Hustling, Overland Elans

[LiquidBlue]

Consider the rules for long duration hustles (x2 movement rate) from the SRD.

Hustle
A character can hustle for 1 hour without a problem. Hustling for a second hour in between sleep cycles deals 1 point of nonlethal damage, and each additional hour deals twice the damage taken during the previous hour of hustling. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from hustling becomes fatigued.

A fatigued character can’t run or charge and takes a penalty of -2 to Strength and Dexterity. Eliminating the nonlethal damage also eliminates the fatigue.

Now combine this with the Elan supernatural ability Resilience

Resilience (Su): When an elan takes damage, she can spend power points to reduce its severity. As an immediate action, she can reduce the damage she is about to take by 2 hit points for every 1 power point she spends.

Obviously an Elan can use its resilience ability to reduce the nonlethal damage taken for hustling longer than an hour, and if the elan reduces the damage taken to less than one, the character is not fatigued.

What I found intriguing is the wording concerning damage taken beyond 2 hours:

each additional hour deals twice the damage taken during the previous hour of hustling.

A literal reading of this rule reveals that an elan that does not take any damage from the second hour of hustling (by reducing the damage about to be taken to 0) does not take any damage from subsequent hours. (I'll complete my logic by invoking 2x0=0)

I admit that such an interpretation is not likely to stand in any sane game. But what about the interpretation that if the PC did not take any damage from the previous hour of hustling, the following hour of hustling provokes 1 point of nonlethal damage. The precedent for such an interpretation is that the first hour of hustling does not deal damage, and an additional hour of hustling deals 1 point.

In this manner a elan can pay 1 power point each hour to avoid taking non-lethal damage. A stock elan without power point beyond their racial ones, could then hustle for three hours before they start to take non-lethal damage.

Thematicly this makes sense. Elans are in many ways vivified through psionic power; it seems to make sense that they can expend their psionic power to increase their endurance.

Thoughts?

 

[comrade raoul]

Because the hustling rules probably weren't written with characters who could reduce (but not eliminate) nonlethal damage in mind, it's hard to say whether the spirit of the rules licenses your interpretation. That said, I think you're right: it makes sense thematically and it's readily supported by a plausibly close to literal reading of the rules. If I were your DM, I'd agree with you completely.

 

[Nyeshet]

There are three ways to interpret this situation:

1) as stated, the Elan negated the first hour's worth of non-leathal damage, so they are unable to take any further non-leathal damage so long as they don't stop hustling. If they stop and start again then the cycle reverts and they will need to spend PP for Resilience to again prevent any damage or further damage from Hustling.

2) The damage of the second hour was negated. Thus, having taken no damage, it is akin to the first hour in that no non-leathal damage was received. However, every hour after the first will require Resilience to prevent one point of non-leathal damage.

3) The damage keeps building, but Resilience can be used multiple times to first negate and then lessen it. So instead of receiving non-leathal damage of 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc, the Elan using Resilience every hour (after the first) would receive non-leathal damage of: 0, 0, 0, 2, 6, 14, 30, etc. The damage is building up, but that Resilience allows the Elan to ignore some of it - their bodies healing or negating it as it occurs. Eventually it is too severe to fully negate / heal / ignore and the Elan can only lessen the damage received after a certain point.

Another consideration: does the Hustling rule deal with continuous or on again off again movement between sleep cycles? If one hustles for one hour, walks or even rests for an hour, and then hustles again does the second hustle count as the second hour between sleep cycles, or does it count as the first hour as some rest occurred between the two hustling periods? If the latter holds, then the Elan - even in the worst case last situation - could hustle for three hours, walk / rest for one (or more, perhaps up to three?), then hustle again for three hours - all without taking any damage (albeit having to use Resilience four times).


Personally, I would likely take the middle road and go with the second interpretation. So long as they are willing to use Resilience every hour after the first they can hustle all day without taking any damage - as the damage never has a chance to start - let alone build up.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Damage dealt =/= Damage Taken

Determine how much damage the hustle deals (which increases every hour).

Then determine how much damage the Elan will take (which can be ameliorated by special abilities).

 

[Nyeshet]

So far we have a vote for each option:

1) comrade raoul

2) Nyeshet

3) Patryn of Elvenshae

 

[Hypersmurf]

Damage dealt =/= Damage Taken

Exactly.

Determine how much damage the hustle deals (which increases every hour).

How much damage the hustle deals, is twice the damage that was taken in the last hour.

The damage taken by the Elan in the previous hour was 0, even though the damage dealt in the previous hour was 1. But the damage dealt in this hour is not related to the damage dealt in the previous hour.

-Hyp.