"Wazzpinator has a headache in his whole body..."
—Waspinator, "Posession"
White Wolf players will be familiar with the term "aggravated damage" from other systems. In the case of the Cybertron race, aggravated damage is done specifically by energon or energy-based weaponry. An aggravated wound can only be healed quickly by outside aid, such as an R Chamber. Otherwise, it will take an entire day for the Cybertron's internal systems to heal the wound.
Cyberorganic Beasts and Fuzors cannot soak energon damage. Those of higher generations can soak damage from energon weaponry, but it will still be considered aggravated damage.
Supernatural weaponry that is considered to do aggravated damage to other races will also do aggravated damage to Cybertrons, unless there is a very specific reason why it should not. For gaming purposes, treat radiation damage as energon damage.
When a character uses Spark to recover from Incapacitating damage, there is a good chance that the character will suffer a system failure. If the damage was standard, roll a ten-sided die; if it was aggravated, roll two ten-sided dice, and check the chart below to see which systems, if any, fail. In special situations, such as a large-scale energon explosion, add ten to the roll, or roll three dice. Use this roll and the chart below to determine which system(s), if any, fail.
Systems damage is applied immediately, not at the end of combat. Systems damage can be repaired after combat is complete; any standard R chamber, bath, or repair session will heal this damage unless noted otherwise below. In desperate situations, Critical System Damage can also be fixed with internal repairs. Pay one Spark up front to use this ability, then roll Stamina plus Repair to fix the damage. Be warned: botching this roll indicates that the System damage is now permanent. A character can take no other action while repairing System Damage. If multiple systems have failed, they must be repaired on a one-for-one basis.
1-3 No systems damage incurred.
4 Damaged audio: Character is at a -2 for all rolls involving hearing. Hearing-related Mechanisms are off-line.
5 Damaged optics: Character is at a -2 for all rolls involving sight. Vision-related Mechanisms are off-line.
6-7 Damaged weapon: One of the character's weapons is off-line. Choose an attached or internal weapon first; if none are available, an unattached weapon has been broken or lost.
8-9 Damaged casing: Character's armor is dented. Soak rolls are now at +2 difficulty.
10 Difficult transformation: Character may transform, but transformation is extremely painful. The character will incur one point of aggravated damage when altering modes. This damage can be soaked, but armor is ignored.
11 Missing arm. One of the character's arms has become detached. This disallows use of whichever weapons that arm was holding. If character is in beast or vehicle mode, adjust accordingly—an insect may lose one or two legs—a bird a wing—a jungle cat its front leg—a car its wheel, etc.
12-13 Damaged Mechanism: One of the character's Mechanisms, chosen randomly by the Storyteller, is now off-line.
14 Missing leg. One of the character's legs has become detached and drops off of the body. The character cannot stand up bipedally and will drop to the ground. Dexterity, not including fine motor work, is at one. If a character is in a quadripedal beast mode, consider this to be a back leg. The leg cannot be reattached until combat ends.
15 No vocal receptors: Character cannot speak and is completely mute until repairs can be made.
16 No audio: Character is completely deafened until repairs can be made.
17 No optic sensors: Character is completely blinded until repairs can be made.
18-19 Missing head: Ooops. Character is okay, relatively speaking, but his head has been detached from his body and thrown 2D10 -2 yards. The head has enough energy to remain active for a while, but will lose consciousness without reattachment to its body. If the character's head is not retrieved within two rounds, the character will become Incapacitated again. They may spend Spark to recover, but must make another systems damage check. For the most part, replacing the head nullifies the effects of this damage. It will not become a permanent problem, save that the head will be slightly loose until complete repairs are made, and it has a fair chance of falling off again. (Characters with the Remote Processor Merit do not have to worry about losing their heads.)
20 Fuel leak: Character will lose Energon at a rate of one point per round until all Energon has been depleted.
21 No transformation: Character cannot change modes until repairs are made.
22-23 Roll two ten-sided dice, twice, and apply both penalties as above.
24-25 Roll two ten-sided dice three times and apply all penalties as above.
26 No internal computer: Internal computer communications are off-line. This includes internal repairs: character cannot recover damage on his own until repairs are made. This also includes most Mechanisms, particularly the ones relating to communication or perception. External or Separate Mechanisms such as Cyber Venom still function, as do attached weapons.
27 Damaged data. Roll one ten-sided die. If the roll comes up 1-4, subtract a permanent point of Wits; 5-7, a permanent point of Intelligence. On an 8, some data tracks have been deleted; character loses all knowledge related to Procedures. A 9 indicates lost Procedures as well as two other missing Knowledges, Storyteller's choice. On a roll of 10, all data tracks are lost, and character is overcome by complete amnesia.
Some or all of this data can be typically be recovered; however, Storytellers reserve the right to make this damage permanent.
28 Roll two ten-sided dice and three ten-sided dice; apply both penalties as above.
29 Roll two ten-sided dice, and apply the penalty as above. This penalty is permanent and cannot be altered by any amount of repair. (If the roll comes up 18-20, re-roll.)
30 Foot-in-the-grave: Subtract one point of permanent Spark. Character gains one Derangement. This is non repairable, though Spark can still be purchased with experience points.
"A STICK? Against a Transmetal?"
—Megatron, "Code of Hero"
Other than damage during combat situations or damage from energon poisoning, there are not a lot of situations nature can throw out that damage a Cybertron. Aging is not a concern, breathing is not a concern, and starvation only effects energy levels. Only those poisons specially formulated to effect a Cybertron system will act on a Cybertron at all, and all but the rarest of diseases are counteracted by internal repairs. However, certain items have been known to cause more trouble than others.
Certain types of electrical disturbances, such as lightning storms or power surges, can be especially harmful. A Cybertron in a metal form is as susceptible to electric shock as a robot would be expected to; a Cybertron in beast mode is as susceptible as an average animal of that type. Electrical shock can do damage in a wild range: from one to ten dice. However, this damage is normal and can be easily soaked.
The Cybertronian race, being mostly robotic, is generally immune to diseases which effect organic creatures. However, their race does have a certain number of diseases which are unique to Cybertrons. Because Cybertronian science is so advanced, the only kind of diseases they allow to survive are those that kill quickly and mercilessly. One such disease, called "The Cosmic Rust," or "The Autobot Plague," is a highly contagious disorder which causes a heavy rust (which the Cybertrons are otherwise immune to) to corrode and destroy the Cybertronian frame. The Plague is caused by a space-borne microbe which clings to certain asteroids in a now forbidden-system. The Plague, though making a brief appearance in the later parts of the Great War, has never reached Cybertron; the cure (a corrosion-resistant coating made from a rare element), once administered, is permanent.
There is also rumor of a viral infection which causes a Cybertron to very violently expel energon at an alarming rate, destroying both himself and everything around him in a matter of megacycles. However, due to the disease's resistance to spread—it must be fluid-transferred once contracted—it is rare indeed.
When a highly combustible source of energy is stockpiled during a war, there's a good chance it is going to be seen as a target.
An area energon explosion can do an average of ten dice of damage—or, even more, depending on its size. The problem with area explosions is that they are quite often fatal.
Storytellers should be fair in judging whether a character's spark is effected by an energon explosion. Spark cannot be drained in an explosion; therefore, if an explosion takes place, the spark is either unharmed or it is destroyed. A good rule of thumb in a large explosion is to have characters make Spark rolls. In most explosions, only a botch means that their spark was caught in the blast, and is now destroyed. In more dramatic situations, require a preset number of successes for survival and/or substitute another logical roll, such as Stamina plus Survival.
This particular source of damage is so rampant on the Beast Wars series that it would be remiss not to mention the system for calculating it. Give a falling rock a rating from one through ten, based on size and velocity. A simple stone might rate a one; a ten would be reserved for a large cascade of wreckage. Have a Cybertron caught beneath the rock roll to soak an amount of damage equal to this rating. If the Cybertron's Strength (this is a rare case when you do not use the robot mode multiplication modifier) plus Stamina is lower than the "rock" rating, that Cybertron is also completely immobilized for a number of rounds equal to the difference between his Strength plus Stamina and the rock rating.
This adjustment is known as "The Wile E. Coyote Modifier." "Serious" gamers and others who dislike the slapstick falling rock element may ignore it entirely. It does have its uses even in a "serious" game, if a rockslide is at hand.
A quick summary of how to recover damage incurred by any of the above sources.
Internal repairs, provided they are still on-line, will be able to recover minor damage automatically. If the damage is standard, use the chart below to gauge recovery, with each increment equal to the amount of time it takes to advance a single health level:
Bruised: 30 cycles
Hurt: 1 megacycle
Injured: 2 megacycles
Wounded: 4 megacycles
Mauled—Incapacitated: Not recoverable
Internal repairs will not function during a combat situation. If wanting to reap the benefits of self-repair during a megacycle which involves combat, a Cybertron must make a Stamina plus Survival roll. Internal repairs do not function in robot mode: only beast or alternate modes.
Internal repairs cannot heal any health levels which were contracted from an aggravated damage source. A single exception to this is environmental energon-source damage, which is recoverable only in beast mode. If the Cybertron has taken a health level of damage from exposure to an energon source, internal repairs can recover it if the Cybertron spends the requisite healing time entirely in his beast mode. This does not account for energon battle damage, which internal repairs cannot correct, only exposure.
Any character with the "Repair" Knowledge can use this ability to recover the health levels of others or of himself. Typically, the character may only recover as many health levels on another as he has dots in this Knowledge, though Storytellers may allow for more recovery on extremely good rolls in tight situations. The typical roll for Repairing another Cybertron is an Intelligence plus Repair roll, though this is only in situations where the character has time to actually work with his "patient." Under more duress, a Wits plus Repair or even Dexterity plus Repair roll is used. Aggravated damage can be recovered by Repair sessions, as well, though the difficulty for the roll will be higher.
Characters with the Repair ability can also use this to recover Critical System Failures in other characters or themselves under great duress, but only the simple external type, such as reattaching an arm. The calmer Repair session listed above can typically recover any System Failure with a megacycle of work or so.
This is really the way to go for characters who need recovery in a flash. An R-chamber or bath, usually located at a unit base, will recover all lost Health Levels and all Critical System Failures in a short amount of time. The time needed for an R-Chamber to function properly is directly related to the extent of the injury. To heal away the Bruised Health Level takes no more than a few nanoclicks, but to heal a character who has been Crippled and had two System Failures will take a long time. Consider the R-Chamber or Bath to need the following amounts of time to recover wounds. The time listed on the chart below is the time required for full recovery.
Bruised: 30 nanoclicks
Hurt: 1 cycle
Injured: 10 cycles
Wounded: 30 cycles
Mauled: 1 megacycle
Crippled: 2 megacycles
Incapacitated: 4 megacycles
Plus, thirty cycles for every Critical System Failure the Cybertron has incurred.
As a bonus, an R-chamber will recover all of the fuel (Energon) of a Cybertron, provided a fuel source can be located easily. The Predacon Recovery Bath does not do this, and refueling must be done separately.
Unless grievously injured, the Cybertron is still partially conscious while in the recovery stage (though more accessible in a bath than a chamber). He may not move during this time, but may use the time to meditate to recover lost Spark.
Expend one point of temporary Spark for a character to recover from the Incapacitated Health Level up to the Mauled Health Level. Spark can heal no more Health Levels besides this on its own.
Spark expenditure for this result may be declared one of two times. It may be declared before the character has dropped to the Incapacitated level, and then must be immediately spent. Afterwards, the character will immediately "bounce back" from the Incapacitated level without ever actually falling unconscious. If the character never actually reaches this level of damage, the Spark is still forfeit.
The character may also opt to wait to expend this until he has already fallen to Incapacitated. If he waits, he will still be unconscious for a number of rounds equal to the number of Health Levels he has fallen below the Mauled level. This is a minimum of two rounds, but if the blow that took him down was very painful, it may be more.
Characters can also use Spark to recover Critical System Failures, as detailed above the Critical System Failure chart. One Spark must be used for each Failure the Cybertron wishes to negate. Willpower can (and should) be spent to ensure that this roll does not botch.
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