Mechanics

The following is not an official document endorsed by Monte Cook Games, but a brief synopsis of the writer's understanding of the material. Numenera Discovery by Monte Cook Games should be reviewed for the complete details.

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Special Rolls

1: Intrusion. The GM makes a free intrusion and doesn’t award experience points (XP) for it.

17: Damage Bonus. If the roll was an attack, it deals 1 additional point of damage.

18: Damage Bonus. If the roll was an attack, it deals 2 additional points of damage.

19: Minor Effect. The PC gets a minor effect in addition to the normal results of the task if it was not an attack. If the roll was an attack, it deals 3 additional points of damage, or the PC gets a minor effect, such as:
- Strike a specific body part: The attacker strikes a specific spot on the defender’s body. The GM rules what special effect, if any, results.
- Knock back: The foe is knocked or forced back a few feet.
- Move past: The character can move a short distance at the end of the attack.
- Distract: For one round, the difficulty of all tasks the foe attempts is modified by one step to its detriment.

20: Major Effect. If the PC spent points from a stat Pool on the action, the point cost for the action decreases to 0, meaning the character regains those points as if she had not spent them at all. The PC gets a major effect in addition to the normal results of the task if it was not an attack. If the roll was an attack, it deals 4 additional points of damage, or the PC gets a major effect, such as:
- Knock down: The foe is knocked prone. It can get up on its turn if it wishes.
- Disarm: The foe drops one object that it is holding.
- Stun: The foe loses its next action.
- Impair: For the rest of the combat, the difficulty of all tasks the foe attempts is modified by one step to its detriment.

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In game terms, a:
- An Immediate distance within reach or a few steps, but no more than 3m (10 feet).
- Short distance is greater than Immediate but less than 15m (50 feet).
- Long distance is greater than Short but less than 30m (100 feet).

A character can move:
- an Immediate distance as part of another action,
- a Short distance as the entire action for a turn, and
- can try to move a Long distance as the entire action perhaps with a check to avoid slips, trips, or stumbles.

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Damage Track

In addition to taking damage from their Might Pool, Speed Pool, or Intellect Pool, PCs also have a damage track. The damage track has four states (from best to worst): hale, impaired, debilitated, and dead. When one of a PC’s stat Pools reaches 0, he moves one step down the damage track. Thus, if he is hale, he becomes impaired. If he is already impaired, he becomes debilitated. If he is already debilitated, he becomes dead.

Some effects can immediately shift a PC one or more steps on the damage track.

These include rare poisons, cellular disruption attacks, and massive traumas (such as falls from very great heights, being run over by a speeding vehicle, and so on, as determined by the GM).

Some attacks, like a serpent’s poisonous bite or a spinner’s Enthrall, have effects other than damage to a stat Pool or shifting the PC on the damage track. These attacks can cause unconsciousness, paralysis, and so on.

THE DAMAGE TRACK

Hale is the normal state for a character: all three stat Pools are at 1 or higher, and the PC has no penalties from harmful conditions. When a hale PC takes enough damage to reduce one of his stat Pools to 0, he becomes impaired. Note that a character whose stat Pools are much lower than normal can still be hale.

Impaired is a wounded or injured state. When an impaired character applies Effort, it costs 1 extra point per level applied. For example, applying one level of Effort costs 4 points instead of 3, and applying two levels of Effort costs 7 points instead of 5.

An impaired character ignores minor and major effect results on his rolls, and he doesn’t deal as much extra damage in combat with a special roll. In combat, a roll of 17 or higher deals only 1 additional point of damage.

When an impaired PC takes enough damage to reduce one of his stat Pools to 0, he becomes debilitated.

Debilitated is a critically injured state. A debilitated character may not take any actions other than to move (probably crawl) no more than an immediate distance. If a debilitated character’s Speed Pool is 0, he can’t move at all.

When a debilitated PC takes enough damage to reduce a stat Pool to 0, he is dead.

Dead is dead.

Salvaging

Since this group will undoubtedly want to salvage often, here are the rules for quick reference. Summarized from page 107 of Numenera Destiny

Salvage Sources: Sources include machine scrap and old machines, functioning and dead installations, integrated machines, workbench supplies kept by a wright, crashed and working vehicles, caches of chemicals and other materials set aside by a delve, automatons, and similar objects and structures.

Sometimes iotum, parts, oddities, cyphers, and artifacts can also be salvaged from creatures, especially creatures that are part machine. Even scrap and debris of the right kind could contain valuable components, though they might seem worthless at first glance. A source can range in size from a small pile of random junk to the entire bulk of a crashed vehicle. Size doesn’t equate to the potential value (in components, cyphers, and artifacts) that scrap might yield.

The Salvage task: Once a potential salvage source is identified, a character—or several characters working together using the helping rules—can attempt to salvage it. Doing so requires using light tools. The difficulty of the task is equal to the level of the source, though in some cases that difficulty might be adjusted due to the nature of the source. For example, a level 6 integrated machine or installation might be crafted in such a straightforward fashion that salvaging tasks are only level 4. On the other hand, a level 2 mass of junk and cypher scrap might be so burned out and corroded that salvaging tasks are level 5 or even higher.

Salvage Success: To a large extent, what characters are looking for determines what they find, assuming their salvaging numenera task is successful. If they’re looking for iotum, a successful salvage task likely means they’ve recovered iotum (and some parts), usually worth one or two rolls on the Iotum Result Table. If the characters are attempting to find a specific variety of iotum, refer to the section on Looking for a Specific Kind of Iotum (see Numenera Destiny page 110).

If PCs are looking specifically for cyphers, they find them. The GM can either determine ahead of time how many and what kind of cyphers might be found in the area or roll a d6 to determine how many cyphers are found and randomly determine which ones. If salvaging cyphers, a successful task often includes manipulating what is found to cobble together something that works. For example, the PCs not only find something of interest but also figure out that, if they hook it up to a nearby power cell, open a small panel, and fiddle with the workings, they produce the cypher’s effect (which might not be the device’s original use at all).

Finally, if characters are just looking for whatever they can find, the GM determines what is found either randomly (using results suggested on the Random Salvage Result table, for example) or based on the context of the situation. For example, if the salvage source is an integrated machine or installation that was built by a wright or similar NPC, the PCs are more likely to find iotum. If they’re scavenging the carcass of a weird biomechanical creature, they’re more likely to find cyphers or possibly an artifact.

In most cases of successful salvage, PCs can also find a few shins.

RANDOM SALVAGE RESULT
1d6　|　Salvage Discovered
1–2　 |　 1d10 shins + parts
3...　 |　 1d10 shins and an oddity or two + parts
4... 　|　 1d10 shins and either one roll onthe Iotum Result Table or 1d6
cyphers + parts
5... 　|　 1d10 shins and either two rolls on the Iotum Result Table or 1 artifact + parts
6... 　|　 1d10 shins and three rolls on the Iotum Result Table + parts

Shins and Iotum: Salvaging numenera for shins usually doesn’t degrade the possibility of iotum being salvaged from that same source.

Cyphers, Artifacts, and Iotum: A salvage source that has already been successfully salvaged for cyphers and artifacts might still contain iotum. However, all associated salvage tasks are hindered by two steps. Likewise, attempts to find cyphers and artifacts in a salvage source that has already been successfully salvaged for iotum are hindered by two steps.

Parts: In addition to iotum, crafters also need parts. Any time a character successfully salvages iotum, cyphers, or artifacts, they also find parts, which are tracked in units. When a character salvages shins or oddities, they also find 1 unit worth of parts. If they salvage iotum, artifacts, or cyphers, they find a number of units of parts equal to the combined levels of the items salvaged. For instance, if a character salvages a level 3 cypher, a level 4 cypher, and a level 5 iotum, they also find 12 units of parts.

Parts come in all sizes and weights but can be abstracted for the purpose of tracking how much a character can find and carry. Generally speaking, 10 units of parts weigh about 1 pound (450 g) and fill a volume of space equal to a 1-foot (30 cm) cube. So a character with 400 units of parts probably keeps a workshop with at least 40 cubic feet (1 cubic meter) of storage.

Salvage Failure: If the initial salvage attempt fails, the source the PCs are attempting to salvage turns out not to contain iotum (or it did contain iotum, but the PCs ruined it in the process of trying to extract it). Even if iotum can’t be salvaged, characters can still extract 1 unit of parts.

Additional Salvage Attempts: Each time characters locate a potential salvage source, a subsequent attempt to search the same area for another source is hindered by one additional step. What constitutes an "area" depends on the situation. If salvagers are in a place that’s thick with the numenera, an area might be one wall of one room. But if they’re in a place that’s already been well picked over or otherwise isn’t amenable to containing components (such as where a single automaton has corroded into scrap), an area could be the entire site.

Iotum Result Table. 1d100 roll, results see Numenera Destiny page 110