Hero System Rules Supplement

Damage and other Efffects

• Normal Damage
• Killing Damage
• Mental Effects
• Presence Attack Damage
• Variables Affecting Damage
• Knockback

Normal Damage

Normal attacks cause BODY and STUN damage. Physical attacks are resisted by PD, and energy attacks are resisted by ED. Characters divide the damage of their attack by 3 and round down to determine the BODY damage of normal attacks.

Killing Damage

Attacks bought with the advantage Attack Versus Resistant Defence cause Killing damage instead of Normal damage. Killling attacks cause BODY and STUN damage. Physical attacks are resisted by PD, and energy attacks are resisted by ED, but only if the character has 1 or more points of resistant defence. Characters with no resistant defence take full damage from killing attacks. Characters with resistant defence use their resistant defence when resisting the BODY damage of killing attacks, and their normal defence when resisting the STUN damage. Characters divide the damage of their attack by 3 and round down to determine the BODY damage of killing attacks.

Characters may add all DC derived from other sources (such as STR or velocity) to the DC of an attack with the Attack Versus Resistant Defence advantage to determine the number of dice rolled, but must apply the advantages on the base attack to the other DC when working out the total DC in the modified attack.

Example: Black Ninja hits the Wyvern with his sword. The sword is a 4 DC killing armour-piercing hand attack (total advantages +1). Black Ninja has STR 4 (+4 DC) and used an offensive strike (+4 DC), for a total bonus of +8 DC (40 active points). However, these DC do not have +1 in advantages: +4 DC with +1 in advantages is also 40 active points, and this is what Black Ninja can add to the sword's DC. The total damage of the attack is thus 8 DC.

Mental Effects

Mental powers are resisted by MD. Characters gain additional Mental Threshold against the effects of mental powers as follows.

The damage of a mental power must match or exceed the character's Mental Threshold for the power to affect the character, who then attempts a breakout roll to break free of the power's effect (TN = 15 + damage exceeding Mental Threshold).

Presence Attack Damage

When making a presence attack, characters make an appropriate Interaction skill check (TN 15 to gain +1 presence attack damage, 3d6 roll also used to determine variables affecting presence attack damage). The presence attack does damage equal to the character's PRE, and is compared to the target's Mental Threshold to determine the degree of effect. If the damage of a presence attack matches or exceeds the character's Mental Threshold, the character is affected by the presence attack according to the degree of effect achieved. The character may attempt a breakout roll to resist the presence attack's effects (TN = 15 + half damage exceeding Mental Threshold).

Variables Affecting Damage

Characters add 1 damage for each 6 rolled on a dice in the 3d6 roll, and subtract 1 damage for each 1 rolled on a dice.

Knockback

Whenever a character successfully hits a target with an attack that does knockback, the attacker adds the 3d6 attack roll to the damage of the attack (TN 20 plus target's Knockback Resistance). If the result equals the TN, the defender is Knocked Down. If the result exceeds the TN, the defender takes 2m of Knockback for each point by which the roll exceeds the target number.

Killing Attacks do as much Knockback as Normal Attacks. Characters with Clinging can use their Strength to resist Knockback from a given direction as a free action instead of a move action.

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