Febris Geobacter weapons

[Guy_LeDouche]

Sorry for not posting anything in a while; the LeDouche clan is in the midst of a relocation! Our house has sold, and Mrs. LeDouche and I are moving to our new place. Sadly, this means my postings will be few and far between until sometime after the New Year. We have the joys of packing and moving, all over Christmas.

Having said that, I leave you this to chew on. A little nugget from House Febris and its plague wizards. As always, constructive feedback is always welcome. Enjoy!

Geobacters:
A closely guarded secret of the House, Geobacters have recently been used against the Machine with devastating results. Geobacter explosives are loaded with millions of engineered bacteria that are capable of metabolizing metal ions of all kinds. Not only do these bacteria "eat" metal ions opportunistically; they actively look for these in their environment and then destroy them.

Resembling a grey, leathery football, Geobacters are available as both grenades and missiles. Upon impact, a geobacter explodes into a cloud, releasing thousands of bacteria. Starting from the point of impact, the bacteria begin to consume the metal surface. The bacteria are especially effective against military-type alloys and can be absolutely destructive against robots and armored vehicles. Given enough time, the bacteria will dissolve the metal to a mere sludge.

While geobacter weapons can be powerful, it takes almost an hour for them to achieve their full effect. Masters at hit-and-run tactics, Febris troops will usually ambush N.E.X.U.S. forces, strike the target(s), and then disappear to give the bacteria time to work. This tactic will be repeated for several hours, until the enemy is destroyed or is so incapacitated that they be easily dealt with.

The geobacter bacteria are absolutely harmless to M.D. ceramics, plastics, concrete or biological flesh of any kind. However, they cause half damage to synthetic or artificial flesh or coverings.

The geobacter bacteria eventually die out in about an hour and are rendered inert.

Weight: The average geobacter grenade weighs one pound; a geobacter rocket weighs about 8lbs.
Mega-Damage: SPECIAL! Both the grenade and missile cause 2D4 M.D. from impact. However, the real damage comes from the bacteria released. The bacteria attack and reduce the integrity of the metal, reducing its overall M.D.C. This overall reduction of M.D.C. occurs after one minute (4 melee rounds) of exposure to the bacteria. The effects are noticeable as a fading of color or the appearance of dull blotches, followed by the metal becoming cracked, warped, and increasingly brittle. This has the following effect on the target:
• Against body armor, “light” robots, or any target 600lbs or less, the bacteria will reduce the overall M.D.C. at the point of impact by half!
• Heavier robots or targets (up to 2 tons) will have their M.D.C. at point of impact reduced by 30%
• Any target heavier than 2 tons will see an overall M.D.C. reduction of 10%.
Additional Effects: These additional effects take longer but are devastating as the bacteria invade the interior of the target through the cracks and fissures. These effects occur 1D4x10 minutes after the initial attack. If a specific target was not named in the attack, roll percentile die (or the GM may pick one):
01-20 Main Weapon: The most powerful and/or important weapon of the target is rendered inoperable. Until full repairs are made, the weapon is completely useless.
21-40 Sensor Array: Radar, targeting, and/or communications systems have been destroyed. Until fully repaired (usually not possible on the battlefield.) Until then, the target will always be last for initiative, loses, two melee attacks/actions, and all combat bonuses are reduced by ½. Furthermore, special scanning features such as radar, sonar, motion detection, and computer targeting are offline, forcing the target to rely entirely on basic optics and touch, in effect rendering it partially blind.
41-60 Appendage:
• Human-shaped targets will experience system failure in a leg, arm, thruster, or other appendage. The plating has almost entirely dissolved and the environmental seal of the target has been broken. This exposes the pilot (if any) to external atmosphere and conditions. Any attacks targeted at this area will strike the pilot (if applicable) or count as Critical Strikes, inflicting double damage. Any special weapons, features, or abilities built into the limb are now destroyed.
• On a vehicle or vehicular style target, this will mean a leg, tread, thruster, or similar has been destroyed.
• On a bunker/building or similar, this will mean either a weapon turret, cannon, communications tower or sensor array is destroyed.
61-80 Operating System: All systems are temporarily out and the target is effectively paralyzed and completely defenseless for 1D8 melee rounds (15 to 120 seconds).
81-00 Two Secondary Weapons: The target has lost two secondary weapons. These could be vibro-blades, hand-held weapons, forearm weapons, etc.
Rate of Fire: Varies with weapon type
Maximum Effective Range: For thrown grenades, the maximum range depends on the user’s strength; usually around 100ft. Launched grenades about 300ft., and geobacter rockets about one mile.
GM Note: Currently, geobacter weapons are restricted to House Febris and even then only to trusted units. The make-up of the bacteria is a closely guarded secret that should not be made available to PCs. Only the Librarians and Engineers have access to the exact make-up. Geobacter weapons are currently NOT available to other Houses or Factions.

[krispy]

interesting, interesting. i like the idea that it searches for metal in the surrounding environment & i like that though it is devastating you have given it a delayed effect.

could the nanoplague eat the bacteria??

did you get the idea from G.I joe??

have you thought of giving this as an enhancement to Spore Discharger??

does House Febris have any technojackers? cos you could potentially disable any allies

i dont have my books with me but you could use the bacteria as a pest control & spray it all around the house & the bacteria can eat the explosive device in the ratbomb & destroy other NEXUS pests

[Guy_LeDouche]

interesting, interesting. i like the idea that it searches for metal in the surrounding environment & i like that though it is devastating you have given it a delayed effect.

could the nanoplague eat the bacteria??

did you get the idea from G.I joe??

have you thought of giving this as an enhancement to Spore Discharger??

does House Febris have any technojackers? cos you could potentially disable any allies

i dont have my books with me but you could use the bacteria as a pest control & spray it all around the house & the bacteria can eat the explosive device in the ratbomb & destroy other NEXUS pests

Thank you krispy. I try to keep a decent balance between power and penalties. Keeps PCs on their toes. As for your specific questions:

*could the nanoplague eat the bacteria?? Hmm.....never really thought about it. My initial, instinctive reaction is no. The main rulebook says in a couple of places that the nano-plaugue is very limited in its use and application. The mechanics would be a bit challenging, but it could be something to dwell on. As if the Splicer-verse isn't bad enough; war on the microscopic front.

*did you get the idea from G.I joe?? Though the similarity is definately there, the idea orginated with an article I was reading regarding bacteria that was eating the remanents of the Gulf Oil spill. As I started doing a little research, I found out that there are bacteria that not only consume oil/petroleum, but also jet fuel, plastics, and even uranium. For example, Cladosporium resinae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are commonly present in jet fuel. They live in the water-fuel interface of the water droplets, form dark black/brown/green, gel-like mats, and cause microbial corrosion to plastic and rubber parts of the aircraft fuel system by consuming them, and to the metal parts by the means of their acidic metabolic products. And these occur without the bio-technology of Splicers!

*have you thought of giving this as an enhancement to Spore Discharger?? No, but that's not a bad idea.

*does House Febris have any technojackers? cos you could potentially disable any allies Quite a few, but only those actually born in the House. Others are used for "research purposes".

i dont have my books with me but you could use the bacteria as a pest control & spray it all around the house & the bacteria can eat the explosive device in the ratbomb & destroy other NEXUS pests: Against Cable Snakes, etc. sure. Against Rat Bombs, probably not (have to check the rulebook.) No effect against true, biological flesh.

[Lord Z]

Guy, you wrote that these weapons are more effective as time passes. Could you give us some stats on that? From the above rules alone, it seems more like an instantaneous effect.

[Guy_LeDouche]

Lord, take another read; all the info should be in the description. I'll apologize if I left something out. I'm still playing around with the write-up.

Here's the "Reader's Digest" version:

After the inital impact, it takes approx. 1 minute (4 melee rounds) for the initial effects to kick in. Doesn't sound like a long time, but when PCs are under fire, I imagine that minute would feel like a good hour or more.

At this point, the target will see an overall reduction of MDC at the point of impact (arm, leg, main body, etc.) The larger/heavier the target is, the lower the reduction.

The additional effects don't occur until 1D4x10 minutes after the initial attack. If no specifc target was named in the attack, the player rolls percentile die (or the GM may pick one) to see what additional effects the little buggers have!

Hope this helps.

[Lord Z]

I see it now. It just wasn't where I was expecting it to be.

[Guy_LeDouche]

I see it now. It just wasn't where I was expecting it to be.

No worries. Like I said, I'm still tweaking the wording; I don't know that I like the current explanation.

[9voltkilowatt]

Been chewing over some details on a nanite-fed bioreactor so I stopped by the forums to see if anyone else had done anything of the sort. Imagine my surprise when right on the front page is a catalyst for powering up just such a device!

The general idea was that in the short term it provides a near endless, albeit somewhat low output source of energy. In the long term it causes a continuously diminishing supply of base metals ...which, if I'm not mistaken, every living thing on the planet will be happy about.

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Glad to see your still at it Lance, shoot me an email sometime.

[Aramanthus]

I think his weapon is one that is very nasty. I hope we will see more.