Heat

In ordinary hot weather, you will
experience no ill effects if you stay in
the shade and don’t move around
much. But if you are active in temper-
atures in the top 10° of your comfort
zone or above – over 80°F, for humans
without Temperature Tolerance (p. 93)
– make a HT or HT-based Survival
(Desert) roll, whichever is better, every
30 minutes.
Modifiers: A penalty equal to your
encumbrance level (-1 for Light, -2 for
Medium, and so on); -1 per extra 10°
heat.
Failure costs 1 FP. On a critical fail-
ure, you suffer heat stroke: lose 1d FP.
As usual, if you go below 0 FP, you
start to lose 1 HP per FP. You cannot
recover FP or HP lost to heat until you
move into cooler surroundings.
In addition, at temperatures up to
30° over your comfort zone (91-120°
for humans), you lose an extra 1 FP
whenever you lose FP to exertion or
dehydration. At temperatures up to 60°
over your comfort zone (121-150° for
humans), this becomes an extra 2 FP.
Intense Heat: Human skin starts to
burn at 160°; see Flame (p. 433) for
damage. Even if no damage pene-
trates your DR, you will rapidly over-
heat if the ambient temperature is
more than 6 ¥ your comfort zone’s
width over your comfort zone (e.g., in
a fire). After 3 ¥ DR seconds, make a
HT roll every second. On a failure, you
lose 1 FP. Your DR provides its usual
protection against burning damage,
but it has no effect on this FP loss.
Sunburn: After a day of full sun on
unprotected skin, an albino will be
near death and a light-skinned
Caucasian will be very uncomfortable
(1d-3 damage). Darker-skinned indi-
viduals may itch, but aren’t in much
danger. Details are up to the GM.
Armor: Armor prevents sunburn
and provides its full DR against burn-
ing damage – but only armor that pro-
vides Temperature Tolerance (through
insulation or a cooling system) can
prevent FP loss due to heat. This fea-
ture is standard on battlesuits and
TL9+ combat armor.