We're coming into the home stretch of this book, so let's move along. The next topic is 'Drugs,' as in pharmaceuticals, mostly for medicinal purposes. I'm not what that has to do with starships and space combat, but we'll just go with it.
Okay, so there are six classes of drugs described in Traveller. These are taken in one-dose pills, so I guess pharmaceutical companies aren't all that big of a deal in the Traveller universe. Must be nice. Oh, wait a moment...there's a seventh type: Psi-drugs. Psionics? In Traveller? Alrighty, then. My only exposure to psionics has been in the AD&D game and in superhero games where mentalists get airtime. This should be interesting.
But first...we begin with the Slow Drug. It accelerates the user's metabolism so everything around him seems to be slowed down. Great: Traveller is a cocaine hipster. I'm kidding. Maybe. I'm not sure; let's see what it does in game terms.
It takes less than a minute for this to go into effect (three firing rounds, or 45 seconds), and it lasts for 40 firing rounds. Basically, you get two turns for everyone else's one turn. Well, then. That's quite the combat boost, isn't it? There's a medical version of this drug that can also be used to heal faster. It knocks you right out for a whole day, but your body things that 30 days have gone by, with the equivalent amount of healing done.
Next up, we have the Fast Drug. So, this one makes everything else seem a LOT faster at a ratio of 60 to 1. It slows your aging and keeps you from needing things like air or food, so it's great if you're stuck in a drifting starship or lifeboat and need to make your supplies last. One dose lasts for 60 days, and there's an antidote that negates whatever time is still left on your dosage.
Then we have the Combat Drug, which just bumps strength and endurance by two points each, and lasts for 30 combat rounds. It's generally used by military personnel, but it's not exclusive. When it wears off, you take one die of wounds. So, it's great in the short term, but it is possible it could kill you if you got severely hurt in those 30 rounds of fighting. And in Traveller, that isn't difficult to do.
Next is the Medical Drug, which is a catch-all term for all the stuff in the medkits that helps you get better after getting beaten up or shot. Generally, you need the Medical skill to use this stuff, and it qualifies as actual medical treatment. I guess the pharmacies in the future are really good at fixing people in a hurry. I'd laugh if there were placebos in there, though, just to make people think they were getting better.
The last one on this page is Anagathics, anti-aging drugs. The Fast Drug does something similar, but this one doesn't accelerate the rest of the universe around you. This one is a monthly dose that lets you skip those annoying aging die throws in character creation. Well, that would have been nice to know about when I was rolling up Jamie Rollinson. I mean, sure, there's a note that Anagathics are super-rare and insanely expensive, and thus often unavailable, but my guy is connected! He's got high social rank! Surely he could have snagged enough of this stuff to skip a couple of those rolls.
Ah, well. We're done with this page, so we'll finish up the pharmacy section next time.
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