Aberrant RPG - Agg Across the World

[metaphysician]

Okay, having experience in all the major game lines WW has put out to date, I have seen the term "aggravated damage" used to refer to a number of different things. I categorize these into four groups:

1. World of Darkness 1.0 Agg: Aggravated Damage is, at base, about causing lethal wounds that are not healable by supernatural means. Most of the common types of agg are also unsoakable by normal means, but this is always due to the agg being a special racial vulnerability. Sunlight does agg to vampires, for instance, but not because it is an agg attack; its because vamps have a special susceptible of taking unsoakable agg. This is born out by the fact that the more generic agg attacks are soakabe by lethal soak. Also, agg attacks make no difference normally when used on normal humans; they function as lethal.

( this is subject to some variance, as the rulesets between the umpteen game lines are not always consistent. still, this seems to be the general rule )

2. Aeonverse Agg: Aggravated damage is, usually, disintegration, total tissue destruction, plasma vaporization, or similar attacks that cause total destruction of the target. Agg is unsoakable by normal means, and is unhealable except by superhuman means ( at least default nova recovery rate ). Certain attacks inflict unsoakable lethal damage, like Bioentropy Storm; this is *not* the same as aggravated damage, however.

3. Exalted Agg: Somewhat similar to Aeonverse agg, except worse. Exalted agg represents attacks that transform or destroy the target on a fundamental level. Generally speaking, being killed by agg damage inflicts soul death or the equivalent. The most extreme example, IIRC, is the Pattern Spider Bite, for which the agg represents retroactive deletion from having ever existed.

4. World of Darkness 2.0 Agg: In a complete change from all prior setup ( appropriate, in this case ), agg damage here represents a split in what used to be lethal damage. Agg is, essentially, wounds severe enough that you are actively in the process of dying, and will, absent intervention. As distinguished from lethal wounds, which put you at risk of dying, but are themselves recoverable with time.

So, any comments or disagreements about these definitions? Any suggestions on whether certain things should be changed, or applied to different lines, or whatever?

[metaphysician]

And, having read Scion. . . I'd say Scion agg falls under the Aeonverse category. Its total tissue destruction or equivalent. Hard to soak, hard to heal. But, it generally doesn't constitute utter metaphysical annihilation, like Exalted agg typically does.