How exactly does Toxic damage work?

[BoneWolf17]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Skull is the one that really sticks out. You still do x4 damage there while Toxic and Fatigue do x1 (and fatigue doesn't do localized damage).

Right, I totally forgot about that. In this case I don't know of any damage type in GURPS that might do what you're looking for. There are examples of direct injury (as in damage after DR and wounding multipliers) in some cases, like holy weapons in Dungeon Fantasy dealing an extra 1 point of injury, but nothing advantage-based.

Maybe you could treat it as a Toxic (Affects Non-Organic, +20%) attack for 5 points per level? This would expand the scope of toxic damage to do the equivalent of cellular damage to non-organic objects, perhaps shredding chemical bonds.

I'm just spitballing the modifier here, I picked 20% since I don't think it makes the damage type overly more effective and also rounds up to points cost to a clean 5 points per level. This puts it in the range of crushing, burning, and piercing damage, but it lacks wounding multipliers so it might actually be underpowered. It might be stepping into corrosive damage's territory too. I'm not sure what the best way to handle this one would be.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I feel it's over-used, and that a fair number of people go there first, without seeing if there's another way. It's better these days, where many of the uses of Cosmic have been codified, but it's still used as "because I said it works this way", and if we're going there, why bother with the rules?

Oh, true, online I see it abused a lot. I'm just careful to follow the rules set out in Power Ups 4 and actually research things, only using Cosmic when it's the only solution. Then again I also don't treat the Cosmic modifiers as the Cosmic power modifier (since that's a weird free lunch) and instead just try to come up with proper costs for new modifiers (even by simulating it outside of modifiers and then converting it to one, like my Warp thread I started recently). I even ask about it on the boards and look for ones that seem balanced.

As for codified Cosmics, I just use them as written. If someone's attack requires No Active Defenses to make the most sense as imagined, then I'll use it, and slap on UB if necessary.

Originally Posted by BoneWolf17

Right, I totally forgot about that. In this case I don't know of any damage type in GURPS that might do what you're looking for. There are examples of direct injury (as in damage after DR and wounding multipliers) in some cases, like holy weapons in Dungeon Fantasy dealing an extra 1 point of injury, but nothing advantage-based.

Maybe you could treat it as a Toxic (Affects Non-Organic, +20%) attack for 5 points per level? This would expand the scope of toxic damage to do the equivalent of cellular damage to non-organic objects, perhaps shredding chemical bonds.

I'm just spitballing the modifier here, I picked 20% since I don't think it makes the damage type overly more effective and also rounds up to points cost to a clean 5 points per level. This puts it in the range of crushing, burning, and piercing damage, but it lacks wounding multipliers so it might actually be underpowered. It might be stepping into corrosive damage's territory too. I'm not sure what the best way to handle this one would be.

For now, I think I'll just continue with the wording of ItMH to determine how Toxic works. A toxic attack with Blood Agent would be a poison and resisted with ItMH, but one with Malediction might be a magic curse and resisted with Immunity to Magic instead. As for the part saying that it cannot normally affect machines I'm going to interpret as "Toxic attacks are normally built to be resisted by ItMH". Most of the time I will use Toxic 'as intended', I just like knowing I can recreate things like Hurtmore, Magic Missile, and other weirdly 'generic' damage in GURPS. I actually love using other types for attacks in like 99% of cases, there's just something cool about this.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Using Toxic Attack for curses makes perfect sense to me, actually, and ItMH wouldn't make sense to protect against those (in fact, in most fiction I've seen an item or person needs to be blessed in some way to not get cursed).

Actually per GURPS Horror and Power Affliction is the go to for curses:

Curse: best way to emulated spells via Malediction 1 (+100%) with Costs Fatigue (-5%/level) and Takes Extra Time (-10%/level) possible. "Most mental effects are Based on Will (+20%)."

Example:
Curse (+365%): Affliction 1 (Based on Will, +20%; Disadvantage, Cursed, +75%; Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%; Malediction 1, +100%; No Signature, +20%) [47] (GURPS Horror pg 12; GURPS Powers 143)

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

If I wanted an attack that does 'generic damage' to a target without any limitations on the target, how should I build it? Toxic seems ideal but has weird maybes attached to it, but maybe there's an enhancement on Toxic?

IMHO you need to step back as there is no real 'generic damage' damage in GURPS - it falls into one of a series of Damage Types which effects the amount of damage that gets through DR.

Small piercing (pi-): x0.5.
Burning (burn), corrosion (cor), crushing (cr), fatigue (fat), piercing (pi), and toxic (tox): x1 (damage is unchanged).
Cutting (cut) and large piercing (pi+): x1.5.
Impaling (imp) and huge piercing (pi++): x2.

There is also Affliction, special (spec), and Hazard damage. Radiation is done as an enhancement to another damage type.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by maximara

Actually per GURPS Horror and Power Affliction is the go to for curses:

Curse: best way to emulated spells via Malediction 1 (+100%) with Costs Fatigue (-5%/level) and Takes Extra Time (-10%/level) possible. "Most mental effects are Based on Will (+20%)."

Example:
Curse (+365%): Affliction 1 (Based on Will, +20%; Disadvantage, Cursed, +75%; Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%; Malediction 1, +100%; No Signature, +20%) [47] (GURPS Horror pg 12; GURPS Powers 143)

Sure, for imparting some sort of long lasting problem Affliction is perfect. But a curse that damages usually needs to be built with an Innate attack and don't necessarily need Malediction; Spirits that haunt and slowly break things down, a derisive glare that slowly breaks things down over time, a ray of death that pushes someone over the brink can all be Toxic Attacks with Cyclic. A soul-wrenching attack can be a linked Affliction (variation of Heart Attack) with Toxic Attack to represent that even if the attack doesn't kill, there is some effect on the body, and in a setting where enchanted items have soul pieces of the owner, it wouldn't be a metabolic hazard. I could even see a shattering spell that is Toxic (Accessibility: Inanimate only) that weakens objects to the point they fall apart.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Sure, for imparting some sort of long lasting problem Affliction is perfect. But a curse that damages usually needs to be built with an Innate attack and don't necessarily need Malediction; Spirits that haunt and slowly break things down, a derisive glare that slowly breaks things down over time, a ray of death that pushes someone over the brink can all be Toxic Attacks with Cyclic. A soul-wrenching attack can be a linked Affliction (variation of Heart Attack) with Toxic Attack to represent that even if the attack doesn't kill, there is some effect on the body, and in a setting where enchanted items have soul pieces of the owner, it wouldn't be a metabolic hazard. I could even see a shattering spell that is Toxic (Accessibility: Inanimate only) that weakens objects to the point they fall apart.

Affliction has an insane number of catagories:
*Beam[/B]: "Roll against Innate Attack (Beam) to hit"; Examples:
*Lasers: Armor Divisor (2) (+50%)
*Blasters: Armor Divisor (5) (+150%)
*Disintegrator: Armor Divisor (10) (+200%) or Cosmic (+300%).
*Curse: best way to emulated spells via Malediction 1 (+100%) with Costs Fatigue (-5%/level) and Takes Extra Time (-10%/level) possible. "Most mental effects are Based on Will (+20%)."
*Field: Area Effect (+50%/level) and Emanation (-20%)
*Gas: Area Effect (+50%/level) and one of Respiratory Agent (+50%), Blood Agent (+100%), or Contact Agent (+150%)
*Gaze: Vision-Based enhancement (+150%); Malediction 1 (+100%) and Vision-Based limitation (-20%)
*Mental Blast: generally Malediction 2 (+150%) and Based on Will (+20%). Can also have No Signature (+20%).
*Sensory Attack: Area Effect (+50%/level) and Emanation (-20%). "Bright flashes are Vision-Based (+150%), with a Disadvantage enhancement that inflicts Blindness (+50%); howls, thunderclaps, etc., are Hearing-Based (+150%), and cause Deafness (+20%)"
*Touch: Melee Attack (-30%). can also include Contact Agent (-30%) or Blood Agent (-40%), respectively, Attacks that bypass DR get Malediction 1 (+100%).
*Venom: Follow-Up (+0%), while poisonous spray or spit has Contact Agent (-30%) or Blood Agent (-40%).

GURPS Powers pg 39-41

The "derisive glare that slowly breaks things dow" and "ray of death that pushes someone over the brink" are both modeled with Affliction in Powers and Horror. Sure you could model them with toxic but Affliction works better.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by maximara

The "derisive glare that slowly breaks things dow" and "ray of death that pushes someone over the brink" are both modeled with Affliction in Powers and Horror. Sure you could model them with toxic but Affliction works better.

Um... how exactly would you build the first one as an Affliction? I can't see any way of building that without actually dealing damage.

[AlexanderHowl]

Yes, that would be odd. The eye thing would likely be a straighforward Corrosive Attack. A 1 point corrosive attack (Malediction 3, +200%; No Signature, +20%) [8] could slowly disintegrate someone over the course of a couple of minutes.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by maximara

Affliction has an insane number of catagories:

<snip>

The "derisive glare that slowly breaks things dow" and "ray of death that pushes someone over the brink" are both modeled with Affliction in Powers and Horror. Sure you could model them with toxic but Affliction works better.

And even more possibilities than that list. Affliction is fantastic for the insane amount of things you can do with it.

To me, it's the other way around. You could build it as Affliction with Dependency (Antimatter, Constant), but curses don't need to be resistible and Affliction does.

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Um... how exactly would you build the first one as an Affliction? I can't see any way of building that without actually dealing damage.

Dependency and Weakness are go to ways to afflict 'damage over time' and are generally priced cheaper than Cyclic, plus can go 'infinite'.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Yes, that would be odd. The eye thing would likely be a straighforward Corrosive Attack. A 1 point corrosive attack (Malediction 3, +200%; No Signature, +20%) [8] could slowly disintegrate someone over the course of a couple of minutes.

I'd personally use Low Signature N/A +25% and Vision-Based, Reversed -20%. In fact, this curse sounds awesome, and it's a great way to disarm someone because while you know when you are taking damage, you don't know that about your gear. Consider it stolen ;)

[maximara]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Um... how exactly would you build the first one as an Affliction? I can't see any way of building that without actually dealing damage.

A base "one-shot" example shows up in GURPS Horror:

*Horrifying Window (+140%/+320%): Affliction 1 (Always On, -20%; Based on Will, +20%; Hallucinating, +50%; Link, +10%; Malediction 1, +100%; No Signature, +20%; Trigger Psionic Contact, -40%) [24] + Affliction 1 (Always On, -20%; Based on Will, +20%; Extended Duration, 10x, +40%; Link, +10%; Malediction 1, +100%; No Signature, +20%; Onset, -10%; Trigger, Nightmarish Vision, -40%; Unconsciousness, +200%) [42]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

And even more possibilities than that list. Affliction is fantastic for the insane amount of things you can do with it.

To me, it's the other way around. You could build it as Affliction with Dependency (Antimatter, Constant), but curses don't need to be resistible and Affliction does.

Actually, Affliction doesn't need to be resistible - though it takes some work to turn that off without resorting to the Cosmic enhancement. Besides if you think about it you really don't want an irresistible curse floating around the game world.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by maximara

A base "one-shot" example shows up in GURPS Horror:

*Horrifying Window (+140%/+320%): Affliction 1 (Always On, -20%; Based on Will, +20%; Hallucinating, +50%; Link, +10%; Malediction 1, +100%; No Signature, +20%; Trigger Psionic Contact, -40%) [24] + Affliction 1 (Always On, -20%; Based on Will, +20%; Extended Duration, 10x, +40%; Link, +10%; Malediction 1, +100%; No Signature, +20%; Onset, -10%; Trigger, Nightmarish Vision, -40%; Unconsciousness, +200%) [42]

I think either you or I are misinterpreting what "breaks things down" means. I was under the assumption it meant physical degradation, not mental trauma.