Pain resistance, Do the different forms stack? Options

[Ed Simons]

For example, an adept character could take 6 points of Pain Resistance (BBB p.170) and 4 points of High Pain Tolerance (SC p.20). By intial thought is they should not be allowed to combine, but I'm interested in other people's opinions and if the books actually say something about this that I missed.

[Morphling The Pr...]

I wouldn't let High Pain Tolerance, Damage Compensators, or Pain Resistance stack. If you have a natural tolerance for moderate injury, and a supernatural resistance for serious, wouldn't the greater one just supercede the other? For instance, if you can naturally tolerate 130 degrees without fainting, and you get an injection that lets you tolerate 160 without fainting, you wouldn't suddenly be able to stand inside a pizza oven.

Just my 2 nuyen.

[tjn]

Due to the way it's worded, High Pain Tolerance starts at Light Damage regardless of the Adept power. They effectively duplicate each other but do not stack.

M&M pg 79 flat out says that Damage Compensators and Pain Editors are incompatiable with the Adept power.

However, the drugs Kamikaze and Novacoke, along with the SURGE effect of Chronic Osteocuspus, do stack with the Adept power.

The key is does it state the PC gains the equivalent of the Adept power or not (and since the Adept power stacks with itself... it leads to the conclusion they stack with the Adept power).

[Johnson]

Pain editors, and those that do the same. Should not be stacked. As they all cut out neural imput to pain. Just that each one deals with it a different was and has different results.

Bearing in mind I done have the relative books to back my justification.

So consider it some nuyen just thrown in as an opinion.

[Morphling The Pr...]

I'd forgotten about the drugs. I suppose since that is a temporary effect which is necessarilly manipulating your normal processes, it would concatenate with the others. Besides, the downside to some of those drugs is already large enough, so that there isn't a reason to hose it anymore.

That makes 4 nuyen so far.

[Mercer]

This is something that has always confused me. Granted, its been about a year since I played, and I've loaned my m&m out to a player so he can get his character ready for this Sunday (woo-hoo!), so I may be proceeding on a false assumption here, but:

Pain editors cancel out pain (okay, that part I got). Stun modifiers are ignored, but physical modifiers are still applied, usually without the player knowing. The phys ad power cancels wound modifiers both Physical and Stun up to the rating of the power.

So if a phys ad with a pain editor (and there must be at least one) were to have nine boxes of Stun and one box of Physical, and Pain Resistance 3, he'd have +3 TN# mod before the Pain Editor was switched on. After the PE, he'd be back to zero (in my wild interpretation, not by the book). If he took a Moderate Physical Wound, bringing him up to 4 boxes in that column, he'd have a +2 TN# mod for exceeding his Pain Resistance, but he still wouldn't be able to feel it.

Since the PE and PR do the same thing differently, I think they should work together. Since combat drugs do the same thing the same way as PR, I think they shouldn't stack and only the best should apply.

[toturi]

Pain Editor does not stack with adept Pain Resistance or anything that gives Pain Resistance equivalent to the Adept power. (p79 M&M)

High Pain Resistance resists High Pain. Hence an adept with "low" Pain Resistance can ignore the "low" pain of a Light Wound and let the High Pain Resistance take care of the rest.

[Mercer]

I may be confusing terms.

Frinstance, if a phys as with PR 6 took a combat drug that gave him PR 4, if they stacked he'd have PR 10, and if they didn't stack he'd have PR 6 (the best thing going). If during the combat he lost a bunch of Magic (say, to Essence Drain), he could give up the PR 6, and still have the PR 4 from the drug.

A Pain Editor works differently than the Pain Resistance Power. It ignores Stun up to 9 boxes. You're either fine or unconscious, and the amount of Pain Resistance you have from any source is immaterial since you can't do better than 9 boxes of Feelin' No Pain. For physical wounds, the Pain Editor doesn't really work at all. You can't feel the pain, but you still have the wound penalties (which begs the point, do wound mods have something to do with the distraction of being in pain, but lets leave that for now).

A Pain Editor and Pain Resistance are never really stepping on each others toes. In the Stun column, the Pain Editor works better (unless the Phys ad had PR 9, but we'll assume thats the exception that proves the rule). In the Physical Column, any PR works better than the PE, since the PE doesn't modify Physical Wound Penalties.

In neither case can they be said to truly "stack", because they don't add together. Now, if by stacking the book means that when a PE is active the PR isn't, then that doesn't make sense to me.

If a phys ad with PR 3 had Mod wounds in Physical and Stun, he'd have no penalties. If he took a light Stun then, he'd have +1 TN# for being lightly wounded. If he didn't like that he could switch on his Pain Editor, nullifying his PR. So he'd feel no pain, but he'd have a +2 TN# mod for being Moderately Physically Wounded.

[toturi]

Canon does not say that Pain Resistance does not stack with Pain Editor or other pain bioware. It says they are incompatible. Therefore I interprete it to mean that you may have one or the other active at one time, but not both.

[Mercer]

For the phys ad with the pain editor, I can see that. If he is in no pain, perhaps his body doesn't know to Resist the injuries he has. (I guess thats the logic).

But in the example of anyone else with a Pain Editor who takes a combat drug that gives PR, it doesn't make sense to me. If kamikaze gives you 4 boxes of Pain Resistance and you take a moderate physical, you can't feel it. Then, if you take a Serious stun, you have a +1 TN# for the two boxes of stun you can feel. So you flip on the Pain Editor, the Stun stops hurting but the Pain Resistance fails so you now have +2 TN#'s for the Physical Moderate, even though you can't feel anything.

Doing it my way makes my head hurt less (which is all I really care about, anyway). PR and PE working together makes more sense to me the way I interpret how they work, and I don't have to wonder why a Pain editor and Kamikaze makes you have penalties when the Kamikaze alone does not. I'll stick to the PR/PE combo working and the PR/PR combo not stacking and if that is blatantly against Canon then I can live with it. Who knows, maybe they'll do it my way the next time all the game designers get replaced, bought out or whatever happens every four years when I have to buy new books.

[Ed Simons]

I'm not talking about Damage Compensators, that's covered in the book.

I want to know if there's anything about the compatability or lack thereof of of the adept Power and the Edge.

[Mercer]

Well, if you've read the book and the FAQs and the errata and haven't found anything, I'd say its a matter of some conjecture or gm interpretation (cue the guy who has read the book, looked up the FAQ or checked the errata to contradict me).

For my two cents, I'd say no. I'm generally against two powers that do the same thing adding their powers together directly. I may make an exception for combat drugs, but I kind of doubt it. Thats how I'd rule it, ymmv.

[tjn]