Special Circumstances

This page is good for GMs to keep open just in case your players want to do something weird, you will have the rules for it.
This is a list of special circumstances that is great to have quick access to. Some of the shorter stuff will just be described here, but longer form explainations will be linked to another page.

Area Effect Injury

Any AoE attack (dragon's breath, explosive fireball, etc.) will hit a person's entire body. In these cases, armor does protect, but not as effectively. Your DR for these attacks is equal to the average of your torso DR and the DR of the least protected hit location exposed to the attack (rounded up). If a part of your body is in cover at the time, it does not count towards the lowest DR.

Attribute Default (Rule of 20)

If you have an attribue over 20, treat it as if it is 20 for default purposes.

Climbing

Anything more difficult than a ladder requires a climbing roll.

Type of Climb	Modifier	Combat	Regular
Ladder going up	no roll	3 rungs/sec (3 feet/sec)	1 rung/sec (1 foot/sec)
Ladder going down	no roll	2 rungs/sec (2 feet/sec)	1 rung/sec (1 foot/sec)
Ordinary tree	+5	1 ft/sec	1ft/3 sec
Ordinary mountain	0	1 ft/2 sec	10 ft/min
Vertical stone wall	-3	1 ft/5 sec	4 ft/min
Rope-up	-2	1 ft/sec	20 ft/min
Rope-down	-1	2 ft/sec	30 ft/min

Close Combat

Close Combat is active whenever you are fighting with, or defending against, a reach C weapon.

Collision

Collision damage can be found here.

Simplified Falling Damage

1 Yard: 1d cr
2 Yards: 1d+1 cr
3 Yards: 1d+2 cr
4 Yards: 2d-1 cr
5 Yards: 2d cr
10 Yards: 3d cr
15 Yards: 3d+2 cr
20 Yards: 4d cr
25 Yards: 4d+2 cr
30 Yards: 5d cr
35 Yards: 5d+2 cr
40 Yards: 6d-1 cr
45 Yards: 6d cr
50 Yards: 6d+2 cr
60 Yards: 7d cr
70 Yards: 7d+2 cr
80 Yards: 8d+1cr
100 Yards: 9d+1 cr

If falling onto something like spikes, damage is imp instead.

Digging

Loose Soil, Sand, etc: 2xBL cubic feet/hour (cf/hr)
Ordinary Soil: BL cf/hr, can be turned into loose soil with a pick first (no time difference from Loose Soil if two people work in tandem).
Hard Soil, Clay, etc.: 2xBL cf/hr, must be broken up by a pick first

Disarming

A disarm attempt requires you to target your opponent's weapon. Apply a -2 (offset if using a Fencing weapon) and weapon size as a penalty to your targeting roll. Then, roll a Quick-Contest between your Disarm Technique, and the target's Weapon Skill.

Evading

Attempting to move through an enemy requires you to Evade them. This is usually a Quick Contest of DX between evader and blocker.

Explosives

Explosive damage is applied in full at the center hex. Damage is divided by 3 x distance in yards from epicenter. Apply damage as Area Effect Injury.

Fright Check

Fright Checks are Will rolls made to resist fear. For these rolls, your Will is capped at 13, which means a roll of 14 or more is automatically a failure despite any modifiers (though modifiers are still useful for offsetting any penalties). If you fail a Fright Check, you roll on a table here, adding your margin of failure to the Fright Check Table roll.

Grappling

If you are untrained at Grappling, you can just make a DX roll, modified by hit location, to hit. This Attack is in Close Quarters (above). The opponent may defend normally. Your opponent may not move and is at -4 DX until they break free. Breaking free is a Quick Contest of ST between the grappler and the grappled.

Hitting the Wrong Target

This rule is optional. A line is drawn from the attacker that goes through the target. If the ranged attack misses your target, roll either the same to-hit roll or 9 whichever is worse against everyone along that line.

Holding Breath

The amount of time you can hold your breath depends on your level of activity. Halve these times if you suddenly need to hold your breath.

No Exertion (Sitting Quietly): HTx10 seconds
Mild Exertion (Treading Water or Walking): HTx4 seconds
Heavy Exertion (Climbing, Combat, or Running): HT seconds

Increase time by 50% if you can spend a Concentrate maneuver to hyperventalate first. Breath Control further increases the time by another 50% (apply multiplicatively).

Identification

Whenever you come across a creature, person, or item that you are not familiar with, you may attempt to Identify it. Passing a roll lets you know what it is. The better the roll, the more information you can get from it.

Injury Tolerance

Some creatures/objects have different reactions to damage types. Here is a list of how they respond to the individual damage types.

Unliving: anything unalive

imp and pi++: x1
pi+: x1/2
pi: x1/3
pi-: x1/5

Homogenous: things that lack vulnerable internal parts

imp and pi++: x1/2
pi+: x1/3
pi: x1/5
pi-: x1/10

Diffuse: swarms, clouds, anything almost vaporous

imp an pi: never more that 1 HP of damage
everything else: never more that 2 HP of damage
exception: any AoE attacks cause full injury

Jumping

Your Jump distance is based off of your Basic Move. If untrained, roll vs DX to make a difficult jump. The Jumping skill lets you substitute half your skill level, rounded down, for your Basic Move.

High Jump: (6 x (Basic Move + previous turn's movement)) - 10 inches. Running can only double standing jump height maximum.
Broad Jump: (2 x (Basic Move + previous turn's movement)) - 3 feet. Running can only double standing jump distance.

Knockback

When you hit someone very hard, you may knock them away from you. Only Crushing attacks can cause knockback (Cutting may apply, but only if it doesn't penetrate DR).

What you roll for damage, before subtracting DR or applying wounding, is the number you use for knockback. For every multiple of your target's ST-2 (HP if target has no ST) your knockback amount is, your target is moved directly away from you at that many yards.

If someone suffers any kind of knockback, they must make a DX, Acrobatics, or Judo (whichever is higher) or fall in a prone position. This roll is at -1/yard of knockback and Perfect Balance gives +4. If the target being knocked back collides with something or someone, then apply Collision damage (above) to both.

Lifting and Moving Things

Basic Lift is (STxST)/5. The Lifting Skill increases BL by Margin of Success x 5%

One-Handed Lift: 2xBL
Two-Haded Lift: 8xBL
Shove and Knock Over: 12xBL (double if you have a running start)
Carry on Back: 15xBL (every second you are over 10xBL you lose 1 FP because of encumberance)
Shift Slightly: 50xBL

Pulling or dragging a load behind you counts towards your encumberance. Halve effective weight if it's over somthing slick. If using a two-wheeled cart, devide effective weight by 10. If using a four-wheeled wagon, divide effective weight by 20.

Making Things Burn

Materials are grouped into six flammability classes. These determine whether something ignites when hit with incindiary damage (tight beam burning damage is divided by 10 for this purpose). The ignition damage is cumulative.

Super-Flammable (Black powder, ether): Negligible damage.
Highly Flammable (Alcohol, paper, tinder): 1 point of damage.
Flammable (Dry wood, kindling, oil): 3 points of damage.
Resistant (Seasoned wood, clothing, rope, leather): 10 points.
Highly Resistant (Green wood, flesh): 30 points.
Nonflammable (Brick, metal, rock): N/A.

A regular fire deals 1d-1 burn inc damage per second (1d-3 if something spends only part of a turn in the flame). Molten metal, a furnace, or any other intense flame would deal 3d per second. Use Area Effect Injury in all cases.

Malfunction

Complicated mechanisms are prone to malfunctioning. When using the weapon, your effecive skill is capped at the Malfunction Number listed. Any malfunction on a 16 or less jams or misfires the mechanism and requires a Ready Maneuver and an appropriate Armoury skill roll to fix. For any mechanism with explosives (like firearms and grenades), will explode in the user's face on a 17 or 18 dealing 1d+2 cr ex [2d] to anyone within range.

Movement

You can run at your Basic Move per second modified by encumberance. When Running in the same direction for more than 1 second, you are Sprinting and may add 20% (or your Enhanced Move modifier) to your Basic Move (round down, but always adds at least +1). After 15 seconds of Running/Sprinting, roll vs HT or Running Skill to avoid losing 1 FP.

Unless Amphibious or Aquatic, you move at Basic Move/5 (round down) and must make a Swimming roll whenever you get in water deeper than your height. "Sprinting" rules still apply underwater.
If your character can fly, the "Sprinting" rules also apply as if it was ground movement.

Ranged Attack into Water

Wasteland 2, page 45

Resistances (Rule of 16)

If an attack offers a resistance roll and the subject is living or sapient, the attacker's effective skill cannot exceed the higher of 16 or the defender's actual resistance (whichever is better).

Scattering

When deliberately targeting a hex on the ground (+4 to skill roll to hit), attacking with a Cone/Area of Effect ability, etc., you have a chance to miss. If you do miss or the target dodges (see Diving for Cover), pick a "1" hex around the target and number the hexes 1-6 in clockwise order around the target hex. Roll a 1d6 and the attack is centered FINISH LATER

Ranged Combat

Shove

If an opponent is in a spot you don't want them to be, you may attempt to shove them. This is usually a DX roll. If you hit, roll thrust/crushing damage (at -1 per die if you are only using one hand) and double the damage for the purposes of knockback (detailed above), but produces no wounding.

Shrapnel

Slam

Stuck Weapons

Throwing

Untrained Throwing is a DX-3 to hit a specific target, but an unmodified DX to throw something in a general area (missing applies scattering, detailed above).

The distance and damage depends on weight of object thrown.

BL/8: Range is 2xST in yards, Damage is Thrust -2/die
BL/4: 1.2xST, Thrust -1/die
BL/2: 0.8xST, Thrust
BL: 0.6xST, Thrust +1/die
2xBL: 0.3xST, Thrust
4xBL: 0.2xST, Thrust -0.5/die (round down)
8xBL: 0.1xST, Thrust -1/die

Time Spent

You can reduce the penalty for a tough task, or even get a bonus, by working slowly an deliberately. You can even hurry a task along if you're very skilled at it. Any non-combat action gives:

+1 if x2 time is taken
+2 if x4 time is taken
+3 if x8 time is taken
+4 if x15 time is taken
+5 if x30 time is taken

Whether the skill can even benefit from extra time spent is up to the GM entirely. Conversly, if you need to hurry the task, you may decrease the time required at a penatly. Every 10% you reduce the time by, take a -1 penalty.

Magic skills do not benefit from these rules.

Travel Time

When traveling, you can travel at 10xBasic Move in miles of the average speed of the people in the group. A successful Hiking roll increases your Basic Move by 20%. If you have Leadership at 12+, your Hiking roll applies to the entire group.

This can be modified by:
Terrain:

Very Bad (Deep Snow, Dense Forest, Jungle, Mountains, Soft Sadn, or Swamp): x0.20
Bad (Broken Ground, Streams, Forest, or Steep Hills): x0.50
Average (Light Forest or Rolling Hills): x1.00
Good (Hard Packed Desert or Level Plains): x1.25

Weather

Rain: Halves off-road speed
Snow: Ankle-deep halves speed in any terrain. Any deeper divides speed by 4

Roads

In normal weather, most roads count as Average terrain. High quality roads can even be Good Terrain
Rain lowers quality by 1 step (Average to Bad)
Snow lowers quality by 2 steps (Average to Very Bad)

Weapon Targeting and Breakage

Navigation Bar

Area Effect Injury
Attribute Default (Rule of 20)
Climbing
Close Combat