[UA] Crunchy Bits

[Cassady Toles]

I'm debugging a few new skills designed to represent brushes I've had with
the mechanic of UA if it applied to real life:

Cool Under Fire (Mind Skill)
(or Adrenaline Junkie, or Icewater in your veins, or Collected)
Cool under fire is never rolled.  This skill only applies when making
madness checks under stressful situations.  Whenever you fail a madness
check in a stressful situation, subtract your mind score from the result of
the roll.  If the result is less than your cool under fire skill, you still
gain the failed notch, however, you do not have the immediate effect, going
berzerk, passing out, or running in terror.  Instead, you act in full
control of your facilities until the stressful situation ends, at which
point you have whatever negative effects accrued all at once, the referee
has the option of assigning a response (usually to faint or break down in
tears, or similar).

This skill represents a very real, fairly common ability to react to
shocking events rationally and only be shocked when not in danger.  Note,
because the character isn't actually shocked, it is possible to fail
multiple madness checks in sequence and be really hosed on a level they
wouldn't be otherwise...

Good in a Crunch (Soul Skill)
(or Works Under Pressure, or Meet Deadline, etc.)
A character who's good in a crunch is good at dealing with time pressures or
other stresses, but in less effective in dealing without a certain amount of
stress.  A character who has this skill can flip-flop any failed skill check
in a stressed situation provided the new result  would fall under good in a
crunch, as a result, the character will succeed more often under pressure,
but this success will usually be scraping by.  A character with this skill
however has all skills reduced by this percentage when used in non stressed
situations, as a result, the character will be better at doing things in
times of stress but may find themself incapable of focussing without
pressure to do so.

I suspect the second one has more potential for abuse, so I'm trying to
figure out if either of them are really useable.

Both are based on personal things that have happened to me and the way I
deal with stress.  And in games I always like to think about the emotional
reality of the situation and is it possible to explain, justify, roleplay
this reaction within the context of the game...

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"I am the messiah in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel's.  Drink of me
and
no peace." -- Cobra Baghdad www.peoplehateme.com
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