Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - inflicting advantages with negative limitations

McAllister · 09-18-2016, 04:12 AM

I thought the issue was Temporary Disadvantage on Advantage Afflictions and how confusing the whole good-and-bad trait bundling gets (like, if I'm afflicting people with Shadow Form as a DISadvantage, do the Enhancements that allow the target to speak/move in 3D reduce the value of the Disad? Probably?), but I'll bite.

I don't think fiction has any examples of a person who has no Magic Resistance or similar ability being willing to accept a spell/effect and failing to do so just because the effect isn't... what... strong enough? What is this even modeling? What compelling interest is there in forbidding people from waiving a resistance roll if they don't want to resist? Is it game balance? Some sort of verisimilitude? Ingrained mistrust of people using Affliction to afflict Advantages? If I knew why it were important that beneficial Afflictions could fail, I'd have a better idea of how to make the system better. At the moment, though, "anyone without Magic Resistance" (or similar) "can waive any Affliction resistance roll" seems like the sane route to go, to me.

As for duration, use Fixed Duration? Come up with an Enhancement that says "lasts for 3 minutes or the target's MoS on a HT roll, whichever is longer," which shouldn't be more than +10%? Something like that should work well.

If GURPS 5e changes one thing from 4e and that change is building an entirely separate Benediction advantage, I'll think it was a good call.

09-18-2016, 04:12 AM	#18
McAllister Join Date: Jun 2013	Re: inflicting advantages with negative limitations I thought the issue was Temporary Disadvantage on Advantage Afflictions and how confusing the whole good-and-bad trait bundling gets (like, if I'm afflicting people with Shadow Form as a DISadvantage, do the Enhancements that allow the target to speak/move in 3D reduce the value of the Disad? Probably?), but I'll bite. I don't think fiction has any examples of a person who has no Magic Resistance or similar ability being willing to accept a spell/effect and failing to do so just because the effect isn't... what... strong enough? What is this even modeling? What compelling interest is there in forbidding people from waiving a resistance roll if they don't want to resist? Is it game balance? Some sort of verisimilitude? Ingrained mistrust of people using Affliction to afflict Advantages? If I knew why it were important that beneficial Afflictions could fail, I'd have a better idea of how to make the system better. At the moment, though, "anyone without Magic Resistance" (or similar) "can waive any Affliction resistance roll" seems like the sane route to go, to me. As for duration, use Fixed Duration? Come up with an Enhancement that says "lasts for 3 minutes or the target's MoS on a HT roll, whichever is longer," which shouldn't be more than +10%? Something like that should work well. If GURPS 5e changes one thing from 4e and that change is building an entirely separate Benediction advantage, I'll think it was a good call.