Dirty Cheap Unkillable [Powers]

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Reincarnation is -20% (Basic, p. 95). Once again, the GM is acting in bad faith if they make your various limitstions apply more often than they should. if your Achilles Heel is Fire, which is common, it should not occur for more than 1/10th of the potential causes of death.

I disagree. Unless the GM has pitched a campaign as having certain features (is has been running it this way if it's ongoing), and then changes that once he sees what you're vulnerable to, the GM has no obligation to balance up damage types. If it's a military style campaign set at TL5-8 there are going to be a lot of piercing attacks, and a lot of attacks with burning damage (explosions, by default, are incendiary and thus have a linked 1-point burning attack). If someone chooses one of those as an Achilles' Heel the GM is under no obligation to have most of the enemy NPCs' to using their rifles as clubs to reduce the rate of piercing and burning attacks to 10% each. As 'common' and 'very common' (which you could claim piercing is at TL6-8) Achilles' Heels are worth the same, the player just gets to suck it up, and maybe should've thought about their choices a bit more carefully.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I disagree. Unless the GM has pitched a campaign as having certain features (is has been running it this way if it's ongoing), and then changes that once he sees what you're vulnerable to, the GM has no obligation to balance up damage types. If it's a military style campaign set at TL5-8 there are going to be a lot of piercing attacks, and a lot of attacks with burning damage (explosions, by default, are incendiary and thus have a linked 1-point burning attack). If someone chooses one of those as an Achilles' Heel the GM is under no obligation to have most of the enemy NPCs' to using their rifles as clubs to reduce the rate of piercing and burning attacks to 10% each. As 'common' and 'very common' (which you could claim piercing is at TL6-8) Achilles' Heels are worth the same, the player just gets to suck it up, and maybe should've thought about their choices a bit more carefully.

Or they should have negotiated for a better deal on the limitation. Point costs should not get in the way of the setting. Which is your main point, I believe.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Rupert

And that means the person you want to resurrect is now a corpse with unbreakable skeleton (which will become just the skeleton over time), lying where they died. For most people that means the corpse is going to get taken away and processed in some way. This might cause all kinds of problems, some of them history changing.

I think I'd just define the "unbreakable skeleton" to be those parts of the body you currently have in front of you. If its an urn of ashes, so be it. I've always read "Unbreakable Skeleton" to mean the absolute minimum that you can be reduced to. in my games its rarely an actual skeleton.

[AlexanderHowl]

In the case of a modern setting, I would just tell the player to take another Achilles Heel, as that is just asking for trouble (and, seriously, what player would take piercing damage as their Achilles Heel in a modern campaign?). If they come back to me with burning damage as their Achilles Heel, I am not suddenly going to having everyone using flamethrowers so I can specific screw over that character (though I will not refrain from using burning damage where it makes sense).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Mortal is a limitation I really like to take. Removes Unkillable 1 for the nice price of -20%*.

*It's not canon but I see most people give -50pts instead of -20% http://www.mygurps.com/pmwiki.php?n=Main.GURPSModifiers

One alternative approach I was thinking about for this...

If I view the Unkillable Only -40% limitation on Regeneration as "Accessibility: Advantage only applies when HP drops to -1xHP or below" and want to figure out the value of the reverse "Advantage only applies when HP is higher than -1xHP" instead.

-40% is the value of Limited Defenses: Common (B46) for DR...

Which is -10% as a Bane to DR (bypasses it).

So "Regeneration: only applies when HP is above -1xHP" sounds like it should be -10%. It's of no help to bringing you back from the red zone!

This is slow recovery hampering even Unkillable guys, but even worse for non-Unkillable since regeneration can help stuff like blood loss which can just kill you period.

"While conscious" by comparison is only -5%. Low HP won't end that, but losing consciousness WOULD stop the regeneration.

Conscious-only unkillability is probably a bad idea since holding off the HT roll to survive would cease if you got knocked out.

If "while conscious" (ie "not while unconscious") is -5% this makes me wonder if "not while stunned" (ie "while unstunned") might be worth on switchable abilities that merely getting stunned shuts off. Anyone recall anything like that? Feels right to at least throw -1% at it.

Originally Posted by Rupert

And that means the person you want to resurrect is now a corpse with unbreakable skeleton (which will become just the skeleton over time), lying where they died. For most people that means the corpse is going to get taken away and processed in some way. This might cause all kinds of problems, some of them history changing.

I guess that wouldn't be too conspicuous if the corpse already had the "Unbreakable Bones" advantage.

If they didn't, then whether or not it changes history I guess depends on what was done with the corpse.

If it was just dumped in a grave and the bones remained kinda intact then you didn't really change anything by making them unbreakable (their breakability was never challenged)

OTOH yeah if they were ground into dust then you've really altered the timeline by preventing this somehow.

I guess in that case you'd need to use Time-Spanning affliction of UK3 to keep the "dusting" of the bones intact and have the life force in limbo for however many centuries until your non-time-spanning Regeneration takes effect at present time.

You wouldn't necessarily have to do that at the time though (that actually leads to a weird situation where you "poof the corpse") but rather target the moment at which UK2 would've become conspicuous (when the bones were vaporized). So you could possible take a smaller "time-spanning" penalty if the "bones were ground to dust" event happened centuries after the actual death.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Reincarnation is -20%

Right; Mortal -20%, Pact -10%, Reincarnation -20%, for -50%.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

it should not occur for more than 1/10th of the potential causes of death.

I agree, but if you're taking Unkillable you're likely worried of more than ten potential deaths happening. You might be worried about more than a hundred that could happen in even one session depending on how dangerous things can get.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I am not suddenly going to having everyone using flamethrowers so I can specific screw over that character (though I will not refrain from using burning damage where it makes sense).

I definitely agree with this. I think my main issue is some traits having any holes in them make them vastly less useful compared to what it mathematically looks like. Or in other words, you know that fire is going to screw you over eventually. 60pts doesn't seem worth it, I almost feel two Extra Lives will do more for you.

[AlexanderHowl]

I can get rid of an Extra Life with a bullet from a good sniper. With a .50 Barrett, I am dealing 6d×2 pi+ damage, which deals an average of 63 damage on a torso hit (126 damage to the vitals), and it is a weapon owned by civilians in the USA. With three shots, it is time to build a new character.

With the Unkillable 3 build though, you are back in twelve seconds, and you can keep coming back until they run out of bullets. Unless they actually drop an incendiary bomb on you, your primary issues deal with replacing your wardrobe. Of course, you also need to explain how you keep coming back to any witnesses.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I can get rid of an Extra Life with a bullet from a good sniper.

That sounds a lot like "rocks fall, party dies" for the GM to do.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I can get rid of an Extra Life with a bullet from a good sniper. With a .50 Barrett, I am dealing 6d×2 pi+ damage, which deals an average of 63 damage on a torso hit (126 damage to the vitals), and it is a weapon owned by civilians in the USA. With three shots, it is time to build a new character.

With the Unkillable 3 build though, you are back in twelve seconds, and you can keep coming back until they run out of bullets. Unless they actually drop an incendiary bomb on you, your primary issues deal with replacing your wardrobe. Of course, you also need to explain how you keep coming back to any witnesses.

I'd be wanting a chat with the GM after if they decided to clean off two Extra Lives like that, because interpreting it as "And you come back right here and now so they get to shoot you some more" seems very much against the spirit of the advantage. The way it's written, they shoot you dead, dead, dead, and then you reappear (quite possibly in the next scene), likely with them none the wiser. Hey, it turns out they shot your twin that even you didn't know you had! Or, they shot you, you were lying there, obviously dead, but it turns out you were only 'mostly dead' and a short stay in hospital sorted you out.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I'd be wanting a chat with the GM after if they decided to clean off two Extra Lives like that...

I'd be wanting a chat with any GM that decided to pull a stunt like that, regardless. A character being instantly murdered with no warning or chance to respond isn't how I want to play my games.