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Old 05-30-2018, 02:52 AM   #11
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Hm. A more generic version might be something like:
Allergy (var)
There is some normally innocuous substance which causes you to suffer unpleasant symptoms; exactly what those symptoms are depends on the allergy. Treat exposure to the substance as an Affliction. Point value depends on the severity of the Affliction (measured in the % modifier for the effect it causes) and how common the substance you are allergic to is:
  • Rare: -1/20%
  • Occasional: -1/10%
  • Common: -1/5%
  • Very Common: -3/10%
Assume that Revulsion is actually -50% in irritant conditions, such as nauseated + moderate pain. This is somewhat less incapacitating than RAW, but not dramatically so.
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Old 05-30-2018, 03:59 AM   #12
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Hm. A more generic version might be something like:
Allergy (var)
Arguably, Allergy would just be an instance of a reworked Revulsion disadvantage, since it uses many of the same mechanics as Revulsion, but imposes less severe effects and often can be limited using a Mitigator.
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Old 05-30-2018, 04:04 AM   #13
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Here is my first pass at a reworked and expanded Revulsion disad which allows for less severe levels of incapacitation and/or effects other than just losing attribute levels.

It mostly uses Dr. Kromm's scheme for pricing costs of various Afflictions and also heavily draws on the Affliction advantage for special modifiers and limitations.

Revulsion Variable*
You have an incapacitating physical or supernatural reaction to a commonly-encountered condition or substance.
This reaction is physical or supernatural in nature and doesn't usually inflict FP or HP loss. For mental aversions see Dread. For reactions which cause fatigue or damage see Weakness and Vulnerability, respectively.
When you encounter the subject of your Revulsion, you must make a Self-Control roll, once when you first encounter it, and once every minute thereafter until you finally succumb to its effects.
On a failure, you have a -1 penalty per level to all skills and attributes for as long as you continue to be exposed to the substance or condition, and for some period of time thereafter once the exposure ends. In extreme cases, such as when you are completely surrounded by the substance or condition, of if you ingest it, the GM can rule that you have a -2 penalty to skills per level, up to a maximum penalty of -10.
Point value depends on the rarity of the substance and is modified by your self-control number and the amount of time you remain incapacitated. If you don’t suffer a reduction in attribute levels, but suffer an Affliction or similar problem instead, use the “non-leveled” point cost.
Rare (-0.25 points/level or -1 point): Diamonds, pure gold, a specific sound frequency, a specific word, hymn, or prayer.
Uncommon (-0.5 points/level or -3 points): Gold alloy, frankinsence incense, saffron, goatskin leather, a narrow range of sound frequencies.
Occasional (-1 point/level or -5 points): Leather, soap, silver, incense, holy water, spoken prayers or hymns, church bells, certain sound frequencies.
Common (-2 points/level or -10 points): Smoke, wood, iron, perfume, the sound of musical instruments, ultrasonic sound.
Very Common (-3 points/level or -15 points): Grass, metal, water, loud noises.

Incapacitation Period
Time Modifier
None* x 0.1
30 seconds x 0.2
1 minute x 0.3
2 minutes x 0.4
3 minutes x 0.5
5 minutes x 0.75
10 minutes x 1.0
15 minutes x 1.25
20 minutes x 1.5
30 minutes x 2.0
45 minutes x 2.5
1 hour x 3.0

* An incapacitation period of “None” means that you recover as soon as you are no longer exposed to the subject of your revulsion.

Types of Contact: By default, your Revulsion is triggered when you physically interact with the reviled substance (e.g., you touch or breathe it) and is exacerbated if you somehow ingest the material. Revulsions which can be triggered by other forms of sensory exposure are treated as enhancements or limitations.

Special Enhancements

Affects Self-Control Rolls (+10%): In addition to suffering penalties to skills and attributes, your Affliction also gives penalties to Self-Control rolls to resist mental disadvantages.

Auditory (+50%): Rather than being triggered by touching or breathing a particular substance, your Revulsion is triggered by hearing certain sorts of sounds.

Coma (+30% or 60%): For +60%, when exposed to the subject of your revulsion you collapse, profoundly unconscious, and will likely die in days unless treated; see Mortal Conditions. For +30%, you only fall into a Coma if you fail your HT Roll by 4 or more or roll a Critical Failure.

Heart Attack (+300%): When exposed to the subject of your revulsion, if you fail your HT roll by 4 or more, or roll a critical failure, you suffer an incapacitating heart attack, and will die in minutes unless treated; see Mortal Conditions. Alternately, this enhancement can represent any other condition which removes the victim from play for good, without necessarily killing him (e.g., permanent petrifaction or paralysis, banishment to the void).

Incapacitating Affliction (Variable): In addition to temporarily losing attribute levels, you also suffer the special effects of an Incapacitating Affliction: Daze, +25%; Hallucinating, +25%; Retching, +25%; Agony, +50%; Choking, +50%; Ecstasy, +50%; Seizure, +50%; Paralysis, +75%; Sleep, +75%; or Unconsciousness, +100%. See Incapacitating Conditions for the game effects. Halve the cost of this enhancement if you only suffer the Affliction if you fail your HT roll by 4 or more or roll a critical failure.

Irritating Affliction (+5% or +10%): In addition to temporarily losing attribute levels, you also suffer the special effects of an Irritating Affliction (although your level of attribute loss is based on your level of Revulsion). Cost is +5% if the affliction only imposes “cosmetic” effects, or +10% if it also imposes additional inconveniences.

Margin-Based (+50%): Instead of suffering a set loss of attribute levels, the severity of your reaction to the object of your Revulsion is based on your margin of failure. If you fail your HT roll, you suffer penalty to attribute levels equal to your margin of failure, up to a maximum of twice your level of Revulsion. For example, if you have 3 levels of Revulsion, you could potentially face a -6 penalty to attribute rolls if you fail your HT roll badly enough. A critical failure always imposes the maximum possible level of attribute loss.

Slow Recovery (+100%): You regain lost attribute levels more slowly than normal. At the end of your incapacitation period you can roll vs. HT to retain one level of lost attributes. Roll once per “incapacitation period” until all your levels are restored. Critical success means you regain two levels. Critical failure means that you lose a previously-recovered level of lost attributes.

Stunning (+10%): If you fail your HT roll, you are also Stunned in addition to any other ill effects.

Temporal Stasis (+650%): Instead of suffering attribute loss, when exposed to the object of your revulsion, you and your equipment stop in time. Time continues to flow in the rest of the universe, just not for you. You’re frozen in place – in mid-action or even midair. You don’t age, breathe, or require sustenance. Injury, disease, and poison halt their progress. You keep your position in the local frame of reference (usually a planet), but the physical world doesn’t otherwise affect you. You can’t be injured, moved, robbed, etc. In most settings, this extends to supernatural powers (e.g., his mind is unreadable). Likewise, you’re unaware of the universe and can’t act in any way, not even mentally. This lasts for a minute per point by which you fail your HT roll. After that, your actions, perceptions, and so on pick up where they left off.

Visual (+50%): Your Revulsion is triggered if you see the subject of your disadvantage. You can easily avoid your problem by closing your eyes, but this leaves you effectively Blind. If you are suddenly confronted by something which triggers your Revulsion, you must make a DX roll, with a penalty equal to any levels of Acute Vision you might have, and with a bonus equal to penalties for Bad Sight, Darkness, Distance, and other penalties to vision, to avoid seeing it.

Last edited by Pursuivant; 05-30-2018 at 04:25 AM.
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Old 05-30-2018, 04:05 AM   #14
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Special Limitations

Cumulative (-80%): The effects of repeated exposures to the object of your Revulsion are cumulative! When first exposed to the object of your revulsion you temporarily lose one level of attributes, each subsequent exposure forces you to make another HT roll to avoid losing another level, up to a maximum loss of levels equal to your level of Revulsion. Lost levels of attributes are regained normally.

Disadvantage (Special): If you suffer the effects of a specific disadvantage when exposed to a particular condition or substance, buy the appropriate disadvantage with an Accessibility limitation. As a rule of thumb, exposure to a Rare condition or substance is a -80% limitation, Uncommon is a -70% limitation, Occasional is a -60% limitation, Common is -40%, and Very Common is worth -20%.

Energy Only (+0%): Rather than being triggered by touching or breathing a particular substance, your Revulsion is triggered by exposure to some sort of ambient or radiant energy which is harmless (or minimally harmful) to normal people, such as infrared light/heat, sunlight, or Very High Mana Zones.

Energy Absence Only (+0%): Rather than being triggered by touching or breathing a particular substance, your Revulsion is triggered by the absence of some sort of otherwise pervasive energy, such as heat, light, or mana.

Incapacitating Affliction Only (Variable): When exposed to the object of your revulsion, instead of temporarily losing Attributes levels, you are incapacitated by an Affliction for a number of minutes equal your margin of failure on your HT roll. After that, you are Stunned until you can make a HT roll (roll once per second). If you combine Incapacitation with other effects (such as Irritant), those effects occur after the Incapacitation wears off; they replace the stunning and last for the same length of time the Incapacitation did. Incapacitation can take the form of any of the following: Daze, -60%; Hallucinating, -60%; Retching, -60%; Agony, -30%; Choking, -30%; Ecstasy, -30%; Seizure, -30%; Paralysis, +0%; Sleep, +0%; or Unconsciousness, +25%. See Incapacitating Conditions for the game effects.

Ingested Only (Special): If you are only affected by ingesting a particular Common or Very Common material, treat your Revulsion as a Quirk. Otherwise, treat your problem as a “Feature” which is worth no points.

Irritating Affliction Only (Variable): Instead of losing attribute levels, you suffer an impairing but non-incapacitating condition instead. It lasts for a number of minutes equal to the margin of failure on his HT roll. The possibilities are Tipsy -80%; Coughing, -80%; Drunk, -80%; Moderate Pain, -80%; Euphoria, -70%; Nauseated, -70%; Severe Pain, -65%; or Terrible Pain, -60%. For definitions, see Irritating Conditions.

Itching (-80%): Instead of suffering attribute loss, you suffer from Itching. Itching is an Irritating Condition which imposes -2 to DX for the duration of the itch. Scratching for one full second relieves the itch, but you can do nothing else while scratching.

Mitigator (Variable): You can take some precaution, such as wearing protective clothing or a respirator, to avoid the effects of your Revulsion. Treat this as the standard Mitigator advantage, except that it might not be appropriate for supernatural Revulsions.

Negated Advantage (Special): If you lose the effects of a specific advantage when exposed to a particular condition or substance, apply an appropriate Accessibility limitation to the advantage (i.e., “Not in the presence of . . .”).

Olfactory Only (-30%): Your Revulsion is only triggered if you can smell the subject of your disadvantage. Breathing the material without smelling it doesn’t trigger your problem.

Respiratory Only (-20%): Your Revulsion is only triggered by breathing the subject of your disadvantage.

Tactile Only (-80%): Your Revulsion is only triggered if you physically contact the subject of your disadvantage.

Last edited by Pursuivant; 05-30-2018 at 04:25 AM.
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Old 05-30-2018, 04:38 AM   #15
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Example:

Unseelie Faeries suffer a -2 penalty to attributes (roughly equivalent to Mild Pain) when they hear church bells, prayer, or hymns (collectively, a Common condition, so a base cost of -2 per level, or -4 total). But, they recover quickly after the hated sounds stop, rolling for recovery every minute (x.3 to base cost). Base cost is -1.2 points.

Since they're affected by sound, not touch/inhalation, that's a +50% enhancement.

In addition to affecting attributes and skills, their Self-Control rolls (to resist things like Bad Temper) are affected as well, +10%.

Finally, if they fail their HT roll by 4 or more, they are banished back to the Unseelie Court for a year and a day. Treat this as a "heart attack" since it effectively removes the character from play. +300%.

Total cost is -5.52 = -5 points.

Perhaps a bit low given the potential sting of the "heart attack."

Just having a "common" generic condition, would be a -10 point disad., with "generic affliction + secondary heart attack" = -40 points, which seems much fairer.

Ignoring the "heart attack" they've got just a "quirk level" problem, even with the added limitations. That seems way too low for a somewhat serious problem which knowledgeable opponents are sure to use against them.
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Old 05-30-2018, 10:13 AM   #16
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

I like it, overall! A nice framework. I just have a couple of quibbles.

First, in the initial writeup, you reference a Self-Control roll. I assume this is supposed to be an HT roll, given all the references to HT rolls in the modifiers. I think there should be an option to make it a Will roll instead, since this is quite frequently going to be a supernatural thing where bodily health doesn't matter, but mental strength does. I think it's reasonable to make that a -20% limitation (basically reversing the sign on the Based on Will enhancement), since Will is cheaper than HT.

Second, with the Coma and Heart Attack modifiers, would there be any reason to not take the Revulsion at the highest possible Incapacitation Period? Since their effects are basically permanent unless you get successful treatment, that's what I'd do as a player - take the biggest possible point value from the Revulsion. If you don't want that, you should either specify that Coma and Heart Attack alone can't be added to Revulsion over a certain incapacitation period (I'd suggest 10 minutes, as the default "no modifier" period), or give bonuses or penalties to the rolls to help someone recover from the condition, based on the period chosen.

Third, I think there should be modifiers to make it easier or harder to resist the Revulsion. I'd suggest an "Intense" enhancement, worth +10% per level, that gives -1 to HT to resist per level, and a "Weak" limitation, -20% per level, that gives +1 to HT to resist.
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Old 05-30-2018, 02:46 PM   #17
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Weakness: Affliction imposed rather than damage?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
I like it, overall! A nice framework. I just have a couple of quibbles.
I'm not happy with it myself, so I was hoping that the Forum's collected brain trust can help me pick it apart so it works right.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
First, in the initial writeup, you reference a Self-Control roll. I assume this is supposed to be an HT roll, given all the references to HT rolls in the modifiers.
That's a major screw up on my part, in part because I ripped off a lot of stuff from Affliction. The disad should use a Self-Control roll, so it can be independent of attributes, or based on a relevant attribute like Will or HT. Given that Revulsion is supported to be a physical reaction, HT is most appropriate for non-supernatural revulsions, but Will is an equally valid choice for Supernatural problems.

OTOH, because it is supposed to be a physical/supernatural effect, and because Will is half the price of HT, it makes sense to base the disad on HT, and do like you said with modifiers (hard to resist/easy to resist, based on Will, etc.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
Second, with the Coma and Heart Attack modifiers, would there be any reason to not take the Revulsion at the highest possible Incapacitation Period?
Also excellent points. Perhaps those Permanent effects should be removed from the disadvantage since they complicate things.

I was going for "generic disad which imposes attribute losses/affliction in the presence of X" but obviously not all aspects of the Affliction advantage can be applied.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
Third, I think there should be modifiers to make it easier or harder to resist the Revulsion. I'd suggest an "Intense" enhancement, worth +10% per level, that gives -1 to HT to resist per level, and a "Weak" limitation, -20% per level, that gives +1 to HT to resist.
Good idea if I was basing the disad on Will or HT rather than a straight self-control roll.

I'll have to do more math and more hypothetical examples.

As currently designed, a number of "common" exposures are nothing more than quirks if you can recover quickly, can use a mitigator, and don't suffer too many levels of attribute loss.

For example, a dark-adapted species which suffers a -5 attribute penalty in sunlight but recovers instantly once they get out of the light, and can avoid the problem by wearing cloaks and sunglasses, basically gets no disadvantage at all.

For game balance, something like that should be worth about -5 points since you can guarantee that opponents will use that vulnerability to best advantage.
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Old 05-30-2018, 05:57 PM   #18
Christopher R. Rice
 
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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.

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.
David T. Moore came up with a rather brilliant extrapolation I use pretty often. You can find it here.
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