Fatigue Attack

Cost: 10/level

Fatigue Attack (fat) is a nonlethal attack that reduced FP not HT and so doesn't do damage. It can be an Innate Attack.

Basic[]

B379 "Any damage left over after subtracting DR from a Fatigue Attack is treated as injury"

Damage Resistance and Hit Location[]

Kromm on 4 april 2013

attacks that cause FP are subject to no special wounding effects for hit location.

You can pick any body part on your target and attack it at the usual penalty for hit location.

If the target has FP, then the attack reduces those FP by the amount rolled minus any DR on the body part,

unless the attack happens to ignore DR

(not an intrinsic property of attacks with the fat damage type).

The only limit on how many FP can be caused is the target's usual floor of -FP.

In much shorter terms, it's mostly a statement that you can't get bonus FP by aiming at the skull or vitals, and don't inflict fewer FP just because you hit a hand or an arm.

Powers[]

Note that Hazard was expanded to include Heat which was missing. Very useful. This was perhaps forgot by Sorcery which used the No Injury approach on Burning Attack instead.

Supers[]

S127 Psychic Duels and Mental Crippling both allow Will-based thrust attacks on FP. however the setup is mutual Telesend or Mind Reading

Powers Built from Fatigue Attack[]

Supernatural Attacks[]

Supernatural Attacks can be chi, divine, magical, psi, or spirit abilities – add power modifiers as necessary.

Chilling Touch (+290%): Fatigue Attack 1d+1 (Cosmic, Irresistible attack; Freezing; Melee Attack, Reach C, Cannot Parry; Variable) [51]
- P142 note: that this buys irresistible so it works "regardless of clothing or armor" implies this would normally subtract from Fatigue Attack's basic damage.
Cryokinetic Attack (+210%): Fatigue Attack 1d+2 (Based on HT; Freezing; Malediction 2; No Signature) [50]
- similarly here, Malediction is used to avoid DR
Mental Blow (+160%/+150%): Fatigue Attack 1d (Costs Fatigue, 2 FP; Malediction 2; No Signature) [26] + Affliction 1 (HT; Follow-Up, Fatigue Attack, ) [25] Total [51]
Pestilence (+1,560%): Fatigue Attack 1 point (Based on HT; Costs Fatigue, 6 FP; Cyclic, 1 hour, 72 cycles, Highly Contagious; Malediction 1; No Signature; Onset, 1 hour) [50]
Sleeping Gas (+230%): Fatigue Attack 1d (Area Effect, 2 yards; Cyclic, 1 minute, 3 cycles, Resistible; Drifting; Missed Sleep; Persistent; Resistible, HT-2; Respiratory Agent) [33]

Statements[]

PK[]

DR applies http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=442874

read Wounding Modifiers and Injury on p. B379

-- the first two normal paragraphs basically boil down to (in this case)

"Any damage left over after subtracting DR from a Fatigue Attack is treated as injury."

Except... not exactly RAW it only talks about HP loss not FP loss. However... "fat" IS there:

burning (burn), corrosion (cor), crushing (cr), fatigue (fat), piercing (pi), and toxic (tox): x1 (damage is

unchanged).

(fat) thus DOES have a "wounding multiplier" meaning penetrating damage is considered INJURY.

That said, they neglect to mention it's an exception to the HP note here.

Kromm[]

In a 2012 post by "Not another shrubbery" http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=1305364&postcount=107 he alleges Kromm said the following:

This could go either way, as you are probably aware if there's a thread on it (I surely haven't had time to follow that). Some folks will say that "giving up" the ability to cause HP is a limitation; others will say that the guarantee of safety is an enhancement. As for me, I know why Fatigue Attack costs more than other Innate Attacks

1. Most big, tough targets have fewer FP than HP. A ST 100, HT 14 'zilla has 100 HP but just 14 FP.

2. It's safe, within reason. You need to roll a lot more dice to knock someone down from full FP, through -FP, and on down or past -HP.

3. It defangs FP-powered abilities along the way. Wizards and martial artists without the optional ER rules are disempowered as well as knocked out.

Frankly, I'm with you: The guarantee of safety feels like an enhancement, because it's boosting my selling point #2. Why would anybody pay 10 points/level for a Fatigue Attack if lethality were their goal? Just buy a Toxic Attack for that!

On the other hand, it's no big thing. I'd call the safest version +10% at most and the next-safest one +5%. What those levels actually are would need discussion, but I'd propose "can't inflict HP at all" as safest and "can't inflict HP past -FP" as next-safest.

No URL can be found for this though so maybe it was deleted?

References[]

GURPS Powers pg 142-145