Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

It doesn't make any sense to me to offer character creation tradeoffs for commonality instead of usefulness. You'll get vastly different power levels for the same point total. Combine that with the player expectation of power-pricing and you have a ticking time bomb on your hands, one I've seen explode a few times when players purchase traits in GURPS.

One problem here is that usefulness is heavily campaign-relative. Now in Dungeons and Dragons, the game makes some assumptions about what kinds of challenges you'll be facing (mostly fighting monsters), so you can judge usefulness relative to those challenges.

But with GURPS being a universal system, I don't think there's a way around that. If a player wants to go off-template in an Action! game and comes back with 250 points spent building a realistic wealthy political figure, they may end up being quite useless. But a Shooter will be equally useless in a game of political intrigue with no combat. There's really no way around talking it over to establish some shared expectations.

In the case of Unkillable, I'm OK with it being priced in terms of intended commonality. If you tried to price it in accordance with usefulness, it could easily turn into a no-brainer for any player with a degree of GM distrust and attachment to their characters. Then it would end up being way more common than it is in most fiction. Supernatural fiction tends to limit all but the most powerful beings to Unkillable 2 with a significant Achilles Heel. Some supers with crazy healing factors seem to be able to come back from a single cell no matter what happens to them, but most supers GMs will probably want that to be something maybe one player does at most, even in a 2000 point game where 100 points is affordable.

Of course, maybe that's not your game. Maybe you want to run a transhumanist game where death isn't a big deal for the (substantial) portion of the population that's taken proper precautions, and in that case you can use the optional rule (canonical as of Transhuman Space: Changing Times pp. 39-40) that having paying points for one Extra Life entitles you to make additional backups at no character point cost. Or maybe you want to run a game about gods and just make Unkillable 3 a campaign advantage. But I think the standing pricing for Unkillable makes a lot of sense for the average game where it's even an option.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

But I think the standing pricing for Unkillable makes a lot of sense for the average game where it's even an option.

I thought Unkillable was priced right, and used it as an example of advantages being priced based on utility.

The I look at it, Awesome stuff costs 50, Amazing stuff costs 100, and Mind-Blowingly Unbelievable stuff costs 150.

You put 150 points into something, and that's freakin' spectacular. 150 points into Wealth and you're one of the richest men in the world. 150 points put into Unkillable and you literally can't die. 150 points put into Warp and you can go anywhere. Those were the kinds of things I was thinking of.


I remember reading something a long time ago about balancing characters in fighting games, and I've always thought of balancing trait prices in GURPS the same way. The idea was that you would give every character something overpowered and then you would have so much extreme stuff that no one would be able to figure out how to rock-paper-scissors the game. Everyone had something that made them look so good that you could justify playing them.

That's what I would want to do with trait prices in GURPS. Just get them close enough that it looks like a reasonable deal. So you don't have to make a sacrifice to take something because it fits your concept. You don't have to be too exact to achieve this goal. Whenever someone buys a trait, I want them to think, "Yeah, this is a good deal." And sometimes you feel that way with the RAW prices. Mind Control and Unkillable 3 always make me feel that way. Luck is that way. It's always a good deal. There's some stuff when you always feel lackluster about buying it.

I don't think there's any kind of measurements you can do to figure out most of this stuff. It's all based on the designer's intuition. I'm not sure how much you need to change for different games and settings. That's a big can of worms. There are certain tolerances, though, where you can get things right most of the time.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

You know, I can't count the number of newbies who I have warned off of thinking a 200 point character is going to be evenly matched in a fight with another 200 point character. It ain't true. You know that perfectly well.

That's the newbie's fault, for having a narrow-minded attitude towards the concept of conflict.

Take a few steps back, rewind time a few days or a couple of weeks. Character A is built on 20 points, character B is built on 200 points. Both want C.

If I was a gambling man, I'd put my money on character B winning C, on general principles.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There was a time when Unaging cost 40... however, unaging can easily be worth a lot of points, it just requires a campaign that lasts for long enough that aging rolls matter.

It has always been implicit in GURPS' pricing of aging-related traits that the campaign world will feature supernatural aging threats.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

It has always been implicit in GURPS' pricing of aging-related traits that the campaign world will feature supernatural aging threats.

No, it really hasn't. The 40 point version I believe came from GURPS Aliens (early 3e or late 2e, not sure which), and there were no supernatural aging threats anywhere in the implicit setting for GURPS Aliens (GURPS Space). Elves in GURPS Fantasy of that time period had extended lifespan rather than unaging, and didn't actually pay points for it because the advantage hadn't been invented yet.

[Joel]

Eh. Hyperspectral is IMO pretty OK, perhaps slightly overpriced for utility but if it was down at 15 you'd never see anyone take Infravision or 10 levels of Night Vision (which are pretty good deals if you actually make use of them and fight enemies in darkness whenever you can), and with advantages pretty much always being priced at multiples of 5 that means it can't really be lower than 20.

As for Unkillable 3. I think it pricing is fair given how radically it changes the game for a character who has it, at least in somewhat higher-point games where it doesn't eat your entire point total.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Joel

Eh. Hyperspectral is IMO pretty OK, perhaps slightly overpriced for utility but if it was down at 15 you'd never see anyone take Infravision or 10 levels of Night Vision.

Low level night vision (3-5 levels) is probably underpriced in any game that bothers to track light at all, but hyperspectral isn't a notable offender in terms of cost. On the other hand, clinging + catfall + super-jump 1 is a perfectly reasonable conceptual design, costs 40 points and, well, isn't anywhere as good as flight (also 40 points, and moves twice as fast with no limit on fall distance, distance from wall, or upper altitude). There isn't even the excuse of one being more common than the other, the super-acrobat is a very common concept.

[kirbwarrior]

The combination of traits is where things tend to fall apart, no matter what. Many things are priced certain ways because it's known to interact with Trait B in a very powerful way (Affliction/Malediction). And to cite opposites;

A player of mine quickly through together a concept and made it in 15min so he could join a campaign. His character had ATR4 and ETS. And no weapon skills. DX10. He was the perfect messenger (when someone can walk your running speed, he usually gets there faster). And even with Allout (Double) and Telegraphic Attacks, he hit once a turn with a sword he picked up. He would have been far better off dropping one level of ATR and putting those points into skills and/or attributes (he did have 3 skills).

Another player bough Transcendent beauty as part of the back story, thinking of it only as a disadvantage. Was willing to spend [20] to have a disadvantage.

And, yet, I've seen sooo many situations that have only been solved because a player bought Controllable Disadvantage: Sessile [1]. Then again, I saw a player solve a situation that called for rope when he had 5 minutes prior in game bought said rope when no one IRL had their PCs buy rope in 3 years.

Huh, another thing I keep hearing about is how useful Mind Control is. And yet I've seen maybe one person take it.

As for clinging-catfall-superjump, I think you are forgetting how super useful clinging+flying is. I would definitely have to thinking about which of those I'd put 40pts into. Then again, I don't think I've ever taken unmodified Flight. Clinging+Catfall does seems about equal with Winged Flight.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I thought Unkillable was priced right, and used it as an example of advantages being priced based on utility.

Sorry, I was partly replying to David there.

That's what I would want to do with trait prices in GURPS. Just get them close enough that it looks like a reasonable deal. So you don't have to make a sacrifice to take something because it fits your concept. You don't have to be too exact to achieve this goal. Whenever someone buys a trait, I want them to think, "Yeah, this is a good deal." And sometimes you feel that way with the RAW prices. Mind Control and Unkillable 3 always make me feel that way. Luck is that way. It's always a good deal. There's some stuff when you always feel lackluster about buying it.

Like? Other than some spells, and perhaps a few more obscure advantages, the famous ones are very high levels of ST and DR. I don't know what to say about DR, but I wonder if part of the lack of attraction of ST in some circumstances is that in some settings, it's the best way to inflict lots of damage... but in some settings it isn't.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I don't know what to say about DR, but I wonder if part of the lack of attraction of ST in some circumstances is that in some settings, it's the best way to inflict lots of damage... but in some settings it isn't.

Basically, ST is the best way to inflict lots of damage -- if all the better methods are banned. ST is a lousy way to do damage if guns or innate attack are available. Also, the returns on 'more damage' diminish faster than the returns on 'more skill', once your damage per hit is more than about 10 skill tends to be more efficient than ST even in a low-tech game with no powers.