I love Shadowrun, but the folks makin' rules for it make some questionable choices.
Allergy meds can put you in a coma (If you're stubborn and unlucky).
Zero is a drug for reducing penalties from Allergies/Addiction, and Cyberware rejection. It has an addiction rating of 1 and a threshold of 3. That means you make an addiction test for it every 10 weeks unless you go more than 3 weeks without using it.
For this experiment we'll say that we use it every 3 weeks (unlike real world equivalents that are used daily). With this we'll be making a Body+Willpower check against 3 every 10 weeks.
My character has 2 Body and 5 Willpower, giving her a 9.5% chance of success. We'll go in two directions from here. On track A, we'll assume every test is a failure. On track B, we'll succeed based on the percentage chance. We'll ignore Withdrawal and Getting Clean because it's fuckin' Allergy medication. Also ignoring Edge, because that makes the math a headache.
See if you can find the difference.
Track A
- First Test: Gain Mild Addiction
- Second Test: Gain Moderate Addiction
- Third Test: Gain Severe Addiction
- Fourth Test: Gain Burnout Addiction
- Fifth Test: Reduce Willpower by one
- Sixth Test: Reduce Willpower by one
- Seventh Test: Reduce Willpower by one
- Eighth Test: Reduce Body by one
- Ninth Test: Reduce Willpower by one
- Tenth Test: Reduce Body by one. Fall into a coma and die.
Total Time: 100 Weeks (About 2 years)
Track B
- First Test: Gain Mild Addiction
- Second Test: Gain Moderate Addiction
- Third Test: Gain Severe Addiction
- Fourth Test: Gain Burnout Addiction
- Fifth Test: Reduce Willpower by one. Odds reduced to 6%
- Sixth Test: Reduce Willpower by one. Odds reduced to 3.5%
- Seventh Test: Reduce Willpower by one. Odds reduced to 1.6%
- Eighth Test: Reduce Body by one. Odds reduced to 0.4%
- Ninth Test: Reduce Willpower by one. Odds reduced to 0%
- Tenth Test: Reduce Body by one. Fall into a coma and die.
Total Time: 100 Weeks (About 2 years)
