Quote:
Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b
Don't the BYBs have a decent write up on various gasses?
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V2.2 has two columns of text about chemical weapons. As basic rules, they're adequate, although they're very simplified and use only a few broad categories.
Irritant gases: cause no damage, but make a panic roll or flee and an AVG:CON roll or be incapacitated for 10 minutes (unless wearing a gas mask).
Blood agents: if not wearing a gas mask, take 2d6 to the chest each combat turn. This category includes asphyxiating agents.
Blister agent: if not wearing a mask, same damage as blood agent. If not wearing a chemical defense suit, treat like an irritant agent without a mask.
Nerve gas: deals 1d6 to head and 1d6 to chest every 3 combat turns. No head damage if masked and no chest damage if masked and suited. If a serious wound level is reached, damage continues even after removal of the gas until dead or injected with atropine.
Blister, blood, or nerve gas will contaminate ground for several hours and vehicles for several days.
As a simple set of rules it's not terrible. My thoughts on where additional complexity might be called for:
1. Blood and asphyxiating agents should probably be split apart. Their non-lethal symptoms can be very different.
2. Blister agents do
not cause as much damage as blood/asphyxiating agents.
3. Not all blister agents have an immediate irritant effect (Lewisite does; sulfur mustard doesn't). Likewise, not all gases cause immediate damage (phosgene poisoning symptoms can appear hours after exposure).
4. There are no long-term effects of gas exposure to blood or blister agents, when in reality secondary infections were a major factor in casualty rates.
5. I don't think nerve gas should be as significantly less damaging than blood/blister agents. It does 1/3 the total damage, split between two locations.
6. Blood agents, blister agents, and nerve gases all have their clouds last the same amount of time. This should probably vary by agent and delivery method.
7. Contamination is also the same regardless of chemical type, at several hours for the ground and several days for vehicles. This should vary by agent.
If I was to rewrite the rules for chemical weapons, I'd be tempted to treat chemical agents as diseases with very high Infection Number, very low Recovery and Failed Recovery Death Probability numbers, and heavy Postrecovery Debility penalties. Most of them are unlikely to kill you, but they leave you extremely fatigued and susceptible to other diseases.