Dr. Axiom's House Rules and Benchmarks



My ICONS Benchmarks
Here are some useful benchmarks I have been using for my ICONS games. I have tried to stay as close to the spirit of the scale presented in the book as possible. ICONS is really vague about the higher and lower level numbers. These have been helpful for me as a starting point.

Weight (Lifting) 1 30 lb. - Heavy Sack 2 50 lb. - Small Child 3 100 lb. - Several Heavy Sacks 4 200 lb. - Adult Man 5 500 lb. - Motorcycle 6 2 tons (4000 lb.) - Car 7 60 tons - Tank 8 200 tons - Train Engine 9 10,000s tons - Building 10 1,000,000s tons - Mountain

Speed (Super Speed and Flight) 1 40 mph - Horse 2 50 mph - Lion 3 75 mph - Fast Bird, Cheetah 4 100 mph - Average Car 5 150 mph - Fast Car 6 500 mph - Airplane 7 800 mph (Mach 1) - Jet Plane 8 3,000 mph - Supersonic Plane 9 10,000s mph - Rocket 10 1,000,000s mph - Interplanetary Speeds

Distance (Leaping and Teleportation) 1 50 feet - Fifth floor of a building, Across the street 2 100 feet - Tenth floor of a building, length of basketball court 3 250 feet - Redwood, more than half a football field 4 500 feet - Top of Golden Gate Bridge, length baseball field 5 1,000 feet - Eifel Tower, Empire State Building, length of Cruise ship 6 1 mile - Tallest building in the world, length of Brooklyn Bridge or National Mall 7 3 miles - Tall Mountain, width of Manhattan, across town 8 30 miles - Edge of Space, to a nearby city, English Channel 9 100s miles - Orbit, across a State 10 10,000s miles - On your way to the Moon, halfway around the Earth

Damage (Powers and Invulnerability) 1 Very Small Rocks 2 Sticks, Stones 3 Knives, Pistol 4 Rifle, Shotgun, Heavy Pistol 5 Assault Rifle, Grenade 6 Vehicle Weapon, Chain Gun, Small Missile 7 Missile, Torpedo, High Explosives 8 Cruise Missile, Heavy Artillery 9 Bunker Buster, Tactical Nuclear Weapon 10 Early Atomic Bomb Off the Scale: Large Nuclear Weapons, Volcanic Eruption

General House Rules
Spending Stamina for Extra Damage For dealing with that pesky villain whose Invulnerability is just 1 level higher than your most damaging attack, use this house rule. You may increase the your Damage by +1 for one round by spending 2 points of Stamina. You spend the Stamina before you see if you hit or not, so it might be a good idea good to couple it with Determined Effort. With GM permission you may spend 4 Stamina to get +2 on damage.

This is also to reflect the in-genre scenario where a hero pushes themselves with an all-out attack that leaves them winded.

Moderate Successes Moderate Successes represent only a minimum outcome in combat. After calculating for Invulnerability, any Damage done is capped at half the Power or Strength level rounded up. This causes combat between equally matched opponents to last longer. It also means that a high Prowess or Coordination hero with low Stamina, will not get knocked out by one lucky hit from a high Damage, but poorly skilled villain. It also serves to make Invulnerability slightly less important in combat.

So a villain with Strength 8 would only do 4 points of damage with a moderate success on a Prowess attack against our hero. If the hero had Invulnerability 3, he would still suffer 4 points of damage (8 damage - 3 Invulnerability = 5 which is reduced to a max of 4 because it was only a moderately successful attack). However if he had Invulnerability 5, the villain would only do 3 damage as normal.

Power Stunts A Power Stunt always succeeds if you spend 1 point of Determination on it. You still roll however to see if there are any negative side effects. Success means that the power stunt works fine. Failure means that it works but has some nasty side effect. Perhaps is causes some undesirable collateral damage. Or you could take Stamina damage equal to the how much you failed the roll by.

Temporary K.O.s This is a way for your hero to earn some Determination for voluntarily taking themselves out of the fight for a few rounds. Anytime your hero takes Stamina Damage, or is Slammed, they may choose to be "Dazed". They may take no actions for 1d6 rounds. When they come to their senses, they gain 1 point of Determination.

Wounding Use this instead of RAW for Slashing or Shooting attacks that result in a Major Success. Test your Strength against the Damage level of the attack.

Failure: You are wounded. Take a -1 to your choice of Prowess, Coordination, or Strength. Clutch wound dramatically. You lose all your actions for one round. Your recover from wounds the same way you do for lost Strength levels according to RAW.

Moderate Success: Just a scratch. Clutch wound dramatically. -1 to all tests for one round.

Major or Massive Success: No effect from wound.

Counter Attacks A staple of the superhero genre. When outnumbered you may choose to ready yourself to Counter Attack. Your Dodging and Evading tests are at -1 for the round, but for every opponent that misses, you get a free Prowess or Coordination attack against them.

High Coordination and Strength Heros with high Coordination or Strength can run faster, or jump higher than normal humans. For heros with Coordination at 6 or higher, treat them as if they had Super-speed at their Ability level -5. So a hero with Coordination 7, would run at the same speed a someone with Superspeed 2.

For heros with these Strength at 6 or higher, treat them as if they had Leaping at their Ability level -5.

Alternatively, the GM may allow Super-speed or Leaping to be taken as bonus powers instead.

Slams A target that is successfully slammed takes 1 point of Stamina damage regardless of Invulnerability.

House Ruled Powers
Fast Attack This power against a single opponent can be a little over-powered. When fighting a single opponent, you may make extra attacks with this power, but you only choose the best result. So if you get 3 attacks with Fast Attack, choose the highest roll out of the 3 rolls and only apply Damage once.

Movement Rules using Zones
A zone is an ambiguous unit a measurement, intentionally so. Most of the time a zone will be whatever makes sense for the map you are using. But if you want a quick and dirty estimate, say it is about a 50 foot square.

Normal Movement

Movement within a Zone is a free action As a supplemental Action you may move to an adjacent Zone. -1 to your regular action. As a Full Action, you may move a number of Zones equal to your Coordination. Reduced by appropriate Barrier Value

Movement Powers
Flight and Super-speed Movement within a Zone is a free action. As a supplemental Action you may move a number of Zones equal to your Power Level. Reduced by appropriate Barrier Values. As a Full Action, you may move a number of Zones equal to your Power Level + 5. Reduced by appropriate Barrier Values.

Wall-Crawling and Swinging If you have an appropriately tall structure, you may incorporate vertical movement just like Flight. All rules of Normal Movement apply except you substitute your Power Level for Coordination where appropriate.

Climbing

As a Full action, you may climb up or down 1 Zone. If you want to use gravity to help you move down, you may make a Controlled Fall.

Controlled Fall

By grabbing protrusions, drain pipes, gargoyles, etc. on you way down you may make a rapid safe descent. Make a Coordination test against the number of Zones fallen. If you fail take damage equal to the difference.