returning into clothing as a Naked Time-Jumper

[Plane]

Originally Posted by malloyd

If you happen to have your arm positioned 5 degrees differently, or your feet placed to keep your balance on a surface that isn't sloped exactly the same as the one you are moving to, or your shoulders slouched a bit from exhaustion or whatever, then even if you hit the right instant and position, part of your body now intersects the location of your empty clothing.

Jumping/Warping into occupied space would be a pretty dangerous risk inherent to either ability which their general function seems to assume you avoid somehow, though realistically if you had no idea who might be walking through your hex a century ago, or 100 miles away, you'd probably only want to use it to go to areas you somehow know to be isolated.

Unless maybe there's some kind of inverse-vacuum at your destination which blows occupants out of the way to make sure you can get there.

"Portal" modifier is one way to deal with this since you actually walk through, so if it was occupied, you could just push something out of the way, or else go back to the starting point if it was blocked (like say, if you teleport a year into the future from a basement but by then someone filled the entire basement with concrete)

Originally Posted by malloyd

You might be able to do it if you routinely assume a precise stance before you Jump, but absent some sort of ritual that always has you in the same position.... Seriously, how often do you even *remember* exactly how you were standing or holding your arms when you did something?

If it was something like a vampire's coffin which hasn't moved and whose dimensions help guide to an exact posture, I could see that. Otherwise, that's why I figured having a photograph (someone could take it then slip it into your pocket, or maybe you could get the photograph from a vault in the future) would help unless someone had crazy-good spatial memory.

Taneli's idea of Body Sense sounds closest to that.

Those sorts of controls would make it pretty hard to do mid-action sort of "I teleport back a century while walking down the street, sleep for a couple hours, then teleport back fresh as a daisy into my abandoned clothing" type of maneuver though.

The more time that passed, maybe penalties should accrue on a Body Sense roll as your memory of exactly how you were standing when you Jumped/Warped would begin to get fuzzy. Maybe at a slower rate if someone kept spending time every so often focusing on securing that memory.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by Plane

If it was something like a vampire's coffin which hasn't moved and whose dimensions help guide to an exact posture, I could see that. Otherwise, that's why I figured having a photograph (someone could take it then slip it into your pocket, or maybe you could get the photograph from a vault in the future)

That’s a lot of effort for little result - especially considering

A) It wouldn’t work if you were time-jumping to the past instead of the future.

B) You’d need to take some anti-paradox precaution. From their perspective - why would they put a photo of you in your pocket if you only vanished for half a moment? As far as they know you didn’t even travel in time.

C) Assuming you did that, it’s reliant on other people not messing up.

[Plane]

Taking a photo to the past can't be done as encumbrance since you are naked, but maybe there's some other way to do it like a time-based version of Snatcher?

Originally Posted by talonthehand

From their perspective - why would they put a photo of you in your pocket if you only vanished for half a moment? As far as they know you didn’t even travel in time.

Since you can't bring the photo forward in time, they need to go deposit it somewhere for you to grab to make sure you can return to the past.

They must do this even though it seems like you never left.

Your absence actually would create a timeline where you never returned...

By depositing the photo, they would be creating a divergent timeline where you did return.

I'm not sure what would happen to the 'never returned' timeline... would it coexist or be erased?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Sure... Naked is an encumbrance limitation. Stashing items in places you frequent is possible for a Jumper just like it is for a teleporter. If time flow in a particular campaign setting is such that a Time Jumper with the Naked limiter can reliably jump back to their left behind stuff before anything could happen to it, then that seems like a good reason to limit the Limitation. They apparently are not being as hampered by it as a character with Warp and Naked is.

So how big do you think such a limitation should be? Its a notable but comparatively small exception to naked, in that view. Maybe the total limitation is -25%, rather than -30%? I wouldn't charge any more than that.

Also, the use of the word "Before" in a setting where the jumper can return to the time they just left exactly may be a little simple.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Plane

Jumping/Warping into occupied space would be a pretty dangerous risk inherent to either ability which their general function seems to assume you avoid somehow.

And you change the advantages a lot if you deviate from that assumption. You can add fluff about WHY that happens or WHY it is, but if you add either the risk of intersecting something or a sense that does more guide a jump or warp to an unobstructed location or abort an obstructed one, you should consider changing the point value.

[Plane]

I'm thinking maybe the explanation for (non-tunnel) warping/jumping not merging the air occupying the destination into the bloodstream and causing an embolism could be:

1) swapping: the air moves back to your point of origin
2) displacement: as you come in, outward pressure pushes everything away (like knockback) from your destination in all directions to create a vacuum for you to occupy, and then the second you come in, the force abates and everything pushes back in on you.

That should also allow stuff like teleporting into the middle of the ocean without your stomach/lungs suddenly being full of water, although as soon as you arrive the outward pressure should stop pushing back the water and it will begin to enter the mouth/nose unless closed.

Maybe the way to do it would be to have some kind of minor "Crushing Attack" Aura (like just 1 point of damage, no wounding, smallest armor divisor, no blunt trauma) with an accessibility like "only during Warp or Jumper" (this is cheaper than taking "Link +10%" on both abilities) so basically the only time you can use it is in concert with the teleportation, and it takes effect as soon as you arrive to displace any insects / air molecules / water molecules that might be zipping about.

Given the huge cost (80 to 100) of those advantages, a little mandatory perk for realism isn't that huge of an investment. Of course, 1 damage would only be enough to knock back things a yard if they are ST/HP 1-3 so if there was a cat occupying the space, you might well turn into some grotesque monstrosity from the bowels of episode 6 of Steven Universe.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by ericthered

So how big do you think such a limitation should be? Its a notable but comparatively small exception to naked, in that view. Maybe the total limitation is -25%, rather than -30%? I wouldn't charge any more than that.

My initial thought was that the value of Naked ought to be halved for this, but I'm leaning to -20% after thinking about your post. It does seem like it keeps more of the negatives of the full Limitation than -15% might imply.

[Plane]

The idea of highly targeted jumps could extend beyond one's own clothing though...

Like for example, say you are in the past and you want to inhabit your enemy's magical suit of samurai armor.

You can see into the future, and know that centuries later, that museum will be put up in a fixed position in a museum, inside a glass display case.

So that a stand doesn't get in the way, let's say it's a futuristic museum where the armor hovers empty because magnetism.

So if you could perfectly target your Jumper/Warp you could teleport right into the magical armor, and then use it to fight your way out of that museum.