[Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

If it is revealed by injury then you don't have No Signature on any of your DR. That would be a paradox. It can't both be non-obvious and obvious at the same time.

I have at no point asserted a particular build for this, just that it cannot be unmodified DR and also cannot be No Signature DR.

I might argue that (conceptually, not under any particular rules) you could have No Signature DR which is not revealed when it works in addition to hidden DR which is revealed when it works. I would expressly say that the hidden DR cannot be unmodified DR, regardless of what modifiers your other DR may have.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I have not reviewed what I wrote in Supers. I'm trying to address this on the basis of what is said here. If my arguments here are logically valid, I don't see that it matters if they contradict what I said on another occasion some time ago; at most they might show that I was wrong then. After all, I might not have understood No Signature properly several years ago.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

For once I find myself completely agreeing with sir_pudding's orneriness.

Here I thought it was a good example of why I like GURPS.

My sometimes poorly applied mantra for improving GURPS is to help it be more generic and more universal. Maybe I've misunderstood over all these years, but the short version with GURPS is you get what you pay for, and once the fluff starts behaving like crunch, you need to pay for that as well. ;)

Concepts like Low Signature and No Signature were originally for a specific set of traits, weren't they? I seem to recall it for psi in 3e, but my memory may be playing tricks on me. For sure, in [Basic] for 4e, it was just about attack powers... but the reasons for you needing to pay for an attack power that isn't flashy and obvious when in use make sense with other traits as well. Flight which doesn't generate light, sound, vibrations*, etc. is obviously more useful than that which does not under many circumstances.

*Yes, sound is vibrations...

[Phantasm]

My take on when to apply No Signature to DR: When you want the character to not be obviously armored at first glance, or even after getting shot. This is why I put it on folks like Superman or Namor, and not Ben Grimm or the Hulk. Someone with No Signature on their DR is not going to be as injured as he should be; a pistol bullet may leave a bruise, but it won't go into him.

(In my opinion, "No Signature" should be mutually exclusive with "Cannot Wear Armor".)

Whether the reveal of actually having DR is a Secret is something else entirely. Superman and Namor don't have that as a Secret; they've been known to be bulletproof since they first appeared. Personally, I'd just toss it into part of the Secret Identity disad Superman has as Clark, but folks without a Secret Identity (such as Namor) would not have Secret as a modifier on their DR.

Again, though, it depends on the genre assumptions; four-color assumptions are different from action-adventure or horror, after all.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Again, though, it depends on the genre assumptions; four-color assumptions are different from action-adventure or horror, after all.

I am not sure if they should be all that different; isn't it better to work out the "generic, universal" version and then the genre/setting specifics can override them? Or am I making it more complicated instead of less? XP

While it wreaks havoc with backward compatibility, I am thinking what is needed is an established baseline for all traits and more than two options for reducing their "Signature". Probably some guidelines for when something Advantage specific applies as well. Why do I say this?

Well looking up Low Signature/No Signature in the text, it makes sense applying it to more than just attack powers... but not, necessarily, to everything in the same manner. Plus it feels like there should be just a bit more granularity to it. If I want to pay the CP for it, sure my Death Bolt can be an invisible magic blast, but by the rules, I guess it still has to then have a magical signature? I can't pay for it to be detectable only by say Cosmic Enhanced means and the fact that suddenly something was damaged? I can't go to the other extreme either and have my Death Bolt be loud, flashy, maybe even smelly, plus anyone that can sense magic knows it was used as well.

[Refplace]

For me I rarely apply this to DR but if I were it would be something like...
Low Signature (+10%) You dont appear to be armored when looked at. It is pretty obvious once someone does an attack that would casue injury to an unarmored person however.
No Signature (+20%) You appear unarmored even if hit! Observers will think it was a graze or glancing blow. If your helpless or making no apparent defense, such as just standing there and obviously letting them hit you your DR can be observed, though how much DR remains vague or unknown.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

(In my opinion, "No Signature" should be mutually exclusive with "Cannot Wear Armor".)

Cannot Wear Armor barely ever is for physical reasons. Ben Grimm or the Hulk could quite easily have armor fitted to them, as could non-humanoid combat robots and so forth. (Armored vehicles 'wear' armor fairly often!)

If you allow Cannot Wear Armor in it's common case of 'not going to wear armor, even though I almost certainly could', it's compatible with No Signature.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you allow Cannot Wear Armor in it's common case of 'not going to wear armor, even though I almost certainly could', it's compatible with No Signature.

Personally, I feel Cannot (or Will Not) Wear Armor should just be treated as a separate Disadvantage. "Doesn't stack with armor" would be a legitimate (but not realistic) Limitation on DR, however.

As for Flynndaran's "cyborg with subcutaneous armor" example, which I should have commented on in my previous post, I'd say you need to No Signature to both layers of armor. The Limitation there isn't "Once I'm hit, they know I'm armored*," it's "getting hit reveals that I'm a cyborg." That's Reveals Secret, for +0% RAW, or using the appropriate value from the linked thread for a houserule.

*The sort of attack that a foe isn't going to be aware if they hit or not isn't going to cause much disruption of your disguise. In cases where the attack will reveal you, it's probably going to obvious to anyone watching you were hit, which in turn will make it clear that you're armored, even if you don't look like it. As the concealing layer stays damaged, such that you need to go out of your way to cover it up or you'll be exposed to those who didn't see you No-Sell a flamethrower, I could see justification for dropping the worth of No Signature on the underlayer to half.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

As for Flynndaran's "cyborg with subcutaneous armor" example, which I should have commented on in my previous post, I'd say you need to No Signature to both layers of armor. The Limitation there isn't "Once I'm hit, they know I'm armored*," it's "getting hit reveals that I'm a cyborg." That's Reveals Secret, for +0% RAW, or using the appropriate value from the linked thread for a houserule.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've been saying.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Varyon

"Doesn't stack with armor" would be a legitimate (but not realistic) Limitation on DR, however.

That's officially -20%, it's in Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Personally, I feel Cannot (or Will Not) Wear Armor should just be treated as a separate Disadvantage. "Doesn't stack with armor" would be a legitimate (but not realistic) Limitation on DR, however.

Not sure those two ideas go together - taking Will Not Wear Armor and DR with Doesn't Stack With Armor means you're getting points back for a Limitation that has no effect...

But the flaws of Cannot Wear Armor as a limitation seem tangential.

Originally Posted by Varyon

As for Flynndaran's "cyborg with subcutaneous armor" example, which I should have commented on in my previous post, I'd say you need to No Signature to both layers of armor. The Limitation there isn't "Once I'm hit, they know I'm armored*," it's "getting hit reveals that I'm a cyborg." That's Reveals Secret, for +0% RAW, or using the appropriate value from the linked thread for a houserule.

*The sort of attack that a foe isn't going to be aware if they hit or not isn't going to cause much disruption of your disguise. In cases where the attack will reveal you, it's probably going to obvious to anyone watching you were hit, which in turn will make it clear that you're armored, even if you don't look like it. As the concealing layer stays damaged, such that you need to go out of your way to cover it up or you'll be exposed to those who didn't see you No-Sell a flamethrower, I could see justification for dropping the worth of No Signature on the underlayer to half.

Being aware that you were hit doesn't really imply being able to tell that the hit was stopped by armor. One moderately common scene has a character be obviously shot and fall down, then later get up and resume action mostly unharmed thanks to some concealed (worn) armor...