Help with extremely powerful character creation

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Shippo

I really need to get character HP stats up a bit too. Penetrating spell seems a bit overpowered in some ways. When DR starts meaning nothing, they're really going to need a whole lot of HP.

Injury Tolerance: Damage Reduction is your friend. 150 points is effectively HPx10, without the effects on HP recovery.

[RaRaRasputin]

Injury Tolerance: Damage Reduction is your friend. 150 points is effectively HPx10, without the effects on HP recovery.

If you're taking 1/10 as much damage and healing at the same rate, you effectively recover from the same amount of basic damage ten times as fast.

Note that the final injury after dividing for IT:DR must always be at least 1 (unless it's a crushing attack). With a +50% cosmic modifier, you can round down instead of rounding up (Powers p 119), but it's usually not worth it unless you're particularly scared of dying to a Death of a Thousand Cuts.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RaRaRasputin

Note that the final injury after dividing for IT:DR must always be at least 1 (unless it's a crushing attack). With a +50% cosmic modifier, you can round down instead of rounding up (Powers p 119), but it's usually not worth it unless you're particularly scared of dying to a Death of a Thousand Cuts.

The other technique for this is to give the character DR 20. That will protect them from taking that one point of damage from a fist blow, sword thrust, or pistol round, so an enraged mob can't kick them to death. Otherwise you have to worry about the Angry Villager Rule.

Bill Stoddard

[RaRaRasputin]

I've also seen it implemented with DR 2 (Absorption, Healing only, +80%) [18]. It shaves two points of damage off before you divide for IT:DR, which are then used to heal the 1 point of damage that's left over after you divide.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RaRaRasputin

I've also seen it implemented with DR 2 (Absorption, Healing only, +80%) [18]. It shaves two points of damage off before you divide for IT:DR, which are then used to heal the 1 point of damage that's left over after you divide.

That strikes me as a gamist solution rather than a simulationist solution: That is, it's neat and elegant in terms of game mechanics, but I can't readily imagine what process in the real world could possibly give rise to an effect that works that way game mechanically. Which is fine if you just want neat game mechanics, but my imagination doesn't run that way.

Bill Stoddard

[RaRaRasputin]

Originally Posted by whswhs

but I can't readily imagine what process in the real world could possibly give rise to an effect that works that way game mechanically.

SCP-682, Crawler from Worm, Darwin from the X-Men, DC's Resurrection Man, and other superheroes/villains with similar abilities.

Unless you specifically have "That which does not kill me only makes me stronger" as your schtick, however, I agree that it's a bit of a kludge.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RaRaRasputin

SCP-682, Crawler from Worm, Darwin from the X-Men, DC's Resurrection Man, and other superheroes/villains with similar abilities.

The only one of those I'm familiar with is Darwin, and I only saw him as the black guy who died in First Class. There wasn't really enough evidence to say, "Oh, the part of the damage that hit his skin was creating a special mutant energy that healed the small damage to his internal tissues."

Bill Stoddard

[Shippo]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

You can buy an Energy Reserve (works like FP, from Powers p 119) more cheaply with a Stunts Only -10% Limitation that it can only be used to fuel extra effort and stunts, or even One Power -50% if you want it to only fuel eg: Super Strength specifically.



Characters at this power level tend to have a diverse way of surviving hazard, not just a mountain of DR and HP. Extraordinarily-high active defenses are usually common in this sort of game, for example.



This probably isn't what you want to hear right now, but I recommend a low-power game with relatively normal character abilities for the starting GURPS GM, even if you've GM'd other games. Much less to keep track of without all the bells and whistles, which can then be added gradually as you understand how they work and which will best fit your vision.

I was thinking of something like energy reserve. I was gonna call it MP, ENG, or something like that. Seems like a good idea! I understand the idea that a new GM should start simple, but I'm not going to do that. I'll just... do whatever it takes to make things work. xD I really did want to simplify the characters, but it just seems to dumb some of them down waaaaay too much. I wouldn't mind simplifying things if I can do it without weaking the characters.

Originally Posted by whswhs

That strikes me as a gamist solution rather than a simulationist solution: That is, it's neat and elegant in terms of game mechanics, but I can't readily imagine what process in the real world could possibly give rise to an effect that works that way game mechanically. Which is fine if you just want neat game mechanics, but my imagination doesn't run that way.

Bill Stoddard

I'm still getting mixed up with Damage Reduction and Damage Resistance. Which one uses the acronym DR? That's the main confusing thing. I know one divides damage to reduce it... and I think one prevents damage below that number entirely?

The campaign is mostly narrative, but we chose gurps to add some gamism (not to the extreme) and simulation (very very light! lots of things are unrealistic. It's more to add the option of simulationism)... just to make things more interesting! I figured this would complicate character creation, very true (so I didnt wanna mention this).... but the campaign already started a while ago! So its more like character conversion to gurps, kinda. I was basically making up my own rules as it went along, which seemed to be working, uhmm.... for a while anyway. Each character had a magical power level and some skills/spells. I actually considered using Fate instead of gurps, but it felt too simple. I like characters having attributes like ST, IQ, DX, etc. (so it would have been moving from something too simple to something else probably too simple) We weren't even using dice before this! I was just deciding whether things worked or not based on my opinion, character skills, and power levels. We decided together that it'd be more interesting to roll for stuff... also an easy way to solve any (frequent) indecisive situation where I couldn't easily make decisions. So there is my silly confession for how I got into this confusing situation! xD

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Shippo

I'm still getting mixed up with Damage Reduction and Damage Resistance. Which one uses the acronym DR? That's the main confusing thing. I know one divides damage to reduce it... and I think one prevents damage below that number entirely?

Damage Resistance is DR. Think of it as armor protecting you from harm, except, it weighs nothing and it's always on you. Damage Reduction takes the acronym IT:DR, and it divides injury. That is, apply all wounding modifiers for hit location and damage type, then divide by your IT:DR level. Non-Crushing has a minimum of 1 injury, unless you also pay for a +50% Cosmic.

[Shippo]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Damage Resistance is DR. Think of it as armor protecting you from harm, except, it weighs nothing and it's always on you. Damage Reduction takes the acronym IT:DR, and it divides injury. That is, apply all wounding modifiers for hit location and damage type, then divide by your IT:DR level. Non-Crushing has a minimum of 1 injury, unless you also pay for a +50% Cosmic.

Ok thanks, I think I know how to get it straight now. I'm going to try to think of it as IT:DR, instead of just "Damage Reduction".