[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Hard to Kill and Hard to Subdue

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

That's definitely getting into Unkillable territory, which is perhaps a better starting point for that kind of power.

You might be right: still haven't memorized all the Advantages.

[Kromm]

I've mostly seen Hard to Kill used like this: "Instead of HT 11 [10], I'll go with HT 10 [0] and Hard to Kill 5 [10]." It's partly a roleplaying thing (being not-so-easy to slay without being healthy, for Raistlin Majere types), but it can pay off: On a roll of 3-15, you don't die; on a 16-17, you "just" get a mortal wound, which in a party with a healer is tolerable (especially since HtK benefits "any HT roll where failure means instant death," and the HT roll to hang on while mortally wounded is exactly that: "On any failure, you die"). In effect, it magnifies the benefits of HP if you're using them as a buffer against death rather than incapacity. Indeed, I've seen a PC with ST 9 [-10], HT 9 [-10], HP 13 [8], Hard to Kill 6 [12] for 0 points, whose shtick was "the fat and will of a wild boar"; it's surprisingly hard to kill someone who can soak up almost 80 points of injury yet die only if they roll a natural 18.

Hard to Subdue leaves more to GM interpretation, but I've always taken the roll for knockdown to be a "HT roll to avoid unconsciousness," since failure by 5+ or critical failure does exactly that. So someone with lots of Hard to Subdue can withstand serious injuries without falling down. I've seen someone with Hard to Subdue and High Pain Threshold shrug off major wounds to the skull or eye with some reliability: "Nyaah! Ya missed all my vital spots!"

[Prince Charon]

The example of Hard to Kill and Hard to Subdue in my mind is Will Eisner's The Spirit, who is in theory a regular (if pretty clever and well-trained) guy, and he gets injured a lot, but he will not stop, no matter how beaten down he gets.

[AlexanderHowl]

I thought he literally had Unkillable.

[Sorenant]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Indeed, I've seen a PC with ST 9 [-10], HT 9 [-10], HP 13 [8], Hard to Kill 6 [12] for 0 points, whose shtick was "the fat and will of a wild boar"; it's surprisingly hard to kill someone who can soak up almost 80 points of injury yet die only if they roll a natural 18.

I don't know what sort of campaign that character belonged to, but the low HT makes me worry about afflictions and poisons. At least, that's what I'd use if I wanted to subdue him.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Kromm

HT 9 [-10]
Hard to Kill 6 [12]
soak up almost 80 points of injury yet die only if they roll a natural 18

W/ the MoF1/2 MW range any followup HT checks to survive (at -2xHP, etc) would be death of course, same w/ the survival rate, so to offset that it prob does pay to have an effective HT of 16 instead of 15.

Not to much 17 since that's always a failure.

I'd want it to get pumped up even higher if applying Last Gasp since it introduces FP loss lowering effective HT.

[Fred Brackin]

I had one theoretical situation relevant to these Ads come up in the World of D'y'r't campaign.

I even made a thread about it here. I thought the title was something like "A subtle question of Luck and death" but the Forum search is unhelpful and Google doesn't know that one either.

Anyway, Nyx the Barbarian had HT14 and Very Fit so she didn't actually need Hard to Kill. However, she eventually came into possession of the standard magic item for Stop Bleeding which "prevents bleeding and mortal wounds".

The introductory question comes up before the item because if you fail a Survival Roll by 1 or 2 you're not immediately dead but suffer a Mortal wound isntead. Technically, with HT 14 and Very Fit you can't fail an unpenalized HT roll by more than 2. I guess that means you don't die from any one hit that doesn't take you to -HPx5 but fall down with a Mortal Wound instead. A part of me wondered "But what about on a natural 18?".

So now Nyx had this standard magic item that prevented Mortal Wounds. So I guess on a 17 she wouldn't be mortally wounded but just normally unconscious. I think I may have decided at the time that a natural 18 would be death no matter what but the situation never came up. In the area of wounds Nyx thought it was better to give than recieve.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I thought he literally had Unkillable.

Maybe, but Unkillable people can still be put down for a while. The Spirit was put down once and buried, survived due to a mad scientist's experiment (and I don't think that effect was supposed to be repeatable, though it may have been the cause of his endurance), and then kept being incredibly difficult to put down or stop.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

kept being incredibly difficult to put down or stop.

Dennis Colt's "Cheating Death" seems comparable to The Joker...

Couldn't that just be Luck (Game Time +0% Defensive -20% Aspected: Combat -20%) for 9 points? That would let him a daily chance to make 2 extra HT rolls to survive and he'll pass as long as one of those 2 extra ones passed (or in the very least, fails by 1 or 2 to get Mortal Wounds)

"make an opponent reroll a critical hit against you" could also mean a chance to avoid guaranteed-undodgeable likely-lethal stuff like a 7d sniper shot to the skull which got lucky on an effective skill of 3, now it might miss, or maybe even just GRAZE (using T-bone's "hit by 0" option in pyramid ten tweaks) enough to be surviveable.

Or maybe even Super Luck where his "player" (writer) just dictates his roll? You might exhaust your normal luck and then use this as a last resort to guarantee a crit 3 to succeed on your HT roll to survive even in obscure situations like you're suffering -8 to HT because of some poison and a 3 is the only thing that COULD succeed.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Maybe, but Unkillable people can still be put down for a while. The Spirit was put down once and buried, survived due to a mad scientist's experiment (and I don't think that effect was supposed to be repeatable, though it may have been the cause of his endurance), and then kept being incredibly difficult to put down or stop.

Even a minor superhero can have remarkable recovery time. No Visible Damage [1], Regeneration (Fast; Super, -10%; Unkillable Only, -40%) [25], and Unkillable 3 (Achilles Heel, Fire, -50%; Hindrance, Oak, -15%; Super, -10%; Trigger, Darkness, -5%) [30] gives you a super who, for only 56 CP, comes back from the dead at full health around two hours after they die unless they were killed by fire, staked by oak, or kept in constant light. In fact, that would work for many vampires.