Dusklords' Dependency

Bicorn · 11-01-2018, 02:47 PM

Dusklords are a variant type of vampire described in GURPS Creatures of the Night. They have a custom version of the Dependency(human blood) disadvantage, with a rather complicated progression. How would one go about translating it to 4e terms, if one wanted to make dusklord a playable template?
The relevant bits are as follows:
- after a day without blood the dusklord's fp is halved and they suffer -1 IQ and -3 to attacks and spell use.
- after a week, the above penalties are doubled. (Does this mean they lose all their fp, or that it's reduced to 1/4? The book doesn't clarify.)
- after a month they start to lose 1 HT (or possibly hp, 3e books had a bad habit of using the terms like they were interchangeable) per day until death.
I'm a bit uncertain if I should try to match the given rules exactly or tweak them to make them easier to codify.

Not another shrubbery · 11-01-2018, 07:16 PM

Rereading the description, it seems to me that the HT loss is meant to accompany the attribute penalties. This looks like you need to break it down into two parts. The easy part is the HT loss, which is just a normal monthly Dependency.

The second part is the trickier one to deal with the two other drawbacks. Derive the Disadvantage values for the penalties to spells and attacks, and combine those with the associated IQ and FP penalties. You'll have two Disadvantage 'package' values, one for going w/o blood for a day, and the other for a week. Each package will be modified with the Mitigator Limitation, the first with the -60% version (the 'package' comes into play if you miss a daily dose) and the second with the -65% version. Since you can only affected by one package at a time, you should fit them into an Either/Or construct, so that if the character misses his blood requirement for 1-6 days, the effects of the first Disad package are imposed, while the more severe set of penalties kick in after a week.

That looks like it should cover those particular disadvantages. It's possible that there's a more elegant way to deal with a worsening Dependency-like Disadvantage, but the above at least should put a reasonable value on the thing.

11-01-2018, 02:47 PM	#1
Bicorn Join Date: Aug 2015	Dusklords' Dependency Dusklords are a variant type of vampire described in GURPS Creatures of the Night. They have a custom version of the Dependency(human blood) disadvantage, with a rather complicated progression. How would one go about translating it to 4e terms, if one wanted to make dusklord a playable template? The relevant bits are as follows: - after a day without blood the dusklord's fp is halved and they suffer -1 IQ and -3 to attacks and spell use. - after a week, the above penalties are doubled. (Does this mean they lose all their fp, or that it's reduced to 1/4? The book doesn't clarify.) - after a month they start to lose 1 HT (or possibly hp, 3e books had a bad habit of using the terms like they were interchangeable) per day until death. I'm a bit uncertain if I should try to match the given rules exactly or tweak them to make them easier to codify.

11-01-2018, 07:16 PM	#2
Not another shrubbery Join Date: Aug 2004	Re: Dusklords' Dependency Rereading the description, it seems to me that the HT loss is meant to accompany the attribute penalties. This looks like you need to break it down into two parts. The easy part is the HT loss, which is just a normal monthly Dependency. The second part is the trickier one to deal with the two other drawbacks. Derive the Disadvantage values for the penalties to spells and attacks, and combine those with the associated IQ and FP penalties. You'll have two Disadvantage 'package' values, one for going w/o blood for a day, and the other for a week. Each package will be modified with the Mitigator Limitation, the first with the -60% version (the 'package' comes into play if you miss a daily dose) and the second with the -65% version. Since you can only affected by one package at a time, you should fit them into an Either/Or construct, so that if the character misses his blood requirement for 1-6 days, the effects of the first Disad package are imposed, while the more severe set of penalties kick in after a week. That looks like it should cover those particular disadvantages. It's possible that there's a more elegant way to deal with a worsening Dependency-like Disadvantage, but the above at least should put a reasonable value on the thing. Last edited by Not another shrubbery; 11-01-2018 at 07:25 PM.