Normal Human SDC

[Graymouser65]

I did a search but could not find info on my two questions for TMNT or After the Bomb.

1. I was wondering how people handled SDC for normal human characters in these games. In some of the TMNT human entries for human NPCs, their SDC can be really low like 10, 2, or even 0. Are these characters starting with a base 0 SDC and only getting SDC for the physical skills they have that grant it?

2. I have been toying with having base SDC equal to the character’s PS (sort of a mirror for the rule for hit points and PE) and then have SDC increase normally for physical skill bonuses. I have never liked the set base number of SDC based on OCC and wanted something that a) reduced the total SDC (I have always thought it is too high, even way back in the early 80’s when I was playing the first edition of Heroes Unlimited), and b) was more variable across characters and related to an attribute just like hit points are. Anyone done anything like this before?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and ideas. I have been a long time Palladium fan and am looking forward to getting my new gaming group into the system.

[Shark_Force]

hmmm... SDC is more or less supposed to represent the way in action movies and such someone can get tossed around by an explosion or punched in the face and just sort of shrug it off as inconsequential damage.

so i would say that having 0 SDC feels odd for most people... that would mean that, say, a 5 foot fall where they twist their ankle was hit point damage, and that doesn't quite feel right. so i'd say 0 feels too low barring some sort of actual condition causing even the most minor damage to be serious, and give most people at least a few (maybe 2d4 or 2d6) as a baseline. rifts gives a default value of 2d6+12 these days, but it should be noted that value is for people that are adventurers, not for just regular people walking around; taking away the +12 seems like a reasonable way to reflect just plain ordinary people with no particular reason to be exceptionally tough to me, so...

i'll go with 2d6 for normal people, 2d6+12 for those who might be described as "adventurers" or equivalent, unless otherwise specified by having an equivalent to an OCC for example.

(and of course, physical skills would increase that as normal, so while a high school athlete may not quite be an adventurer, they'd have some bonus from physical skills).

[Vincent Takeda]

I personally give em 20. Still low enough that they can be oneshotted but not low enough that it could typically be done without a natural 20 or a particularly good roll from high calibur ammo

[Graymouser65]

It seemed strange to me as well that the SDC listing in TMNT Revised for some of the normal human characters is so low. April has 6 and Baxter has 0! April has General Athletics, Running, and Swimming so even if normal humans start at 0 she would have 2D6 + 1D8 SDC, which means she would have rolled horribly! Baxter has no physical skills at all and a 0 SDC, which is why I was thinking that normal humans have 0 SDC.

I actually forgot about using the rules in Dead Reign for normal humans for determining base SDC. Might be a good place to start.

[syntheticlife4m]

I go with 0 S.D.C. to start, then added with skills. I mean we have people dying from falling in the tub.

[kel13x13]

Not sure were this is in the original AtB, in AtB2e page 21 size chart covers this.

[Soldier of Od]

Yeah, I agree - I always figured that a 'normal' human is size level 10, so they would start with 35 S.D.C. as per the size chart.