Back to Deadzone, shall we?
 |
| We MISSED you! |
The base mechanic of Deadzone is pools of d8 - those dice with eight sides, which might be alien to you if you didn't play D&D, generally with opposed rolls. Furthermore rolling a natural 8 on the die causes it to explode - NOT blow up, but instead lets you add an additional die to your dice pool. That's the academic answer, but let's see that in practice.
This is Bill, an Enforcer Commander.
 |
| Hi kids. |
Bill, as can see, is armed with a Dominator Rifle in his right hand, and a rather nasty Wrist Blade attached to his left. For the time being, we're going to stick to the Dominator Rifle, as we'll be looking at a Ranged Attack.
Now, meet Ted, a Stage 2A Plague who Bill is going to be shooting at.
 |
| Wait, what?? |
The relevant stats we will be looking are the SHOOT stat for the Peacekeeper Commander, and SURVIVE for the Stage 2A Plague.
The Peacekeeper Commander has a SHOOT stat of 4+ and the the Stage 2A Plague has a SURVIVE of 4+. The Enforcer is as good at shooting things as the Plagued is as surviving being shot at.
Generally all tests are made by rolling 3 d8s at one time, seeing how many dice score equal to or greater than the target number (4+ in this case, for both sides) If the Defender - in this case, the Plagued - gets more and equal number or more successes, the shot misses, and the Enforcer player curses. But if the Attacker - the Peacekeeper Commander in our example here - wins, the number of successes denote the number of wounds that the Plagued is going to take.
Still, typically the Peacekeeper Commander needs to roll pretty lucky to get better than a tie. And even then, it's not going to be very effective. Let's roll it.
The Enforcer gets a 2, a 5, and a 6. Two rolls over 4+, so, two Successes
The Plagued gets a 5, a 7, and another 7. Three rolls over 4+, three Successes, and the Peacekeeper Commander has missed.
|
| Dang. |
But now....let's suppose it's an unusually open battlefield - a dream for the Peacekeeper Commander, and a big problem for the Stage 2A Plague. If the Stage 2A Plague is standing in a cube with NO cover - no place to hide any part of himself - the Peacekeeper Commander gets to add TWO extra dice to his pool.
And, because we're feeling a little cruel here, the Peacekeeper Commander is going to Aim first, giving him an additional die to it's pool. So NOW things just got interesting: SIX dice for the PC, three for the S2AP.
The Enforcer rolls: 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8. Remembering that 8s explode, he gets to roll another die, and gets a 4. That's four rolls with a 4+, so 4 successes!
The Plagued rolls: 1, 2, and 8. He gets an extra die for rolling the 8, and rolls a 4. Two successes. This might hurt...
Since the Peacekeeper Commander had two more successes than the Stage 2A Plague, that's potentially two wounds. Ordinarily, his Armor Value of 1 would stop one wound, but because the Dominator Rifle has Armor Piercing 1, it ignores the Armor Value. The Stage 2A Plague, luckily, is Tough, and that stops one of the wounds..but he's still Wounded. Plus, because the successes were Doubled (4vs2) the Plagued gets knocked down one level of Aggression. If he was at Alert (the normal state) he's now Pinned, and needs to spend an action to Get Mean just so he can move at all turn.
|
| Well that sucks. |
But let's look at one more option. Favoring, this time, the Stage 2A.
This time, the Peacekeeper Command has his work cut out for him. The Stage 2A is two squares away, in a cube offering cover. The shoe is on the other foot, so to speak. Now the Peacekeeper gets only three dice, and the Stage 2A gets a bonus dice for being in cover.
The Enforcer rolls a 1, a 6, and another 6. Two successes - not bad!
The Stage 2A rolls 2, a 3, and 8 and a 7. With the 8, he rolls a bonus die - another 8! He gets ANOTHER bonus die - every time you get an 8 it's a bonus die - and this comes up with a 4. Four total successes, handily defeating the two successes of the Peacekeeper Commander, and probably ensuring that the Plague player's next move is to move and attack, turn the Enforcer into so much quivering sushi.
That's just a taste. Next time we're going to take a look at some of the really cool stuff you can do with the terrain for Deadzone. Until then, farewell, and remember to AIM.
