real world, P&P lumps them into a few simple categories for game purposes -- otherwise Powers that control or resist energy become too diluted. The basic types of energy are described on the Energy Types table. Because gravity and magnetism are forces that affect physical objects directly, they should be represented with Powers like Elemental Control and Telekinesis. If you must classify these forces as energy, treat them both as force energy.

Energy Types

*If you care, this kind of energy should be useless in a vacuum but at +3d when used underwater.

Falling

Falls are treated like attacks that can only be resisted with passive defenses (unless you can come up with a creative way to use an active defense instead). The attack rank of a fall depends on the distance fallen, as shown on the Falling table. Increase the attack rank by 3d if you land on something like spikes or sharp rocks; lower it by 3d if you land on something like cushions, garbage, or water. Additionally, whenever you fall onto soft surfaces like these, you can use Agility as an active defense against falling damage.

Falling Table

Hostile Environments

Hostile environments can subject you to hazards like extreme pressure and temperature, ionizing radiation, and toxic atmospheres. Pressure extremes can range from the crushing pressure at the bottom of the ocean to the complete vacuum of space. Ionizing radiation may be found in and around nuclear power plants and blast sites, as well as in outer space. And toxic atmospheres filled with corrosive or poisonous gases exist right here on Earth, as well as on any number of alien worlds.

Environmental hazards are either minor or major. A minor hazard might be a smoke-filled room, low-level radiation, extreme temperatures, and so on. You can withstand exposure to minor hazards for a number of minutes equal to your Toughness; after that, you suffer 1 point of damage per minute of exposure.

Major hazards include things like crushing undersea pressure, high-level radiation, and the vacuum of outer space. Exposure to these conditions is measured in pages rather than minutes, so even if you aren't in combat you should track time in pages when dealing with a major hazard. You can withstand exposure to major hazards for a number of pages equal to your Toughness; after that, you suffer i point of damage per page of exposure.

Hazards can't inflict more than 1 point of damage per page. even if you're exposed to multiple hazards at the same time. Certain Powers (notably Adaptation and Immunity) can protect you against environmental hazards.

Suffocation

You can hold your breath for a number of minutes equal to your Toughness. After that, you start suffering 1 point of damage per page until you can breathe again. Once you can breathe normally, all suffocation damage immediately goes away. As usual, you'll be defeated rather than killed if you suffer too much damage unless you're playing a game in which Heroes can die. Assuming you aren't, you and your GM are going to have to figure out how you managed to survive.

Swimming

Characters travel only half as fast as normal and use half their Agility when making movement-related challenge rolls while swimming. They also suffer a - 3d penalty to Perception rolls while underwater. A scuba mask lowers this penalty to - 1d for visual Perception rolls. When engaging in underwater combat, characters use half their Edge and suffer a - 3d penalty to their physical attack and active defense rolls. As you might expect, characters with Swimming ignore these penalties. Deep water is dark, very cold, and can expose characters to pressure extremes and the risks associated with sudden changes in pressure, but those real world complexities are left for GMs to handle or ignore as they see fit.

Leaping

Distances are intentionally abstract in P&P, but it can sometimes be helpful to have a more concrete idea of how far you can jump. All characters effectively have Leaping at half their Might for purposes of determining how far they can jump. However, you need to have spent Hero Points on Leaping if you want to use the Power as a means of long-distance travel.

Lifting

The maximum amount of weight you can lift is normally a static value that depends on your Might, but this assumes optimal conditions. Lifting a heavy object can be tricky when rushed or too distracted to get a good grip on the thing. That being the case, whenever you want to lift a heavy object in combat or during other fast-paced actions scenes, the GM may ask for a Might roll to see if you can manage it. The threshold for this roll depends on the object's weight, as shown on the Lifting table.

Lifting Table

Scorching

Heat and electricity are common sources of harm. Like falling. whenever you are exposed to either energy, you suffer an attack that can only be resisted with passive defenses (unless you can come up with a creative way of using one of your active defenses instead). Use the Scorching table as a guide when determining the rank of such attacks.

Scorching Table

Smashing

What would this game be without rules for smashing things? Depressing, that's what. Luckily, we're here for you. While vehicles and complex machines have a Body characteristic, simple objects like doors and walls have a Structure rank that determines their durability. The Structure of common materials is on the Smashing table. CMs can raise or lower an object's Structure by id to 4d depending on its condition, thickness, and whatever other factors they deem relevant.

Smashing Table

*Most comic book worlds have at least one substance that's all but invulnerable to physical harm. In the Pinnacle City Universe, that metal is Ozymandium -- Metal of Metals! -- and it's impervious only in its pure form. While not unbreakable, Ozymandium alloys are incredibly strong and resilient.

Whenever you want to bend, break, or smash through an object, make a challenge roll using Might or one of your Powers against the object's Structure. You can bend or make a small hole in an object with 1 to 2 net successes, but big holes require 3 or more net successes. You must do this all at once; you can't combine net successes over multiple attempts. In fact, if an object is especially thick-like castle wall thick - the GM might make you do this a few times in order to smash through it completely.

Damaging Cover

Attacks can penetrate objects used as cover if their attack rank exceeds the object's Structure. Any time you attack a target by smashing or shooting through an object, the target can use the object's Structure as a passive defense. When combined with the above rules for smashing objects, what this means is that you have two options when attacking a target hiding behind cover. If your attack rank exceeds the cover's Structure, you can shoot right through it. If not, you can try to smash a hole in the object your target is hiding behind, after which they'll presumably be more exposed.

Scenery as Weapons

Super strong characters tend to use anything they can find as weapons. Can you blame them? If you use a heavy object or a vehicle as a club, you get a + id bonus to your close combat attack rolls. If you use a heavy object or a vehicle as a thrown projectile, this allows you to use Might + ld to perform a ranged attack, which is nice when you have superhuman strength.

Unfortunately, mundane objects can take only so much punishment before becoming confetti. Whenever you use a mundane object as an improvised weapon, your attack rank caps out at the object's Body or Structure plus 6d. For example, motorcycles have 5d Body, so you can't roll more than 11d when using one as an improvised weapon. Similarly, most wooden telephone poles have 7d Structure (6d plus id for thickness), so you can't roll more than 13d when using one as an improvised weapon.

Because everyday objects like streetlights, telephone poles, and cars aren't designed to be used as weapons, they don't last long under this kind of punishment. For every page that an everyday object is used as a weapon by a super strong character, its effective Body or Structure is reduced by 2d for these purposes. Again, this only applies when super strong characters use scenery and vehicles as weapons. A character with normal human strength can wield an iron crowbar until the cows come home without affecting the thing in any way. Edge cases are up to the GM's discretion.

Scenery Table

Massive Objects

If you can manage to heft a truly massive object and somehow keep it from falling apart under its own weight, it works as described above, only using the object's weight rank instead of its Body or Structure. Unlike ordinary scenery, massive objects always break apart after the first shot.

Massive Objects Table

Toxins

Biological and chemical agents like diseases, drugs, and poisons are toxins. Toxins work like Powers with an Innate Source. Once a character is exposed to a toxin, they can only use their passive defenses- normally Toughness or the Resistance Power -to resist its effects. The following Pros and Cons apply only to mundane diseases, drugs, and poisons (unless the GM rules otherwise).

Caustic

CON -2 Hero Points
This applies only to the Stun Power. A character affected by the Power isn't incapacitated, but instead suffers a - 2d penalty to all challenge rolls for the Power's duration. If the Power comes in the form of a gas, it attacks everyone in its area of effect at the start of each page.

Lethal Disease

PRO + 6 Hero Points
This applies only to the Slay Power. Any damage inflicted by the Power isn't inflicted immediately. Instead, the character is incapacitated until the end of the current issue, at which time the damage is inflicted. The CM will have to determine whether the character can be cured before then - and at what threshold - on a case-by-case basis. Last, these symptoms may take days or weeks to appear.

Non-Lethal Disease

PRO +2 Hero Points
This applies only to the Stun Power. A character affected by the Power isn't incapacitated, but instead suffers a - 2d penalty to all challenge rolls for the rest of the current issue. The GM will have to determine whether the character can be cured before then -and at what threshold - on a case-by-case basis. Last, these symptoms may take days or weeks to appear.

Diseases

• Includes various bacterial infections, such as those resulting from open wounds or untreated injuries.

Drugs and Poisons

*Includes various naturally derived poisons such as arsenic, belladonna, hemlock, and curare