Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 11-30-2020, 05:28 AM   #11
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: A subtle question of Magic and Death

I'm in the "treat it like a success" camp. (Even though I admire Rupert's twisted logic :))

GMs could invent a third state of being if they like, but it hardly seems worthwhile for such an edge case. It's not like magic items don't routinely change a roll by a point or two. In this case, it's just another way to describe a conditional +2 to HT checks. The author could have spelled out exactly what "prevents a Mortal Wound" means in terms of the mechanism that assigns Mortal Wounds. But that would become a little narrow once the second method for acquiring Mortal Wounds showed up somewhere else in the rules or in a later book. If you repeat rules and fragments of rules everywhere they might be needed, not only does the rulebook become longer, it becomes an editorial impossibly to track down all the cross-mentions and fix them. (Compare with the debate as to whether SM applies to melee attacks, since the summary table on B547 happens to omit that one.)

Last edited by Anaraxes; 11-30-2020 at 05:35 AM.
Anaraxes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-30-2020, 05:01 PM   #12
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: A subtle question of Magic and Death

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
It prevents Mortal Wounds,
but he still failed his roll.
Therefore he's dead.
B423's "If you fail a HT roll to avoid death by 1 or 2, you don’t drop dead" would still apply.
If something says "instead X" but you have "immune to X" it basically means "instead nothing happens".
Plane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-30-2020, 07:07 PM   #13
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: A subtle question of Magic and Death

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Suppose you have this healthy chap with an adjusted HT roll of 16.

Suppose he is severely injured and rolls a 17 on a Death Check. He has failed but not failed by more than 1 or 2 so it's a Mortal Wound rather than instant death. With the 17 we are also avoiding questions of Critical Failure and religious questions (Hierokybocracy "rule of sacred cubes") involving whether you always die when you roll an 18.

So he's in the Mortally Wounded condition and may even be conscious. That's left to the GM's decision (see B. 423).

Now let us suppose that he has the Enchanted Item for the Stop Bleeding Spell. The Item part is important. The Spell itself would only stabilize his Mortal Wound. The Item _prevents_ Mortal Wounds.

So, he's at least -1x HP and he's failed a HT check but he's not Mortally Wounded (and has not met any other conditions for automatic death). What is he?
He's stable. Once you are stabilized you are no longer mortally wounded. But you are mortally wounded before it stabilizes you. But the Stop Bleeding item is always on so you are instantly stabilized and never have a second when you are mortally wounded.
David Johnston2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:00 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.