My PCs are on their way to bring medicines to an epidemic. They have breathmasks, which I think generally filter out infections, but I thought this might be a good opportunity to make Resilience checks, as it’s such an under-utilized skill. Maybe there’s a cultural stigma to wearing them in front of the nobles of the planet? Maybe a DP flip makes one of theirs malfunction? Other thoughts?

Also, any suggestions for adjudicating difficulties and results for such checks?

I wouldn't make them make the checks if they've got masks on. You don't want to defeat the purpose of them by having them get sick anyway.

My recommendation would be to put them in a situation where their mask might be taken off or otherwise removed, so there's an extra layer of combat or role-play to have to deal with.

The general rule I try to play by is never to disadvantage my players in a way they cannot prevent or otherwise find a workaround for, but at the end of the day it's your house, so if you'd rather make them make the checks and reduce the difficulty by 1 for using the mask, then go for it!

1 hour ago, cvtheoman said:

Also, any suggestions for adjudicating difficulties and results for such checks?

Give the disease a base difficulty, probably something fairly low unless you want the players to get infected really fast. Then you can add setbacks and increase it depending on the location and situation. So like the disease may have... Average. Just being in a situation throughout a day where you'd be likely to be exposed is one Average check for the whole day's activities. If you also went to a hospital and hung out in the waiting room with 50 infected people, you'd add a setback to that check. If you went around skid-row treating homeless people you'd get 2 setback. If you were locked in a closet with an infected person for an hour you'd increase to Hard.

Yeah, I don’t plan on undoing the benefit of the mask directly. Like in the OP, I was thinking of interesting narrative ways to neutralize them. The idea of one getting blasted in a combat check or knocked off from Athletics or something is interesting.

I'm currently running an adventure with a plague-ridden planet based on Tempest Feud. My players are wearing air masks and I've made it clear to them that any dispairs/triumphs rolled will almost always be used to knock off their masks.

For the resilience check, I have a specific design for my virus where it is highly infectious but some people are immune. If exposed, the character rolls a daunting difficulty check. If they succeed they're immune otherwise they're infected. The characters themselves obviously don't know this, but my players do.

if they come down with the SW equivalent of the 'flu they should be out of game for at least week.. I had what I thought was 'a sniffle and a cold' on Friday 25th Jan (which was basically the onset of my immune system fighting the virus) kept up the paracetamol and fluids, rough as a bear's a--- on Sat & Sun, went to work and fought through it the following Monday, big mistake, out of action for Tues 29th to Sat 2nd Feb.. absolutely awful, felt like s--- on a stick...

but I did catch up on reading CoC 6th edition, going through the cards for Eldritch Horror, Forgotten Lore and Cities in Ruin, reading the Official SW Atlas, surfing various forums and finally watching 'The Eagle has landed' as the last time I watched it I was a teenager and it was a UK Bank Holiday Monday

Yeah SW 'flu should be even worse.

Lords of Nal Hutta has a swamp sickness called Fester Lung in the short module that takes place on Toydaria. That's a case where breathmasks make the check easier, but don't eliminate the need for the check completely. (It's up to you how you design your disease, so you can have one that transmits most easily through air, but has a small chance of transmitting by contact, also.) Those who fail the Average Resilience check suffer a decrease in their strain threshold, which I thought was a good way to emulate the lower energy levels you have when you're sick. Fail too many of these checks, and the character ends up with a critical injury that incurs setback dice on all their checks.

IRL, wearing masks doesn't eliminate the risk because there are other routes of contamination. The influenza virus can land on surfaces contaminating them and allowing the virus to be picked up from the surface when it is touched. If the virus is carried to the mucous membranes (nose, mouth, around the eyes, etc.) then the virus can enter. This is why there is such a big push to wash hands and be aware of what you touch (particularly your own face) when trying to avoid infections. In game terms, this would equate to Vigilance checks (not Medicine... I have seen way too many doctors that are very good at their profession but are personally sloppy when it comes to following precautions).