Stressed Damage Dice

I saw how this works in Earthdawn and I found it in a few other places so I'm stealing it for my own use.

Many times I've heard, but why can't you kill a dragon in one shot? Well normally a dragon's just plain that tough, but with this it is fully possible for a character to get a truely epic burst of energy. So yes, you can pull a Smog and possibly kill the dragon in a single hit.

Stressed Damage Dice.

How it works is simply this:

1. Roll for damage as usual. Total it up.

2. Any maximum results that you rolled on a die get to be rerolled and added to your total from #1. For example, rolling a 6 on a d6 is a maximum result, and so is rolling an 8 on a d8.

3. Keep rerolling and totaling any maximum results that you roll until you do not score a maximum result anymore on that or those particular dice.

Note this applies ONLY to PCs and Note worthy/truely dangerous NPCs. AKA if you're gunning for a member of the Prosek family expect them to be using this rule as well!

Note: Please do not abuse this house rule. If a weapon does 1d4x10 then you roll a SINGLE die. You do not roll 10D4 and re-roll any extra 4s. It's intent is to give PCs a little bit of that cinematic edge in combat were that one bullet can hit and do massive damage that it wouldn't otherwise normally do.

Remember Stick the Crazy? Of course you do, remember the Vibro-Sabres from the weapons example? Well Stick is attacking a tank hatch, he is crazy, trying to get it and hits. Stick then rolls 2d4; he rolls a 3 and a 4, he rolls the 4 again and gets a 3. So Sticks total damage for that attack is 3+4+3=10. Had Stick continued to max the dice rolls he would have continued to roll until he no no longer maxed out the rolls.

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