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Old 05-28-2018, 08:37 PM   #1
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Another character I'm trying to stat out, where the most logical disadvantage to apply is Weakness, but exposure to the weakening substance imposes some sort of Affliction rather than FP or HP damage.

Alternately, exposure to a weakening substance could impose an Affliction in addition to HP/FP loss.

I could just stat the character using my homebrewed advantage "Chronic Affliction" (http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...ght=affliction) and a hefty Accessibility limitation, but if possible I'd like to use an official disadvantage as the base.

As a first try, I'm considering adapting the Affliction enhancement from the Innate Attack advantage, where it's an outright enhancement to Weakness if you suffer an affliction in addition to damage, and it's a limitation/enhancement worth (-100% + percentage cost of Affliction enhancement) if you suffer an Affliction instead of HP/FP loss.
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Old 05-28-2018, 09:02 PM   #2
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

---I think this is an Affliction with Trigger.---

I meant to say, it's a Disadvantage with Trigger. For example, Cursed (Trigger: Puppies Common, -10%) would cost [-67], and you'd suddenly start suffering bizarre and unlikely mishaps whenever puppies where about.

EDIT: David Johnson2 points out the better RAW approach is to get the disadvantage with a mitigator, which in my example would be something like "Absence of Puppies," and that too is pretty common.

Last edited by PTTG; 05-29-2018 at 06:08 PM.
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Old 05-28-2018, 10:38 PM   #3
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

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Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
I think this is an Affliction with Trigger.
That would make sense if you can impose some sort of weakness on another person, but I'm trying to create a disadvantage.

Possibly, it could be a variant of Dread except rather than forcing you to keep your distance the Dreaded thing imposes some sort of Affliction.

Essentially, what I'm looking for is a disadvantage that lets you create DIY "hazards," which can be customized for a given character or species.

Examples of what I'm trying to model:

The Odoriferons of Odora IV suffer Nausea whenever they encounter even the least whiff of the smell of garbage.

Acoustic Lad suffers Severe Pain whenever he is exposed to ultrasonic sounds.

Exposure to even the smallest amount of argon gas causes Embolisians to become Euphoric. High concentrations cause them to experience Hallucinations, then potentially lethal Seizures.

Obviously, you can "hand-wave" a lot of this stuff by swapping "Zero point features" between species (e.g., Embolisians don't have any problem with the bends in environments with concentrations of Nitrogen gas in the atmosphere, even at high pressures) or treat rarer problems as Quirks, but sometimes you can't.
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Old 05-28-2018, 11:19 PM   #4
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Well, the RAW way to do it is to take the disadvantage and then apply an accessibility based on how often it is encountered. Here the difficulty is determining how common such things are.


But if you want to make an own disadvantage based on weakness:

For the case of hp loss and limitation you could adapt symptoms B109 though it is meant only for attacks really.

For the no damage, only disadvantage, you could do the same but with a limitation that it only causes "virtual HP" that has the only effect of being counted for symptoms.

A different way to count the value would be to see the damage as corresponding innate attack as compare it to affliction effects. Thus the base 1d injury is worth 5 point of irresistible limitation or 20 points of resistible allowing a HT roll.
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Old 05-29-2018, 01:05 AM   #5
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

This is definitely something that's come up before, but some googling unfortunately doesn't let me find a link. Anyway, this is how I'd do this. First, you'll need a "no damage" limitation for Weakness. That's simple enough, it's just -100%.

Then, you need to decide how long the condition lasts for. If it's just "as long as I'm touching the thing", it's really too easy to get around it by just letting go, so it needs to last. I'd suggest using the levels of Weakness for this: 1d/minute equals "suffers for ten minutes after touching it", 1d/5 minutes is "suffers for a minute after touching it", and 1d/30 minutes is "suffers for 1d+1 seconds after touching it".

With those as the duration, I'd just use the values for irritating or incapacitating conditions from Affliction to set the various values for this.

So, let's say you're a vampire who suffers Terrible Pain for minutes after touching a holy symbol. That's a base value of -10 points, multiplied by X2 for a common category (it's any holy symbol, not just a cross, or one wielded by someone with True Faith), for a base value of -20. We apply the -100% limitation for "no damage", and the +60% for Terrible Pain, for a final value of -12. I think that's about reasonable, personally.
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Old 05-29-2018, 02:03 AM   #6
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
Another character I'm trying to stat out, where the most logical disadvantage to apply is Weakness, but exposure to the weakening substance imposes some sort of Affliction rather than FP or HP damage.
For affliction (disadvantage), the other way of doing this is by just taking the advantage with a limitation or mitigator "only when encounters X". For other effects, Chronic Pain is a reasonable model.
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Old 05-29-2018, 10:35 AM   #7
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

The closest thing is Revulsion (p. B151). That's a fairly severe Affliction; I'd price it at +150% as an enhancement on that advantage. If your Revulsion produces different effects for 10 minutes on a failed HT roll, adjust its point value in proportion; e.g., if the result is Nauseated (+30%), value is 30/150 = 1/5 normal.
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Old 05-29-2018, 11:08 AM   #8
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

No Wounding is worth -50%. I imagine that you could add affliction effects to Weaknesses for the normal value, so damage modifiers could also be used as long as they are tied to an affliction. Since No Wounding is -50%, it would have to default to causing Stunning on a failed HT roll, since you need something to happen to make the weakness worthwhile. You would then increase the value by the disadvantage by the affliction modifier that would replace Stunning (for example, Agony would give a +100%, giving a final value of +50%). I do not think that Side Effects and Symptoms are appropriate because of their value.

You could even give secondary effects at one-fifth value. A Weakness to Garlic that caused Terrible Pain as the primary effect and Agony as the secondary effect would give a +80% if it accompanied damage or +30% if it did not accompany damage.
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Old 05-29-2018, 11:17 AM   #9
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

The Mitigator limitation is the by the book way to go.
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Old 05-30-2018, 02:30 AM   #10
Pursuivant
 
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Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
The closest thing is Revulsion (p. B151). That's a fairly severe Affliction; I'd price it at +150% as an enhancement on that advantage. If your Revulsion produces different effects for 10 minutes on a failed HT roll, adjust its point value in proportion; e.g., if the result is Nauseated (+30%), value is 30/150 = 1/5 normal.
This makes a lot of sense.

If using the Attribute Penalty enhancement to Affliction, -5 levels of ST, DX, IQ, and HT, as imposed by Revulsion is worth +150% (+5% per lost level of ST or HT, +10% per lost level of DX or IQ).

But, as a "Temporary Disadvantage" imposed by Affliction, Revulsion would just be a +5 to +15% limitation. Perhaps that's fair because the victim not only gets to make a HT roll to resist the Affliction, but also gets to make another (unmodified) HT roll to avoid the effects of the imposed Revulsion.
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