Deconstructing Leech

[JCurwen3]

Leech (p. P96) has always seemed like a strange chimera beast to me. It is an attack in that it harms the target, and yet it also heals the wielder. I thought it might be useful to deconstruct it. If we can separate its healing properties from its damaging abilities, we can figure out how to build abilities that do some things only Leech seems to do.

This is what I came up with:

My Deconstructed Leech:
Affliction 1 (Accessibility, Not above normal HP, -10%; Advantage, HP 0.3_/level, +6.6_%/level; Cosmic, No die roll required, +100%; Link, +10%; Self Only, -0%) [20 + 0.6_/level] + Toxic Attack 0.25d (Cosmic, Ignores DR, +300%; Link, +10%; Melee Attack, Can't parry, Reach C, -35%) [3.75/level]
Notes: I'm doing the healing part with Affliction, which is less potent than Healing, but then again, so is Leech. There is a precedent that you can spend temporary CP from Absorptive DR to permanently heal lost HP or FP at their standard CP costs (2 and 3, respectively), so I'm assuming it's legit that Afflictions of HP or FP will work the same way. The Affliction is on the Self Only, and that seemed abusive as anything other than -0% (a common ruling on Self Only for Healing is also -0%). We're Afflicting only one third of an HP, because Leech only heals 1 HP for every 3 HP stolen. You can make one Affliction attack per turn (second), and you're making it on yourself, with no die roll needed to succeed at your beneficial self-affliction "resistance" roll. The attack part is a Toxic Attack that uses a fixed, non-variable damage rather than based on a die roll, doing 1 HP damage that ignores DR and requires physical contact (that Melee Attack part). That's 20 + 0.6_ + 3.75 = 24.416_ points for level 1 + 4.416_ points/additional level.

VS.

Leech:
25 points for level 1 + 4 points/additional level.

Pretty surprisingly close, right? Think it's a coincidence?

I intentionally didn't do any rounding of values, to illustrate what I was doing "under the hood". Wherever there were repeating decimals, I terminated them with a "_" (e.g. 2/3 = 0.6_). Please let me know if the above needs to be tweaked or if I've done anything wrong according to the rules.

Having a deconstructed Leech means it can be tweaked in more flexible ways. It also makes it easier to extrapolate the cost of an attack that does attribute damage. I know you can do Affliction (Attribute Penalty), but it really doesn't cut it - Leech's Steal (Other Score) does attribute damage that recovers gradually at the same rate as FP recovery and with no resistance roll, whereas an Affliction of Attribute Penalty will inflict a penalty only if the target fails their resistance roll, and the entire Attribute Penalty will go away all at once when the Affliction duration expires.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

...rather than based on a die roll, doing 1 HP damage that ignores DR and requires physical contact (that Melee Attack part). That's 20 + 0.6_ + 3.75 = 24.416_ points for level 1 + 4.416_ points/additional level.[/INDENT]VS.

Leech:
25 points for level 1 + 4 points/additional level.

Pretty surprisingly close, right? Think it's a coincidence?

[...]

Having a deconstructed Leech means it can be tweaked in more flexible ways. It also makes it easier to extrapolate the cost of an attack that does attribute damage.

GURPS point costs are not intended to be broken down this way, but it's not just a coincidence either. The playtest and review process (of which I have been a frequent accomplice) usually includes some benchmarking against other abilities and a certain amount of applied algebra to keep costs and benefits proportional and thus acceptably close to the ideal of fairness, but its mathematical vigor is not something that you should bet the rent on.

This is not to say that a game substantially similar to GURPS could hew much more closely to mathematical models, but it seems to take more than an undergraduate level of achievement for relatively little return. But folks like you and I and Peter Knutsen can't seem to stop fiddling with it even so. :P

[Sunrunners_Fire]

You need to slap another +300% enhancement called (Cosmic: No Resistance Roll) on Affliction to accurately model the lack of resistance. (Cosmic: No roll required, +100%) just means you don't (normally) miss hitting with the attack. It doesn't remove the target's HT-based roll to resist.

+300% is just the value I use in my campaigns. I'm rather certain someone is going to disagree with me on that pricing.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

You need to slap another +300% enhancement called (Cosmic: No Resistance Roll) on Affliction to accurately model the lack of resistance. (Cosmic: No roll required, +100%) just means you don't (normally) miss hitting with the attack. It doesn't remove the target's HT-based roll to resist.

+300% is just the value I use in my campaigns. I'm rather certain someone is going to disagree with me on that pricing.

It was my feeling that since this is really an "attack" on yourself, it's not really a resistance roll as much as a success roll. And besides, if I slapped Malediction 1 on for the same value (+100%), the "target" (in this case the target is yourself) can waive his resistance roll (which, in this case, he would!).

You could argue the Afflicter then still needs to make an unopposed Will roll, and that removing that roll in cases where the target waives their resistance roll requires that Cosmic: No roll required (+100%) added on too. I'm not sure it'd be necessary, but if we said it was, then the total modifier value for being able to Afflict yourself (or anyone else that was willing) automatically without ever having to roll a dice (other than to determine duration from margin of success, where needed) would be +200%.