Danger Sense

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Danger sense merely let's you do it. PV let's you use any defense, at no penalty.

Not from directly behind. Directly behind, you still get a -2, like for a runaround.

[Stripe]

Ah, another good ol' "what does Danger Sense do" thread.

On one hand, I'm tempted to point out that DS is a whopping 15 point advantage so game masters should do everything they can to think of ways for it to work instead of the other way around. In this case, I would unquestionably make that 15-point advantage count!

On the other hand, it can often be annoying for a GM who's trying to narrate dramatic surprise. "But my character has Danger Sense!" the player will yell incredulously, regardless if there even is, in reality, any danger at all.

There's no way I would take DS as a player, ever. All too often GM's forget about it in planning or during game play, or flat out resent it and try to do everything they can to weasel out of letting it actually be useful. Even when GM's begrudgingly allow it, it seems to never work even close to as well as Spider Sense. There is no example in this thread of its use that I would pay 15 points to have. I'd rather have 15 points of bad ass.

Just my opinion, but it's 100% the indisputable absolute truth. ;)

[The Benj]

It is a tricky Advantage to GM.

[Balor Patch]

Danger Sense seems to be about bringing unknown danger to the character's attention. If he's is in the dragon's lair shoveling loot into sacks and there's happens to be a cursed knife in the lot, he may be warned before he grabs it. If the same knife is on a bloody altar smoking with evil runes then he already knows it's dangerous and Danger Sense won't kick in. Tapping the floor for traps? Danger Sense does nothing. About to step on a trap while sprinting away from the returning dragon? Danger Sense tries to warn you. About to be overrun by a tide of dinomen? Not Danger Sense's problem. Lost track of one who's going to bite you in the back? It's on.

That's my sense of it anyway.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

Danger Sense seems to be about bringing unknown danger to the character's attention.

I think it's about bringing danger to the character's attention, known or unknown, it's just that it isn't worth our time to constantly inform the player of a danger he already knows about. Just like Detect Magic will inform you of the nature of a magical sword every time you look at it, you just don't to make a roll after you already know this, not because it isn't happening, but because it's no longer relevant.

So, yes, I do think Danger Sense is "going off" every time you get attacked in combat, and that it's "going off" nearly constantly in battle, just like Detect Magic is "going off" all the time in a magical shop, but it's not a distracting thing, anymore than seeing people or hearing sounds are inherently distracting, and you don't bother to roll all the time, because if you can see the guy swinging his sword at you, you already know he's attacking, so a Danger Sense roll would be redundant. But if he's swinging at you from a place that you can't see, hear, feel, smell or taste, then you need your sixth sense to pick up that fact, and so we roll to see if you can detect it in time to parry (at -2 because it's awkward, natch)

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

Dr. Kromm (GURPS line editor Sean Punch) commented a while back in a thread about Danger Sense in "dungeon fantasy"; it seems relevant here:

I'm afraid I find Kromm's explanation inconsistent and not workable.

In particular, this:

"Dan Danger, thief extraordinaire, has Danger Sense. He comes upon two doors in the dungeon. Little does he know, the right-hand one is booby-trapped. The GM secretly rolls for Danger Sense and gets a success. He tells Dan's player, "You're not comfortable with this setup. Ladies and tigers come to mind." Only on a critical success would he say, "The door on the right feels dangerous to you.""

Kromm's way there:

1- means DS provides no benefit. You know dungeons are dangerous already and danger lurks everywhere. Simply getting confirmation of that when you walk around is useless.

2- doesn't match the way the text sets things up. As he said in the paragraph before, Danger Sense should be triggered when the danger actually exists. With these doors, they could simply walk away and then the danger would have never been there to sense. It has to be more imminent than just contemplation of alternate courses of action.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by The Benj

I feel like if Danger Sense will let you defend against attacks from behind, what's the point of Peripheral Vision (which has the same cost)?

PV is always on, and reduces your penalty to Dodge attacks from the flank to 0 and lets you Dodge any attack from behind at -2.

DS requires a roll and doesn't reduce the penalty to defend against flank attacks. It may let you Dodge an attack from behind, but you'll still be at -4 for an attack you know about but cannot see.

PV is an amazingly useful advantage for a melee fighter who intends to wade into the foe and get surrounded. DS just doesn't compare for that guy.

[quarkstomper]

I think the concern Kromm was speaking to was a desire to keep Danger Sense as something passive and involuntary and not a "Danger Detector" like Zaphod Beeblebrox's Peril Sensitive Sunglasses. Of course, the Players will find a way to game anything. I can see them tying Danger Dan to a pole and having Mickey Minotaur waving him over the dungeon corrodor and marking a trap every time Dan screams.

The question of Danger Sense in an Already Dangerous Situation reminds me of Molly Weasely's Clock from the Harry Potter books. The clock has a hand for each member of the family and instead of numbers, the face of the clock has current status, such as "At School", "Traveling" or "In Mortal Peril". Near the end of the series, all the hands of the clock are pointing to "Mortal Peril" pretty much all the time and the clock becomes largely useless.

On the other hand, I can see Danger Sense perceiving a kind of a "spike" in the overall danger level of the environment. Sort of like the story from the Gospels, (Mark 5:24-34, if you're interested), in which Jesus is pushing his way through a crowd and suddenly becomes aware that someone touched him. Well, yeah, his disciples say, there are people all around us; but this one woman touched his robe desiring healing for her illness, and Jesus could sense the power going out of him to perform the miracle.

Or maybe the story is completely unrelated and I just happen to think about it because I really should be getting ready for church right now.

[Xplo]

Honestly, the takeaway I get from this thread is that Danger Sense is perfectly easy to interpret for people who aren't obtuse. You have to really be trying Not To Get It to say something like "there's danger all over the [region], so how can Danger Sense be useful?"

Anyway, to answer the OP: the fact that you can't normally defend against rear attacks because you're not aware of them suggests that, in fact, the danger from a rear attack ISN'T known... so yes, Danger Sense would go off.

. . .

As a sort of aside, I'd be fine with GMing multiple levels of response to danger depending on its immediacy and proximity. Generally dangerous areas full of traps, curses, and/or enemies would give you the creeps, immediate dangers would spike the Spidey Sense, and Cosmic Threats might give you a queer foreboding of doom that lets you know that somewhere, Something is Very Wrong.

Does anyone know offhand if there's an existing modifier that can be applied to Danger Sense to make it more precise, revealing the kind of information you'd get on a crit on a normal success? Because paying, say, 20-30 points for a Danger Oracle advantage would be a pretty good deal... even if it does frustrate the GM by making traps, snipers, and ambushes nigh-useless.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Xplo

H

Does anyone know offhand if there's an existing modifier that can be applied to Danger Sense to make it more precise, revealing the kind of information you'd get on a crit on a normal success? .

There is not. Because Precognition gives you the kind of information you'd get on a crit on a normal success.