Unkillable + Achilles' Heel

[Genesis]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

There is no such territory. However, if the monster is below -5xHPs, then any damage from the heel will do it, because that's instant death territory with no death check.

Of course - a mis-statement. But I do think it's silly that a pinprick from a silver needle is enough to kill a werewolf at -19 HP, but not at -20. That doesn't seem right to me. I'd say that if he got the pinprick at -20, he'd definitely have to make an immediate death check. I can see the rationale behind not forcing him to make two, for the one that he missed, but it doesn't scan to allow him no ill effect.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Genesis

Of course - a mis-statement. But I do think it's silly that a pinprick from a silver needle is enough to kill a werewolf at -19 HP, but not at -20.

Is it silly that a pinprick from a regular need is enough to human at -19 HP but not at -20?

Think of this way. It is in fact possible for a straight pin to kill someone, but if they are still resisting it's almost impossible to put it in a place where that can happen. The low chance that a low damage attack will hit a death check break point represents the low but non-zero chance that such an attack will in fact be lethal.

[oma]

If the monster is in the territory where it ought to be making death checks every round but only isn't because it's unkillable I should think a single HP worth of damage from the Achilles Heel would be enough...

So do I and that's how I play it.

[Genesis]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Is it silly that a pinprick from a regular need is enough to human at -19 HP but not at -20?

Think of this way. It is in fact possible for a straight pin to kill someone, but if they are still resisting it's almost impossible to put it in a place where that can happen. The low chance that a low damage attack will hit a death check break point represents the low but non-zero chance that such an attack will in fact be lethal.

The difference is that a regular human has already passed one death check at that point, so it's not paradoxically better for the human to be more damaged, rather than less. At -20 HP a regular human is unconscious anyway, and probably bleeding out - the needle is insult to injury, and if it happens to open a major artery it speeds the process. For a werewolf the needle may be critically important!

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Why? Then you'll end up with badguys killed by pinpricks. Which is kind of lame.

Not a pinprick, but something substantial enough to do trauma to a person that "should" already be dead, like a jab with a silver knife. Blunt trauma from a slung silver piece to an already hambergered limb? "There's a faint sizzle, but the body's still twitching occasionally."

A bad guy that is already trashed enough to kill human being but is still slightly alive before getting finished off by a silver bullet wouldn't be especially disappointing to me. Or like the end of Dragonslayer: it sucks that the herald claimed sole credit for the kill in the king's name, but since the last couple of "sure things" the Biscuit tried didn't finish it off, and the wizard it was linked to came back from the dead once, maybe the king really did make sure it stayed dead by piercing it to the heart after it was blown up.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Do you think it's possible to take this limitation solely on the first level (50 points) of the advantage if you also have Unkillable 2 or Unkillable 3 so that the Achilles Heel will reduce you to skeleton or energy pattern easily but not permanently kill you?

If you want to be easily "killed" by a specific source of injury, Vulnerability is less clunky and fits RAW just fine. Having "Not Unkillable 1 vs only one thing" requires adding limitations to limitations, and the math gets weird there.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

I thought you could buy enhancements or limitations on individual levels of an Advantage though

This discussion really is only tangentially related to the initial one, so this is another case where you probably should have made your own thread rather than resurrecting an old one.

That said, you are correct that you can buy Enhancements and Limitations on individual levels of an Advantage, but Unkillable is... special. Both Kromm and PK have commented in the past that removing Unkillable 1 from Unkillable 2 and 3 is worth much less than the full cost of Unkillable 1 - surviving below -5xHP (and ignoring death checks) isn't nearly as useful when you'll come back from death anyway. Typically, this is represented by a Limitation, Mortal, which is worth -20% - that is, it's worth [-20] for a character with Unkillable 2, [-30] for one with Unkillable 3. You'd need to apply the Achilles Heel to that cost to get a fair price for having it only on the Unkillable 1 part of the trait.

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by Goochelaar

So, how do I behave when a creature with Unkillable takes damage from both its Achilles' Heel source and other sources? Have I to keep a separate tally of the former to determine if it dies?

You don't track those separately, that's sure.

As the Achilles Heel limitation states that damage that takes you below -5×HP kills you, I'd ignore the source of all the damage before death check thresholds. So a 10HP werewolf could be mauled to −9 with silver weapons, but a further blow with iron blade won't kill him (won't cause a death check). On the other hand, he could be mauled to -9 with an iron mallet, and then a single stab with silver dagger will cause a death check. It's about what takes you below a threshold.

If you already are below −HP, I'd say that damage from your Achilles Heel demands that you make all the death checks you avoided thanks to Unkillable. It just feels the most natural to me. Rolling only for the blows that made you pass a threshold would feel artificial. So, for example, a 10HP werewolf:

• brought down to −21 with ordinary weapons stays alive without a roll
• hit with a silver weapon for one point of injury (−22 total) has to make two death checks (for −HP and −2×HP)
• hit again with silver for four points of injury (−26) doesn't bother, as he made his checks already
• struck with silver for 5 (−31) makes another death check for passing −3×HP threshold
• brought down to −55 with ordinary weapons doesn't bother again
• but any damage with silver weapon would kill him automatically

Originally Posted by Bruno

Why? Then you'll end up with badguys killed by pinpricks. Which is kind of lame.

Oh, come on. A pinprick won't (lamely) end up a werewolf, because it wouldn't make a single point of damage. And if badguys falling from one-point hits bother you, it's not really a problem with Unkillable.

[Leynok]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Here's an interesting query about Achilles Heels for Unkillable...

What happens if you buy Unkillable multiple times?

Just my opinion, but when it comes to Unkillable, I would tell my player to build a single version of the trait with the modifiers to make it work as they wanted. So for instance your example would have either a -5% (just a gut feeling of the price for mixing the two Power Modifiers) thus requiring both the "magical" and "Divine" aspects to be in place before you lose it. That's just my take though, answering the questions below ignoring this, since I can see how others might handle it differently.

Originally Posted by Hellboy

So I could in theory buy a normal advantage Unkillable 3 for 150 and then also get Unkillable 3 (Death, Magical -10%) for 140/5=28 and Unkillable 3 (Life, Divine -10%) for 140/5=28. This would give you 2 backup unkillables for 56 points in case one is negated by Affliction or something.

I am kinda wondering about how Affliction works in respect to this too. Is negating it possible with a -150% limitation, or would you have to buy Negated Advantage: Unkillable 1 at +50% and then +400% for cumulative? Liking the idea that it should cost +450 instead of +150.

First "-150% Limitation" ? Surely you meant +150% Negated Advantage Enhancement? If not I have no idea what Limitation you're referring to. Anyway yes, Unkillable doesn't really work in levels as has been pointed out. It's not a leveled Advantage in the traditional sense, but rather is 3 separate similar Advantages that are put under the same name with "levels" for how effective they are. So I would not really accept a +50% Negated Advantage with Cumulative.

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Having multiple Unkillables also brings into question: can they cover for each other's Achilles heels?

So long as they are all active, it can serve to drive down cost since you could select different Achilles heels for each one, but you would only die from them if the other Unkillable was negated.

I agree fully, even if you bypass one, there is still another version keeping you alive.

Originally Posted by Hellboy

It seems like they could also cover for each other's Hindrance/Trigger limitations too.

Here however I don't think I would agree. Achilles Heel covers each other because even if an attack bypasses one, you still have Unkillable that protects you unless it's weakness shows up.
However Hindrance brings in a new condition that Unkillable doesn't naturally cover for. It prevents you from healing until some condition is met (removing a substance from you in the case for Hindrance, something else undefined for Trigger), no matter how many Unkillables you have, the other versions aren't affecting your healing rate, and thus you remain susceptible to these Limitations.

Originally Posted by Hellboy

you buy Unkillable 2 and Unkillable 3 separately. Both are active. What happens when you reach negative 10xHP? Skeleton or ghost?

Part of the reason I would not allow multiple copies. I would however be inclined to say that Unkillable 3 takes priority, since you paid more points for it.

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Another thing is what if 1 Unkillable had the "reincarnation" limitation but the others did not? Would you still reincarnate? Would you get to choose whether or not you wanted to, opting to "turn off" one version of Unkillable in favor of using the other?

Like my interpretation with Hindrance/Trigger, Unkillable doesn't have any natural "protection" here, no one is bypassing Unkillable's effects so the other versions don't get to kick in and prevent what's happening. You would reincarnate despite how many copies you have without that Limitation. If you wanted a choice, I would just call it +10% or +5% for "Can Reincarnate".

[Leynok]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

That seems unfair though. If I had level 2 or 3 with some other ability than this would mean my abilities could not be fully depleted, they could only ever take away 1 level of it.

Requiring 'cumulative' to fully dispel multi-level abilities is a big cost-amplifier for Affliction which it sorely needs. Simply letting them buy a more expensive enhancement for a higher-level ability will turn out to be cheaper, in this case 1/3 the price.

Without it, the +50% 'Negates Advantage: Unkillable" could only reduce Unkillable 3 to Unkillable 2 ,basically locking your spirit into your corpse. But it couldn't reduce you to UK1 without Cumulative.

I think the high price of cumulative is supposed to make the affecting of high-level abilities cost a lot more.

I see no reason why you can't have multiple levels of a Negated Disadvantage, for example negating 4 levels of DR for +20%.
Cumulative isn't some price bump for dealing with multi leveled Advantages, it's expensive to avoid abuse, for example say you Afflict someone with Altered Time Rate and it's also Cumulative, and then start afflicting yourself multiple times a turn to get multiple levels and wow I just thought up something prone to abuse.
It's also the only way to ensure that you can fully disperse high levels of an Advantage as well, because if you by Negate Advantage 10 DR for instance, the most you'll ever negate is 10, someone with Cumulative and Negate 1 DR can keep applying it and wear them down from 25 to nothing.
Saying that you can't afflict multiple levels of an Advantage would take away a lot of options for a Universal System.

In any case, I don't see Unkillable as a true leveled Advantage, and would not allow Cumulative and Negated Advantage Unkillable +50% to work together. Feel free to disagree there, that's just the way i see it.