Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

I still don't see the reason for the rule of 16. Why can't an incredibly bad-ass supernatural threat simply crush weak-willed opposition like a t-rex would crush a squirrel?

The meta-reason that Kromm has referred to before is that, for RPGs, it's better to give defense the advantage over offense. Failing to affect someone with your attack power is annoying, but you can usually try again. Failing to defend, on the other hand, can quite often be character-ending, whether in the literal death sense, or in the sense that it makes the player not want to play the character any more.
Since it's usually easier to push an attack higher with fewer points than a defense, GURPS gives mental defense a shot in the arm by effectively saying that someone who has specialized in defense will never have less than a 50-50 chance of resisting an effect.