Dirty Cheap Unkillable [Powers]

[Otaku]

I think the superior option would be to have a really good Fast Talk skill. So that the GM agrees every PC should just have Unkillable 3 (maybe with a few other traits), before the "real" CP total for your characters. In other words, the idea is you're a band of immortals spending your infinity how you wish. Or something like that.

Maybe also see how much Cosmic (The GM Agrees not to screw me over) for Unkillable 2 or 3. The idea is the GM isn't going to toss Power negators at you or through you into a situation where you're perpetually dying from damage until you die of old age (if applicable). Though Unkillable 3 already covers some of that in the first place.

If you have no form of Regeneration (or other tricks) so you "heal" faster while dead, a human with HP 10 is down for months, right? That means, when your character dies:

• You (the player) are stuck missing out on the fun.
• The rest of the group can continue on, but they're down a PC.
• The group accepts a "Mission Fail" and the story starts up again after you revive.
• Probably a few other things I'm missing.

Especially if your characters are not also Unaging. Even if they are Unaging, though, just making sure social ties matter and the world moves on without you can make temporary character death still enough of a penalty that the game feels like a game and not pure wish fulfillment where the GM just gives you whatever you ask for. ;)

Now, if you cannot convince your GM of this, I still don't like the Limitations initially proposed; while it is nice you'll survive most situations, the GM has to throw the countermeasures to your Unkillable 3 at you periodically to justify the discount you received. Which means it is still a matter of when you no longer respawn, not "if".

Is there a mechanic for temporarily suffering extra Disadvantages upon Unkillable 3 reviving you? "Oh, yeah. Dying and coming back leaves you a bit crazy for a while. It wears off, assuming you don't get your fool self killed again before you can recover. With some folks, it is a vicious cycle." Otherwise, the only Limitation I can think of which seems really like it fits and is priced about right is axing the effects of Unkillable 1 from Unkillable 2 or 3.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Well, the nerf to Flesh Wounds makes Extra Life and Unkillable much better than. It is still really easy to negate both though. Extra Life does not heal the character, nor does it prevent any other complications other than death.

For example, you could have Burning Attack 1d (Cyclic, 6 10 second cycles, Prevented by public confession of worst crime, +250%; Malediction 2, +150%; No Signature, Mundane, +25%; Symptoms, Disadvantage (Vulnerability (4x, Burning Damage), -1/3 HP, +240%; Symptoms, Disadvantage (Unhealing (Total)), -1/2 HP, +60%; Symptoms, Disadvantage (Fragile (Unnatural)), -2/3 HP, +50%; Variable, +5%) [44]. The attack is directly against the essence of the individual, making them more vulnerable to burning damage before blocking their ability to heal and, finally, their ability to exist. If a character possesses Extra Life, Extra Life would bring them back to life should they die, but it would not remove the Symptoms, as they can only be removed by healing.

There is no timeframe on when you return to life, and it's a 25 point advantage. If not bought with limitations, I'd not buy it if the GM had it that you just don't die but get to basically be an almost-dead body on the ground. It's the sort of advantage that lets you avoid the whole mess - you apparently died, but it turned out you didn't actually die and you have a short recovery scene in hospital and you're good to go, or they shot your clone instead, or whatever. It's activation probably means you sit out the fight you died in, but then you're good to go - it's at least partly a meta-trait, or can be. Details to be discussed with the GM. What it's certainly not is just "I made that HT save I just failed".

As for your 'example' affliction - I'm way not keen on something where the 'timer' on a temporary effect is one of the things that's suppressed by them. That's basically cheating. That's a limitation that isn't.

[Bucket_Head]

If I paid 25 points to come back to life, paid for before the incident, and then lost the ability permanently, and also didn't remove the ill effects besides death, I'd be a bit annoyed.
Unkillable 3 (Mortal, -20%; Costs Character Points, 1/5) [24]
An ability like this, costing 1-3 cp per use depending on how believable, is much better in my opinion. I might throw in regeneration as well, maybe regrowth, have them all cost CP, for a max loss of 9 points per death, but they'd have to die a lot before I'd consider it a bad investment. I like when my characters die, so I wouldn't use it unless he would die too easily, like a skeleton necromancer with Unnatural [-50].

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

not Unkillable 1:-20%

Here's an idea: apply "Accessibility: only applies when HP is above -1xHP" on some HP.

-10% on 2/level would save 1 point if taken on 5 levels of HP (a quirk).

Result is when you are at full negative, (say -10 HP) half your HP turns off: now -10 is actually -2xHP.

Instead of forced dormancy at -100 injury it occurs at -50 instead.

If you take 2 levels of this quirk (-10 to HP when -1xHP) and your base HP was 11, then at -11 HP you would be beyond -10xHP and go dormant.

Interestingly this actually could help you regain conciousness faster since UK2/UK3 cap damage at a "-10xHP" threshold, so that "negative injury limit" is -10 for those with 1 HP vs -100 for those with 10 HP: so you could recover in 1 day instead of 100 days with Unkillable 2 (who become conscious at 0 HP).

The difference is less stark with UK3 though since they don't become conscious at 0, they need to fully recover HP, and "fully" is going to require more amounts as your HP reactivates from being above 0 HP. You still get up to 0 faster but beyond that it's the usual time frame.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Extra Life does not heal the character, nor does it prevent any other complications other than death.

I always thought Extra Life was a 'get out of jail free card' kind of deal. Otherwise it doesn't seem worth 25pts;

Originally Posted by Rupert

It's activation probably means you sit out the fight you died in, but then you're good to go - it's at least partly a meta-trait, or can be.

That's basically how I've run it. The camera said you died, but you were just gone for the rest of the scene and back to normal after. It definitely feels cinematic and meta.

Originally Posted by Bucket_Head

Unkillable 3 (Mortal, -20%; Costs Character Points, 1/5) [24]

Do the same with Regeneration and you have the ability to effectively buy Extra Life with 2cp.

[AlexanderHowl]

In Basic (p. 55), Extra Life says nothing about healing (or avoiding any other form of adverse condition), just that you do not die.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In Basic (p. 55), Extra Life says nothing about healing (or avoiding any other form of adverse condition), just that you do not die.

Actually, it says "Work out the details with the GM." It also doesn't say that you don't die, it says that you come back from the dead, an important distinction.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In Basic (p. 55), Extra Life says nothing about healing (or avoiding any other form of adverse condition), just that you do not die.

Again, that interpretation doesn't seem worth 25pts and I'm pretty sure you agree because you think it's overpriced. I'd rather Extra Life basically work similar to extra lives in video games to be worth that giant cost. Considering that certain genres really do have things "I didn't actually die, it was my clone the whole time!" or hospital visits that are shorter than montages, it makes sense to me as a cinematic thing (I also think Extra Life makes more sense as 'cinematic' than 'exotic' but that's a different discussion).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Bucket_Head

Unkillable 3 (Mortal, -20%; Costs Character Points, 1/5) [24]
An ability like this, costing 1-3 cp per use depending on how believable, is much better in my opinion.

Losing the CP spent on "one use" advantages (1/5 like Favor) is bothersome.

The "effect" of a permanent limitation like "One User Ever -80%" seems like something which should vanish if you "buy up" the limitation.

Until then you should count as keeping the trait, you just can't use it. Kinda like how "requires 8 hours prep" abilities are useless if you can never actually find that prep time (there is a rat which nibbles your toe every hour and distracts you), but have a hidden value of "I can buy up that limitation and get some use"

I think the precedent for this exists in Psionic Powers when one temporarily adds the "Decreased Immunity" enhancement (pg 21) to re-use an ability against someone who already acquired immunity to it: Mind Swap on page 62

"If you lose or tie, you are stunned for 1d seconds and you cannot try to swap with that
person again without using the New Approach psi technique."

The way max immunity works for possession is like gaining "one use only -80%" only applying to "one person only", while "Decreased Immunity" gradually lessens "one use only".

So if Mind Swap / New Approach works that way, you should also be able to "buy up" any other one-use ability later on and retroactively interpret the past failure as fulfilling whatever your new condition is.

Like how New Approach turns "that one time they failed? immune forever" into "just -2, as if you had Decreased Immunity all along".

Extra Life [25] as Extra Lives (-80% one use ever) [25] variant of Extra Lives [125] probably does mean it should function like sort sort of tweaked UK2 ("I get back up") or UK3 ("I vanished in the blast but then re-appeared at a convenient time")

Actually using your "one use ever" should not remove the advantage, just make it unusable (like if you have "needs staff" magery but can't get a staff for years) until you have grounds to buy off the limitation.

If it actually costs permanent CP each time then Extra Lives (-80% costs 1-3 cp per use) [25] is the same discount, having the advantage you can use it more than once but the disadvantage that you've lost CP total while the "one use" guy has not, so he's closer to buying that limitation up to "one use per day" than you are.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In Basic (p. 55), Extra Life says nothing about healing (or avoiding any other form of adverse condition), just that you do not die.

If, in your game, Extra-life only cancel a failed HT check (and bring you back above -5HT if you got below), then it is not worth 25cp but 2 or 3 cp at most.

perk : sacrifice this perk to succeed on a failed HT roll - the perk is gone after that single use
+
perk : sacrifice this perk to cancel an injury that got you below -5hp - the perk is gone after that single use.
+ maybe an extra-option perk to enable the 2 above (basically impulse buy with a small bonus due to being locked to a single option at creation. See the similar perk in Gurps Psionic power probability talents.)

For 25 cp, an unmodified Extra-life rewrite history, so that an action that killed you somehow didn't - detail to be discussed with the GM.

It could be, for example, that
-you made an HT roll; -or-
-the attack only seemed to hit but actually missed; -or-
-it was a clone that died and you were not there; -or-
-it was an illusion; -or-
-you really came back from the dead; -or-
-something else.
so whatever carry over is between the player and the GM, you cannot assume anything.