Environment Rules

= Starvation/Dehydration = If a character goes without food or water for too long they begin to risk their health, eventually leading to death. A character needs at least one gallon of water to avoid dehydration and one pound of food each day to avoid starvation. For each size category below medium reduce the value by 50% and each size category above medium increase by 50%. In Tier 2 Heat a character will need an additional 50% water plus an additional 50% for each category above Tier 2 to avoid dehydration.

A character can go without water for 2 days plus a number of hours equal to their constitution score, after which the character must begin to make survival checks (DC 12, +1 for each previous check) each hour to avoid taking 1d6 points of nonlethal damage.

A character can go without food for 5 days, after which they must make a survival check (DC 12, +1 for each previous check) or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage.

A character who has taken nonlethal damage from Starvation or Dehydration is fatigued and cannot recover this nonlethal damage until they get adequate food and water. Characters who have taken more than half their hit points in nonlethal damage from Starvation or Dehydration are instead exhausted. This nonlethal damage bypasses any resistances or immunities and temporary hit points a character may possess.

= Suffocation = A character unable to breathe can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to their constitution score.. If the character has ranks in survival they may add their ranks in survival to the number of rounds they can hold their breath. If a character takes more than a single move action each round the amount of time they can hold their breath is reduced by 1 round. Once a character has run out of rounds of breath they must make a survival check (DC 12, +1 for each previous check) or take 2d10 points of nonlethal damage.

A character who has taken nonlethal damage from Suffocation is fatigued and cannot recover this nonlethal damage until they are able to breathe again. Characters who have taken more than half their hit points in nonlethal damage from Suffocation are instead exhausted. This nonlethal damage bypasses any resistances or immunities and temporary hit points a character may possess.

= Weather = Weather has various effects based on severity. Weather is broken down into various categories such as precipitation, wind, heat, cold, and other effects. A single weather event may have different multiple of these categories, but varying severities of each, such as a rainstorm having heavy downpour with light wind. The exception being heat and cold as a high severity of heat cannot also have a high severity of cold.

Certain effects may combine, such as precipitation and cold turning to snow or even hail.

Below are the various types of weather, and the effects of their severity levels.

Precipitation
Precipitation includes rain, though may also include snow, sleet, and hail if cold enough. Precipitation in itself may have little to no effect on a creature directly, though when combined with extreme heat/cold/wind can have more extreme effects.

Rain
Rain by itself may have little effect by itself, but if on dirt or similar terrain it may begin to turn to mud becoming difficult terrain after at least 4 hours of Tier 2 precipitation, reducing by 1 hour per tier after 2.

Precipitation and Snow
When in temperature tier 2 or higher severity of cold the precipitation turns to snow. Snow both can reduce visibility as the severity increases, but can accumulate to become difficult or worse terrain.

If sleet is occurring the higher precipitation may cause it to become dangerous to creatures. Creatures may seek shelter to avoid this damage.

Precipitation and Extreme Heat
Once heat hits Tier 5 the precipitation itself turns to boiling rain, causing 1d6 fire damage per minute in Tier 2 or higher rain. For each tier of precipitation beyond 2 the damage increases by an additional 1d6.

Wind
Wind has the following tiers of effect. Wind has 5 tiers of force; tier 1 wind is what is usually considered normal wind levels, giving no penalties. The following adjustments should be taken into account based on the wind level of an area.

Direction: It should always be noted the direction the wind is blowing (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) as this has an important interaction with the speed adjustment.

Speed Adjustment: Speed adjustment is the important part of how wind interacts with a creature.


 * When a creature moves against the wind (such as walking north into wind blowing from the north) their speed is reduced by an amount equal to the speed adjustment noted on the chart. Creatures moving in a diagonal direction into the wind such as moving North East into wind from the north still counts as walking against the wind.
 * Creatures moving with the wind instead gain the speed check as a bonus to their movement.
 * Creatures moving neither with or against (such as going east with wind from the north) have their speeds reduced by half the amount.
 * For every size category above medium the speed adjustment is reduced by 5 feet. For every size category below medium the speed adjustment is increased by 5 feet.
 * If the speed adjustment is equal to a creature’s base move speed they must spend a full round action each turn to move 5 feet and avoid being blown away regardless of the direction they are moving in. If the speed adjustment is greater than the creature’s base speed they are instead blown away.
 * A blown away creature is thrown in the direction of the wind 2d6x10 feet and takes 2d6 points of damage upon contact with a solid surface at the end of the movement. This damage is in addition to any falling damage from the creature being knocked off a ledge or out of the air if flying.

Fly Adjustment: Creatures within the wind gain a bonus to their fly checks when flying with the wind. When a creature is flying in any other direction they take a penalty to their fly checks equal to the fly adjustment.

Ranged Weapon Penalty: Ranged weapon projectiles from thrown weapons, arrows, bullets, bolts, etc.. take the listed penalty to their attack roll when fired within the windstorm conditions. For weapons sized for creatures category below medium these penalties are increased by 50% (rounded down) for each size category below medium. For weapons sized for creatures above medium these penalties are reduced by 50% (rounded down) for each size category above medium.

Changing Wind Direction
When a spell or ability is capable of raising or lowering the wind tier, if the spell is capable of reducing the current wind below Tier 1, for each tier below 1 you may choose a different direction of the wind within the affected area with a new tier of wind equal to the amount you would have reduced the wind below Tier 1.

Visibility Reduction
If the precipitation would reduce visibility the visibility is reduced by an additional 10 feet for each tier of wind beyond 2nd. Otherwise creatures 100 feet away have concealment, while creatures up to 300 feet away have total concealment.

Wind Penalties
For each Tier of precipitation beyond 2nd the fly check and ranged weapon penalties are increased by 1.

Snow and Hail
For each step of wind beyond 2nd the damage caused by hail increases by one step from 1d4 to 1d6, 1d6 to 1d8, 1d8 to 1d10, 1d10 to 2d6.

Temperature
Temperature is the sliding scale of heat and cold of an area. Temperatures are listed in Fahrenheit. The Tier of temperature is a show of the severity of the effect in either direction of extreme heat and extreme colds, with Tier 1 being considered normal temperature ranges that while may range into discomfort do not present immediate risk to a creature’s life. As the tiers increase a creature becomes more at-risk for adverse effects in the extreme heat or cold. The effects of both tiers are similar though some creatures or items may only have resistance to certain Heat Tiers or Cold Tiers, but not always both.

The longer a creature spends in extreme heat or cold the more fortitude saves they will need to make, each time they make a save the DC increases by 1 as their resistance is slowly worn away. The DC resets to base value and the creature may recover from fatigue brought on by the extreme temperature once the creature has found relief from the extreme condition (such as through finding shelter, or through magical means) for at least 1 hour.

Damage from temperatures is untyped and cannot be reduced in any way, instead creature’s resistance allows them to treat the weather severity as reduced based on their level of resistance.

For every 2 points of Resist a creature has to Fire or Cold they treat the weather severity as 1 step lower to a minimum of Tier 1. For example a creature with Resist 2 Fire would treat Tier 3 Heat as Tier 2 heat; and a creature with Resist 4 Cold would treat Tier 5 Cold as Tier 3.

Creatures with weakness to fire or cold. receive a -1 penalty per tier of severity they experience. For example a creature with Weakness to Cold would receive a -5 penalty to fortitude saves in Tier 5 cold.