Divine Curses

[David Johnston2]

Divine Curses are one of the catch-all traits in GURPS. It's what you use when none of the more specific advantages does precisely what you want For example the DF Divine Curse that causes holy water to have the effects of a strong acid. Note that despite the name no gods need be involved Interesting Divine Curse is not what you would Afflict to make them unlikely or to meet a future misfortune. Those kind of things are what Unluckiness, Curse or Destiny cover.

1. Snakes and Toads: The victim will spit up a small, nonvenomous snake or toad at the end of every sentence they speak

2, Heartless: Removes the victim's heart without killing them. This has the beneficial side effect of removing the damage multiplier from strikes to the vitals, but removes the victim's ability to feel love. Additionally any attack on their heart will damage them as if it was an attack to the vitals, no matter how far away they are and any spell cast upon the heart will affect them at any range.

3. Lightning Magnet: Any time there is a thunderstorm the Lightning Magnet will be struck by 1d6 dice of lightning if they are outside and if they are in a building the building will be struck.

4. Cassandra's Gift: Everyone who is near the Cassandra will acquire the Delusion "The Cassandra is a bit mad and nothing she says should be taken seriously"

5. Bullet Magnet: Any bullet that misses its intended target will hit the Bullet Magnet.

6. Rapunzel's Gift: The Rapunzel's hair grows to up to 30 feet long, with unnatural speed and has DR 12 as long as it is attached to her head.

7. Dirt Magnet: The Dirt Magnet always becomes visibly filthy shortly after they wash.

8. Pedestrian's Curse: Every couple of weeks whatever vehicle the Pedestrian is using will be subjected to a serious accident.

9. Bigger Man: Every week the Bigger Man gains a pound in weight even if they eat nothing. They can never starve to death, but feel the effects of hunger normally.

10. Enemy of Birds: Birds hate their Enemy but only express it by bombing them with their excreta.

[David Johnston2]

So the question is...what should the point values be?

[Pursuivant]

Some of these curses are like the GURPS 3E Jinx "disadvantage," seemingly a drawback but actually a powerful advantage in the hands of a clever player.

Suggestions for pricing:

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

1. Snakes and Toads

Effectively an Unnatural Feature [-5] &/or OPH (snakes & toads) [-5]. In any case, it should be worth less than Cannot Speak.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

2. Heartless

No Vitals (Limitation: Nuisance Effect (External Heart), -10%; Temporary Disadvantages (Susceptible (HT-10; Magic cast on heart - Occasional),-10%; Vulnerability 3x for hits to removed heart (Rare), -15%; Quirk: Can't feel love, -1%), -26%) [4].

Difference in rarity of threat for Susceptible vs. Vulnerability is because spells can sometimes be cast through barriers that block physical attacks.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

3. Lightning Magnet: Any time there is a thunderstorm the Lightning Magnet will be struck by 1d6 dice of lightning if they are outside and if they are in a building the building will be struck.

On average, the first part of the curse means 3.5 dice x 3.5 HP of damage = 12.25 points of damage in an Rare situation with a Mitigator (Being inside or underground or otherwise protected vs. lightning).

Weakness (Lightning Strikes (Rare), 1d per minute. Enhancements: Cosmic (effectively 3x damage), +75%; Cosmic (All damage taken at once), +50%; Cosmic (Variable: 1d dice of damage), +50%; Limitations: Cosmic (Damage Capped at 1d damage), -50%; Mitigator, -60%; Divine Power, -5%) [-30]

The second part is a massive Innate Attack (n dice burn damage, Enhancement: Cosmic (Always hits), +100%. Limitations: Accessibility (Only against buildings I'm in during thunderstorms), -80%, Divine Power, -5%; Nuisance Effect (Lightning strikes if outdoors), -20%; plus all the modifiers required to turn a straight burning attack into a lightning bolt.) assuming the modifiers cancel each other out, it's a power worth at least 5 points per level. If it's a 6d dice attack, that evens out the disadvantage to get a net cost of 0 points.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

4. Cassandra's Gift: Everyone who is near the Cassandra will acquire the Delusion "The Cassandra is a bit mad and nothing she says should be taken seriously"

Reputation (-1, Madness, Everyone, All the Time) [-5]; Social Stigma (Minor) [-10].

SS (Minor) effectively gives the victim the status of someone not to be taken seriously in most situations and possibly unable to make responsible decisions for themself. SS (Mentally Ill) would be more accurate, but I'm trying to sort-of, kind-of stick to RAW. The origins of the problem are unimportant, it's the effects that matter.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

5. Bullet Magnet: Any bullet that misses its intended target will hit the Bullet Magnet.

This one is way too variable to be modeled as a Weakness or Vulnerability. Effectively, it's Terminally Ill with Mitigator (Wear lots of armor, live in a bullletproof house, and avoid rifle ranges and gunfights between idiots who don't know how to use their weapons), -60%) assuming 3 months of survival in an adventuring situation, that's [-40].

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

6. Rapunzel's Gift: The Rapunzel's hair grows to up to 30 feet long, with unnatural speed and has DR 12 as long as it is attached to her head.

DR 12 (Limitations: Can't Wear Armor, -40%; Flexible, -20%; Nuisance Effect (Hair), -5%; Partial (Skull Only), -70%) [12]; Perk: Hair regrows almost instantly [1]. Quirk: Distinctive Feature (Extremely long hair) [-1].

At the lower end of the social spectrum, it was/is common for poor women and nuns to cut their hair short and sell it for hair extensions or wigs for the wealthy. In low tech games, human hair was made into ropes or torsion skeins for catapults. Depending on how fast the hair grows, and its quality, the character might also have Independent Income for Poor level Wealth.

In any case, a canny player with this 'disadvantage' will go into the rope- or wig-making business.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

7. Dirt Magnet: The Dirt Magnet always becomes visibly filthy shortly after they wash.

OPH (-2, Always Dirty) [-10]; Unnatural Feature (Can never get clean) [-5]. Possibly reduced Appearance, bad Reputation or Social Stigma.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

8. Pedestrian's Curse: Every couple of weeks whatever vehicle the Pedestrian is using will be subjected to a serious accident.

Cursed (Limitation: Aspected (All misfortune takes the form of vehicle accidents in which the victim is riding), -20%; Mitigator (Walk or ride everywhere), -60%) [-15]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

9. Bigger Man: Every week the Bigger Man gains a pound in weight even if they eat nothing. They can never starve to death, but feel the effects of hunger normally.

Doesn't Eat or Drink (Limitations: Food Only, -50%; Nuisance Effect (Hunger Pangs, Weight Gain), -20%) [3].

Feature: Will become Very Fat and ultimately No Legs (Paraplegic), etc. due to massive weight gain.

Eventually, the victim will effectively become Quadriplegic with an Unnatural Feature due to weight gain. But it will takes years at +1 lb/week for encumbrance due to fat to exceed Very Heavy Encumbrance.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

10. Enemy of Birds: Birds hate their Enemy but only express it by bombing them with their excreta.

Quirk. Easily mitigated by carrying an umbrella or wearing rain gear and a broad-brimmed hat, or similar protection, when outdoors. If the campaign requires the victim is outside a lot in an environment with a lot of birds, it turns into a variant of Curse 7.

[whswhs]

What you call Heartless I like to call Hidden Heart. It's not that you don't have a heart; it's that it's not inside you, but concealed somewhere for safety, like the emerald heart of Koshchei the Deathless. The emotional effects weren't part of my concept of it, but may be poetically appropriate, and should add to the negative point value.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by whswhs

What you call Heartless I like to call Hidden Heart. It's not that you don't have a heart; it's that it's not inside you, but concealed somewhere for safety, like the emerald heart of Koshchei the Deathless. The emotional effects weren't part of my concept of it, but may be poetically appropriate, and should add to the negative point value.

The difference is that Koschei couldn't die as long as his "heart" or "soul" remains safe while with the Curse the victim can still be killed both with attacks on their body and by the person who holds their heart. I'm thinking -5 points for it since it does have a compensating benefit.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

No Vitals (Limitation: Nuisance Effect (External Heart), -10%; Temporary Disadvantages (Susceptible (HT-10; Magic cast on heart - Occasional),-10%; Vulnerability 3x for hits to removed heart (Rare), -15%; Quirk: Can't feel love, -1%), -26%) [4].

Assuming the heart can't be readily reintroduced, those wouldn't be temporary disadvantages.

Depending on the extent of the emotional stunting, you could go as high as Killjoy alongside this.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Assuming the heart can't be readily reintroduced, those wouldn't be temporary disadvantages.

Depending on the extent of the emotional stunting, you could go as high as Killjoy alongside this.

"Temporary disadvantages" doesn't have to mean "short-term." It is taken, at least for powers, to mean also that while you are using a power, you have a disadvantage.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

9. Bigger Man: Every week the Bigger Man gains a pound in weight even if they eat nothing. They can never starve to death, but feel the effects of hunger normally.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Doesn't Eat or Drink (Limitations: Food Only, -50%; Nuisance Effect (Hunger Pangs, Weight Gain), -20%) [3].

Does "feel the effects of hunger" refer just to the sensation of hunger pangs, or does also it include the effects of B426, Starvation and Dehydration? If not, the character that doesn't eat would lose 1 FP per day, eventually becoming unconscious, just like a baseline human. The curse prevents them from actually dying, but getting stuck at 0 FP in the middle of nowhere without outside medical care is pretty effectively dead, just like the baseline human. That's not blissfully ignoring the necessity for food, which is what Doesn't Eat and Drink buys. Occasionally ignoring food and taking a few FP loss on adventure is something any character can can do without an Advantage, for zero points; neither character would choose to do so.

So, not a Doesn't Eat Advantage, however limited. Perhaps a "Can't Actually Die From Starvation" Perk, if that's a common enough threat to be worth a point.

The weight gain is its own Disad. The two come together in the curse meta-trait, but I wouldn't directly link them in each other's builds.

Feature: Will become Very Fat and ultimately No Legs (Paraplegic), etc. due to massive weight gain.

This sounds more like a particularly descriptive form of Terminally Ill, though by RAW it's a zero-point version since it'll take more than 2 years to kill.

If we're counting body weight as encumbrance (which was the 3e rule, but not 4e), then that would reduce useful Encumbrance, and thus rate some disad points -- perhaps figured as Anti-Payload?

In the meantime, the negative effects of Dwarfism/Gigantism on B20 would also apply: -2 to Disguise/Shadowing, difficulty and expense of buying non-custom-made clothes/armor are mentioned. But here there's no offsetting advantages rolled into a single trait, so pricing those effects is tricky.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by whswhs

"Temporary disadvantages" doesn't have to mean "short-term." It is taken, at least for powers, to mean also that while you are using a power, you have a disadvantage.

In the context of a "curse" I would take the description of Heartless to mean "Your heart is no longer inside your body, without a convenient way to return it, leaving you with no passion. On the bright side you can hide your heart behind more protection than a ribcage."

Temporary disadvantage implies switchable. To me, curse implies not (easily) switchable.

If, on the other hand, your disembodied heart allowed you to feel passion when you were in direct possession, I'd probably build that as something like:

Injury Tolerance (No Vitals)
Dependency (Heart, Must be kept safe but not necessarily present)*
Killjoy (Mitigator: Heart)

* I think I've seen a build like that, but can't remember where it was, or if it was official.

[jason taylor]

Most of the curses I remember seem to have been the type of story that C.S. Lewis used to define a "myth": a sort of freeze-frame story whose effect comes from the idea rather than the narrative. For instance Sisyphus doesn't do any thing but push a boulder forever. There are no actual stories of him interacting with anyone that I know of.