Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

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.

How is failing a mental defense roll that different from failing a dodge roll v. a high ST grappler or HMG fire? A high ST grappler can easily twist your limbs off in a turn, and HMG fire (unless you're using blowthrough) will easily instantly force a death check on most people with a torso hit, which is where fire not specifically aimed at another body part automatically hits by RAW. Seems like it should be a cinematic campaign switch, to me. If a GM doesn't want his players to die messily, he shouldn't throw opponents that can cause them to die messily at them, or he should make clear the levels of defenses needed in his games.