Vehicles

Vehicle Traits

These rules add specific traits to vehicles, while keeping them relatively abstract.
Dice Modifier: This is the amount subtracted or added from the driver’s Dexterity + Drive dice pools.
Size: This is the general size of the vehicle. Size in the Storytelling System is an abstract that reflects weight, mass, bulkiness, and space. Look to the chart on p. 26 for guidelines.
Durability: Durability reflects the general toughness of the materials, and their ability to withstand harm. Any time a vehicle would take damage, subtract its Durability from the amount suffered. As a rule, wood, thick glass, or hard plastic offer 1 Durability, stone or aluminum offer 2 Durability, and steel or iron offer 3 Durability. Additional Durability can be added for re- inforced items. Sources of aggravated damage ignore Durability.
Structure: Structure is the amount of punishment a vehicle can take before becoming useless. It’s usually equal to the ob- ject’s Size plus Durability. However, weaker or stronger objects may be lower or higher. An object suffering half its Structure in damage levies -2 to any rolls to operate it. At three fourths its Structure in damage, it levies -5 to use. Bashing, lethal, and aggravated damage are applied equally to Structure. Structure damage requires repair rolls (see below) to fix.
Speed: This is the vehicle’s safe Speed. This requires about a minute of acceleration to reach for many vehicles (or 20 turns in combat). The fastest sports cars reach this speed in about 15 seconds (or five turns). Most vehicles can reach one and a half times their Speed within another minute. However, when operating above nor- mal Speed, apply the vehicle’s default Dice Modifier as an additional penalty to all rolls. While above normal Speed, all rolls to maneuver the vehicle that fail are treated as dramatic failures. Additionally, turning the vehicle more than 45 degrees in a turn while above normal Speed requires an instant action maneuvering roll to keep the vehicle stable; failure overturns it and counts as a crash.
As a general rule, most vehicles gain 5 Speed per turn. Vehicles with the High Acceleration tag gain 10 Speed per turn. Successes on a Dexterity + Drive roll add 5 Speed to the normal acceleration. Remember to apply the vehicle’s Dice Modifier to this roll. Vehicles marked as Slow Acceleration cannot benefit from rolls to improve acceleration.

Crashes

When a vehicle hits a character or another vehicle, a crash occurs. There are two basic scenarios for this rule:

Vehicle Hitting Light Object

This occurs when a vehicle hits something equal to or less than half its Size. The light object suffers one tenth the vehicle’s Speed in bashing damage, plus half its Size (rounded down). The driver must make a Dexterity + Drive roll, factoring in the vehicle’s Dice Modifier. Failure means the vehicle takes half the struck object’s Size plus one tenth its own Speed in damage. Any damage that exceeds the vehicle’s Durability is also applied to passengers and the driver as bashing damage. Effective seat belts, air bags, and other safety devices halve this damage.
If the driver is actively trying to strike the light object, make a Dexterity + Drive roll, penalized by Defense if applicable. Failure means the vehicle fails to hit. Successes are added to the damage caused to the victim, but not to the driver and passengers. This does require a second Drive roll, however, to resist taking damage.

Vehicle Hitting Heavy Object

This occurs when a vehicle hits something more than half its Size. Both objects suffer one half the other object’s Size (rounded down) plus one tenth the relative Speed in damage. If the two objects are colliding against each other head on or perpendicularly, add their Speeds together for this. If they’re moving parallel to each other, subtract the lower Speed from the higher Speed. If able to react (potentially involving a Wits + Composure roll to detect surprise, as seen here), both driverscan make Dexterity + Drive rolls. Each success removes two damage from the amount their vehicle suffers.
Any damage that exceeds an object’s Durability is also applied as bashing damage to the driver and its passengers. As above, effective seat belts, air bags, and other safety devices halve this damage.

Repair, Modifications and Upgrades

A character may want to fix or alter a piece of equip- ment that already exists. These actions usually only apply to physical objects, though exceptions are possible. Doing so constitutes making a Build Equipment roll as usual, but the penalty applied equals the difference between the object’s current state and the bonus or benefits the player wants to add. Broken objects are considered to have an equipment bonus of 0. Partially-functional objects may have a bonus only one or two dice lower than their usual bonus. So for instance, if a computer would normally grant a +2 to research rolls but won’t start and is therefore currently at a 0, the roll to repair it would suffer a -2.
To modify or upgrade an object by increasing its traits or giving it new functions, simply treat each modification as a +1 equivalent. A character can replace one function with an- other at no penalty — for instance, reversing the function of a walkie talkie to cause interference instead of receiving signals.

Example Vehicles