Running Out of Air

I think the rules for asphyxiation and holding your breath in the Agent’s Handbook are kind of weird. So I wrote this set of house rules to replace them.

If an Agent has time to take a deep breath, they can survive unharmed for turns equal to their CON plus their current HP. If they engage in strenuous activity, they must make a CON or Swim test or lose an extra turn of air.

If an Agent doesn’t have time to inhale, or runs out of air, they must roll CONx5 or Swim each turn as they asphyxiate. On a success, they lose 1 hit point, or 1D6 on a failure. This continues until they can breathe again or someone clears their airway with a First Aid test.

Any HP lost to suffocation is restored with a successful First Aid test¹. The +20% bonus from first aid kits still applies. If an Agent’s airway is blocked, the test to clear it also restores their HP. If the airway-clearing test fails, their medic can always try again on the next turn. They can either keep using First Aid, or change tactics and attempt a tracheotomy with Surgery. Reattempting a failed test with the same skill inflicts 1 damage on the patient. This damage persists after their airway is cleared and the HP lost to asphyxiation is healed.

If an Agent wants to get a Special Training in holding their breath like professional divers, they get a +20% bonus to all CON or Swim tests to hold their breath.

With these rules, the average person with 10 CON and 10 HP will last ~18 turns underwater. If we assume that a combat round is 6 seconds long on average (individual ones may be longer or shorter as the narrative demands), this is about 2 minutes, the standard figure for how long humans can go without air before falling unconscious and risking death. 

In the ideal circumstance (18 CON, 18 HP, and the special training) someone can last for 5 or 6 minutes without air. This might sound nuts, but compare it to the Bajau sea nomads in Southeast Asia who famously can remain underwater for 13 minutes at depths of up to 70 meters. Admittedly, they do this by puncturing their eardrums to equalize water pressure and by benefiting from a few genetic mutations that help them manage blood-oxygen levels.

1 Since the damage is technically temporary, being revived from 2 HP or lower may not require a CONx5 test for permanent injury. Though it definitely should if the Agent is left unattended for more than CON minutes or if the First Aid test fails.  ^↩

Crits and Fumbles for Rituals from Published Scenarios

After writing the original post, I considered doing the same thing for every other 'official ritual,' but put it off for a while. As of now, I've written up enough of them to show off. Obviously, spoilers for scenarios and campaigns follow, though I tried my best to put them in the order of when they were released. That way the more recent stuff is harder to accidentally read.

Currently, I have material written for Night Visions from Control Group, Hourglass, Impossible Landscapes, Iconoclasts, and Presence. I'll try to keep this list updated as new things are published, but it'll take a while. I can't read everything the second it comes out and others I'll be holding off on because I want to play in them.

Whispers of the Dead (Cthulhu)

 

cthulhu C by Francois Launet

The Ritual 

It can be performed anywhere. The operator only needs a special drink, chalk, some of their own blood, and time. The drink must be prepared before the chalk is even touched. There is no one specific recipe, it just has to be thick, foul, and psychoactive; for example: a mixture of honey, vinegar, coffee, and nutmeg spiced rum. The operator then uses the chalk to draw a complicated diagram of squares, circles, and lines. Once they begin, they cannot step outside the allotted area. It usually takes up 5 or 10 square meters, though operators skilled in Art or Science (Mathematics) can make do with smaller diagrams. Those with high ratings in both skills can get it down to a single square meter.