Unaging should be a perk

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by Pomphis

Which you could say also about Immunity or Resistant to Disease.

Right, but artificial aging is unusual. Disease is a perfectly ordinary thing that afflicts people in the real world.

Of course, some GMs don't actually bother giving PCs diseases (hey, I usually don't) because it's too petty for their heroic game, or they don't think it's fair to randomly screw PCs over by diseasing them once in a while, or they don't think it's fun for the player to have to play an arbitrarily-diseased character, or maybe it just never occurs to them to do it. If they also don't have any adventures that involve plague epidemics, rooting through filth, or fighting monsters that inflict disease as an attack, and you ignore things like infected wounds, then yeah, disease resistance isn't really an advantage.

Alternately, if you're of the school of "if a player takes an advantage/disad/skill for his character, it means he wants it to be significant at some point", then anyone taking disease resistance is pretty much asking for disease to appear in the campaign. Amusingly enough, when it does, it'll probably only affect the PCs who don't have resistance. Metajinx? ;)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Xplo

Alternately, if you're of the school of "if a player takes an advantage/disad/skill for his character, it means he wants it to be significant at some point", then anyone taking disease resistance is pretty much asking for disease to appear in the campaign. Amusingly enough, when it does, it'll probably only affect the PCs who don't have resistance. Metajinx? ;)

I still call it 'the underwear effect', as back when I was a starting GM, one of my players, joining the campaign in progress, took underwear as an item of clothing, and I followed by deciding that since he was the first to point out such a detail, other PCs didn't.

Right now I'm trying to act more in a 'default assumptions' mode, to avoid such cases. I'm still not sure which one is better in general.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I still call it 'the underwear effect', as back when I was a starting GM, one of my players, joining the campaign in progress, took underwear as an item of clothing, and I followed by deciding that since he was the first to point out such a detail, other PCs didn't.

Wow, Molokh, that's mean!

[Mark Skarr]

I think that Longevity should be a perk (which it practically is) and Unaging should be a 5 point advantage. They're both useful, but neither one is terribly relevant in 99% of games. Sure, a GM can always find a way to bring them into play, but is it really worth it? I usually take it on characters who are supposed to look younger than their years: Liberty Cross looks to be about 25, yet she’s been fighting crime since 1976 (and looking good doing it!).
Let’s face it, Unaging simply isn’t as useful as Very Fit, or Very Rapid Healing. Heck, it’s not even as useful as High Pain Threshold and that’s five-points cheaper (not bringing Combat Reflexes into the discussion because it’s a discounted advantage). It is, however, about as useful as Protected Power or Sense. It isn’t going to come up much, but, when it does, you’ll be immune to the effect.

On the subject of Immunity to Disease: almost all of my characters, who are intended to be promiscuous, take Immunity to Disease. Less to ensure they don’t catch anything and more to make it easier on the GM so they don’t have to worry about that. They also usually take fertility control so the GM has one less thing to worry about.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I think that Longevity should be a perk (which it practically is) and Unaging should be a 5 point advantage.

This is how I price it too, the 5 points is an unusual background cost for having access to anachronistic skills and knowledge at character creation.

[PK]

Originally Posted by aesir23

This is how I price it too, the 5 points is an unusual background cost for having access to anachronistic skills and knowledge at character creation.

As has been mentioned, my house rules on this basically boil down to "All age-related traits are 1/2 price, except Unaging, which is 5 points," for similar reasons. Longevity and Extended Lifespan are both reasonable perks (a leveled perk, in the latter case), and then once you're going to buy more than 4 levels of EL, you can just go with Unaging. These values of EL and Unaging are comparable to Resistant/Immunity to Aging Effects (Rare), and serve as a reasonable background for "I know low-TL skills."

I'll also note that "traits," above, includes disadvantages. The authors took some steps towards nerfing age-related disads, but went about half as far as they should have IMHO, so this rule takes it the rest of the way. For example, Short Lifespan was changed to be twice as bad (in effect-per-point-granted) as it used to be, so this makes it four times as bad, which is about right. It can still be free points if unrestricted, mind you, but sensible GMs will only allow it as a racial trait, where they can control its levels anyway and make sure it comes into play as necessary.

[Ragitsu]

I've made this same point before with Immunity (Age) for Mutants and Masterminds.

[Peter Knutsen]

For GURPS, one might even go further than RPK:

1 CP: Lifespan extended by a factor of 3 (not 2)
2 CP: Lifespan extened by a factor of 10 (not 4)

And then either continue through 3 CP (30) and 4 CP (100) before arriving at Unaging at 5 CP, or else just say tha 3 CPs buy you Unaging.

Dwarves would typically have the 1 CP version, Elves the 2 CP one.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I still call it 'the underwear effect', as back when I was a starting GM, one of my players, joining the campaign in progress, took underwear as an item of clothing, and I followed by deciding that since he was the first to point out such a detail, other PCs didn't.

Right now I'm trying to act more in a 'default assumptions' mode, to avoid such cases. I'm still not sure which one is better in general.

Playing commandos were they?

[The Colonel]

Hell, under the right circumstances unaging could cause you serious problems - if you don't keep out of the public eye sooner or later someone is going to burn you at the stake. Or dissect you, depending on the era.