Now that we have this new shiny PnP Fallout Subforum, I will take advantage of it to ask for NMA help with a side project I have been working (slowly to be honest, I am a lazy guy).
I am working on making a custom PnP system based on the Fallout, Fallout 2 and some Fallout Tactics computer games.
I know there are already Fallout PnP rules that others made, but I think we could make a simpler and easier one that new players can understand without all the maths, this would also make combat faster and require less calculations.
It would (obviously) use the SPECIAL system:
Contains the description as seen on the Fallout and Fallout 2 games (FO1/FO2) and the one from Fallout Tactics (FOT) (if it is different). Also includes what each attribute affects in game and shows which skills are associated with each attribute.
Affects: Carry Weight, Hit Points, Melee Damage, Thrown weapons range modifier
Skills: Melee Weapons, Unarmed
Perception --- (FO1/FO2): "The ability to see, hear and taste and notice unusual things."
Affects: Ranged combat distance modifiers, Sequence, See things farther away
Skills: Doctor, First Aid, Lockpick, Pilot, Traps
Endurance ---(FO1/FO2): "Stamina and physical toughness."(FOT):"The ability to withstand punishment and physical exertion."
Affects:Healing Rate, Hit Points, Poison Resistance, Radiation Resistance
Skills:Outdoorsman
Charisma ----- (FO1/FO2):"A combination of appearance and charm." (FOT):"A combination of looks, charm and leadership skills."
Affects:NPC reactions, Prices
Skills:Barter, Speech
Intelligence - (FO1/FO2): "Knowledge, wisdom and the ability to think quickly."(FOT):"Mental strength and abilities."
Affects:Skill points per level
Skills:Doctor, First Aid, Outdoorsman, Repair, Science
Agility ----------(FO1/FO2):"Coordination and the ability to move well."(FOT):"Speed, dexterity and the ability to manipulate small objects."
Affects:Action Points, Armor Class
Skills:Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Lockpick, Melee Weapons, Small Guns, Sneak, Steal, Throwing, Traps, Unarmed
Luck------------(FO1/FO2): "Fate, Karma."(FOT):"A combination of fate, Karma and, in general, how the universe views this character."
Affects:Critical Chance
Skills: Gambling
Gah I run out of time just typing this, I will come back later and edit this post and add more info, ask some questions and help with some stuff I would like opinions with.
Fell free to add any suggestions or ask anything you want to know, this system is really early stages and so do not expect much yet .
When Fallout was still based on GURPS speech was split up into several different skills, I think it'd be good to go back to that, especially considering the fact that you'll usually have a party to make up for an individual character's weaknesses, so there's no need for ultra-talented characters anymore.
When Fallout was still based on GURPS speech was split up into several different skills, I think it'd be good to go back to that, especially considering the fact that you'll usually have a party to make up for an individual character's weaknesses, so there's no need for ultra-talented characters anymore.
I thought about making an Athletics skill so not to have too many skills. But you pose an interesting argument, so now I am thinking I could split Speech into several skills and do the same to Athletics.
Lets see based on the GURPS skills you linked and my experience with other PnP games I would say that there is 4 major speech related skills:
Barter or Haggle (which already exists in Fallout)
Or any other name related to to the skill of driving a bargain, trying to make any deal go the player's way or recognise the true value of an object or product.
Bluff or Lying
Or any other name related to to the skill of making others believe on the player's words when he's lying.
Diplomacy or Persuasion
Or any other name related to to the skill of changing someone's opinion or influencing someone to do what the player wants.
Intimidate or Threaten
Or any other name related to to the skill of scaring someone into doing or saying whatever the player wants
We can then have others but I think these four are the main ones and cover a wide variety of situations, I fear that making more skills will just rend some of them useless and superfluous, but this is why I need you guys help. Many heads think better than one .
Now I can use the same logic I used for the Speech skills and break Athletics into the main Skills, I would say there is 5 or 6 main ones:
Running
How fast and for how long the character can run, also used to know if the character can run in adverse situations.
Climbing
How fast and easy it is for the character to climb, also used to know if the character can climb in adverse situations.
Jumping
How far and how high the character can jump, also used to know if the character can jump in adverse situations.
Swimming
How fast and for how long the character can swim, also used to know if the character can swim in adverse situations.
Acrobatics or Tumble
Used to know if the character can use his own body in more unconventional ways (somersaults, tumbles, rolls, etc).
Balance (maybe, could be included in Acrobatics)
Used to know if the character can keep their footing or stance in adverse situations (thin stepping ground, slippery ground, walking on a tight rope, fighting on a boat, etc).
I don't see a good use for Luck. The "critical chance" would probably be better as just a natural 20. "Action points" are going to slow the pace down to a crawl, IMHO. I vote for the current DnD system of actions (move action, regular action, bonus action when applicable) and have class and race features and perks give out more actions.
Big Guns should be reassigned to Strength, while Melee Weapons should be divided into Light Melee and Heavy Melee, with Light Melee getting put into Agility. Speech should be divided into Intimidation, Persuasion, Deception and Seduction. Intelligence should also get skills like History. Perception should get Investigation and Insight.
Finally, each skill should be assigned to one, and only one of the attributes so the math doesn't grow to massive levels.
Barter or Haggle (which already exists in Fallout)
Or any other name related to to the skill of driving a bargain, trying to make any deal go the player's way or recognise the true value of an object or product.
Bluff or Lying
Or any other name related to to the skill of making others believe on the player's words when he's lying.
Diplomacy or Persuasion
Or any other name related to to the skill of changing someone's opinion or influencing someone to do what the player wants.
Intimidate or Threaten
Or any other name related to to the skill of scaring someone into doing or saying whatever the player wants
Might want to add Argument or Reasoning, the skill of providing sound argument or present counter-argument, this skill is called Smartass in Wasteland 2, so maybe in Fallout PnP it won't be solely affected by Charisma, but also Intelligence, with more influence coming from INT. Also, like @Ben Soto has said, add Seduction or Temptation, although kind of similar to Persuasion, but it's more of a skill to, well, seduce or tempt someone into doing something for the player/what the player want, and more of by appealing to sexual desire (or something), so kind of how Black Widow/Confirmed Bachelor/Cherchez La Femme/Lady Killer works but in form of skill.
Edit: Just realized Ben Soto argued that each skill need to be assigned solely on one and only one attribute, so I might want to add to that that I think it can work for a skill to be affected by more than one attribute, just need bits of balancing. But, considering I have no experience with P&P RPGs whatsoever, I guess I should give it to those more experienced than me.
I wasn't going into the "rules I totally made up and that can't be found in the computer games" yet, but since you talked about it I will say what I thought about in relation to Luck (be prepared for a lot of mentioning Lady Luck).
Luck in the games just affected:
Critical chance (both hits and misses)
Was the skill for gambling
Added a few skill points on all skills
I thought that it would be silly to have it add skill points (specially because I am still thinking how I will implement skills, more on this later).
But Luck is an iconic Attribute in the classic games (the classic build of making a critical dependent character, or my favourite, the Jinxed with 10 Luck melee/unarmed character ).
So I was thinking on having a system in place for Luck, it goes like this:
A character gets "Lady Luck" points (name might need work ) which are equal to half his Luck value rounded down but it has a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 5 (with Luck 1 or 2 it gets 1 Lady Luck point, with Luck 2 or 3 it gets 2 Lady luck points and so on, a character can't have a maximum of 0 or lower Lady Luck points), the total of these points are called the Lady Luck pool.
So with Luck maxed out a character has 5 Lady Luck points.
A character can use 1 Lady Luck point for a chance to influence a roll that involves that character in any way (for example when that character uses an attack or skill roll, or when an enemy uses an attack or skill roll on that character). The GM can also require Lady Luck rolls from anyone at any time if he thinks necessary or appropriate (even if the player already used up all of his Lady Lucky points). Lady Luck points regenerate at a rate of 1 per restful sleep (usually 8 hours without major interruptions) so even if a player has 5 Lady Luck points and uses them all in one day, it will take 5 nights of sleep to recover them all (to avoid exploitation or unbalanced/broken mechanics).
How does a Lady Luck roll works:
When a player wants to try to influence an action (usually any roll) related to him he can call a Lady Luck roll and deplete 1 Lady Luck point from his points pool. What this do is "pause" the effects of that action and the player rolls a d20, then if the result of the d20 roll is more than (20 - *total Luck value of the character*) it is a success, if it is lower than (20 - *total Luck value of the character*) it is a failure.
So lets explain the maths:
A character with 10 Luck will have a 50% (or a 1 in 2) chance of success when using a Lady Luck roll (that value can't go higher), a character with 1 Luck will have a 5% (or a 1 in 20) chance of success.
That happens because a character with 10 Luck will roll a d20 dice and if the result is 11 or higher it is a success:
[ 20(max d20 value possible)-10(total Luck value)= 10 ] since the roll needs a value higher than this 10, 11 or up is a success
A character with 1 Luck will roll a d20 dice and the result needs to be a perfect 20 for a success:
[ 20(max d20 value possible)-1(total Luck value)= 19 ] since the roll needs a value higher than this 19, 20 is the only value that means a success.
Any character that in combat scores a natural 20 will still get a critical hit/success, natural criticals like this will not use Luck Points. Same for any character that rolls a natural 1, it is a critical miss/failure.
When can I use Lady Luck rolls?
A character can use Lady Luck rolls any time after any action (other roll) related to that character in any way happens but before that action effects resolve.
That is confusing, explain it properly to me!
Sorry for not be able to explain it well, let me try using examples.
GM: You manage to open the security door and see an ancient room with a thick layer of dust covering everything, a red emergency light illuminates the room giving it a desolate look. At the centre of the room there is an old wooden desk with a computer terminal on top, it appears to not be working, since the emergency lights are on but the computer screen is totally lifeless. Jack: I take a look at the computer and try to turn it on. GM: You notice it is plugged to a power supply but no matter how many times you press the power button nothing happens. Seems like this terminal is out of order. Jack: Well since I know my way around machines and electronics I try to see if I can find what is broken about it. GM: OK, please roll a Repair check. Jack: I rolled 25. GM: After you open the case, you find out that the computer's capacitor burned out. Jack: I try to repair it. GM: Do you have a spare capacitor? Jack: No, I will try to jury-rig something that will allow me to make it work without a spare part. GM: OK, please roll another Repair check. Jack: Damn, I got a 15, I doubt that is enough. GM: You fail to repair the computer.
Jack is attempting to repair an old computer, he rolls a Repair check, the result of that check is not enough to repair the computer and might even break it more, but before this happens Jack decides to call a Lady Luck check.
Jack has a total Luck value of 5 and has 2 Lady Luck points available in his pool, he crosses out one of those points (having a remaining 1 point left). Jack rolls a d20 and gets 17 as a result. Since Jack needed a 16 or more to succeed (20(max d20 value possible)-5(Jack's total Luck value)= 15) Jack managed to change his fate using the power of Lady Luck.
For a second, it looked like the entire contraption you assembled would burst into flames since it released a small shower of sparks and crackled loud after you pressed the Power Button. But in the end the terminal's screen flickers back to life showing a bright green security screen with a Login menu. On the top of it you can read "Authorised access only" while under it the screen eagerly flashes the empty spaces for inputting the "Username" and "Password" values.
Jack used a Lady Luck roll after he knew his Repair check had failed but before he knew the consequences of that failure (the DM could have made the computer burst into flames, or allowed Jack to retry to repair it or something else could have happened like the room closing the door and sealing it as a security measure for messing around with an important terminal, etc). If Jack had waited for the DM to say what the consequences of the Repair failure were, he couldn't go back and make the Lady Luck roll anymore.
Lady Luck rolls can also be used to make an attack that hit the character to miss, or to make an attack made by the character that missed the enemy to hit it instead. Lady Luck rolls can also be used to try and avoid a critical miss or turn a character's normal hit into a critical hit (and the other way around, can be used to turn a critical hit scored on the character into a normal hit). A character can't use 2 points to turn a critical hit scored on him into a miss or a miss from his own attacks into a critical hit. A character can't use more than 1 point in any roll (so no using it once and if it fails using it again on the same action/roll).
EDIT: I was also thinking that there could be a party Lady Luck value, which is when the GM needs to make a general Lady Luck involving the entire party, it would probably be the average of all the max Lady Luck points of each party member (something like all the lady luck points from all characters in the party divided by the total number of characters in the party). But that needs more thinking.
"Action points" are going to slow the pace down to a crawl, IMHO. I vote for the current DnD system of actions (move action, regular action, bonus action when applicable) and have class and race features and perks give out more actions.
I am not so sure about slowing the pace down to a crawl to be honest, if a character has 6 AP and needs 1 AP to move a square or hexagon (or whatever kind of grid this system will use), and need 3 AP to attack once, 2 AP to grab an item from his "ready inventory" (lets call it pockets for this example) and 4 AP to grab something from his "main inventory" (let's call it backpack for this example), and needs 2 AP to use any item they grabbed, it would still be a very fast combat pace.
"I know I can walk 6 spaces in total if I don't do anything else, I can attack twice in total if I don't do anything else, I can move up to 3 spaces and attack once, I can get an item from my pockets, use it and still move 2 spaces, I can get an item from my backpack and use it". It is not slow because a player can't have a lot of AP (Max 10 AP) so there isn't a high number of actions one can do in a turn which makes combat fast in my opinion.
Big Guns should be reassigned to Strength, while Melee Weapons should be divided into Light Melee and Heavy Melee, with Light Melee getting put into Agility.
I am divided on this one, I see what you mean but I also see the other side or the coin.
Each weapon in Fallout will require a minimum Strength value to be used and Big Guns will require a higher value of course, but that Strength value is to be able to use the gun correctly, I don't see how having a big Strength can help the player to see the enemy in the distance (for example no matter how strong a character is, if it has really bad eye-sight = 1 Perception, it will not be able to see the enemy properly at a distance of more than 1 or 2 "spaces" and that will not help them aim perfectly). The Strength requirement for every weapon is already to be able to hold it well while using that weapon .
About the Light and Heavy weapons for melee, I am fine with splinting it into two groups.
Both Strength and Agility already affect Melee weapons, the way I see it Strength makes sense for damage and Agility for hitting the target. Again all weapons in this system will have a Strength requirement to be used properly and so the Heavier melee weapons will have a higher requirement.
Also, like @Ben Soto has said, add Seduction or Temptation, although kind of similar to Persuasion, but it's more of a skill to, well, seduce or tempt someone into doing something for the player/what the player want, and more of by appealing to sexual desire (or something), so kind of how Black Widow/Confirmed Bachelor/Cherchez La Femme/Lady Killer works but in form of skill.
I agree with the Seduction, thanks for pointing it out. I am used to play RPGs that do not focus much on seducing so they just include rolls for that in other skills (like diplomacy or whatever they have there), but it feels strange and out of place.
Might want to add Argument or Reasoning, the skill of providing sound argument or present counter-argument, this skill is called Smartass in Wasteland 2, so maybe in Fallout PnP it won't be solely affected by Charisma, but also Intelligence, with more influence coming from INT.
I agree with Ben Soto, Argument is using logic or other means to convince others to see your point of view, so it is pretty much knowing what and when to say the right thing. And yes I would make PersuasionCharisma + Intelligence based
I agree, there needs to be more skills for some Attributes and I thought that for Intelligence there could be specific "Knowledge" skills (kinda like in 3 or 3.5 D&D). I still need to work a lot on Skills, I don't even know if it will work using d20 rolls yet, even though I used those for examples before in this post.
Just realized Ben Soto argued that each skill need to be assigned solely on one and only one attribute, so I might want to add to that that I think it can work for a skill to be affected by more than one attribute, just need bits of balancing. But, considering I have no experience with P&P RPGs whatsoever, I guess I should give it to those more experienced than me.
I am inclined to agree with Black Angel, the SPECIAL system takes into account that in real life we usually need several attributes to do things well, no matter how knowledgeable (Intelligence) a surgeon is, if it doesn't has a steady hand (Agility) it can't do it's job very well. Same goes for a really likeable (Charisma) guy that is trying to tell a lie but unfortunately he is really dumb (Intelligence) and keep inventing random stuff that anyone with an average intelligence could see it is totally made up... It will not be able to lie very well "Yeah, I totally know what a fish is... I once caught one that was running around in the wasteland. I followed it to it's lair in a cave and it was very easy to capture.". A good lockpicker needs nimble finger and good hand-eye coordination (Agility) but also needs to be able to recognise the subtle clicks, feel and behaviour of a lock mechanism (Perception), etc.
So Lady Luck is sort of like the karma pool from Shadowrun but only for your fuck ups? Cool concept, it definitely makes luck genuinely useful, beyond gambling and luck rolls.
Yeah, making Arguments/Reasoning as its separate skill is redundant, since Scientific skills and/or raw stats/Intelligence checks by itself already count as Arguments/Reasoning.
Also, I'm not sure if it fits in actual P&P RPG, but will you consider using Underrail's skill synergy system? For example, if you want to separate Acrobatics/Tumble and Balance, hypothetically I would let, say, Acrobatics gain 1 point for every 10 Balance, and vice versa. This means either one of them get 10% synergy from the other. And then, Climbing gain 1 point for every 10 Acrobatics AND 10 Balance, means it get 10% synergy for each Acrobatics and Balance. I'm not sure if I explain that right, so I suggest you fiddle a bit with it in here. I'm not entirely sure if you have played Underrail, since for all I know you were also busy playing and testing TTW but if you have, let's say I'm helping you refresh your memory
Of course this would need more work on balancing, I'm just suggesting if it fits and viable.
So Lady Luck is sort of like the karma pool from Shadowrun but only for your fuck ups? Cool concept, it definitely makes luck genuinely useful, beyond gambling and luck rolls.
Well it is for fuck ups and also for making enemies fuck up I guess . It is basically to allow a chance to upgrade the result of any roll made by the character or downgrade any roll made against the character. And I like that even with max Luck, a character only has 50% chance of succeed, that plus the limited number of points and how it only regens 1 per day (per 8 hours of sleep) makes it a useful gimmick for a Luck oriented character and an "Unlikely Last Chance of Succeeding" for characters with low Luck.
I always loved the concept of luck in PnP, because while PnP systems rely on increasing skills and stats to have a higher chance of succeed, it still relies on the luck to get a good enough value from dice, so having a character with a Luck stats make it feel like his stat is even influencing the general "luck" from rolling dice. Because being lucky in real life means that certain circumstances that are usually outside of a person's control align and set in motion a chain of events or actions that lead to success or failure, a system like Lady Luck tries to simulate that in the circumstances outside of a character's control (dice results).
I have no idea if that makes sense .
Yeah, making Arguments/Reasoning as its separate skill is redundant, since Scientific skills and/or raw stats/Intelligence checks by itself already count as Arguments/Reasoning.
Also, I'm not sure if it fits in actual P&P RPG, but will you consider using Underrail's skill synergy system? For example, if you want to separate Acrobatics/Tumble and Balance, hypothetically I would let, say, Acrobatics gain 1 point for every 10 Balance, and vice versa. This means either one of them get 10% synergy from the other. And then, Climbing gain 1 point for every 10 Acrobatics AND 10 Balance, means it get 10% synergy for each Acrobatics and Balance. I'm not sure if I explain that right, so I suggest you fiddle a bit with it in here. I'm not entirely sure if you have played Underrail, since for all I know you were also busy playing and testing TTW but if you have, let's say I'm helping you refresh your memory
Of course this would need more work on balancing, I'm just suggesting if it fits and viable.
Yes, I know about synergies, I played Underrail in the past and skill synergies also existed in Dungeons and Dragons version 3 and 3.5 and I like those .
The reason I'm against having things be influenced by more than one attribute at a time is that it just adds more math without adding much to the overall experience. More complexity does not mean more fun.
Under your idea, there would be a lot more math that wouldn't add to the experience very much.
As for luck, I would say that, say, every five points of Luck, you could roll a d20 once pretty long rest, then use whatever that total is to change one roll. For example, with a luck of 10, I roll a 20 and a 5. If a ghoul attacks me and rolls a 20, I can use my luck ability and replace his roll with a 5.
These things would regenerate one use per long rest. It would take two long tests to regenerate both points with a luck of 10.
As for action points, I suppose you're right, but it could easily make Agility the "one stat to rule them all." Having a set number of actions independent of your stats would make things more balanced.
As for strength requirements, I would go with the DnD5E system and forgo strength requirements in favor of weapon and armor proficiency. Again, gets rid of pointless complexity and makes things more balanced.
The reason I'm against having things be influenced by more than one attribute at a time is that it just adds more math without adding much to the overall experience. More complexity does not mean more fun.
Under your idea, there would be a lot more math that wouldn't add to the experience very much.
Like I said I didn't start working on the skill system properly, I don't know how the Attributes will influence them yet, I don't know if I will set hard limits on how much a player can increase the skill value (3.5 D&D limit would be the level of the character's class that is proficient with that skill + 4 for example). Which means I can even later make it so that the Attributes do not add to the skill in a conventional way, maybe the Attributes will allow to set specific skills limits higher (if I go with the way skills work similar to 3.5 D&D for example) or I could just make something totally different, who knows how it will end up .
This doesn't mean I am dismissing the idea of single Attribute for each skill, if it indeed ends up with a more maths related Skill/Attribute of course it would be better to make it single Attribute .
As for luck, I would say that, say, every five points of Luck, you could roll a d20 once pretty long rest, then use whatever that total is to change one roll. For example, with a luck of 10, I roll a 20 and a 5. If a ghoul attacks me and rolls a 20, I can use my luck ability and replace his roll with a 5.
These things would regenerate one use per long rest. It would take two long tests to regenerate both points with a luck of 10.
Interesting, but what would be the advantages over the system I described? Seem like it would actually involve more calculations than in the Lady Luck system (we would have the original roll for the enemy attack/skill use/character attack, then we would have the second roll for Luck and then we would have to subtract/add the second roll value from the first roll, while in the Lady Luck one we would have the original roll and then just the second roll to see if fails or succeeds, unless I am missing something ). Also does that means that characters with points between 5 and 10 would be wasting some of their Luck points? (there would be no advantage of having 5 or 9 Luck points or 1 to 4 for example).
As for action points, I suppose you're right, but it could easily make Agility the "one stat to rule them all." Having a set number of actions independent of your stats would make things more balanced.
It is as unbalanced as in the computer games I guess. If a player wants to make a really slow character with 1 Agility it should suffer the consequences of it, but remember that in the computer games no one has less than 5 AP (the AP is 5 + 1/2 Agility rounded down ), so it is 5 AP if a character has 1 Agility and 10 if the player has 10 Agility, with Agility 2 it gets 6 AP. Then there is Perks, equipment and drugs that can increase Agility and/or AP directly if the player needs more actions per combat turn. Also remember if a character can do a lot in a turn but can die in 2 hits or has very little Skill points per level or can't hit enemies, then it is still not very useful.
This will definitely need to be tested and see if it is that unbalanced.
As for strength requirements, I would go with the DnD5E system and forgo strength requirements in favor of weapon and armor proficiency. Again, gets rid of pointless complexity and makes things more balanced.
Proficiencies work in D&D because it is a class based PnP (each class says which weapons a character can use efficiently, sometimes races can also influence weapon proficiencies), Fallout does not have classes so I don't see how we could say to players which weapons they can or can't use proficiently, maybe using a attribute dependant value but that is already what Strength is doing, I might be missing something again If I am I apologise. I do that all the time (missing stuff) .
I'm on mobile, so I'm gonna wait to reply to the bulk of your post. However, I will clarify my idea for Luck.
Instead of adding or subtracting the second roll, the second roll replaces the first. Let's say you roll a 5 and a 20 for your Luck rolls. You can use that 5 to replace a good roll on the part of the bad guys, or use that 20 to score an instant critical on a tough enemy.
Sorry guys and gals.
My computer broke and I am also broke so I can-t replace or fix it, and even if I manage to somehow save enough to get a replacement it will take months for tha tto happen.
I will not be able to be around and continue posting as regularly and even typing on this tablet thing is hard.
Sorry I won-t be avery active around NMA much until I fix this... Sorry again.
EDIT: I still do not have a good computer, but I have a really old laptop that works most of the time and I can type on it, so since people have been more active around here (the NMA Fallout P&P subforum) I got some ideas again.
So these are just still ideas rolling in my brain for now.
I thought about damage types and the ones I came up with are as follow:
Normal types:
Piercing
Cutting
Impact
Energy types:
Laser
Fire
Plasma
Electric
EMP
Special types:
Radiation
Poison
Disease
Non-lethal
What is different from the computer games?
Normal types of damage (Piercing, Cutting and Impact) do not exist in the games, they are all included in just one type of damage: Normal Damage - The vast majority of damage from all weapons in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and from small guns, melee, and unarmed in Fallout, Fallout 2, and Van Buren.
Fallout Tactics has Gas Damage. Van Buren was supposed to have Ballistic, Bio and Heat damage.
Special Damage:
Radiation
Poison
Disease
Non-Lethal
These special types do not work like normal damage, they have special rules in my system: Radiation damage is just like the old games' "radiation poisoning system". The player gets radiation damage from walking on radioactive areas, consuming radioactive food and drink, handling radioactive material, etc. And it affects the player exactly like in the old games (at least for now, I might have to change stuff later due to balance or other stuff):
Courtesy of Fallout Gamepedia said:
The character has a hidden radiation ("Rad") count that can be checked with a Geiger counter. This rad count causes the effect "radiated" to appear. As the Geiger count increases, further radiation poisoning occurs. Merely being "radiated" incurs no penalty. If the rad count gets high enough, however, SPECIAL stats begin to drop, and if any of these drop to zero due to poisoning, the character dies. Also, should the character be able to survive to maximum irradiation (1000 rads) (as in their stats do not reach zero), the character has 24 hours to use enough rad-aways to get themselves under 1000 rads or die anyway.
Poison Damage: is damage overtime. Poison damage might reduce some Attributes temporarily. Let's say that a character got poisoned by a Bark Scorpion, this character will take damage every turn (this damage is reduced depending on the character's Poison Resistance value) until the poison leaves his system or an antidote has been taken. All of this is like the old games, but I added a few things, like the Attributes penalty.
What new stuff did I add to poison:
There will be a table describing the effects of each poison. Lets make a description really quick just to exemplify.
Bark Scorpion Poison:
1 poison damage per turn
after 5 poison damage is applied the character gains a penalty of 1 to his Strength
lasts for 10 turns if the player has 6 or more Endurance and lasts for 15 turns if the player has 5 or less Endurance
After the character was purged from the poison, it naturally recovers 1 point of Strength lost due to this poison every hour if it has 5 or less Endurance and 1 point every 30 minutes if it has 6 or more Endurance
Can be healed by using any regular antidote
Low Endurance character will have a harder time with poisons, the smart ones avoid poisonous enemies altogether.
Disease damage: isn't caused by weapons or enemies, it is caused by diseases and can be prevented by a good doctor. Diseases that cause damage are rare on the wastes, usually diseases will affect SPECIAL Attributes and/or specific parts of the body instead of causing damage.
Non-Lethal damage: The name says it all. If you attack someone with a phone-book you will cause non-lethal damage. Same goes for punching someone while wearing boxing gloves. Sometimes you just do not want to kill your target, non-lethal damage is the damage you need to inflict to KO your enemy instead of killing him.
KO can be caused by inflicting a critical hit on the enemy's head with any type of damage (more on KO rules later) or by use of non-lethal attacks.
Armor and protection:
Armors will protect your characters body, and it usually is what will keep them alive.
Armors will offer protection against some, most or all common damage types. Each armor will have DT (Damage Threshold) against certain types of damage.
DT is how much that armor reduces the damage from that damage type.
EDIT 2: Cover:
I think although cover doesn't really exist in the games, a P&P game can benefit from it.
I am thinking about settling with 3 cover levels:
Light cover is standing behind something much smaller or thinner than your character
Medium cover is standing behind something about the same size or wide as your character
Total cover is standing behind something that totally covers your character
Cover gives an AC bonus to the character behind it:
Light +2 AC
Medium +5 AC
Total cover prevents a character from being targeted by normal attacks (can still be hit by a grenade explosion for example).
Stance:
Stance is how a character is standing on the battlefield:
Standing up
Standing up has no bonuses or penalties
Kneeling or sitting down
Kneeling or sitting down gives a +2 to hit the target when using rifle type weapons and a -2 to hit the target when using melee or unarmed attacks.
Kneeling or sitting down gives cover equal to light cover (+2 to AC) against ranged attacks but a -2 to AC against melee and unarmed attacks
Kneeling or sitting down makes each movement AP costs twice as much (usually it takes 1AP to move one unit on the map, if a character is kneeling it takes 2AP to move one map unit)
Prone
Being prone gives a +5 to hit the target when using rifle type weapons and a -5 to hit the target when using melee or unarmed attacks.
Being prone gives cover equal to medium cover (+5 to AC) against ranged attacks but a -5 to AC against melee and unarmed attacks
Being prone makes each movement AP costs thrice as much (usually it takes 1AP to move one unit on the map, if a character is prone it takes 3AP to move one map unit)
It takes 2 AP to change stance during combat.
AP:
AP is calculated the same way as in the classic games:
5 + (half the Agility value)
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) which are equal to half his Luck value rounded down but it has a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 5 (with Luck 1 or 2 it gets 1 Lady Luck point, with Luck 2 or 3 it gets 2 Lady luck points and so on, a character can't have a maximum of 0 or lower Lady Luck points), the total of these points are called the Lady Luck pool.
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but if you have, let's say I'm helping you refresh your memory 
. It is basically to allow a chance to upgrade the result of any roll made by the character or downgrade any roll made against the character. And I like that even with max Luck, a character only has 50% chance of succeed, that plus the limited number of points and how it only regens 1 per day (per 8 hours of sleep) makes it a useful gimmick for a Luck oriented character and an "Unlikely Last Chance of Succeeding" for characters with low Luck.
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). Also does that means that characters with points between 5 and 10 would be wasting some of their Luck points? (there would be no advantage of having 5 or 9 Luck points or 1 to 4 for example).
