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Old 04-02-2020, 02:09 AM   #21
kirbwarrior
 
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Default Re: Damage Resistance and Tech Level

A simple solution I've used that still allows for complicated builds is that you can 'buy' any armor and then get a perk to replace the 'gadget' limitations to 'can't wear armor'. Considering that Signature Gear in my houserules removes the money part and just costs 1pt for any piece of gear, this is effectively a variant of that. This means that you can have any DR you're already allowed access to built in to you and it be as fair as it would be for anyone else.

Is that fair? Does it even make sense to do? I'm not sure, I don't do enough high TL campaigns. What one GM did with the above idea was a second step that you actually have to buy off the gadget limitations with extra points (effectively letting you spend money in place of cp to make DR cheaper in a roundabout way) which in turn would let you stack it with actual armor.
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Old 04-02-2020, 02:41 AM   #22
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Default Re: Damage Resistance and Tech Level

In my games I use a TL based scaling for the DR advantage cost. The idea is that the cost is relative to the best armor normally available as gear.

The current table normalizes the cost at TL4 at the RAW 5 pt/DR.

Code:
TL 	best 	Pt/DR 	cost for best
0 	4 	12 	48
1 	4 	12 	48
2 	5 	10 	50
3 	6 	8 	48
4 	9 	5 	45
5 	12 	4 	48
6 	18 	3 	54
7 	20 	2.5 	50
8 	48 	1 	48
9 	75 	2/3 	49.5
10 	105 	0.5 	52.5
11 	150 	1/3 	49.5
12 	225 	0.2 	45
TL: is the base TL of the campaign, not the character.
best: is the best DR in a commonly available armor, this is the number that is compared to get the costs.
Pt/DR:This is how many character points one level of the DR advantage costs. Is is so that the cost for best is as close to each other while being usable numbers, so some rounding to a "nicer number"
cost for best: This is just a comparison number, the two before multiplied to check that the result is close enough.
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Old 04-02-2020, 03:24 AM   #23
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Default Re: Damage Resistance and Tech Level

One of the big things to remember with differently priced DR is that it can be both enhanced (Hardened, Force Field, Reflection, Absorption) and limited (Ablative, Can't Wear Armor, Tough Skin, Limited). CWA and Tough Skin are a common combo, letting you get DR50 for 51pts (Added perk allowing wearing of clothing for modesty). Limited and Absorption really matter; Limited gets far worse when DR price goes up (Limited: Fire/Heat is already maybe overpriced at 3/lvl), while absorption gets kind of nuts when DR gets cheap (and it might even be worth it for getting traits!).
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Old 04-02-2020, 07:38 AM   #24
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Default Re: Damage Resistance and Tech Level

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Originally Posted by JulianLW View Post
But the value of lots of advantages shift with tech level.
Then you change the cost to match the value in your specific setting.
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Old 04-02-2020, 09:19 AM   #25
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Default Re: Damage Resistance and Tech Level

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Originally Posted by kirbwarrior View Post
One of the big things to remember with differently priced DR is that it can be both enhanced (Hardened, Force Field, Reflection, Absorption) and limited (Ablative, Can't Wear Armor, Tough Skin, Limited). CWA and Tough Skin are a common combo, letting you get DR50 for 51pts (Added perk allowing wearing of clothing for modesty). Limited and Absorption really matter; Limited gets far worse when DR price goes up (Limited: Fire/Heat is already maybe overpriced at 3/lvl), while absorption gets kind of nuts when DR gets cheap (and it might even be worth it for getting traits!).
That's why I thought about making it a -TL% limitation rather than lowering the costs outright.
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Old 04-02-2020, 12:41 PM   #26
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Originally Posted by copeab View Post
Then you change the cost to match the value in your specific setting.
As Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes points out, when you change the price of one thing, it can affect the price of a lot of the other things. I think it's likely that most folks today at TL8 are no better at taking a punch to the face than people in the distant past were. If you change the point cost of DR, then you should change the cost of ST and Innate Attack to match, right? Since Innate Attack is too expensive when compared to the damage of a pistol or a laser or blaster? And why not change the price of everything that can be mimicked with some kind of cheap and easily available technology? Soon you're playing 100% houserules and not a game that anyone on these forums would recognize as anything close to the standard GURPS at all - which, if that's what you're into: groovy. Go for it. Change the prices of everything to suit your particular game.

That said, I think the balance of the advantages in GURPS is impressive, and the OP asked for thoughts. My thought is that this is not really a problem with the pricing of advantages such as DR (again, TL10 guys in a "standard" game shouldn't, it seems to me, be impervious to punches to the face just because somebody has invented high-impact plastics that can be formed into cheap armor) but rather a problem related to how your game handles gear, a topic that has been pretty widely discussed on these forums in the past. Gear at higher TLs is better, and wealth is correspondingly a more valuable advantage at higher TLs because of that. Just because these things change with TL doesn't seem to me to be a good reason to start changing the price of advantages (again, Power-Ups 9 notwithstanding).

If a pistol is a cheap way to outclass a lot of points somebody spent on an Innate Attack, then you can either lower the cost of Innate Attack or you make characters pay character points in order to buy a pistol and model the pistol as a gadget-based innate attack, right? Should a PC have to pony up some CP on short notice in order to be able to pick up a pistol dropped by a bad guy and start attacking with it? I don't think many people would want to do that in their games. So why make DR less expensive just because I can buy a flak jacket? It seems to me that this solution of changing point costs creates more problems (while destroying verisimilitude) than making somebody buy a pistol with character points.

If anything, I think DR should be more expensive. A half-inch thick iron bar has DR 6. Basic (non-hardened) DR 6 is 30 CP, well within reach of most starting PCs in any type of game, if the GM allows them to buy it. In that game world, people whose faces are as hard as iron bars (!) should be about as common as, say, people agile enough to be trapeze artists....

But I get that other people's assumptions about game play may be totally different than mine.
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Old 04-02-2020, 02:31 PM   #27
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Default Re: Damage Resistance and Tech Level

In the end, the value of DR should be the cost normal armor, plus the cost of negating any penalties that the armor normally applies. The normal penalties of armor are:
  • Encumbrance (known way of negating: Payload). That works out to about 5 points per multiple of BL (cost of external payload)
  • Concealment or social penalties (there is no particular advantage that lets you conceal worn armor, but the social penalties can certainly be bought off). In general lighter weight armor is easier to conceal and also has less of a social penalty, something like 1 point per 5 lb, or 4 per multiple of BL, or similar, seems fair.
  • Armor layering penalties (flexible armor)/inability to wear armor (rigid armor). There is no particular trait that allows doing this, though armor mastery (DFA 28) includes it.
Overall, I would combine these as follows:

Natural Armor (5/level): your skin functions as armor. Pick an armor (or combination of armors) with a weight that does not exceed (level*BL/2) and a cost that does not exceed (level*base starting wealth/2), and your skin emulates that armor. The GM might require Cannot Wear Armor in the case of a rigid armor, but it's not required; a robot with a hard shell might still be able to wear armor on top of it.
  • Cannot Wear Armor (-40%): you cannot wear armor over your natural armor. It is usually also Obvious.
  • Limited Armor (-10%): you can wear armor over your natural armor, but are subject to the rules for armor layering.
  • Limited Coverage (-0%): you don't need to buy a full suit. Pay for only the armor pieces you actually have.
  • Obvious (var): You can't surprise people with the fact you're wearing armor. This has a basic value of [-1], but you might also take Unnatural Features, reduced Appearance, or other similar disadvantages.
At low TLs, one level probably won't get you a single point of DR over your entire body, unless very strong. By TL 12, a single level will get your DR 30 energy cloth.
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Old 04-02-2020, 06:00 PM   #28
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Default Re: Damage Resistance and Tech Level

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Originally Posted by Anders View Post
That's why I thought about making it a -TL% limitation rather than lowering the costs outright.
That might bring about different issues, namely making limitations worse overall. CWA/Tough Skin becomes less attractive and Ablative especially. On the flipside, enhancements become fairly 'expensive' in comparison. At -10% per TL, Hardened 1 is free at TL10, but the second level effectively doubles the cost of DR.
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Old 04-02-2020, 06:21 PM   #29
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Default Re: Damage Resistance and Tech Level

It might be better to have a ([4 - TL] × 10%) modifier for ST, HP, Afflictions, Binding, DR, Innate Attack, Lifting ST, and Striking ST. For example, otherwise unmodified DR would then be 7 CP/level at TL0, 6 CP/level at TL2, 5 CP/level at TL4, 4 CP/level at TL6, 3 CP/level at TL8, 2 CP/level at TL10, and 1 CP/level at TL12.
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