Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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"Armor protects you against low levels of radiation and grants a +4 circumstance bonus to saving throws against higher levels of radiation."
So unless the crew was naked for some reason, it's probably not going to affect them.
In the event that the crew was naked and not protected by armor, I *think* the DC for low dose of radiation is 13, causes minor hp dmg, and a penalty on con based checks and DC's. Those are probably not going to affect a spaceship combat, so even in this case it would seem that just ignoring the radiation is best.
If for some reason the crew is naked, AND the combat lasts long enough that they are in risk of radiation poisoning killing them and/or some sort of boarding party happens or something, probably need to re-evaluate the situation and/or roll the checks, but for the most part, it should not affect anything in any meaningful way.
(disclaimer: I haven't actually gotten into any spaceship combats yet and so I'm not super familiar with those rules)
Contributor
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"Armor protects you against low levels of radiation and grants a +4 circumstance bonus to saving throws against higher levels of radiation."
Only when armor environmental seals are activated.
That said, the kind of dose one would get from walking around close (ish) to a radioactive source is significantly less than the amount one would get (all at once) from an explosive (implosiv...you get the picture) one.
A weapon with this special property creates a wave of harmful radiation (see page 403) that penetrates shields and starship hulls. Living creatures on a starship struck by an irradiating weapon are subjected to the level of radiation noted in parentheses for 1d4 rounds of starship combat.
If it's strong enough to penetrate shields and hull, it's strong enough to penetrate personal armor. As such, I have PCs roll their saves each round. Note that there is no threat of radiation sickness until the character becomes "impaired" on the poison track (Healthy—Weakened—Impaired—Debilitated—Unconscious—Dead), and even then they are only "latent" with no symptoms showing up for 24 hours (this is what I believe Michael Clarke was referring to, above).
The OP's question is a good one, since scenarios don't usually give stats for NPC ship crews aside from their bonuses for their crew roles. In those rare cases when PCs have used nukes successfully, I've used the tier of the enemy ship as the saving throw bonus for the NPCs.
That said, the first few negative effects of radiation won't really matter for NPCs (unless the PCs will be facing that ship crew in ground combat later) unless they are exposed to 4+ rounds of radiation (or are relatively low level).
Weakened
The victim takes a –2 penalty to Fortitude saves, Constitution checks, and Constitution-based DCs. Every time the victim attempts a Fortitude save against the poison—whether he succeeds or fails—he loses Hit Points as per on initial exposure.
Impaired
The victim takes an additional –2 penalty to the affected checks, and the DCs of his spells and special abilities decrease by 2.
Debilitated
Strenuous actions cause the victim pain. If he takes a standard action, he immediately loses 1 Hit Point.
Unconscious
The victim is unconscious and can’t be woken by any means.
Dead
The victim dies.
Weakened, Impaired, and Debilitated won't inflict any mechanical penalties on ship combat (aside from low level enemies who might be KO'd from hit point loss), but Unconscious/Dead takes that enemy completely out of the fight. If the PCs manage to irradiate an enemy engineer or gunner, it could translate into a major advantage during a fight, so I do try to keep track of it when running the more difficult starship encounters (#1-13, #1-19, #2-00, etc.).
...This is a (very) long-winded way of saying that I fully concur with the OP in that it would be very nice to have a standardized way of calculating saving throws for NPC crews when faced with nuclear (or biological/etc.) weapons!
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Contributor
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Page 304 CRB. Irradiate property. Every nuke missile that hits subjects the crew to 1d4 rounds of radiation poison. So with a typical load of 5 nukes, you could be doing 5d4 rounds of radiation poison damage in a starship combat. There is a very real chance that an NPC will fail enough to drop unconscious or die.
That said, the first few negative effects of radiation won't really matter for NPCs (unless the PCs will be facing that ship crew in ground combat later) unless they are exposed to 4+ rounds of radiation (or are relatively low level).
As a general rule, bonuses and penalties from the same source don't stack, so the duration would just be the longest of whichever missile(s) roll highest on the d4s.
Note that this is not a disagreement! Assuming you do hit with all 5 of your missiles (also assuming that you fire and hit with them in consecutive turns), that would be a maximum of 8 rounds, which is definitely enough to KO or kill NPCs who fail their saves. Nestled somewhere in my rambling reply above I mentioned that I was using the NPC ship tier as the saving throw modifier since I hadn't found any guidance otherwise, but I'm in agreement with the OP that it would be a nice thing to have!
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That's assuming the other crew doesn't go "Oh hell, they're nuking us, Personal protective equipment up!" as a move action followed by ..whatever action starship combat is.
Radiation doesn't do anything in a round for starship combat
Radiation
Type poison, emanation (see above); Save Fortitude (see chart)
Track Constitution; Frequency 1/round
Effect At each state of impaired and beyond, the victim must succeed at a DC 18 Fortitude saving throw or contract the radiation sickness disease (see below).
Cure none
First round of the con track is weakened.
Weakened The victim takes a –2 penalty to Fortitude saves, Constitution checks, and Constitution-based DCs. Every time the victim attempts a Fortitude save against the poison—whether he succeeds or fails—he loses Hit Points as per on initial exposure.
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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That's assuming the other crew doesn't go "Oh hell, they're nuking us, Personal protective equipment up!" as a move action followed by ..whatever action starship combat is.
Radiation doesn't do anything in a round for starship combat
Radiation
Type poison, emanation (see above); Save Fortitude (see chart)
Track Constitution; Frequency 1/round
Effect At each state of impaired and beyond, the victim must succeed at a DC 18 Fortitude saving throw or contract the radiation sickness disease (see below).
Cure none
First round of the con track is weakened.
Weakened The victim takes a –2 penalty to Fortitude saves, Constitution checks, and Constitution-based DCs. Every time the victim attempts a Fortitude save against the poison—whether he succeeds or fails—he loses Hit Points as per on initial exposure.
So... your assumption is that every crew member on every ship has high enough quality armor to grant immunity to the medium radiation of the heavy nuclear missles (level 7+), if they activate their seals as a standard action before going back to work?
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So... your assumption is that every crew member on every ship has high enough quality armor to grant immunity to the medium radiation of the heavy nuclear missles (level 7+), if they activate their seals as a standard action before going back to work?
By the time the party has access to nukes .. yeah probably.
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Contributor
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I think the rules are deliberately ambiguous about how long a starship round is, but its definitely not the same amount of time as a ground combat round. My assumption is that all of the Nuke's 1d4 rounds of radiation poison fits entirely within a starship combat round.
Because the 1d4 rounds is in the description for nuclear weapons (in the starship weapons section), I've always operated on the assumption that it means rounds of starship combat (otherwise it wouldn't be in that chapter of the book).
Even if the rounds overlap, the second missile is a new source of radiation and would require a new save for its radiation. You can have two sources of poison effect a creature in the same round, and the creature would have to make separate saves for each source.
Yes, they'd need new saves, or else the duration wouldn't extend for subsequent missiles.
Probably ok to assume a CR 7 NPC is immune to med radiation.
I would not make that assumption. In starship weapons, the irradiate quality specifically says it bypasses hull and shields. That means personal armor environmental protections, too (which are defined elsewhere as interlocking physical seals and shields).
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I posted my analysis of irradiate starship weapons in a general (non-Society) forum about 18 months ago. Here are the points:
1. A weapon with this special property creates a wave of harmful radiation that penetrates shields and starship hulls. (CRB 304)
2. If a victim is exposed to multiple doses of the same poison, she must attempt a separate save for each dose and progresses to the next state on the poison track with each failed save. (CRB 413)
3. When the GM creates her own enemy ship, the NPCs on the starship will likely have an average CR that is the same as the level of the PCs ("Crew Level," CRB page 326).
4. Using the "combatant" array from Alien Archive page 129, we find that the Fort save bonus will be equal to the CR.
So what I end up with is that each member of the crew has to make saves each round for each active irradiate source with a fortitude save bonus equal to the ship's CR.