Blood Boiling

[Khannis]

Hi! We're starting a new campaign, and I'm new to GURPS. The GM said we could purchase magical abilities for our PCs using the Powers rules and Innate Attacks, Afflictions, etc.

Long story short, I wanted an ability that's basically a Blood Boil spell" (involving a sacrificial component of my own blood), and I've came up with this:

Blood Boil (Burning 2d, Cyclic 1 x3 (+200%), Malediction (+100%), No Mundane Signature (+20%), Costs HP 4 (-40%))
T: (+280%) (38)

But there's a couple of problems and things that are not clear to me. First, will the target be able to act during the effect? Since his blood is boiling, I don't think this is "realistic", so should I link up secondary effects? Second, is the damage or cycles appropriate? Frankly I don't know in how much time boiling blood would kill an average person. Third, is No Signature a good choice for representing the fact that it's a soundless spell? My idea is that my character just extends his arms or something and voila, although obviously upon examination of the remains it might be clear what the COD was. And last but not least, how do I represent the limitation of only working on things with blood? That's even worth a limitation?

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Khannis

Hi!

Hey.

Originally Posted by Khannis

We're starting a new campaign, and I'm new to GURPS.

Congratulations for choosing GURPS.

Originally Posted by Khannis

Blood Boil (Burning 2d, Cyclic 1 x3 (+200%), Malediction (+100%), No Mundane Signature (+20%), Costs HP 4 (-40%))
T: (+280%) (38)

With you so far.

Originally Posted by Khannis

But there's a couple of problems and things that are not clear to me. First, will the target be able to act during the effect? Since his blood is boiling, I don't think this is "realistic", so should I link up secondary effects?

Maybe. If you're doing damage every round to somebody without High Pain Threshold or Supernatural Durability, you'll be inflicting Shock penalties up to -4 on everything for it, but you can also layer Side Effects or Symptoms such as Terrible Pain on that sort of attack if you think it fits.

Originally Posted by Khannis

Second, is the damage or cycles appropriate? Frankly I don't know in how much time boiling blood would kill an average person.

How fast is it boiling? ;]

Originally Posted by Khannis

Third, is No Signature a good choice for representing the fact that it's a soundless spell? My idea is that my character just extends his arms or something and voila, although obviously upon examination of the remains it might be clear what the COD was. And last but not least, how do I represent the limitation of only working on things with blood? That's even worth a limitation?

Generally speaking, if it's almost impossible to figure out by mundane means but completely obvious to magical investigators, you're looking at Magical -10% plus a pretty specific Low Signature -10%.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Khannis

But there's a couple of problems and things that are not clear to me. First, will the target be able to act during the effect? Since his blood is boiling, I don't think this is "realistic", so should I link up secondary effects?

Yes the target would be able to react but would have a Shock penalty.
You could link Agony or another effect for more.

Originally Posted by Khannis

Second, is the damage or cycles appropriate? Frankly I don't know in how much time boiling blood would kill an average person.

Based on the damage above I would say this is not a powerful enough spell to instantly boil someones blood, but raises the temp significantly.

Originally Posted by Khannis

Third, is No Signature a good choice for representing the fact that it's a soundless spell? My idea is that my character just extends his arms or something and voila, although obviously upon examination of the remains it might be clear what the COD was. And last but not least, how do I represent the limitation of only working on things with blood? That's even worth a limitation?

If it is obvious the attack came from you then skip the No signature. If however you can do it and its not obvious in combat keep it.

No blood would vary on the campaign but you cant damage doors, objects, Undead, Spirits, Robots, etc so I would go for -10% and consider more in some games.

[mlangsdorf]

Side Effect (Stunning) is only +50% and seems like a good representation of "oh no, my blood is boiling, I can't act" type issues.

You may also want to change the damage type from Burning to Toxic. As it is now, you can burn the blood of cars, robots, and skeletons, and have a 1/3 chance (every second) of setting them on fire when you do. Which is probably not right.

Also, Malediction 2 [+150%] is generally a better investment than Malediction 1 [+100%] as the -1/yd range penalty is pretty inconvenient in quick contests.

[Khannis]

Thank you for the fast replies! I forgot to mention it's a high-fantasy campaign.

I'll look Stunning and Agony up, to see what I think fits best. I think the spell as is would kill an average human in what, 2-3 seconds? I think it's reasonably "realistic".

Also thank you mlangsdorf for the damage type advice... That's the type of thing I don't see clearly yet, hence my search for a limitation that didn't allow me to set a car on fire. As for the Malediction advice, I intend to stay close to my targets, since I'm an (warcraft-esque) Ogre Mage.

EDIT: How about this:

Blood Boil (Toxic 2d, Cyclic 1 x3 (+200%), Malediction (+100%), Side Effect: Agony (+150%), Costs HP 4 (-40%))
T: (410%) (41)

[Ulzgoroth]

I'd throw in that the 2d burning is enough to usually cause a Major Wound in human-size targets, which provides stunning effects on its own.

[DavidSev]

At 4HP per use you're probably not going to be using it much, so you might also want to look at things like Limited Uses, Preparation Required or Takes Recharge etc to get the cost down.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by DavidSev

At 4HP per use you're probably not going to be using it much, so you might also want to look at things like Limited Uses, Preparation Required or Takes Recharge etc to get the cost down.

An Ogre Mage probably has quite a bit more than 10 HP and might have regeneration or access to some kind of magical healing. If not, yeah, that's a very limiting limitation.

[Khannis]

Originally Posted by DavidSev

At 4HP per use you're probably not going to be using it much, so you might also want to look at things like Limited Uses, Preparation Required or Takes Recharge etc to get the cost down.

He's gonna have something in the range of 20-25 HP. But yeah, I think -10% per HP per use is not much, it should be at least -20%. I'll take a look into taking Limited uses or Takes Recharge, thanks :)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Khannis

He's gonna have something in the range of 20-25 HP. But yeah, I think -10% per HP per use is not much, it should be at least -20%.

Eh, that could get to serious point-crock territory when it stacks up, and especially if you also have Regeneration.

Costing one HP might be worth -20% (heck, might be worth more) but being able to scale that up linearly gets to a bad place.