When someone has already been effected by a toxin/poison/chemical/drug/nanotoxin/etc, and they get hit by another dose of the same stuff, does it stack in any way?
In real life, the concentration of a substance is what makes it dangerous, and since EP is all about living dangerously, I'd guess that effects stack as normal (as if they were two independent effects that deal damage over time [in the case of poison]).
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Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
Wed, 2011-06-01 09:45
#1
rhat
Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
Wed, 2011-06-01 10:15
#2
Yerameyahu
Re: Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
There are a few perspectives to inform your decision.
1. Reality: For some people, this is an important concern. Is stacking how toxins work in real life? (Depends on the toxin.) Some options include more damage, longer duration, faster onset, etc.
2. Game Balance: For me, the most important basis. Will this make the game better? What mechanical changes are possible, and how good for the game would they be? Are there rules for how big a dose is, and how much you can administer at once (possibly any amount, of course)? Will be you judging doses/'exposure rate' from splash/gas grenades, shredder shards, various contacts and injectors? Does DUR have anything (additional) to do with dosage?
3. Simplicity and coherence: These are always nice if possible. Is two independent effects simple enough, or would some kind of augmentation stacking effect be easier (examples in #1)? Is it a problem to keep track of various dosages and exposure methods? And so on.
Luckily (or not), most anyone in EP is immune anyway. Between medichines and toxin extractors, both so cheap—assuming they're even in a bio. That leaves the issue of nanotoxins and other things. Does a double dose of Scrapper's Gel or Thermite do more damage (probably not)? More nanotoxin might well, though.
Wed, 2011-06-01 12:02
#3
Arenamontanus
Re: Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
I would typically assume medicines and well-designed drugs do not, since they have been designed to be "smart" and avoid overdoses (the stimpatch notices high levels of stimulant in the bloodstream, and waits until they go down until releasing its load). They might add duration instead.
However, toxins and some drugs likely stack. Nanotoxins are essentially self-guided devices; if they don't do damage, maybe they speed up the process - if you take N doses of nutcracker the time to stack breakdown is 1/N of the original time.
Realistically, some drugs might have synergies too. Taking one drug blocks the enzymes breaking down another (grapefruit juice and some medications, cheese and MAO inhibitors), or they both affect the same target system (downers like GHB plus alcohol is a classic bad combination). If I felt malicious, I would randomly roll for interactions for each drug pair with a chance of 1% (if the character takes N drugs, roll N(N-1)/2 dice, reroll 10's, and any 10's imply some fun interaction). But normally this would be avoided by the doctor or muse warning about it ("Sir, you should know that there is evidence that BringIt has some bad interactions with Cocaine Classic(tm)...")
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Wed, 2011-06-01 17:28
#4
Axel the Chimeric
Re: Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
I have a character in my current game who is a drug addict (former Scum), who uses both Kick and NeuraChem. I've had fun toying with this, by causing him to take a penalty for the problems they cause because of how they interact. His brain is now in a state of constant low-level arousal (not [i]that[/i] kind), which is causing him to be increasingly prone to flipping out at sudden threats, real and perceived.
Amongst other things, this has caused him to liquify a mugger's skull (after he lost a kidney to the man), turn a criminal's head a full 180 degrees, and shoot a man in the head that he was meant to bring in for interrogation.
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Wed, 2011-06-01 22:18
#5
Yerameyahu
Re: Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
Those sound like relatively normal actions to me, though. Especially the first two. :D
Wed, 2011-06-01 23:05
#6
Axel the Chimeric
Re: Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
I neglected to mention that the losing a kidney thing happened because he refused to do the sane thing (stay still) while he had a monomolecular blade through his middle. Also that the man whose neck was turned 180 degrees was a harmless sci-fi nerd whose only weapon was a blade so blunt that it couldn't even break the skin.
Also, the suspect was a brain-broken, borderline-autistic linguist who was sitting in his apartment and scribbling on a wall at the time.
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Wed, 2011-06-01 23:28
#7
Yerameyahu
Re: Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
Ah, *now* we get the truth. A minute ago you said 'criminal' and 'stole his kindey'. :D
Wed, 2011-06-01 23:31
#8
CodeBreaker
Re: Poison Doses: to stack or not to stack?
He [i]might[/i] have been a criminal. He probably littered a few times in his life.
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