Lone Wolf Fists: Punching through concrete

You can’t have a game inspired by Fist of the North Star without including rules for:

1) Destroying things

2) Punching a tank to death

Also, environmental destruction needs to be a tactical dimension of battles, not just window dressing. How else are you going to defeat Super Shredder?

Hence, a refinement of the “building collapses in stages” mechanics. They’re at the end under “Fallout”, check ‘em!

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Environmental Interaction/Hazards

Hazards

Hazards are dangerous things in the environment. A fire is a hazard, as is acid, or freezing water.

They damage characters that interact with them. The amount of damage they deal is determined by their Rating. Rating is in Ranks of damage; a Rating of 1 deal 10 damage to an unprotected character, a rating of 3 deal 30!

Characters can withstand this damage with an Endurance action. Subtract the total of their Endurance from the Hazard’s rating: if 0 or below, they weather the hazard to no ill effect. Any positive number is dealt as damage.

Hazards are attached to the environment, either as Features or as an Attachment to a feature. A lake of lava is its own Feature, while a burning sky scraper is a building feature with the bonfire Hazard as an Attachment.

Hazards describe what kind of effect they have in the tactical infinity with their Description. This tells you what the hazard is; a fire, a freezing blast of wind, acid rain, etc.

The Description might imply Secondary Effects, such as the choking smoke produced by a large fire or the pushing force of a strong wind. Hazards generally specify Secondary Effects, although GMs should rule according to the circumstances. A fire in a well-ventilated area wouldn’t choke anybody, for instance.

Hazards might not last forever; for short-lived hazards like fires, their Duration determines how long they endure. Once the Duration lapses, they fizzle out.

Example:

Bonfire

Attachment

Rating: 3

Description: A large fire; produces smoke and ash and devours air for fuel, creating a smothering effect in enclosed areas. Spreads to nearby flammable objects that it damages.

Duration: One Action Scene

Disasters

Disasters are things like earthquakes, typhoons, explosions, landslides… Temporary but dangerous events that change the landscape and endanger characters on a large scale.

They effect entire Areas at once. Their Scale tells you how many Areas are affected.

Disasters don’t attach to or occupy an environment so much as they invade it; they lack the Attachment/Feature distinction.

Disasters might travel; storms and tidal waves have a habit of wreaking a path of destruction, for instance. A disaster’s Path describes the direction and speed of its movement. They move the listed number of areas per a given interval (such as 1 area/ action scene: they move to a neighboring area ever action scene)

Speed is measured in increments of the Disaster’s Scale: larger disasters don’t necessarily move faster, they simple cover a larger area as they move.

Some Disasters, such as tornados, move. Others spread, which grows them into neighboring areas. Fires are a notorious example of Disasters which spread, rather than move.

For Disasters, their Rating doubles as a measure of how destructive they are to the local scenery as well as characters caught in their path. Consult the Environmental Destruction chart to determine the damages caused.

Disasters are temporary; they have a Duration, exactly like Hazards. Those lacking Duration are instantaneous; they occur once, then expire. Explosions are a noteworthy example of this; a nuclear detonation doesn’t last very long but is hideously destructive on a massive scale.

Disasters, as Hazards, have a Description which describes Secondary Effects and their reality in the tactical infinity. As with Hazards, GMs are encouraged to rule the individual effects of Disasters based on the circumstances of the game.

Example:

Conflagration

Scale: 1 Area

Rating: 3

Path: 1 neighboring Area/Action Scene

Duration: 5 Action Scenes/ I real-Time Scene

Description: A raging firestorm that engulfs everything in its path. Creates huge volumes of ash and smoke, obscuring vision in effected areas and choking characters caught in its path. Also roars loudly, making it difficult to hear. Spreads only to nearby areas which have flammable material to feed it.

Environment Destruction Chart

This chart is repeated from the Power entry under skills (p.XX)

Rank 0 Break Glass: Crack windows and other highly destructible terrain features. Damage the most breakable things.

Rank 1-2 Break Wood: Totally shatter windows or put cracks into thick, solid oak with your fists. Break the most breakable things and damage hardier things.

Rank 3-4 Break Concrete: Punch through sturdy wooden walls with ease or put cracks into concrete with a punch. Break sturdy things and damage incredibly sturdy things.

Rank 5-6 Break Metal: Knock down concrete pillars in a single blow or dent steel with you punch. Destroy incredibly sturdy things or damage fortified things.

Rank 7-8 Break Magical Metal: Break through a steel bulkhead or warp adamant with the force of your blows. Destroy fortified things or damage nigh-indestructible things.

The amount of material reshaped/broken is up to the size of a person. For every category by which the action exceeds the minimum number, roughly double this amount. For example, a Rank 1-2 action could destroy an entire wall made of glass, while 3-4 could shatter the side of a glass building!

If a structure such as a building has its load-bearing points destroyed, it will collapse, causing a Hazard, Fallout (below) or a Disaster (p.XX)

Fallout

When big things break, they cause fallout. Examples include a mountain exploding into an avalanche, a building imploding under structural duress, and a submarine collapsing in the ocean’s crushing depths

The effects of fallout happen in Stages. Each stage, the environment changes as described. Stages escalate the destruction until the fallout concludes, leaving the environment in ruins.

Each Stage lasts for 1 round unless otherwise specified.

For example, a building beginning to collapse would use the following fallout:

Stage 1: The superstructure begins to warp and sway. All movement actions on or within the building are increased in difficulty by 1 Rank. Any glass shatters, causing a Glass Shower Hazard.

Glass Shower

Attachment (walls, windows)

Rating: 2

Description: The glass fixtures explode in a blast of razor-sharp shards.

Duration: One Round. Sharp glass shards linger on the floor after explosion.

Stage 2: The building collapses downwards, crushing anyone within under several tons of concrete. This is a one-time Crushing Hazard, Rating 5.

Stage 3: A massive cloud of dust and pulverized concrete billows outward from the collapsing structure. This manifests as a Dust Cloud Disaster.

Dust Cloud

Scale: 1 Area

Rating: 1

Path: Each neighboring Battlefield, once

Duration: 1 Action scene

Description: A cloud of choking, blinding fallout spreads in all directions. Characters within are blinded. The damage from the Rating manifests as lung damage from inhaled dust and debris. The dust spreads to each neighboring Battlefield at the start of the second round, then lingers there until it disperses at the end of the scene.

After this, the building has completely imploded; only piles of broken concrete and twisted metal remain.