Combat Stress

The Cortex Plus damage system did not feel adequate enough to simulate the battles we have seen in the World Trigger Universe. A Brain-storm session later with RabidHystrix on Reddit started the foundations of the new Damage system. 

Some of the Stress features of Cortex plus will be maintained, as they work well with the rest of the game. The Stress tracks for Trion Body Damage and Trion Drain however, will be done away with and replaced by this new system.

Stress

So what’s staying? Initiative Stress and Focus Stress.

Initiative

Initiative stress reduces and inhibits your ability to react to situations. Lead Bullet deals Initiative stress and weighs you down, making you unable to move or react. Surprises and Ambushes deal Initiative stress also. When the initiative stress track is full, the complication that affects the character is the inability to roll reaction rolls, though action rolls are still possible.

Focus

Focus stress reduces your ability to act, but you can still react. There is no trigger that deals permanent focus stress. Focus covers how many different things you can consider when taking your actions. One strategy for dealing focus stress is when gunners and shooters pin down a target from multiple angles. So many attacks are coming in from every which way that the only thing the target can do is defend, defend, defend (all reactions). They can’t muster the focus to make an attack. When the focus stress track is full, the complication that affects the character is the inability to make action rolls, though reaction rolls are still possible.

Dealing Stress

The intention to deal stress must be declared in an action before rolling the dice. After the dice pool is gathered, and the two highest dice kept, and if the roll is successful, any one dice remaining that wasn’t used to determine success can be used as an effect dice. The effect dice is applied to the stress track, which has a spot for a d4 up to a d12. Once the stress track is increased up to d12, the character is considered “Stressed out” and the stress track specific complication then affects the character.