The system uses three damage types: Physical, Energy, and RADS. Every attack deals one of the three. The damage type determines which Damage Threshold the target uses for mitigation, which property a Cover Object uses for penetration, and which pool on the target the surviving damage subtracts from.
Effects that hurt the target after an attack lands — 🩸 Bleed, 🔥 Burn, 🐍 Poison, 🌩 Shock, ❄ Frozen, ☢ Radiation — are status effects, not damage types. They are applied by weapon tags (e.g. 🔥 Burn X, 🌩 Shock X, ☢ Radioactive X) and resolve on the target’s own turn.
Physical
Ballistic, kinetic, and concussive damage. Bullets, shrapnel, melee strikes, fists, falling debris, explosive shockwave.
- Mitigated on creatures by 🛡️ Physical DT then DR (percentage damage reduction).
- Mitigated on Cover Objects by 💎 Hardness.
- Surviving damage subtracts from the target’s Hit Points and the hit limb’s 💔 Cripple Threshold.
- Common weapon tags that adjust Physical interactions: Piercing X (ignore X DT), Sunder X (strip X Physical DT from armor), Embed X (Embedded foreign object).
Energy
Laser, plasma, electricity, fire, cryo, microwave. Anything that delivers damage as radiated energy rather than physical force or ionizing radiation.
- Mitigated on creatures by ♨️ Energy DT then DR (percentage damage reduction).
- Mitigated on Cover Objects by ♨️ Energy Resistance.
- Surviving damage subtracts from the target’s Hit Points and the hit limb’s 💔 Cripple Threshold.
- Common weapon tags that adjust Energy interactions: Piercing X (ignore X DT), 🕯 Melt X (strip X Energy DT from armor).
Many Energy weapons also carry an attached status effect — laser rifles often apply 🔥 Burn, plasma may apply 🔥 Burn, shock weapons apply 🌩 Shock, cryo weapons apply ❄ Frozen. The damage itself is Energy; the effect is separate.
RADS
Ionizing radiation delivered as a direct hit — radiation guns, gamma weapons, exposure to a critical mass, irradiated melee weapons. RADS damage is a true damage type and is mitigated the same way as Physical and Energy.
- Mitigated on creatures by ☢ Radiation DT then DR (percentage damage reduction).
- Cover Objects are immune to RADS damage. A radiation hit that strikes a Cover Object does not damage the cover — there is no “Radiation Resistance” stat and no durability loss to track. Cover interacts with RADS attacks in two different ways depending on whether the attack is direct-fire or AoE:
- Direct-fire RADS (gamma gun beam, focused radiation): if any Cover lies between the attacker and the targeted limb, the beam dissipates on the cover surface. No damage to the creature, no damage to the cover. Only an exposed limb can be hit — use a Called Shot to target a limb that is not behind cover.
- AoE RADS (mini nuke, radiation pulse, irradiated explosives): follows 💣 Explosives Attack cover rules. Cover does not automatically block the blast. The cover’s R-value for RADS defaults to 0, so by default Half Cover and Full Cover provide no attenuation — the full RADS damage reaches the target. Half Cover still protects the covered limbs in the Average DT calculation (Average DT is computed only from the exposed limbs), but the post-cover damage value is unchanged. The Cover Object itself takes no damage from the RADS component (it would still take damage from any concurrent Physical or Energy blast component, resolved separately).
- The ☢ Rad Shielded X Cover Object Quality (lead-lined, deep concrete, vault plating) supplies an R-value for AoE RADS attacks: Half Cover attenuates by X, Full Cover attenuates by 2X.
- Surviving damage adds directly to the target’s ☢ RADS counter rather than subtracting from Hit Points. Each point of RADS reduces the target’s effective maximum HP by 1; if RADS meets or exceeds max HP, the target begins 💀 Dying.
- Does not apply 💔 Cripple Threshold damage (RADS exposure affects the whole organism, not a single limb), but Hit Location is still rolled to determine which limb’s armor contributes Radiation DT for the mitigation step.
RADS damage and the ☢ Radiation status effect are different delivery mechanisms for the same resource. RADS damage adds to the counter immediately; the Radiation status effect ticks over multiple turns (☢ Radioactive X is a common source of the effect).
Damage Resolution Order
For all three damage types, damage is resolved in the same order:
- Cover (if applicable) — the attack first interacts with any Cover Object in the line of fire. Cover penetration uses 💎 Hardness (Physical) or ♨️ Energy Resistance (Energy). For RADS damage, Cover is immune — direct fire is blocked entirely if any Cover interrupts line of fire to the targeted limb; AoE RADS uses 💣 Explosives Attack rules where covered limbs are fully protected.
- Damage Threshold — subtract the target’s 🛡️ Physical DT, ♨️ Energy DT, or ☢ Radiation DT from each hit. If DT is greater than or equal to the incoming damage, the hit is fully mitigated and deals no damage.
- Damage Reduction — apply the target’s DR (percentage reduction) to the remaining damage.
- Apply to target pool — Physical and Energy subtract from Hit Points and the hit limb’s Cripple Threshold. RADS adds to the target’s ☢ RADS counter.
- Attached effects — weapon-tag status effects (🩸 Bleed X, 🔥 Burn X, 🌩 Shock X, ☢ Radioactive X, etc.) apply once per attack, regardless of how many hits landed. See ⚔ Combat Mechanics for the full attack flow.
There is no minimum damage — a hit fully absorbed by DT deals 0.
Damage Types vs. Status Effects
A common point of confusion: a “fire weapon” deals Energy damage and applies the 🔥 Burn status effect. A “radiation rifle” deals RADS damage and may apply the ☢ Radiation status effect. These are separate.
| Source | Damage Type | Attached Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Flamer | Energy | Burn |
| Laser Rifle | Energy | — (or Burn on some variants) |
| Plasma Rifle | Energy | Burn |
| Cryo weapon | Energy | Frozen |
| Tesla / shock weapon | Energy | Shock |
| Radiation gun | RADS | Radiation (optional) |
| Gamma gun | RADS | Radiation |
| Gauss rifle | Physical | — |
| 10mm pistol | Physical | — |
| Combat knife | Physical | Bleed (if tagged) |
| Frag grenade | Physical | Embed (shrapnel) |
Status effects ignore DT and DR entirely — 🩸 Bleed, 🔥 Burn, and 🐍 Poison explicitly “ignore armor” in their effect text. 🌩 Shock and ❄ Frozen drain AP rather than dealing HP damage. ☢ Radiation adds to RADS over multiple turns.
Edge Cases
- Concussive force from explosives is Physical damage for DT purposes; 🔙 Knockback and Knockdown are separate effects rolled independently.
- “True damage” does not exist in this system. Every hit has a damage type, even if a weapon tag (e.g. Bleed’s tick damage) tells you to skip the DT/DR step.
- Mixed-type weapons are rare. If a weapon deals damage of two types, resolve each portion separately through the matching DT — do not pool them.
See Also
- 🛡️ Physical DT, ♨️ Energy DT, ☢ Radiation DT
- 💎 Hardness, ♨️ Energy Resistance
- ☢ Rad Shielded X — Cover Object quality for radiation-attenuating cover
- ☢ RADS — the target counter that RADS damage feeds
- Cover
- ⚔ Combat Mechanics — full attack flow