The Resurrection Lite Reign of Terror

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

And a dead guy has how much current potential?

In a setting with revolving door death nearly the same as he did when alive.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

Do they? Who says?

By comparing it to the "Resurrection Lite" ability, which costs 25 CP, after the fact, you're indicating that the ability is given at a cost. Otherwise, your argument is barely a strawman and more apples to orangutans.

Because, otherwise, your argument becomes:

“OMG! Letting another player purchase an ability that gives other PCs the option to purchase Extra Life by sacrificing 25 of their character points is offensive to the person who thoughtfully bought Extra Life. It’s like making Flight a free ability, granted in a town, where no one has to pay points for it, thereby screwing the guy who paid 40 CP for Flight.”

The first part is a true and balanced statement as RPK has explained. The second is fear-mongering at worst and a dishonest comparison at best. I know several gamers who make comparisons like this all the time, and, to date, they’ve never been right.

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

Now that's a keeper!

You're welcome.

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

And a dead guy has how much current potential?

That's an irrelevant question.

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

I don't see that written anywhere.

The Characters book:

Originally Posted by Character, pg 55

You can come back from the dead! No matter how sure your foes were that they killed you, you didn’t really die. Work out the details with the GM.

I know you can read. Nowhere does that say that you have to have any downtime.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Honestly most of jeff's objections (in that I'm even able to understand them) seem to fail in this way. Any "resurrection" is going to be setting dependent, and the mechanics of the ability are going to be very dependent on what that actually means in the setting.

It's not the effect resurrection I'm protesting. I am protesting that the components chosen for this build just don't do the job they are said to be doing. This is a de facto rewriting of rules and breaks the "generic" and "system" principles, since the same component features and traits appear elsewhere. For instance, if dead people enjoy the same HT score they had in life, other things that are keyed to HT will presumably work on dead people.

You are claiming that this is all setting dependent, but DF says, "Divine Favor is compatible with any setting featuring at least one interventionist deity; it is not tied to any particular genre." If they say they are going take on all those different settings and genres, I expect to see some rule machinery for handling all those different settings and genres, or some commentary to address why it's not there.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

That's an irrelevant question.

Then you fail to support your introduction of "current potential" as a justifying cost of raising those same dead people.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I know you can read. Nowhere does that say that you have to have any downtime.

"Work out the details with the GM" is not a guaranteed "get out of death free" card. Hank Azaria gets lucky and ends up between Godzilla's toes, but when the Lone Ranger goes down in hail of bullets, he spends months recovering in the care of another.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

You are claiming that this is all setting dependent, but DF says, "Divine Favor is compatible with any setting featuring at least one interventionist deity; it is not tied to any particular genre." If they say they are going take on all those different settings and genres, I expect to see some rule machinery for handling all those different settings and genres, or some commentary to address why it's not there.

The Raise Dead miracle is specifically called out in a box and contrasted with the more expensive Resurrection build.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

For instance, if dead people enjoy the same HT score they had in life, other things that are keyed to HT will presumably work on dead people.

This is correct. Dead bodies do have HT scores, just like all inanimate objects. It's appropriate to use the original HT score, as that way someone who was really, really healthy would be easier to bring back than someone who died due to being super-sickly and old.

Also, you are correct that the Raise Dead ability is novel and 'makes new rules' or whatever, but you are incorrect that this makes GURPS evil, RPK stupid, or otherwise destroys your fun and makes everything imbalanced. It's simply different, and it's specifically listed as an ability that should only be allowed in a setting where death is cheap.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Allow me to try this with a different approach.

Jeff? You've told us why you feel this is broken. We, obviously, disagree with you. Let us put that aside for a moment; we can come back to it later if you really want to go round and round about it.

What can we tell you that would solve the problem you perceive? The author has spoken, other posters have spoken, nothing we are saying is helping resolve your difficulty. What can we do that would?

It's published. It's official. Nothing said or done is going to change that. SJG isn't going to recall the PDF and edit out those bits. It will be used as precedent and as reference from the point of publication forward. This is all stuff that we can't "fix" for a variety of reasons.

What, within our limitations, can we do to make it better for you?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Langy

This is correct. Dead bodies do have HT scores, just like all inanimate objects. It's appropriate to use the original HT score, as that way someone who was really, really healthy would be easier to bring back than someone who died due to being super-sickly and old.

The "dead body" is not just an object, it's a privileged object - because it's getting a HT score based on ex-cardiovascular health, ex-immune-system-robustness, etc, which no sensible dead body should have. This seems to be one of the things that's bothering Jeff.

But in the context of resurrection by a divine power, a dead body is clearly in a privileged class different from an exact copy of a body created on a 3D printer or via a Making and Breaking spell or the like. One is an ex-person and can be resurrected, the other is an object.

And in a book about divine powers, including powers about settling undead creatures, protecting ex-persons from being turned undead (but not that 3D printed body or Making and Breaking copied body), and the like, this is pretty consistent IMO. The setting has to include actual souls, not abstract bits of life force that are allocated to different bits of meat, but things that include the characters core identity, psyche, mind-state, and all those things that are maintained even when you get turned into a squirrel and have a "perfectly normal" squirrel brain.

On a strictly physical universe, or one where a soul is "merely" an animating energy with no personally identifying features, being turned into a squirrel should completely mangle your identity. You definitely shouldn't turn into a squirrel with the intelligence of your former body.

IN many cosmologies, there's a place for what I can only describe as "your character sheet" to go. In a purely physical one, that's in your meat. In most games with divine powers, it's not.

[PK]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

It's not the effect resurrection I'm protesting. I am protesting that the components chosen for this build just don't do the job they are said to be doing.

They do to my eye. I'm afraid I just don't see anything broken with the build, sorry. Also, it really feels like your "primary complaint" in this thread keeps changing. A few posts back it was the cost. Now it's the specific components. I can't help feeling that if someone manages to answer this one to your satisfaction, that something else will bother you about it.

This is a de facto rewriting of rules and breaks the "generic" and "system" principles, since the same component features and traits appear elsewhere. For instance, if dead people enjoy the same HT score they had in life, other things that are keyed to HT will presumably work on dead people.

And they do! If you were to use Affliction 1 (HT; Advantage, Invisibility) on a dead body, said corpse would resist with HT. If it failed, said corpse would become invisible for minutes equal to its margin of failure. That's the way it's supposed to work.

If they say they are going take on all those different settings and genres, I expect to see some rule machinery for handling all those different settings and genres, or some commentary to address why it's not there.

Everything I felt needed to be said on the matter is in the Resurrection Lite box. In a setting where death is cheap and the afterlife has a revolving door, Raise Dead and Resurrection are both available. In a setting where death is serious, and can only be overcome with great difficulty, only Resurrection is available. (And obviously, if the GM wants death to be final, no matter what, he can declare Resurrection off limits as well.) I still think that sums it up just fine and have nothing to add to it.

Anyway, it's become obvious that this is going to have to be a case where we agree to disagree. I'd recommend you not use Raise Dead in your games if you dislike it, and if/when the same build shows up in future books, feel free to give them a pass because of it; I'll understand.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

And they do! If you were to use Affliction 1 (HT; Advantage, Invisibility) on a dead body, said corpse would resist with HT. If it failed, said corpse would become invisible for minutes equal to its margin of failure. That's the way it's supposed to work.

It would probably not be based on the HT of the living person the body formerly belonged to, though.