Corrupted Immortality

[AlexanderHowl]

In Horror, they present the Corrupted (20%) modifier (limitation for advantages and enhancement for disadvantages). When applied to advantaages, a character gains Corruption (Horror, pp. 146-148) equal to the amount of CP saved every time the advantage is used. Corruption can be reduced through meditation, at a rate of 4 CP per day of meditation.

In the case of Unkillable 3, Corruption would save a character 30 CP, so the character would gain 30 points of Corruption with every 'rebirth'. As long as they had a decent Will and we're willing to spend a couple of weeks meditating to recover from their ordeal, they would very rarely suffer the full effects of corruption. Conversely, a character with corrupted magic could very easily exceed 125 Corruption within a single battle, as they can replace FP with Corruption.

My question is the following: is it fair that a corrupted immortal could avoid the majority of the effects of Corruption while a corrupted mage could very easily end up twisted beyond recognition within a few sessions? Does it matter?

Have you used Corruption much in your campaigns? How did you like it? Do you think that it is a good mechanic? Would you change it any?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In Horror, they present the Corrupted (20%) modifier (limitation for advantages and enhancement for disadvantages). When applied to advantaages, a character gains Corruption (Horror, pp. 146-148) equal to the amount of CP saved every time the advantage is used. Corruption can be reduced through meditation, at a rate of 4 CP per day of meditation.

In the case of Unkillable 3, Corruption would save a character 30 CP, so the character would gain 30 points of Corruption with every 'rebirth'. As long as they had a decent Will and we're willing to spend a couple of weeks meditating to recover from their ordeal, they would very rarely suffer the full effects of corruption. Conversely, a character with corrupted magic could very easily exceed 125 Corruption within a single battle, as they can replace FP with Corruption.

My question is the following: is it fair that a corrupted immortal could avoid the majority of the effects of Corruption while a corrupted mage could very easily end up twisted beyond recognition within a few sessions? Does it matter?

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"

"Well, don't do that!"

A magician certainly could destroy itself with reckless overuse of magic. But that's true of other flavours of magic as well. It's part of what makes magic not quite as great a deal as it looks when you just look at character point costs.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

the character would gain 30 points of Corruption with every 'rebirth'.

I don't think it would work that way, any more than you could take "Costs Fatigue" to merely pay 1 FP per rebirth to get a -5% discount.

Costs like these, when not an instant 1-second ability (like firing an Innate Attack) usually means 1 minute of activation.

Unkillable, like DR, is Always-On by default, so if you took 'Costs Fatigue' it would change to off by default and activate for a minute if you paid fatigue to put it on. I'm pretty sure that's how Damage Resistance (Corrupting) would work too: you would shell out the corruption and then it gives you a minute of protection.

You're probably going to need it on longer than that because UK3 needs the time it takes to rebuild you from -10xHP to 1xHP and that's usually slow going unless you have some kind of special regeneration ability, could take several weeks.

Another problem (like DR that's no longer always on) is you'd need to be aware of the need to turn it on to avoid being killed by surprise attacks. "Reflexive" gives a chance for that, but that's so expensive that you'd need to take a lot of limitations to make up for it.

One way you could design it would be to not take "Corrupting" to get a discount on Unkillable, but do take it on your Regeneration (which is also 'Unkillable Only' so that the healing itself corrupts, not the inability to die

[Anthony]

I would probably make corruption costs paid no more than once per minute, costs on instant powers are often unreasonable relative to their disadvantage value.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would probably make corruption costs paid no more than once per minute, costs on instant powers are often unreasonable relative to their disadvantage value.

Agree 100%, even though paying 1 FP to be able to throw fireballs for 60 seconds doesn't seem like a huge investment, 5% isn't exactly a huge discount.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Plane

Agree 100%, even though paying 1 FP to be able to throw fireballs for 60 seconds doesn't seem like a huge investment, 5% isn't exactly a huge discount.

While I didn't mention costs fp, I would agree that the same change makes sense for costs fp.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In Horror, they present the Corrupted (20%) modifier (limitation for advantages and enhancement for disadvantages). When applied to advantaages, a character gains Corruption (Horror, pp. 146-148) equal to the amount of CP saved every time the advantage is used. Corruption can be reduced through meditation, at a rate of 4 CP per day of meditation.

In the case of Unkillable 3, Corruption would save a character 30 CP, so the character would gain 30 points of Corruption with every 'rebirth'. As long as they had a decent Will and we're willing to spend a couple of weeks meditating to recover from their ordeal, they would very rarely suffer the full effects of corruption. Conversely, a character with corrupted magic could very easily exceed 125 Corruption within a single battle, as they can replace FP with Corruption.

My question is the following: is it fair that a corrupted immortal could avoid the majority of the effects of Corruption while a corrupted mage could very easily end up twisted beyond recognition within a few sessions? Does it matter?

Have you used Corruption much in your campaigns? How did you like it? Do you think that it is a good mechanic? Would you change it any?

If you're worried about Corruption sticking around when a character is reincarnated consider some tweaks to the mechanics - first it would be fair to assume that corruption is a matter of the soul and not the flesh and that it follows the soul into a new body, secondly you could rule that corruption interferes with the reincarnation process and that the immortal must spend time in a hell until their corruption is burned away (hence creating an interval between reincarnations).
Alternatively you might rule that corruption is as much about the flesh or spirit as of the soul and reincarnation is a valid way of side stepping it. That would be sound in some cosmologies … of course, if you like the idea of a karmically balance world, all of that corruption might have to go somewhere and the immortal could find themselves plagued by entities formed from the corrupted spirits of their previous incarnations...

[Nereidalbel]

Another valid idea for Corrupting on Unkillable is that you gain Corruption points for every death check you avoid, due to being Unkillable. Sure, you'll frequently revive as some kind of psychotic mess, but, it's been working for Ra's al Ghul!

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Another valid idea for Corrupting on Unkillable is that you gain Corruption points for every death check you avoid, due to being Unkillable. Sure, you'll frequently revive as some kind of psychotic mess, but, it's been working for Ra's al Ghul!

Yeah, it seems like that would fall under an "indirect" use of Unkillable, as per the description of the modifier in Horror.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Another valid idea for Corrupting on Unkillable is that you gain Corruption points for every death check you avoid, due to being Unkillable. Sure, you'll frequently revive as some kind of psychotic mess, but, it's been working for Ra's al Ghul!

If I had something like "Unkillable 1" (Costs Fatigue 2, -10%) [45], I would figure that I would spend 2 FP to turn it on, and that lets me skip a situation when I would need to make that HT check for a minute...

But I'm not sure what would happen at the end of the minute: would you make the HT roll you missed, or have you missed it forever? It seems like if you're hovering at -6xHP and have your Unkillable deactivate that you should probably just die (since -5xHP is the threshold for automatic death normally) so if you're hovering at -4xHP, having skilled 4 death checks, turning it off seems like you ought to have to make those death checks.

Like Unkillable delays it as long as it's on, but forces normal checkpoint rolls when it's off?