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| Stats, Skills, and Sweet Moves |
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Like all RPGs, Super Awesome Action Heroes is ruled by a certain set of rules. The importance of most of these rules will become clear in the Combat section of the manual. As the title of this section suggests, we will be talking about the underlying mechanics here.
Statistics:
There are two types of statistics in SAAH: Character Stats and Combat Stats. While it is true that Character Stats may be a misnomer (as it too is largely only applied to Combat), the reason for the two different names will become clear in a few moments.
Character Statistics
There are two Character Statistics: Fitness and Sweetness. The Fitness statistic references a character's general physical capabilities, while Sweetness measures exactly how cool your character is. When a character is created, he or she is given 6 points to split between Fitness and Sweetness. It is important not to completely neglect one for the other though, as both are important for Combat.
Combat Statistics
There are three Combat Statistics: Guns, Melee and Barehands. Measured on a scale from 0 to 3, a character need not have the skill to use that classification of weapon, but will find it beneficial. That base score is then modified by the character's Archetype's modifiers to create their "Effective Combat Statistic." (For example: a Ninja who has Two points in Melee, because of the plus one Archetype modifier, has an Effective Combat Statistic of three)
Guns are classified as any ranged weapon. While Guns may not be the best name for this skill, as it also includes Bows and thrown weapons, they are encouraged greatly. We like guns, they go boom.
Melee weapons are classed as any hand held weapon that you directly smack or stab someone with - from Swords to Staffs to Knives.
Barehands refers to completely unarmed combat. A skilled fighter can do as much damage with his or her barehands as any weapon. Or at least that's what all the Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal movies have taught us.
When a character is created they have two points to spend on Combat Stats.
Skills (Abilities):
This section talks about Character Abilities. We've labelled it Skills though because we liked the alliteration.
The majority of Character Abilities are governed by the Give Me Five Minutes rule. Rather than roll to see if an ability works, it is assumed that as long as your character is given "Five Minutes" that they can successfully execute the task. This means that while a Military Character cannot spontaneously make a car chasing him or her explode, if they were given five minutes (left alone) they could rig up enough C4 to achieve their goal.
A Game Master may also extend the required length of time for success (if trying to say, blow up an entire building, it would take significantly more than five minutes), but the general rule is that Five Minutes should be held more often than not.
Sweet Moves:
One of the most important parts of Super Awesome Action Heroes is the Sweet Move system. At the beginning of every session (or every four hours if you have an insane GM who is willing to play this with you for extended periods of time) a Character is given a number of Sweet Move Points equal to the Character's level plus three (i.e. a first level character gets four Sweet Move Points, a second level character gets five, and so on). These points go away at the end of a session, and do not carry over.
Most character Archetypes have the Ability of "General Sweet Move" (with the exception of the Haxor and Scientist Archetypes). General Sweet Moves work fairly simply: A Player describes a series of complicated actions that the character wants to execute. This must be a detailed description, and not just a "I want to kill everything." While it is effectively a rather subjective criteria, the idea is to make the action described sound as Sweet as possible.
Once the Player is done describing the action, the Sweet Move is placed up for validation. The table of players (including the GM) is asked to vote as to whether the Sweet Move succeeds or not. If the vote is unanimous in the Sweet Move's favor, then the move automatically succeeds. If even one person votes against it, the Player making the Sweet Move must roll a ten sided die. If the result is equal to or less than the character's level plus four (plus an additional one if the character is the Primary Character), then the Sweet Move is successful.
General Sweet Moves can be executed both inside and outside of combat. More on this can be found in the Combat section.
For Character Abilities that use Sweet Move Points (Such as Technological Solution, or Miracle Cure), the same rules are applicable. A player must come up with related technobabble or similar language to describe their action.
Health:
Super Awesome Action Heroes has a fairly simple health system. When a character is injured in either combat or by an event, they take damage in the form of "Damage Points." A healthy character has zero damage points, while a seriously injured one may have seven. When a non-Fodder character reaches ten damage points, they are considered "Dead" (in the case of a Main Villain or Primary Character, the character is considered unconscious). Fodder characters can only take three damage points before death.
Health is regained very simply: by waiting. Effectively, every time there is a scene change (setting is shifted, you leave the room, etc.) all characters regain health (or in other words, lose a damage point). When scene changes occur are up to the discretion of the Game Master.
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