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Old 03-05-2018, 10:18 AM   #13
Kromm
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Are Imbuements expensive?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bicorn View Post

I've always found the reasoning for the existence of that modifier kind of suspect. The whole point of Neutralize is that it's a weapon against a particular type of power, so why does the power get a discount for it existing?
Because it exists only for some powers. A power that lives in the same universe as an "I win!" button against it is less useful than a power that faces no such countermeasure.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bicorn View Post

Zombies don't get any point break for being vulnerable to Turn Zombie, it's just a 0-point feature.
That's because zombies are at the same time not vulnerable to things that affect the living: Death Vision, Sense Life, Soul Jar, Steal (Attribute), Steal Energy, etc. They more or less get immunity to those spells in return for vulnerability to Control Zombie, Pentagram, Sense Spirit, Turn Zombie, and Zombie Summoning. It's a tradeoff, not a uniformly positive or negative thing.

To offer a comparison: Everybody accepts that attack abilities that are affected by armor should cost less than those that bypass all armor; armor is a common countermeasure, and its existence splits the price range of attacks between a high cost for those that just ignore armor and a much lower cost for those that must deal with it. But corrosion attacks cost the same whether their special effect is "acid" or "disintegration," burning attacks cost the same whether their special effect is "fireball" or "heat ray," and so on, which is what GURPS Powers calls a "functional special effect": a description that matters in play but doesn't alter overall capability.
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