Affliction level costs

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Gurps Fan

Easily Resisted Magery on p. 24 of Thaumatology is a limitation for Magery, which is a talent, not for abilities.

It lines up nicely with similar limitations (Inaccurate @ -5% per -1, for instance) so is probably balanced for use with more than just Magery.

[PK]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

It lines up nicely with similar limitations (Inaccurate @ -5% per -1, for instance) so is probably balanced for use with more than just Magery.

It is. GURPS Psionic Campaigns explicitly carried it over to be usable on abilities.

(And it's only a limitation on Magery because what else are you going to limit? You can't exactly throw limitations on the spells themselves . . .)

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Not entirely true. It makes builds like Affliction 11 [30] possible, which can be gotten as low as 6 points with limitations. This lets you stun someone if they fail a HT-10 roll, and they have to then roll against HT-10 every turn to recover.

Someone pointed out that a way to "un-break" the above build would be to say that the Affliction-1 penalty only applied to the initial roll, not to subsequent rolls. So the target above would roll HT-10 to avoid stunning, then HT (not HT-10) to recover. I haven't playtested that, but it seems like a good start, at least.


Easily Resisted (from Thaumatology) is -5% for every +1 to the resistance roll.

How about 2 pts per lvl for only the first roll, 10 pts per level for each subsequent roll?

Should I apply Easily Resisted to each individual ailment (or can I?)?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Not entirely true. It makes builds like Affliction 11 [30] possible, which can be gotten as low as 6 points with limitations.

This is something of a specific problem with Affliction (Stun); other Afflictions don't do this. Also, unless you take it as a followup attack, it's horribly useless against anyone with armor.

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Someone pointed out that a way to "un-break" the above build would be to say that the Affliction-1 penalty only applied to the initial roll, not to subsequent rolls.

Yeah, that works.

The other issue with having cheap levels for affliction is that the rule of 16 doesn't apply. Someone with a 16+ resisting stat is basically never going to be below around 50% vs a malediction, but affliction has no such limitation. On the other hand, regular afflictions can be dodged and maledictions can't, so that may even things out.

[kirbwarrior]

Honestly, from what i've seen, the rule of 16 should be changed so that your effective skill can't be higher than theirs if their will(or whatever) is 16 or higher... Unless they changed that in 4th...

You're right, Stunning is what needs to be changed.

[Edges]

I like that this topic keeps coming up. Affliction is common enough that an improved pricing scheme for it would be a worthwhile amendment.

After reviewing this and the other related threads, I'm favoring:

Level 1:
10 points

Levels 2+:
5/level for levels that increase penalties to resist and recover from
2/level for levels that increase penalties to resist only

Does anyone see any reason why this may not work?

[cccwebs]

The best "pricing scheme" for Affliction is simply Malediction. Combine with a power modifier and increased will, and you have a power that has an increased chance of working without being able to generate a crippling power that is guaranteed to work.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Gurps Fan

Easily Resisted Magery on p. 24 of Thaumatology is a limitation for Magery, which is a talent, not for abilities.

Talents ARE Advantages just like Affliction.

And how do you thin Reliable became an general advantage modifier in Powers when it was a special advantage modifier on Warp in Basic?

[Kromm]

There are so many ways to "fix" it, I'm not sure which is best. Part of me likes 10 + 3/level and simply taking the penalty off recovery rolls.

Part of me thinks that maybe we should just define a per-die cost, as with Innate Attack, and require the Affliction roll to exceed DR and cause a HT roll at -1 per 2 points penetrating, as with Side Effect. That way, Affliction 1d would work against unarmored normals, Affliction 10d would be enough to zap most humans with HT 1-20, and you could go nuts with Affliction 10d(10) or 100d or whatever to stun guys in battlesuits. And of course the countless places where the rules get all complicated and have to approximate Affliction levels with damage dice would go away. And Absorption could work vs. Affliction.

But the latter would likely be full of puzzles, too, starting with "What's a fair cost per die?"

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Kromm

There are so many ways to "fix" it, I'm not sure which is best. Part of me likes 10 + 3/level and simply taking the penalty off recovery rolls.

Part of me thinks that maybe we should just define a per-die cost, as with Innate Attack, and require the Affliction roll to exceed DR and cause a HT roll at -1 per 2 points penetrating, as with Side Effect. That way, Affliction 1d would work against unarmored normals, Affliction 10d would be enough to zap most humans with HT 1-20, and you could go nuts with Affliction 10d(10) or 100d or whatever to stun guys in battlesuits. And of course the countless places where the rules get all complicated and have to approximate Affliction levels with damage dice would go away. And Absorption could work vs. Affliction.

But the latter would likely be full of puzzles, too, starting with "What's a fair cost per die?"

What would happen to Innate Attacks if this were true?