Title says it all...

Besides stun damage, Breathtaker has two lasting effects. A -1 wound modifier for each point of damage Breathtaker inflicted and also possibly an incapacitation effect, if willpower is less than damage done by breathtaker.

But there is no duration listed for these effects... at least nowhere where I looked.

So, how long do these secondary effects last?

-CJ

as long as you have the damage.

That's one possible option. Although that seems a bit harsh.

Breathtaker has a power of 8, so even a troll with body 9 will receive 5 stun on average and has a good chance to be incapacitated (willpower 4 or less), apart from getting a nice -5 wound modifier to every action.

If both effects last until all stun damage is healed, Breathtaker is way more crippling than any other stun gas option available. CS/Tear gas, Neurostun, Nausea gas etc all deal various amounts of stun and have additional effects like disorientation or nausea that last up to a minute, I think.
It's just that no such duration is listed for Breathtaker's effects.

-CJ

Actually, I believe that Disorientation and Naseua last for 10 Minutes, and Paralysis last for an Hour, but your point is indeed taken...

No, not until all is healed. As you recover the stun damage, the penalties go away. One less stun damage, one less -1 penalty. And once stun damage is less than willpower again, incapacitation goes away. It is still fairly powerful stuff, but so is a sniper rifle, and so is narcojet.

Ah, okay... This should work. Thank you!

And you are right, than... fairly powerful stuff. Way more nasty than I originally thought.
This stuff needs to be used with care.

-CJ

It really *should* have a duration, though. I think 10 minutes is more than fair.

It does have a duration; until it has been purged from the system, mechanically modeled by healing the Damage caused (The toxin sticks around in the body until the damage has been mitigated, resembling a slow purge from the body's cells; not all toxins in the bvody go inert after just 10 minutes after all)... for a Troll, it will probably only last an hour, for a Human, it could be a bit longer...

As with some Toxins, the best bet is to not be affected at all...

It really *should* have a set toxin duration, though. I think 10 minutes is more than fair.

I disagree, its a toxin that inhibits the body's ability to transport and utilize oxygen, if you heal the stun damage in 2 minutes you are going to force the crisis of breath for 10 minutes when the body has clearly already overcome the effects of the substance.
it *should* be played as it is in the book.

Except the book doesn't say anything about linking the effect to Stun damage.

It says it's like Agony. Agony is a persistent Disease effect that only goes away when you reduce the Disease to 0, by taking repeated Disease Resistance tests (using the Speed as the interval). If we do the logical thing and use these rules for the Breathtaker, then the Interval is only 1 Combat Turn. With Power 8, the average Human will suffer for 8 Combat Turns.

To me, that seemed too short (quickly reaching 0 for most runners), so I said 10 Minutes (like Disorientation). *shrug*

Hmm, I always pictured Breathtaker's effects being closer to the bronchoconstriction caused by Anaphylaxis.

Reading up on the Toxic spirit power called Anaphylaxis though, it's not even a little similar, game-wise.


Wow, what does that even mean? It doesn't say that the damage is unresisted, so...
Anyway, true anaphylaxis lasts hours to days if left untreated.

But, yeah, Breathtaker is a mega-nasty almost illegal bio-chemical crowd control gas. If you're a totalitarian state looking to put down a marching mob of orks and trolls, you're going to want to see them go down and stay down for more than 10 minutes. Thirty minutes for the standard "heal this stun" rush-rest-test seems fine to me... If you let dudes rush the job on recovery... which isn't disallowed by RAW.. Anyway, ye olde average Ork would be back on his feet, but still hurting after 30 minutes without treatment. That's almost too quick if you're a squad of jackboots trying to cart off 50 angry metas.

I still don't see where it says that it's even related to the Stun Damage. They're two separate effects of the toxin. Most toxins cause damage along with secondary effect, and none of them appear to link the two. It's just that basically all the other secondary effects have (you guessed it) pre-set durations.

Breathtaker's effect specifically says it's like Agony, so the only reasonable thing to do is use the Agony rules, or house-rule a set duration like the others. If 10 minutes is too short, use 30, but 10 minutes is how long CS gas lasts.

Breathtaker certainly isn't "a mega-nasty almost illegal bio-chemical crowd control gas"; it's got the same Avail/Legality as Narcoject, slightly more Avail than Nausea Gas, much less than Neuro-Stun. It's rarer than CS gas (same Legality), which we can dismiss as the result of CS having existed for 150 years.

I think I see where you are getting your confusion why you can't see its related, see it says right in the first line of page 84 "The character suffers a –1 wound modifier for every point of Power that is unresisted."
that should clear up your issue

Which could be considered coincidental rather than causeual. I think he is trying to say that the fact that the stun damage and the wound modifier are the same are simply coincidence because they are both based on the same thing, not because one causes the other.

Or maybe he just didn't see that, I don't know.

Exactly, Karoline: the fact that Power causes each of them in no way says that the -1's are linked to the Stun being healed or not. If they wanted it to be a 'bonus Stun' effect, they could have easily phrased it that way. They could have also easily mentioned a time limit, which is why I think it should function as Agony. It's pretty unclear, but it's clearly *not* linked to the presence of the toxin-specific Stun damage.

It says in the description that it is known to kill people with prior breathing conditions. That's why I say it's "almost illegal," rather than looking at its availability to determine that opinion.

Are you going to say that a Predator IV is less lethal than a Hammerli 620S because it's half the availability? Of course not. Those things aren't related. That's just a measure of how much is available on the street.

What remains is that Breathtaker is a bio-weapon using endothelin derivatives to induce pulmonary hypertension, and I can only assume that the tachykinin peptide derivative is related to substance P, a neuropeptide closely tied to the brain's transmission of a feeling called overwhelming pain. So, Breathtaker, one, severely restricts oxygen flow and, two, chemically kicks you in the balls harder than you can possibly be kicked. I guess, the amount of time it usually takes a guy to get up off the floor after having his testicles booted into his throat is roughly ten minutes of crying and possibly puking. So, maybe ten minutes is fine... (not very likely though.)

As long as you still feel that pain, you're not doing much. The effect of this pain is modeled with Stun Damage, so...