KILL SOMEONE AND GAIN THEIR BEST TRAIT

[c0matose]

HOW DO I DO THIS i got the idea off tumblr (watcha gonna do im a nerd) where basically you kill someone and gain their best trait. I was thinking of a DF campaign where the boss of each dungeon has an ability you can take sort of like skyrim and dragon souls but you just straight up get the ability. I was thinking either the highest leveled skill OR the advantage or skill that costs the most. How would this work alongside points totals because you only get like 5pts per session. I know the rule of cool says let that slide or whatever but i really wanted to put this out here to get suggestions from other people.

(the extension of this was you get what THEY THOUGHT was their best trait like you kill a boxer for his boxing but he thought his baking was hella good so youre good at baking now plus you're a murderer, hope there's lots of flour in prison)

[Varyon]

No need for all caps. The most balanced way to handle this is to simply give the character the ability to, upon killing a foe, immediately spend character points to gain whatever their best ability was. Another option would be to state that killing someone gives you access to a virtual mentor, and you can go through Intensive Training to learn their best ability over time. Either of these justify an Unusual Background, which may cost anywhere between [1] and [10] or so points (but note in both cases you're paying character points - either those gained from adventuring or those gained from Intensive Training - for the ability). Something like Morph, Modular Abilities, or Wild Talent with Recall (or whatever the "you can actually learn this ability" Enhancement is called), Limited to the abilities of those you've killed, might also work.

If you want to do it as a GM, and you want to limit it to certain "boss" enemies, you can simply make it part of the quest reward for killing the boss. It's not all that different from getting an Ally or Patron or Reputation for "free" by doing something important.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by c0matose

How would this work alongside points totals because you only get like 5pts per session.

First up, for the simple meaning of this - any time you kill somebody you gain a new ability potentially worth lots of points, it *can't* work alongside normal experience. There is simply no fair cost for an ability to earn extra points faster than everybody else. That doesn't mean you can't have characters with this ability, just that you can't set a balanced price for it. If you only have one player, or your other players don't especially care, you can still do it, but it can't be made "fair".

If defeating a particular boss monsters happen to give everybody a new power, you can just consider the new power as part of the xp earned for the adventure. If that's substantially more than you'd normally hand out that may not be logical (why is *this* adventure reward 20 points when they are normally 3?) but it can be balanced if you give the same number of points to everybody. You can also sometimes do this at a ratio as an opportunity cost - i.e. everybody earns 5 points for this adventure, but if you want to you can trade them for this *specific* 10 point advantage rather than spending them on whatever you want. This isn't strictly balanced either, but the flexibility "feels" worth something.

For the option to instantly spend your own points on something a guy you just killed knew - I usually call the option of instantly spending your points on something that meets certain criteria a perk. Likewise for being able to sacrifice something and immediately spend the points it was worth. If you can only do this once, or a few times, you could figure the value for the Enemies or Social Stigma you'd pick up for being a murderer and buy abilities worth up to that many points, and call the ability to make that trade in play rather than at character creation a perk.

If you know what all the abilities are in advance, you can charge half price for them at character creation (as Potential/Secret Advantages) and call killing the boss that had them the trigger condition for converting them.

If you only hold on to the best trait of the *last* person you murdered, that's a Modular Abilities build.

If the gain is even more temporary than that, it's Wild Talent with a really nasty Trigger (murder somebody with the skill) requirement.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

First off, I fully approve of all-caps for the title of this thread. It is totally appropriate and does not make you sound like a lunatic in any bad ways.

Second, what does "best trait" mean in this context? Are we talking about point values here, or could stuff like, "Kind to his Mother," potentially qualify?

[Anaraxes]

Protect the weak by specifying that the victim's best trait replaces yours -- even if it's worse than what you already have.

Or protect the mundanes and add some "there can be only one" flavor by specifying that the ability only works on others that also have this ability.

[Culture20]

Not a bad advantage for Megaman. Maybe someone already has GURPS stats for Megaman?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

First off, I fully approve of all-caps for the title of this thread. It is totally appropriate and does not make you sound like a lunatic in any bad ways.

Second, what does "best trait" mean in this context? Are we talking about point values here, or could stuff like, "Kind to his Mother," potentially qualify?

That's definitely a risk to the form where "best trait" is the one your victim considered his best. If you suddenly acquire his Code of Honor or Sense of Duty you could have a problem, what with the compulsion to turn yourself in. And there is certainly no shortage of people out there who *would* tell your their best feature is their love of God or country or their children or something of the sort.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Not a bad advantage for Megaman. Maybe someone already has GURPS stats for Megaman?

Are we talking the video game megaman or the animated series? Because in the animated series he didn't kill the baddies to get their power, he had to touch them.

[GodBeastX]

There are two ways to model this:

If a player is going to model this with points, it's modular abilities with a limitation. This is how Powers book suggests to model something like that. This is more slotted, meaning if you gain the power, it's there until whenever or replaced or something.

Another method is this:

Schrödinger’s Advantage: You can specify that at some critical juncture
in an adventure, just when all seems lost, you will suddenly discover a new
ability – worth twice the points you have set aside – that will help you out
of trouble. You must immediately pay the remaining points to use your
new ability. This is a powerful option. To keep things fair, points set aside
this way provide no benefit until you discover your hidden talent.

Which fits the Skyrim Dragon-born. They were a Dragon Born all the time, and then the soul wakes the power in them and they can suddenly use it.



Now, as a GM you can always just hand somebody an advantage and explain away why it happened however you feel. It's not as though we don't do that as GMs all the time. Get a new contact? Get a reputation? Get knighted by the queen? These are all viable rewards. And saying that you gain an advantage after killing a boss is a viable reward too.

Edit: Spelling.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

First off, I fully approve of all-caps for the title of this thread. It is totally appropriate and does not make you sound like a lunatic in any bad ways.

I read it like spam. Like I had opened the forum and found an advertisement for killing people and gaining their best traits. You know, "Doctors hate him and police really hate him, because he's learned to improve himself with this ONE WEIRD TRICK"

What about a modular ability that you can slot with whatever trait you gained by killing someone? If you want to keep it, you pay full points for it later. Isn't that how people who steal powers also work? Otherwise you're just getting free points if you go on killing sprees.