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Old 11-03-2017, 02:57 PM   #1
Cowrie
 
Join Date: Aug 2017
Default Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

I'm creating a character that has a striker that's skin is covered with sharp bits of chitin, to the point of having a similar abrasive effect to sandpaper or sharkskin. However, I'm not sure what type of damage this sort of surface would cause in GURPS terms. It's prone to scraping skin away and causing a lot of bleeding, but it doesn't penetrate very far into the surface. Would this be cutting damage, or what?

Additionally, while I don't see it as being very effective at penetrating DR in a single blow, I feel like it would gradually scrape away most protective surfaces, sort of like how corrosion damage reduces DR by 1 for ever 5 points of basic damage. If I used the Natural Weapon advantage from Pyramid #3-65, I could actually make it do corrosion damage, but I've always had the impression that corrosion is more suited to chemical processes. Is there some sort of enhancement to make other damage types treat regular DR as semi-ablative or something.
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Old 11-03-2017, 03:09 PM   #2
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

Sandpapery is a bit vague. It covers from me carefully rubbing fine grit sandpaper over a delicate wood item to using a high powered belt sander to make furniture.
Gurps damage is pretty fast, so if it can't work in a second, then it wouldn't count as causing a single point of damage.
It may just work as a perk making rough touching painful and allowing blood contact agents to work.
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Old 11-03-2017, 03:09 PM   #3
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

When you are dealing with a weapon of that general form, you treat it as doing crushing damage, with an extra +1 damage to reflect its having a rough, spiked, or otherwise nasty surface. When we were doing Low-Tech, for example, we put in the "round mace" as a weapon that just had a smooth sphere or cylinder at the end, without the spikes or flanges of typical maces; it did -1 damage. I think that applies here. The striker may be abrasive, but it doesn't have the ability to chop off an arm or the like, which a true cutting weapon would have.

I think Kromm and I discussed the "corrosive" quality when I was working on Powers: The Weird, but I'll need to review my work before I can comment on the "damaging armor" effect. But I'm not sure an organic striker would have that effect on metal armor anyway.
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Old 11-03-2017, 03:09 PM   #4
malloyd
 
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowrie View Post
I'm creating a character that has a striker that's skin is covered with sharp bits of chitin, to the point of having a similar abrasive effect to sandpaper or sharkskin. However, I'm not sure what type of damage this sort of surface would cause in GURPS terms. It's prone to scraping skin away and causing a lot of bleeding, but it doesn't penetrate very far into the surface. Would this be cutting damage, or what?
It's crushing. Don't fool yourself into thinking that crushing injuries don't bleed, they certainly do, but usually either shallowly or internally.

Quote:
If I used the Natural Weapon advantage from Pyramid #3-65, I could actually make it do corrosion damage, but I've always had the impression that corrosion is more suited to chemical processes.
It works just fine for abrasives. I wouldn't hesitate to use it for a sandblaster for example. But realistically rough skin isn't going to cause enough abrasion to be significant. I suppose you could add a single point of corrosion as a Follow-Up without it seeming too off, but by the time you've stripped enough material to do a few points of damage with a piece of sand paper, it's worn out, and this isn't likely to be any tougher. If you bash on most things with a hammer long enough you'll turn some of it to dust or pulp too, but that's trivial enough it doesn't need to be anything other than crushing either.
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Old 11-03-2017, 03:24 PM   #5
mr beer
 
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

"Blunt...ish" is crushing damage in GURPS. Grizzly bears only do crushing damage with their claws.
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Old 11-03-2017, 03:26 PM   #6
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

I just have to say that a chitinous abrasive makes me think of snails' radulae.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radula
"It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters the esophagus."

It's a mouth structure you don't see on many alien write ups.
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Old 11-03-2017, 04:01 PM   #7
Cowrie
 
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

Okay, crushing it is. While you have a point about crushing damage causing some bleeding, I want the bleeding to have an actual game effect. Since crushing injuries in GURPS generally don't cause bleeding damage as per B420, is there a modifier that I could add to make that rule apply to the damage, or is that just a special effect? As far as eating away at armor, what you say is probably true of natural chitin, but this is an internal attack for the gizzard of a magically-enhanced insect-like fae creature that's prone to swallowing stuff whole and in addition to it's natural chitin plates, is also known to swallow diamonds to aid in digestion. Trust me, it can degrade metal. I suppose I could link it to a corrosive attack with no wounding to represent degrading armor...
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Old 11-04-2017, 12:08 AM   #8
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

Linking one point of cutting damage might work for the bleeding effect.
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Old 11-04-2017, 08:43 AM   #9
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

In GURPS Powers, the missing effect No DR Reduction is -20%. Since Corrosion Attack is 10 points/level, this reduces its cost by 2 points/level. A commensurate boost of 2 points/level to Crushing Attack would be a +40% enhancement to a 5 point base.
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Old 11-04-2017, 11:18 AM   #10
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Default Re: Sandpapery Striker and Damage Type

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
In GURPS Powers, the missing effect No DR Reduction is -20%. Since Corrosion Attack is 10 points/level, this reduces its cost by 2 points/level. A commensurate boost of 2 points/level to Crushing Attack would be a +40% enhancement to a 5 point base.
That makes no sense at all.

So I can just take a Crushing Innate Attack that is also Corrosive at 7 points per level? Why then ever take Corrosive at 10?

No sense. Likewise, why would I ever take Corrosive Attack (No DR Reduction)? That's literally all Corrosive does that Crushing doesn't*!



* There may something about blinding somewhere, but honestly, that's not even a percentage point worth of value.
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