An effective "instant death, no save" ability

[awesomenessofme1]

I didn't come up with this, it came from Christopher R. Rice on the GURPS Discord as part of a conversation we had about this topic. But I really like it, so I thought I'd share it here as well.

Toxic Attack 25 (equivalent of 7d) (Cosmic, ignores DR, +300%; Symptom (Fragile (Double Unnatural), 2/3 HP), +100%) [140]

It's not cheap, but any mundane living creature with 25 HP or less will die instantly with no resistance roll. Symptoms work automatically upon reaching a certain threshold of lost HP, and Fragile (Double Unnatural) means that reaching 0 HP is instant death. This also means that you're working off a relatively low base point cost, so if you need to add additional enhancements to make it more effective or shore up limitations, it's pretty cheap.

[Varyon]

As an alternative, provided you can come up with something that would count as Very Common but that most targets wouldn't already have on them or otherwise be in contact with, you could build a Constant Dependency on that with base cost [-25], then give it Reduced Time 15 +300% to boost it to [-100]. Use that in place of Fragile (Double Unnatural) and a target who suffers the Symptoms would take 512 damage per second after being hit by it. 37 HP is the highest that will be affected by the Symptoms, and a total of 549 damage will take such to nearly -14xHP, so it will kill any such character almost outright (it does take a second). Arguably, even an Unkillable 2 character shouldn't be able to come back from that without assistance - you cannot regenerate HP while suffering from withdrawal from a Dependency, and the character will have that Dependency until the Symptoms heal... which won't ever happen. But of course with a Very Common Dependency, it would be a simple matter for the needed substance to be placed on the body to allow it to heal.

EDIT: A further, even more abusive concept. Take that 25 tox attack, Link it to Create 1 (Specific Substance; Link +10%; Ranged +40%; Reduced Fatigue 2 +40%) [10], then for the Symptoms give the character Weakness to a Rare Substance (that matches what your Create can make - say, gold), have it apply at a rate of 1d/min (base cost [-10] for a Rare substance), then put on enough levels of Reduced Time to boost that 3.5/minute to 382/second or more. That calls for 110d/second (which is actually 385 damage with Fixed +0%), which we get with Reduced Time 13 +260%, boosting the value of that Weakness to [36]. Thus, you're only looking at +36% for the Symptoms, which will drop your price - you're looking at going from +100% to +46% (including the Link), for around [125], or [135] when factoring in the Linked Create. So you make the target deathly allergic to gold while also creating a 10 lb lump of gold on top of them. Note if you upgrade to Link +20% the price of Create is unchanged (it's actually rounded up from [9.5]) and the Toxic Attack jumps up to [128] - still within our budget, but now you can just make someone deathly allergic and threaten them with creating their allergen, or create up to 10 lb of a potentially-useful substance.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

I didn't come up with this, it came from Christopher R. Rice on the GURPS Discord as part of a conversation we had about this topic. But I really like it, so I thought I'd share it here as well.

It's not no save, since the target can dodge, and of course it's completely ineffective against targets with immunity to metabolic hazards. But yes, if you want 'death at zero' effects, symptoms is the way to go.

[Anders]

It breaks the recommendation on p. B109:

The GM should consider limiting Symptoms to attacks that inflict 1d damage or less.

But I consider these things to be more like guidelines than an actual code.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anders

It breaks the recommendation on p. B109:

The GM should consider limiting Symptoms to attacks that inflict 1d damage or less.

But I consider these things to be more like guidelines than an actual code.

(Italics replaced with Underline for clarity)

It's not nearly as quick, but consider the following:

Omae wa mou shindeiru: Toxic Attack 1 point (Cosmic, Ignores DR +300%; Cyclic, 1 second, 24 additional cycles +2400%; Link +20%; Symptoms: Weakness (Rare substance; 1d per minute; Fixed Damage +0%; Reduced Time 13 +260%) +18%; No Wounding -50%) [28] + Create 1 (Specific Substance; Ranged +40%; Reduced Fatigue 2 +40%; Link +20%; Variable Delay +20%) [11]

With this, you hit the target with your attack and set a time for the rare substance to pop into existence; if the target has taken enough virtual damage for the Symptoms to trigger when this happens, they die immediately; if not the created substance sticks around for 10 seconds (if they then cross the threshold and are still in contact with the substance, they'll die instantly). Optionally, you can inform them of the timing of the delay; don't be surprised if they respond with "Nani!?" before dying messily (-10xHP isn't pleasant to look at). This can kill any foe up to 37 HP who is vulnerable to Toxic damage in at most 25 seconds. And it's cheap to start with, and cheap to enhance - base cost of the attack is [1], base cost of the Create (if you need to be able to make it form under the target's armor, say) is [5].

EDIT: Note you can speed it up by boosting it to 1d, reducing the number of additional cycles to 7, and adding Fixed Damage +0% (so it's 3.5 per second - which I'd do as 3 the first second, 4 the next, then 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4). That boosts the base cost of the attack to [4] and makes Cyclic only cost +700%; you wind up with the Toxic Attack side costing [44], but it takes at most 8 seconds to prime the target to kersplode. With a total of 28 damage, this will actually affect targets with up to 42 HP.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's not no save, since the target can dodge, and of course it's completely ineffective against targets with immunity to metabolic hazards. But yes, if you want 'death at zero' effects, symptoms is the way to go.

The original context of the conversation was killing living targets. Burning or crushing damage would do the same thing just as effectively, but would cost more. Active defenses can be removed by RAW one way or another, it's just written simply here. There's no way to do this with no resistance using something like Affliction.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

The original context of the conversation was killing living targets. Burning or crushing damage would do the same thing just as effectively, but would cost more. Active defenses can be removed by RAW one way or another, it's just written simply here. There's no way to do this with no resistance using something like Affliction.

You can do it via reducing the target to -5xHP. It's just more expensive.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Anthony

You can do it via reducing the target to -5xHP. It's just more expensive.

Well, yes, that was my initial plan. It's remarkably inefficient, though.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Well, yes, that was my initial plan. It's remarkably inefficient, though.

Since we're (arguably) abusing the hell out of Symptoms here, I had another idea. Reduced HP, as a Disadvantage, is only worth [-2], and thus is +2% as a 2/3 damage Symptom (+4% as 1/2, +6% as 1/3). If you want to kill someone with up to 25 HP instantly, you could grab Toxic Attack 4d+3 (Cosmic, Ignores DR +300%; Symptoms: Reduced HP 23 +46%; Fixed Damage +0%) [88]. That does 17 HP Injury to the target, which triggers the Symptoms on anyone with HP 25 or lower, which means the character actually only has (at most) 2 HP. But a 2 HP character who has taken 17 HP Injury is actually below -5xHP (specifically, they're at -7.5xHP), and thus is dead. Note this requires that the Reduced HP effect involve injury being retained rather than being scaled down along with HP. If that isn't the case, you could have the attack kill the target in two seconds by putting Cyclic, 1 second, 1 additional cycle +100% on 10 or 11 points of the damage (if it scales down, 17 HP Injury on a 25 HP character results in a character who is at either 1 HP or 0 HP, and you need to get them to -10) - or better, boost the HP reduction to 24 (no change in cost) and now you have still have a character with 1 or 0 HP but you only need to get them to -5, so putting Cyclic on only 5 or 6 of the damage will do it.

EDIT: I've just determined that doing this as a 1/3 Injury Symptom is even more effective. Toxic Attack 2d+2 (Cosmic, Ignores DR +300%; Symptoms: 1/3 Injury, Reduced HP 24 +144%; Fixed Damage +0%) [57] will affect any character with HP 27 or less; those with HP 25 or less will immediately be below -5xHP; those with HP 26 will instead be at -3.5xHP (calling for 3 death checks), while those with HP 27 will instead be at -2xHP (calling for 2 death checks). If the GM uses proportional Injury, you're again at the case of the character being left with 1 or 0 HP and you'll need to put Cyclic on 5 or 6 of the damage to kill them in the next second.