Less Sleep Level Cap

[vicky_molokh]

Don't forget that unlike Less Sleep, the trait Doesn't Sleep grants complete immunity to sleep afflictions, including drugs, magic, hypnotic suggestions, nano, brainbugs, psi, and infomorph-affecting viruses.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Don't forget that unlike Less Sleep, the trait Doesn't Sleep grants complete immunity to sleep afflictions, including drugs, magic, hypnotic suggestions, nano, brainbugs, psi, and infomorph-affecting viruses.

The rarity of which is very setting dependent and as such should be a more obvious unusual background.
THS for biologicals wouldn't even matter as inducing unconsciousness is effectively the same and no harder than strong sleeping pills.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The rarity of which is very setting dependent and as such should be a more obvious unusual background.
THS for biologicals wouldn't even matter as inducing unconsciousness is effectively the same and no harder than strong sleeping pills.

Well, 4 points isn't much, and seems about fair. Also, sleep drugs are likely to have significantly higher LC than unconsciousness drugs in any setting. It also limits the attacker's options. Compare: having DR against wood still costs points, because it means attackers will be limited to using fists and metal weapons.

Also, funny how you immediately jumped to THS. I kinda tried to dilute THS references with magic and psi. ^_^

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, 4 points isn't much, and seems about fair. Also, sleep drugs are likely to have significantly higher LC than unconsciousness drugs in any setting. It also limits the attacker's options. Compare: having DR against wood still costs points, because it means attackers will be limited to using fists and metal weapons.

Also, funny how you immediately jumped to THS. I kinda tried to dilute THS references with magic and psi. ^_^

I thought the magic and psi was obviously setting dependent. But as a hard-ish setting, immunity to sleep's imperfect use might not be so obvious in THS.
Sleep drugs are very difficult to produce. Unconsciousness is rather easy to induce, especially if you don't care about after effects.
But what's fair in one setting as a UB is not fair for another.
For a truly realistic setting, I would consider anything fewer than 6 hours of required sleep to need a UB for humans.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I thought the magic and psi was obviously setting dependent. But as a hard-ish setting, immunity to sleep's imperfect use might not be so obvious in THS.
Sleep drugs are very difficult to produce. Unconsciousness is rather easy to induce, especially if you don't care about after effects.

Again, metal weapons are mostly easy to produce, but limited DR is still DR. And the mater of LC is still a matter of LC. It's the way resistances work in GURPS.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

But what's fair in one setting as a UB is not fair for another.
For a truly realistic setting, I would consider anything fewer than 6 hours of required sleep to need a UB for humans.

Uh, why in this case? We've all known or at least heard of people who get by on less. I used to have a six-hour sleep cycle. It's not particularly inhuman, nor does it provide some sort of surprise advantage that would be worth more than 2/level. Why UB?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Again, metal weapons are mostly easy to produce, but limited DR is still DR. And the mater of LC is still a matter of LC. It's the way resistances work in GURPS.
Uh, why in this case? We've all known or at least heard of people who get by on less. I used to have a six-hour sleep cycle. It's not particularly inhuman, nor does it provide some sort of surprise advantage that would be worth more than 2/level. Why UB?

Unusual background isn't just to allow impossible abilities. It's to account for exceptional rarity but still real ones. Like how I used to have a weak version of discriminatory smell. It's a GM tool to lightly restrict things that might derail games.
As to sleep, getting by is not the same as needing no more than. Also Gurps assumes a non-stop adventuring life, so the rules are quite harsh. In reality, there are ways to temporarily get by with much less sleep, food, water, etc. but only by restricting behavior far more than would make sense in an action type game.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Unusual background isn't just to allow impossible abilities. It's to account for exceptional rarity but still real ones. Like how I used to have a weak version of discriminatory smell. It's a GM tool to lightly restrict things that might derail games.

I didn't say impossible. IIRC Kromm once said that UB isn't supposed to be a tax 'just because'. It should be used for things like increasing the cost for traits that produce surprise value or other benefit beyond the base cost of the advantage.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Humabout

Is there any particular reason Less Sleep caps at 4 levels? What if I want to only require 3 hours of sleep per night, but don't want to go for the full Doesn't Sleep? Does anyone think it'd be particularly unbalanced to just continue at 2/level up to only 1 hour of sleep per night? What about recosting it so each level costs 2.5 points/level (rounded depending on the level, of course)?

I think some sort of escalating cost is better. 2/lvl for the first few levels, then 3/lvl for the rest, maybe 4 for the last hour. If you tweak it right, you can achieve perfect scaling-into the CP cost of Doesn't Sleep.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Don't forget that unlike Less Sleep, the trait Doesn't Sleep grants complete immunity to sleep afflictions, including drugs, magic, hypnotic suggestions, nano, brainbugs, psi, and infomorph-affecting viruses.

Those kinds of silent assumptions are certainly worth taking into account.

It's just thoughtless that the core books doesn't offer up suiable Limitations for "Not Immune" for traits like Doesn't Sleep and Unaging.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Unusual background isn't just to allow impossible abilities. It's to account for exceptional rarity but still real ones. Like how I used to have a weak version of discriminatory smell. It's a GM tool to lightly restrict things that might derail games.

Yup. UB-like "taxes" act on all created characters, not just those created by the players, and serve the function of reducing the occurence of the taxed trait in world statisical terms.