Surge enhancement and DF

[Bruno]

I'm thinking out loud a little here, but in a pseudomedieval fantasy (especially Dungeon Fantasy) type game, is there really any place for the Surge enhancement as written?

It basically serves to do horrible things to Electrical devices and characters, which tend to be in short supply in a pre-industrial game. As a player, this would make me question the point of the extra point cost (so to speak) and as a GM, I'd wonder if the player had a clash of mental concepts incompatible with my gameworld.

While it would be quite possible to re-skin Electrical to "Mana Metabolic", and make "Surge" into something that affects magic items and mana metabolic creatures, that would make it entirely inappropriate for electricity/lightning attacks.

I'm trying to think of replacement effects worth +20% for a fantasy game. Side Effect: Stunning (for the classic GURPS Magic lightning bolt) costs +50% so that's too expensive. Perhaps an Armor Divisor limited to metal armor only, but I think the best you'd get for "vs metal armor only" in a TL3ish game is -20%, which reduces Armor Divisor (2) to +40%, which is still too expensive.

Any ideas? Anything I've missed regarding Surge?

[Dwarf99]

Surge, Arcing from Psionic Powers, I think is a better option, it doesn't do quite that but, it adds that DR from metals (magnetic ones anyway) only ever counts for 1 point, +100% (methinks)

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm thinking out loud a little here, but in a pseudomedieval fantasy (especially Dungeon Fantasy) type game, is there really any place for the Surge enhancement as written?

Any ideas? Anything I've missed regarding Surge?

It could be taken to do bad stuff to anything with delicate electromagnetic properties, which could include demagnetizing compass needles or entire lodestones, which could seriously fubar the magical properties of certain stone circles. It could do a similar number on quartz and other crystals we know to be piezoelelctric, and it might be able to ignite a chain reaction in a notional energetic material like orichalcum.

It also could give an attack enough of an electrical character for it to inflict St. Elmo's Fire, which could be useful fighting in the dark, against dark dwelling creatures, or working with sky pirates who harvest lightning between victims like those in STARDUST. This isn't totally a function of the Surge enhancement, but more like it makes it eligible to trigger abilities inherent to objects to be found in a preindustrial environment.

[SuedodeuS]

Although not RAW, I think a (1.5) Armor Divisor would be appropriate. The Divisor would arguably be worth +25%, so the -20% from Only Against Metal would drop this to +20%. Failing that, giving it Side Effect: Stunning but having this only occur on a critical hit, might be worth as little as +20% (assuming "crits only" to be -60%). You might also want to disallow rolling on the critical hit table for such events.

[Bruno]

"Critical hits only" is -40% -
Best case scenario is 6- on 3d6, which is 9% of the time; things that occur between 7-18% are worth -40% according to Powers. -45% if the character has skill 15 or lower and the GM is feeling generous, or if the GM (Again, feeling generous) decides that skill penalties will still generally put skill below 16.

But that does add an interesting idea. Hmm.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by Bruno

"Critical hits only" is -40% -
Best case scenario is 6- on 3d6, which is 9% of the time; things that occur between 7-18% are worth -40% according to Powers. -45% if the character has skill 15 or lower and the GM is feeling generous, or if the GM (Again, feeling generous) decides that skill penalties will still generally put skill below 16.

But that does add an interesting idea. Hmm.

That's one of the reasons why I said to disallow rolling on the crit table. Certainly this isn't worth an additional -20% (probably closer to -5%, a Nuissance Effect), but it gets things a bit closer.

Also, completely adhering to modifier values might end up getting something arguably less useful than Surge. After all, Surge is essentially Side Effect: Unconsciousness (Critical hits only -40%; Electrical only -20%), with the added bonus of not allowing an HT roll to resist, yet only costs +20% (Side Effect: Unconsciousness is +250%, meaning even if you ignore the "bypasses HT roll" bit you're still talking about +100%).

EDIT: Come to think of it, rather than using the cop-out "Surge is underpriced/Accessibilities are too restrictive" whining, one could limit the effect of Surge to sentient "living" things. This basically means a lot of undead (although not necessarily all, depending on GM/setting), constructs, living plants, etc - essentially anything with Injury Tolerance - would be immune. I think that might work for -20%, getting the effect down to +20% total.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

That's one of the reasons why I said to disallow rolling on the crit table. Certainly this isn't worth an additional -20% (probably closer to -5%, a Nuissance Effect), but it gets things a bit closer.

Also, completely adhering to modifier values might end up getting something arguably less useful than Surge. After all, Surge is essentially Side Effect: Unconsciousness (Critical hits only -40%; Electrical only -20%), with the added bonus of not allowing an HT roll to resist, yet only costs +20% (Side Effect: Unconsciousness is +250%, meaning even if you ignore the "bypasses HT roll" bit you're still talking about +100%).

EDIT: Come to think of it, rather than using the cop-out "Surge is underpriced/Accessibilities are too restrictive" whining, one could limit the effect of Surge to sentient "living" things. This basically means a lot of undead (although not necessarily all, depending on GM/setting), constructs, living plants, etc - essentially anything with Injury Tolerance - would be immune. I think that might work for -20%, getting the effect down to +20% total.

I think you should re-read the errata regarding Surge.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I think you should re-read the errata regarding Surge.

Can you link to it, specifically?

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I think you should re-read the errata regarding Surge.

What errata? I don't know of any errata... I've checked the faq, the errata pages of Powers, Characters and Campaigns, and saw no mention of any change to Surge...

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

What errata? I don't know of any errata... I've checked the faq, the errata pages of Powers, Characters and Campaigns, and saw no mention of any change to Surge...

It's found in a weird place - Powers:

Originally Posted by P102

Surge: Electronics that take over
1/3 HP from an attack with this
enhancement must make a HT roll to
avoid shorting out. Failure disables
the target for seconds equal to the
margin of failure; critical failure disables
it until repaired (see Repairs,
p. B484).

And repeated here:

Originally Posted by FAQ3.2.19

[ . . . ]
One thing that is missing from the Basic Set is that any Electronics that take over 1/3 HP from an attack with the Surge enhancement must make a HT roll to avoid shorting out. Failure disables the target for seconds equal to the margin of failure; critical failure disables it until repaired (see Repairs, p. B484).