Rulings & Reminders

Rulings

Progression

• Experience: 1 XP / session (regardless of attendance)
• Mutation Points:
  • 1 MP per session automatically
  • Written log in time for next session: 1 MP
  • Good role-playing: maximum of 1 MP per session
• Progress Ark’s projects: once per 2 sessions
• Session body count: once per 2 sessions

Resources

• Rot, Grub and Water rations are tracked in the morning.
• If you’re in the Ark, you don’t have to track Grub and Water rations: it’s assumed you offer services to the People and in return you receive rations from a ‘communal stash’.
• If you go on an expedition in the Zone, you get 1d6 resources per character (your choice of grub or water) per 10 Food Supply rating the Ark has obtained.
• In a sector that was explored previously, you can try to find more resources. In this case, the first success on a Find The Path role counts is immediately a bonus success.

• 1 Water ration is ~2 liter
• 1 water barrel is ~150 liters

Mutations

Corpse-Eater: Eating a Zone-Ghoul grants 1.5 ration of Grub (instead of 2 for a normal human/mutant)

Acid-Spit: You can spent extra MP to do extra damage (1 damage per MP spent). This removes the aspect to do automatic damage each turn until the victim rolls to move. This can be re-added by spending another MP.

Combat

Putting something down usually doesn’t take an action or maneuver, unless you need to take special care.

Recovery

The skill Heal (page 53) and its interaction with Broken (page 89) and Critical Injuries (page 90) is confusing in the book. Here's our interpretation:

You can use "Heal" for three things:

1. To get a broken mutant back on their feet. (This is "Mend the Broken".)
2. To save someone from dying if they get a fatal critical injury. (This is "Save a Life", and mentioned on page 90 under "Death".)
3. To make a Heal roll on a critical injury to cut its recovery time in half. (This is also "Save a Life", and mentioned on page 90 as "Care".)

We rule that the Bonesaw talent (page 65) applies to the second and third use of Heal, but not the first use.

(This is Imnoclue's reading in this reply.)

Source: this Reddit thread

Reminders and world-building

• “The Zone map has a square grid. Every square is called a sector, and is roughly one mile wide.” (p.97)

The People

• All of the People are roughly in the range of 18-30 years old. (As far as they know, since there’s no real reckoning of years.)
• Your memories are hazy, and you basically can’t remember anything from before you turned five years old.
• Zone Cook: Before Octavia, there were no Zone Cooks in the Ark.
• There are about 8 other dog handlers in the Ark
• There is no “in-game Assembly” where all the People gather together in one place. This would be too disruptive to the daily proceedings, and there’s no good spot to do this anyway.

The Ark

• The Ark’s home sector is the area where a bunch of the People, even non-Stalkers, have explored.
• The immediate area around the Ark had a lot of buildings. Most of them are severely dilapidated or deteriorated into ruins, barely recognisable as buildings.
• Wildlife here is sparse, but not super rare.
• Mostly, there’s vermin and small creatures like rats and seagulls. Most of these bear mutations.
• Dogs: “If there’s something the Ark is not in short supply of, it’s wild mutts.” (p.34)
• There’s no (steady) electricity on the Ark.
• Light is provided by small fires, a ever-dwindling supply of candles, and lamps with booze as fuel.