[Basic] Catfall, Very Fit and Peripheral Vision Cost

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's another of those things that rarely come up. Aside from ambushes, where danger sense is usually a better investment, it's not that easy to pull off back attacks -- you can't get one on a runaround attack (gotta start your turn behind them), so usually your attempt is either foiled by them moving, or foiled by someone stabbing you in the back before you get a chance to take advantage of your position.

I've had it come up in very technical fights in gurps... usually as part of an arena scenario. I've had a couple of PC's who got the magical two steps from move 11 and tried to use it heavily.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I've had it come up in very technical fights in gurps... usually as part of an arena scenario. I've had a couple of PC's who got the magical two steps from move 11 and tried to use it heavily.

The rules for runaround attacks (B391) mostly negate that.

[weby]

Originally Posted by CarrionPeacock

Has anybody created some houserule to reduce the cost of Catfall, Very Fit and Peripheral Vision? These traits seems highly overpriced and plenty of comments that would agree with me can be found on older threads.
As a player I don't think I'd ever pay more than [5] for Catfall and Peripheral Vision, or [10] for Very Fit (maybe 360º Vision as well).

Like all advantages, the utility depends on the game and character.

Catfall is very useful if you have a game with a lot of things at high places like chases on rooftops. It is the halved damage part that makes it specially good in some cases. Falling damage scales up to scary levels fast and will quickly go through most armor. The halving of damage after 5 yards makes you armor work for much longer(though you still take the blunt damage).

But if the campaign does not feature such elements then obviously that is not useful.

Peripheral Vision is again dependent on how commonly you are being fought by more people than own party in a place where they can flank. If you find yourself often being flanked then it is a life saver. If the fights are such that you cannot usually be flanked, then it is basically fairly low use.

Very fit is indeed not very useful usually and would require a rare type of campaign where the ability to run 400 kilometers a day is a useful skill for the campaign. The other very niche case is a campaign with very low limits on attributes and you want higher HT rolls.

But yes, there are a lot of advantages that are wrong price for a lot of campaigns. I have thus toyed at the idea of creating an frequency of appearance multiplier for all advantages for a given campaign based on how often such elements come up in the game.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It isn't cumulative with acrobatics, but in any case, my experience is that falling is just not at all a common threat. I don't recall it happening ever in GURPS, though that's obviously campaign dependent

I love the variation here. In most of my games, from AD&D through 25 years of GURPS, falling has often been a significant threat. The bard in our current DFRPG group nearly crippled a limb when she fell while climbing up a rope over a wall. Long falls have probably been responsible for more outright PC deaths in my experience than any other threat. I admit that I do like to use the 3rd dimension liberally in my scenes. Lots of ledges, balconies, rickety ladders, rope bridges, and the like.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's another of those things that rarely come up. Aside from ambushes, where danger sense is usually a better investment, it's not that easy to pull off back attacks -- you can't get one on a runaround attack (gotta start your turn behind them), so usually your attempt is either foiled by them moving, or foiled by someone stabbing you in the back before you get a chance to take advantage of your position.

It depends on the setting and campaign. In the majority of my games, flanking attacks, runaround attacks, etc. are very common because the NPCs are not stupid, so Peripheral Vision is better than Danger Sense. Danger Sense does not negate the defensive penalty associated with positioning, it only gives you enough of a warning that you can take action from an unexpected threat (and that requires a successful Per roll). Now, taking both Danger Sense and Peripheral Vision is a superior survival strategy, though it seems to be quite rare.

[Sorenant]

I avoid tweaking trait costs if I can because I'm sure the people who wrote it knows better than I do.
However, I tend to be quite liberal in handing out bonus for relevant traits. For Peripheral Vision I'd give +2 to several vision related tasks, like rolling against Per or Observation in a contest against enemy's Stealth or Shadowing, and Very Fit would give +1 to most physical skills (it would essentially double as single level talent).
Catfall is an exception, I didn't like it since the first time I read GURPS Basic so nowadays I just treat it as an immunity to fall damage. The player gets their bang for the buck and I don't have to calculate fall damages. Win-win.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It depends on the setting and campaign. In the majority of my games, flanking attacks, runaround attacks, etc. are very common because the NPCs are not stupid.

The problem is that runaround attacks aren't a superior strategy unless the PCs are grossly outnumbered, and in situations where the enemy can actually manage attacks from behind at will, they're either going to wipe out all the people who don't have peripheral vision (and then you're alone against numbers that took out the rest of the party) or they're not really capable of taking advantage of their ability to attack from behind.

In a normal setup, the effect of attempting a runaround is: "I run in and get an attack from behind, that is treated as a side attack, and might be a wild swing unless I'm super fast; overall low chance of being effective. Then one of the people I ran past to get in position turns and stabs me in the back and I die". Peripheral vision is great for solo fighters, but for PCs on a team, covering your back is what teammates are for.

[Sorenant]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Peripheral vision is great for solo fighters, but for PCs on a team, covering your back is what teammates are for.

It's useful but I wouldn't say great. A solo fighter would likely try to avoid melee fights as much as possible, if they get surrounded they can't retreat and might get forced to deal with close combat, and the threat of a critical hit is always there. It's much better to either abuse stealth and/or engage in ranged combat. For such characters Peripheral Vision doesn't add much value by RAW and other 15 point advantages like Danger Sense and See Invisible works better to avoid getting ambushed/backstabbed.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by CarrionPeacock

Catfall already includes a successful Acrobatics roll, so you can only fall 5 yards unscathed. Characters that would take this advantages are likely to be the numble type with an already high acrobatics skill, so the advantage is even less beneficial to them.

They also get to make a DX check to halve damage from falling on top of the automatic Acrobatics success. That's fairly important.

For example, a HP10 person without Catfall or Acrobatics falling 5 yards onto 'soft' ground takes 1d damage, which can cripple a limb. Falling even 1 yard onto concrete can too. With Acrobatics these heights become 10 yards and 6 yards. With Catfall and passing the DX check (and I'd be inclined to allow Acrobatics in place of it) this becomes 23 yards and 9 yards. When falling, especially when the ground isn't too hard, Catfall makes a big difference to your chance of avoiding crippled limbs.

10 yards probably means a broken limb for a normal person (5 yards onto hard ground). With Acrobatics that's 15 yards and 10 yards. With Catfall that's 60 yards and 15 yards.

The same applies to avoiding death checks. Assuming they don't doesn't land on head or neck, that same example person probably has to make a death check if they hit soft ground at terminal velocity (166+ yards), and if hard ground if they fall from 40+ yards. With Acrobatics this becomes 171+ yards and 45+ yards. With Catfall it becomes never (terminal velocity 'only' does 3d damage), and terminal velocity onto hard ground.

So, the higher the fall, the more useful Catfall is, and the softer the landing the more useful, but if falls of over 5 yards are a not too rare experience for your PCs, Catfall is pretty good. If they're almost all under 5yards, then Acrobatics alone is generally sufficient.

EDIT: weby's point about armour is significant as well, and further enhances the utility of Catfall.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Very Fit really ought to give a small bonus to Sex Appeal.

I would say that it's reasonable for Fit to give a +1 to each of Sex Appeal and Erotic Art, and Very Fit to give +2 to both. Of course, the bonus to Sex Appeal might depend on the target and culture (not everyone likes fit people, and some cultures tend against it at specific social levels or categories), but without going into details, Erotic Art would noticeably benefit from the advantage in most or all circumstances.