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Old 10-24-2020, 08:35 PM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default soft cap on corpse vaporization ?

One thing that seems to happen with going into negative HP is even if death happens (-5xHP or sooner on a failed HT check) your corpse is actually an intact thing up until -10xHP at which point it goes from "thing which can be repaired/healed, animated, maybe resurrected" to "dust in the wind"
B419 "total bodily destruction"
B423 "mostly intact (not reduced to -10xHP)."
This contrast is even more extreme with Unkillable 1: you can just fight intact (long as you don't fail a roll to pass out) up until -10xHP at which point you're dust.

Well except for Arrows... but there can be a lot of middle ground between "messy but recognizable" and "unrecognizable lump".

I think it would maybe make sense to allow damage to keep happening, but you gain the Unliving Trait at some stage (explaining piercing/impaling ineffectiveness) which makes it harder for some things to do further damage.

At some point "corpse stuck with 200 arrows" is probably going to make it hard to keep shooting arrows at it: they could probably function like DR/quills. At the point where new arrows start splitting the old ones, they're not exactly hitting your flesh anymore.

Giving the Unliving trait at -10xHP wouldn't really upset anything for Unkillable 2 since they can't take any further injury past that point, and if they begin to heal they should lose it.

Rather than a "reach this amount you go from recoverable to irrecoverable" I was thinking we could do some kind of rules for just gradually applying a permanent loss of traits as more damage is done until "death" is represented by a lack of traits whatsoever (0 HP, we do not bother to stat dust particles)

Zombies 67's "Extra Effort Costs HT" is one example that comes to mind. Here we allow permanent loss of a 10 point advantage to stand in for the inability to pay the cost of a point of FP which can take about 10 minutes to recover.

"Extra Effort Costs Temporary HP" would be a minimal version (you could heal that automatically, unless you were Unhealing, then only Surgery or Magic can heal you)

This is actually how you could treat "bought FP down to 0" characters: they're already at -1xFP (product zero) so anything like EE which would burn FP burns HP instead. Just give them immunity to the effects that 0FP causes like unconsciousness risk
classic system only: the "just buy it down to 0" approach creates a problem with Last Gasp since you're gradually down to 0% ST and -10 to DX/IQ/HT at -1xFP. The last 3 aren't a problem because you can buy +10 with (-40% only usable at -1xFP) to offset it the linear penalty. That won't solve the problem for ST so maybe just give them tactile (melee) Animation TK only usable on their own body, "self only" rather than "only affect self"
"Extra Effort Costs Permanent HP" would be a more extreme version (not even surgery or magic can destroy you, there's such a big chunk gone there's nothing to sew together, you're just permanently reduced)

There are some situations where one can voluntarily part with character points to do certain things. Normally that is bonus points (flexible, uninvested) but there are cases where if you don't have them, you can still make those payments.

Going super-negative HP could just remove the choice from that, make it automatic.

"If Thy Hand Offend" (H148) for example lets you lose 20 character points (gain One Arm -20) to remove either 500 "unassigned corruption total" or -20 in "Corrupt disadvantage points" (H146: this would only be 200 corruption total? or maybe it means like removing new Lecherousness the GM assigned?)

How this represents "permanent loss in place of temporary loss" is that corruption is a cleansable disadvantage
1) Meritorious Act cleanses 25 which is like GM giving you a bonus point
2) Penance cleansing 4 per 16 hour day is like studying a skill: 1 cleansed per 4 hours is 25 points per 100 hours. You need 200 hours of study to gain a CP, which you can get in 100 hours of "Intensive Training" per B293. In this case you're isolated though, so it doesn't need a teacher.
147's Gaining Corruption (free energy points) for magic not only stands in for FP, but can also stand in for HP if you're a blood mage who can't use FP to power spells (they exist in Thaumatology)

If every 25 energy/HP at 1:1 for corruption becomes -1 cp (skipping the will rolls to avoid: you're unconscious!), then that should work out to "permanently lose 1 hit point per 50 HP loss you ignore".

You could count as "ignoring the loss" at damage beyond -10xHP. Converting HP loss into something else is like how FP can't drop below -1xFP and just causes HP loss at that point.

- - -

Decomposition is one issue to also cover this. B444 has 1 HP loss per failed daily HT roll ending at death, but maybe it can just continue beyond death? This should stop once it's a skeleton though (meat rots fast, calcium no) because then your corpse would gain "Impervious to Metabolic Hazards" and damage would cease. The question how negative you need to go for that to happen.

Maybe deep down everybody has Impervious to Metabolic Hazards but it by default requires being below -10xHP, so the actual IMTH trait we know and pay for is some +100% Cosmic enhancement that allows it apply at all HP levels?

- - -

Also to set a sort of realistic limit for "Dying Actions" (beyond is "most thorough") maybe something like 1 second worth of functioning like a full-HP person with Unnatural (need 2xHP to kill) because it's your spirit just briefly clinging on to a whisp of vitality?
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Old 10-24-2020, 09:08 PM   #2
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: soft cap on corpse vaporization ?

Corpses are not really Immune to Metabolic Hazards. The normally benign symbiotic bacteria (and other symbiots and parasites) start to consume the corpse pretty soon after death, though the speed of the process depends on availability of oxygen and the warmth of the environment. In the jungle, a corpse will start to purify within a few hours and will have rotted down to just the tough parts within a few days even without scavenging by insects or larger animals.
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Old 10-24-2020, 09:40 PM   #3
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: soft cap on corpse vaporization ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Corpses are not really Immune to Metabolic Hazards. The normally benign symbiotic bacteria (and other symbiots and parasites) start to consume the corpse pretty soon after death, though the speed of the process depends on availability of oxygen and the warmth of the environment. In the jungle, a corpse will start to purify within a few hours and will have rotted down to just the tough parts within a few days even without scavenging by insects or larger animals.
yeah I'm talking about a dessicated skeleton or mummified,

Z68 treats "will become a rotting corpse" as just a feature, but I think the problem is just that you should be able to suffer HP damage from microbial infections as an Intact Corpse or Rotting Corpse (next page).

If ITMH causes that then it should be limitation to the cost to allow it. If it isn't, then Z69's Mummified Corpse / Skeletal Corpse should have whatever WOULD prevent microbe damage.

Microbial corrosion can even eat away at metal (which would also have ITMH) so at some point there's got to be some stuff ITMH won't stop: probably when you get to the point that it's no longer a "Toxic Attack (Resistible)" and it's just "Corrosive Attack (Exposure Time)"

B81 says "threats that only affect the living" so if there's any kind of microbe which damages non-living things ALSO, it shouldn't help.

IE if it's something IRL which eats dead flesh as well as living flesh, it's not under ITMH umbrella.

Being immune to things which eat dead flesh might actually a bad thing while you're alive because that's what phagocytes do to recycle dead cells in your body, so that kind of immunity would hamper your healing.

You couldn't benefit from biodebridement (maggot debridement therapy) if parts of you that died were immune to being eaten by dead things.

So I think much like "Unliving" the "Immune to being eaten by maggots" advantage is just something you "pick up along the way" once your flesh has rotted off to the bone.
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Old 10-25-2020, 05:16 AM   #4
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: soft cap on corpse vaporization ?

If you want better resolution, an option is to treat the character as, essentially, simultaneously Living, Unliving, and Homogenous. Don’t forget, Unliving typically has twice the HP of Living, while Homogenous has 4x.

Under this, the breakpoints are -5xHP (each category), and -10xHP (Homogenous). -5xHP (Living) is the limit beyond which vital functions cannot be supported. -5xHP (Unliving) is the limit beyond which internal structures (skeleton, muscles, etc) can no longer support the movement of the body. -5xHP (Homogenous) is the limit beyond which the body is no longer structurally held together, and -10xHP (Homogenous) is the limit beyond which the body is reduced to mist/dust/giblets, depending on damage source.

This is unlikely to have any important relevance to normal gameplay, of course, making the additional work a waste of time, but if you have some need for it, there you are.

EDIT: For a clearer example, consider a living character with 10 HP. Said character thus has 10 LHP, 20 UHP, and 40 HHP (Living, Unliving, Homogenous, respectively). Any Injury affects each pool, although depending on damage type may affect some more than others (pi/Imp has less effect on UHP and HHP than on LHP). Said character finds himself in an inescapable fire that deals 5 burn every second. After 12 seconds, he’s at -50 LHP, -40 UHP, and -20 HHP; his body is incapable of supporting life, but may still be able to move around using its muscles (if there were anything to direct and supply them with power - like, say, the Zombie spell). After 24 seconds, he’s at -110 LHP, -100 UHP, and -80 HHP; his body no longer has the structures to move under its own power, but it could be manipulated without necessarily falling apart. After 48 seconds, he’s at -230 LHP, -220 UHP, and -200 HHP, and while his remains are still clearly those of a human, they’ll likely break from any substantial manipulation. Finally, after 88 seconds, he’s at -430 LHP, -420 UHP, and -400 HHP, and is an unrecognizable pile of ash.
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Last edited by Varyon; 10-25-2020 at 05:35 AM.
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Old 10-25-2020, 11:10 AM   #5
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: soft cap on corpse vaporization ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
If you want better resolution, an option is to treat the character as, essentially, simultaneously Living, Unliving, and Homogenous.
Don’t forget, Unliving typically has twice the HP of Living, while Homogenous has 4x.
Under this, the breakpoints are -5xHP (each category), and -10xHP (Homogenous).
-5xHP (Living) is the limit beyond which vital functions cannot be supported.
-5xHP (Unliving) is the limit beyond which internal structures (skeleton, muscles, etc) can no longer support the movement of the body.
-5xHP (Homogenous) is the limit beyond which the body is no longer structurally held together,
and -10xHP (Homogenous) is the limit beyond which the body is reduced to mist/dust/giblets, depending on damage source.
I guess the final step might even be Diffuse "not even the dust is left" ?
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