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Old 02-24-2021, 02:02 AM   #31
Inky
 
Join Date: Sep 2019
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Indeed, part of me is tempted to see what could be accomplished with an Always On Insubstantial character in a combined scouting/leadership role.
This is making me think of Red Dwarf. :-D
(For those not familiar: don't go looking there for examples of how to do this, he's useless, but that's not because he's a hologram, it's just because he's terrible and his crew don't listen to him.)
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Old 02-24-2021, 09:26 AM   #32
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

Yes, Rimmer. I wonder how one would represent his light bead?
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Old 02-24-2021, 10:48 PM   #33
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

(For those not in the know: the character in question is a hologram projected from a tiny hovering device called a "light bee".)

I actually statted all four of them (Holly the computer was beyond me) when I was bored. After a lot of false attempts to represent things like "Injury Tolerance: Diffuse (except this one bit", I had a brainwave, abandoned Insubstantial and statted Rimmer as SM -9! That is, I statted him as the light bee, and everything else is just decorative. After all, that is literally what's going on, and it works out a lot more neatly. (And is also suitably undignified). I only needed to add No Manipulators and ST 0 or 1, I wasn't sure which - if it ever became important whether a hologram could knock a small object down with their light bee, I don't remember anything to say that they couldn't.

The odd thing is that this works out as a huge negative value whereas the Insubstantiality and/or Injury Tolerance versions always worked out as a large positive value - if you overlook some modifiers that I had to make up and didn't know what value to give to. But given the results, that seems to me to be more what the value should be. GURPS seems to give a rather high point value to Insubstantial.
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Old 02-25-2021, 06:12 AM   #34
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

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Originally Posted by Inky View Post
The odd thing is that this works out as a huge negative value whereas the Insubstantiality and/or Injury Tolerance versions always worked out as a large positive value - if you overlook some modifiers that I had to make up and didn't know what value to give to. But given the results, that seems to me to be more what the value should be. GURPS seems to give a rather high point value to Insubstantial.
Well, to a party trying to learn other people's secrets, figure out where the enemy is in order to ambush them, etc., someone who can scout into closed rooms without picking the locks or being spotted is highly valuable. (That's for the "real" Insubstantiality version without the solid core.) But Red Dwarf is basically SF sitcom, not action-adventure, and in a sitcom it's much more of a drawback.

(Which is an intrinsic problem with a sufficiently generic system, of course: Combat Reflexes is worth a lot less in GURPS SItcom than it is in GURPS Bloody-Handed Barbarians but the book has to give it a single cost.)
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Old 02-25-2021, 05:34 PM   #35
dcarson
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

Combat Reflexes in a sitcom lets you be the one that slapstick doesn't happen to.
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Old 02-25-2021, 07:36 PM   #36
Inky
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

Haha, yes.
Actually, the difference in point value between that and the "real" Insubstantial, as you say, maybe makes some sense, given those things you mentioned. Most of those stunts would not work with Rimmer. (Even in the unlikely event that you could get him to try).
Actually, I don't see how a fully Insubstantial character would be any better than usual at spying without being spotted, either, unless they were also Invisible or similar.
There is a fair amount of action-adventure stuff in Red Dwarf, actually, but it's generally resolved less by the characters being awesome than by random accident! :-D
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Old 02-25-2021, 07:47 PM   #37
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

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Actually, I don't see how a fully Insubstantial character would be any better than usual at spying without being spotted, either, unless they were also Invisible or similar.
It does if they're smart about it. Insubstantiality lets them pass through barriers and fly, so they can approach from angles that would normally be impossible and thus are less likely to be checked. It makes them completely silent, I think, and at a minimum makes them move silently. And if they want to push it they can keep most of their body hidden in the walls - while by default they need to breathe in open air and of course need to expose their eyes to see anything, that doesn't preclude keeping everything but their face 'submerged'.

Mostly not automatic benefits to Stealth there, but a lot that can be leveraged into going undetected.
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Old 02-25-2021, 08:37 PM   #38
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

I hadn't checked the rules and had forgotten all about flying and moving silently being included.
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Old 02-25-2021, 10:07 PM   #39
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

Technically, it is effectively Walk of Air, not Flight, as you do not receive an Air Move.
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Old 02-25-2021, 11:32 PM   #40
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Insubstantiality

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Technically, it is effectively Walk of Air, not Flight, as you do not receive an Air Move.
No it is not. Walk on air lets you climb invisible stairs to go up or down, and you can slip and fall from the air. Insubstantiality lets you move in any direction freely and, as "gravity does not affect you" you cannot fall.
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