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Old 10-03-2019, 09:47 AM   #1
doot
 
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Default Phylactery Item without Soul Jar

I'm in a pickle. I have a player in my group who wants their character's life force and magical power to be contained in a specific item, and their corporeal form unkillable without destroying that item. It's pretty easy to get the power/unkillable stuff, just give it some Gadget limitations like Breakable and Can Be Stolen, what I'm stuck on is how to work the "death if destroyed" feature in. Any feedback is appreciated!
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Old 10-03-2019, 10:06 AM   #2
ericthered
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Default Re: Phylactery Item without Soul Jar

Christopher Rice put some monster hunter templates on his blog as part of designer notes for a pyramid article that lists such a build. In the article the lens is called "Object-based immortality":

Quote:
Object-Based Immortality: You gained your immortality thanks to an object. You must keep the object hidden and safe as its destruction results in your immediate and messy death. Hard to Kill 1 [2]; High Pain Threshold [10]; Regeneration (Regular) [25]; Regrowth [40]; Unkillable 1 (Achilles Heel, Damage from loss of object, -10%) [45]; Weakness (Loss of object; 1d/second; Quickened, +120%) [-22].
You can fiddle around with that, of course. The part you are looking for is:

Quote:
Weakness (Loss of object; 1d/second; Quickened, +120%) [-22]
Loss of object is considered "Rare". I'm not sure where the Quickened Modifier is from. It could be reduced time 6, which costs +120% and reduces the time by a factor of about 64 (rounded to 60, I presume).

The resulting death isn't instant, but its pretty quick: for 10 hp the first death check comes after about 6 seconds, and auto death (-5 * HP) comes at about 18 seconds. Its going to be almost impossible to remove the source of damage as well.
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Last edited by ericthered; 10-03-2019 at 10:12 AM.
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Old 10-03-2019, 10:52 AM   #3
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Phylactery Item without Soul Jar

Quote:
Originally Posted by doot View Post
I'm in a pickle. I have a player in my group who wants their character's life force and magical power to be contained in a specific item, and their corporeal form unkillable without destroying that item. It's pretty easy to get the power/unkillable stuff, just give it some Gadget limitations like Breakable and Can Be Stolen, what I'm stuck on is how to work the "death if destroyed" feature in. Any feedback is appreciated!
Here's the thing. "Will die instantly if event happens" is not very different from "Will die quickly". Therefore I don't consider the former to be worth significantly more than a 3 die weakness. Just make it a feature that the death happens in a second.
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Old 10-03-2019, 11:05 AM   #4
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Phylactery Item without Soul Jar

I would probably just go with Unkillable (Achilles Heel: damage to phylactery). It shouldn't be a lot of savings unless for some reason the phylactery needs to be in some vulnerable location.
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Old 10-03-2019, 12:09 PM   #5
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Default Re: Phylactery Item without Soul Jar

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Here's the thing. "Will die instantly if event happens" is not very different from "Will die quickly". Therefore I don't consider the former to be worth significantly more than a 3 die weakness. Just make it a feature that the death happens in a second.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Christopher Rice put some monster hunter templates on his blog as part of designer notes for a pyramid article that lists such a build. In the article the lens is called "Object-based immortality":



You can fiddle around with that, of course. The part you are looking for is:



Loss of object is considered "Rare". I'm not sure where the Quickened Modifier is from. It could be reduced time 6, which costs +120% and reduces the time by a factor of about 64 (rounded to 60, I presume).

The resulting death isn't instant, but its pretty quick: for 10 hp the first death check comes after about 6 seconds, and auto death (-5 * HP) comes at about 18 seconds. Its going to be almost impossible to remove the source of damage as well.
Thanks guys, that'll be the plan.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
I would probably just go with Unkillable (Achilles Heel: damage to phylactery). It shouldn't be a lot of savings unless for some reason the phylactery needs to be in some vulnerable location.
It has to be on the player's person for them to use it, and they get additional powers from the object. This would be how I'd do a Lich or something though, someone whose powers are independent of the object. Good stuff. Thanks.
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Old 10-03-2019, 01:29 PM   #6
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Phylactery Item without Soul Jar

Unkillable 2 (Achilles Heel, Destruction of object [Rare], -10%) [90], Dependant (Constant; Existence of object [Rare]) [-150], and Unhealing (Total; Mitigator, Constant; Existence of object [Rare], -50%) [-15] is the combination that I would go with. If the object is destroyed, the character takes 1 HP of damage per turn until they die, and they can never heal that damage, meaning that they will die quite quickly. Of course, this may better represent worn objects rather than existing objects, though I think the lengths required to preserve an object outside of one's possession is equally dangerous.
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