Alternate Hard to Kill & Hard to Subdue

So I was saying the other day, most people don't have issues remembering or account for large bonuses, but rather small ones. If you say, "I have a 22 to resist poison!" no one says, "Hey, did you remember to add your Resistant to Poison +8 to that?" But +1s here and there are easily forgotten, or remembered and asked after like your relatives. "Hey, how is Hard to Subdue 1 doing these days? Did you count the +1 from it?"

Here are two ways to push a pair of leveled advantages to simple two-level packages. I've abbreviated the descriptions; the rules and coverage are per Basic Set.

Hard to Kill
5 or 10 points

Works as per B58, comes in two levels:

Hard to Kill: +3 to the affected rolls, plus the "appears dead" element.

Very Hard to Kill: +5 to the affected rolls, plus the "appears dead" element. (Normally restricted to supernatural beings, supers, Barbarians, etc.)

Hard to Subdue
5 or 10 points

Works as per B59, comes in two levels:

Hard to Subdue: +3 to the affected rolls.

Very Hard to Subdue: +5 to the affected rolls. (Normally restricted to supernatural beings, supers, Barbarians, etc.)

Those are priced based on the current costs, giving the lower level a "round up" to make the costs divisible by 5, which is just generally easier for math purposes. You can also make these resistances.

Resistant to Death
5 or 8 points

It's hard to kill you, per the Hard to Kill advantage on p. B58, but without the "appears dead" benefit. Comes in two levels:

Hard to Kill: +3 to the affected rolls. [Priced as Resistant, Common, +3]

Very Hard to Kill: +8 to the affected rolls. (Normally restricted to supernatural beings, supers, Barbarians, etc.)

How about the "appears dead" part? You can throw it in as a bonus, leave it off as a special case, or make it a perk. Or both.

Left for Dead (aka Possum, aka He's Finished)

If you make your HT roll to avoid exactly (made by 0), or by the margin of Resistant to Death, if you have either level, you aren't really dead. Instead, you appear dead, per Hard to Kill, p. B58.

This way you can hand out that effect to characters or foes without needing to increase their specific resistance to death.

Resistance to Subdual
5 or 8 points

As Hard to Subdue, p. B59, and comes in two levels.

Hard to Subdue: +3 to the affected rolls. [Priced as Resistant, Common, +3)]

Very Hard to Subdue: +8 to the affected rolls. (Normally restricted to supernatural beings, supers, Barbarians, etc.)

You could make these "Very Common," but then the price is a bit steep - 10 for +3, 15 for +8, which is high on the front end. It's hard to justify 10 points for +3 to consciousness rolls, even if 15 for +8 seems like a good deal (it's effectively immunity except on automatic failure rolls, except when terribly wounded, and then only for HT 10-11.) I have a hard time thinking that "rolls versus death" or "rolls to stay conscious" are as common as "all threats that affect only the living" or "psionics" in a game with psis. It's also important to note that the exclusions on p. 80 apply - if the effect would be stopped by or you'd get a bonus from Protected Sense or Damage Resistance, this bonus doesn't kick in.


Like I said, this basically puts the bonuses into the "clearly included" and "clearly not" category. They're still conditional bonuses and they'll require you to remember when to apply them. But they'll be much easier to remember and apply when they give steep bonuses. In addition, you are much less likely to accumulate mixed bonuses or over-patch if it's a clear level choice.