[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Fragile

[johndallman]

Fragile [-5, -10, -15 or -50] is an exotic physical disadvantage that comes in several forms. You’re subject to special effects from various kinds of damage, although you don’t take extra damage (that’s Vulnerability). The disadvantage is new under this name in GURPS 4e, although it had predecessors in the 3e period. The standard forms are:

Brittle [-15]: When one of your limbs is crippled by injury, it breaks off. If you make a HT roll, it comes off in one piece, otherwise, it is destroyed. If you fail any HT roll to avoid death, you fall apart, and go to -10xHP, destroying your body. Note that this is part of the Body of Ice and Body of Stone meta-traits.

Combustible [-5]: Your body will catch fire if you take 10+ injury from burning or explosive attacks. If you take a lesser injury from such attacks, but it’s still a Major Wound, you get a HT roll to avoid catching fire. Once you are alight, you take 1d-1 burning injury each second until the fire is put out, or, presumably, you reach -10xHP. Extinguishing the fire can be done by immersing it in water, taking three seconds to roll on the ground, letting off a fire extinguisher at yourself, etc.

Explosive [-15]: You contain explosives, or some other very dense and unstable energy store. If you fail a HT roll to avoid death by three or more, or critically fail the HT roll (for knockdown and stunning) for a Major Wound, you explode. This reduces you to at least -10xHP, destroying your body, and causes a 6dx(HP/10) explosion at your position.

Flammable [-10]: You contain highly inflammable substances. It’s like Combustible, but you catch fire more easily. You must roll vs HT to avoid catching fire after a Major Wound from any kind of attack. This roll is at -3 for a burning or explosive attack, at -3 for an attack to the vitals, and -6 if both. If you are also Combustible, which is legal, if brave, you automatically catch fire if you take 10+ injury, or any Major Wound, from an explosive or burning attack. Once you have caught fire, a critical failure on any HT roll to avoid death means you explode, as per Explosive.

Unnatural [-50]: You’re not naturally alive, and the universe wants you to stop. You automatically fail all HT rolls to stay alive at -HP or more.

Plenty of inanimate objects have one or more kinds of Fragile, and vehicle descriptions have short codes for this. All of these rules are in terms of injury, the harm taken after armour, DR and other protections. You can take more than one kind of Fragile, if you can rationalise this: Explosive and Flammable are a natural pairing, as are Brittle and Unnatural. You can also take Vulnerability or Resistance to appropriate damage types, although being Fragile against something you’re also immune to is not a valid disadvantage. You can also combine Fragile with Injury Tolerance, although that expressly requires GM approval, both to avoid abuses and to make sure you won’t die suddenly and unintentionally.

Fragile isn’t a disadvantage that’s normally found on character templates, although it’s quite common on weird monsters, from zombies onwards, and should not be confused with the equipment modifier Fragile. Adaptions has a quirk-level version, and Basic’s Breaking Blow skill allows you to treat targets as (Brittle). Bio-Tech uses Fragile for bio-bombs and bio-blimps; DF tells us that demons aren’t (Unnatural) on their home plane. Low-Tech uses this disadvantage for several items of equipment, and LTC2 for various barriers. Magic applies it to several magical creatures, and Death Spells uses a more severe version of (Unnatural). Powers: the Weird has uses for (Brittle), and Space adds (Tenuous), where if you fail the HT roll for a Major Wound from an explosion, your gaseous or swarm body is torn apart, killing you. Zombies have the complete set of forms of Fragile, between their various templates.

I’ve never used this, as such, as a player or GM. I’ve used machines as a GM that were easy to break, but handled that more narratively. Has it been important in your games?