Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Price of Cumulative (+400%) if each successive use takes a cumulative -1 penalty?

Kallatari · 04-29-2017, 06:15 AM

I'd personally just use the Increased Immunity -10%/level (from GURPS Power-Ups 8) value and rules, with the tweak that the penalty applies for every successful use rather than every resisted/failed use. It gives you several variations and durations of the cumulative penalty. I've used this tweak for Healing (substituting the -2 with -3) for both Increased Immunity and Decreased Immunity in my games and it works fine.

Granted, this pricing doesn't change the fact that the limitation is minor compared to the price of the cumulative effect, but then again, I personally think cumulative effects are suppose to be powerful an expensive. I think it's fair.

As another design alternative, have you considered Limited By Margin limitation? Or I think there's a special "margin-based" limitation or enhancement when we're talking about Affliction? So instead of it being Cumulative, your bonus is based on a margin. You can try again and if you get a better result, it replaces the older one, but a worse result does nothing. Apply the Increased Immunity limitation to that, giving you the cumulative penalty when you succeed, making it more and more unlikely that future roles will get a better result. So there, you only get the -2 limitation without having to pay for Cumulative. Granted, this is NOT quite the same design concept; you're likely to get your best result on the first roll, but it does give a possibility for improvements with further rolls without needing the Cumulative enhancement, and thus at a lower price. Maybe throw in a generic "First use is at half effect, -20%" limitation so that the first roll is always lower, making it more likely for a second or subsequent roll to get a better effect. (The -20% is off the top of my head, based on an Accessibility value, and may not be the right value.)

04-29-2017, 06:15 AM	#5
Kallatari Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Ottawa, Canada	Re: Price of Cumulative (+400%) if each successive use takes a cumulative -1 penalty? I'd personally just use the Increased Immunity -10%/level (from GURPS Power-Ups 8) value and rules, with the tweak that the penalty applies for every successful use rather than every resisted/failed use. It gives you several variations and durations of the cumulative penalty. I've used this tweak for Healing (substituting the -2 with -3) for both Increased Immunity and Decreased Immunity in my games and it works fine. Granted, this pricing doesn't change the fact that the limitation is minor compared to the price of the cumulative effect, but then again, I personally think cumulative effects are suppose to be powerful an expensive. I think it's fair. As another design alternative, have you considered Limited By Margin limitation? Or I think there's a special "margin-based" limitation or enhancement when we're talking about Affliction? So instead of it being Cumulative, your bonus is based on a margin. You can try again and if you get a better result, it replaces the older one, but a worse result does nothing. Apply the Increased Immunity limitation to that, giving you the cumulative penalty when you succeed, making it more and more unlikely that future roles will get a better result. So there, you only get the -2 limitation without having to pay for Cumulative. Granted, this is NOT quite the same design concept; you're likely to get your best result on the first roll, but it does give a possibility for improvements with further rolls without needing the Cumulative enhancement, and thus at a lower price. Maybe throw in a generic "First use is at half effect, -20%" limitation so that the first roll is always lower, making it more likely for a second or subsequent roll to get a better effect. (The -20% is off the top of my head, based on an Accessibility value, and may not be the right value.)