Immunity to Metabolic Hazards

[Belial666]

That "all threats that only affect the living" is a bit confusing. So, what exactly does it protect against?


1) Does it protect against the effects of radiation on living things?

2) Does it protect against high and low environmental temperatures?

3) Does it protect against the effects of acceleration?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Belial666

That "all threats that only affect the living" is a bit confusing. So, what exactly does it protect against?


1) Does it protect against the effects of radiation on living things?

2) Does it protect against high and low environmental temperatures?

3) Does it protect against the effects of acceleration?

Search for it this thread has come up couple of times and I recall at least one really long one.
If I recall correctly though the answers are yes, kinda, and yes.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Belial666

1) Does it protect against the effects of radiation on living things?

Originally Posted by Kromm

The Machine meta-trait includes:
Immunity to Metabolic Hazards: Protects against all threats that only affect the living, including but not limited to disease and poison.
Injury Tolerance (No Blood): Immunizes against threats that affect the blood.
Injury Tolerance (Unliving): Your body is not composed of living flesh.

Most radiation effects are metabolic, which means that if you're not alive and lack blood and living cells, they don't apply to you. That's part of what you're buying when you take the above traits.

Machines do still enjoy a marginal advantage, because the above traits are debatably a better deal than very high Radiation Tolerance. However, machines also experience a huge down side for having no metabolism or cells: They have an eight-hour energy reserve. After eight hours, they simply drop, cease to function, etc. A human who misses a meal merely loses some FP and keeps going, because his metabolism can tap cellular energy reserves . . . cells do have their uses. That's a pretty big drawback for machines right there.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...01&postcount=7

Originally Posted by Kromm

You need it either way. Radiation is a "direct, physical attack" -- build it as an Innate Attack with the Radiation damage modifier (p. B105) -- and Resistant, and hence Immunity, don't affect such attacks. OTOH, if you're Diffuse or Homogenous (see Injury Tolerance, p. B60), you probably don't care.

Quote:

No. Getting overheated or chilled (as opposed to burned or frozen, which are attacks) is a metabolic issue.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=26577

Originally Posted by Belial666

2) Does it protect against high and low environmental temperatures?

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/faq/FAQ4-3.html#SS3.2.21

Originally Posted by Belial666

3) Does it protect against the effects of acceleration?

I'd say no. Acceleration is a direct,physical effect that would crush inanimate objects or dead bodies as readily as living ones. It doesn't primarily affect your metabolism. Like the old joke says, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.

(I suppose you can quibble about low-G effects on bone growth and so on.)

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I'd say no. Acceleration is a direct,physical effect that would crush inanimate objects or dead bodies as readily as living ones. It doesn't primarily affect your metabolism. Like the old joke says, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.

(I suppose you can quibble about low-G effects on bone growth and so on.)

I'd argue it should definitely cover the deleterious effects of low-G, and it should cover significant amounts of acceleration tolerance as well. Sure, enough acceleration will crush a dead body, but it calls for more than is needed to make a living body into a dead one, or an unconscious one.

[Flyndaran]

Acceleration rules are about the shock and blood pooling issues for us wet meat sacks. For momentary short term impulses, objects are quite resilient.

Only when periods become more medium to long term should you break out the high gravity rules.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Sure, enough acceleration will crush a dead body, but it calls for more than is needed to make a living body into a dead one, or an unconscious one.

Unconsciousness from acceleration is usually due to lack of blood flow to the brain. That seems physical to me, not metabolic. ItMH doesn't prevent bleeding to death, so lack of blood properly filling all your vessels doesn't seem to be a "metabolic" hazard. I'm not sure ItMH includes some sort of super cardiovascular system. If it were a machine, it'd be loss of hydraulic fluid to your actuators or some such. This effect fails the "threats that only affect the living" test.

On the other hand, space sickness is listed under Resistant on B80, if not specifically in the definition of hazards on B81 (but that's a "such as", not an exhaustive list). Powers 40 notes that ItMH stops most Afflictions. That seems to imply any of the Conditions on B429, which include unconsciousness and coma. The most common contrast for Afflictions seems to be between damage, and anything else. By this line of reasoning, ItMH stops just about anything that's not direct HP or FP loss.

And then again, there's already an Improved G-Tolerance Advantage. ItMH is only 30 points, so I'm not sure it should incorporate other distinct Advantages. But then, I didn't see any templates with ItMH that felt obliged to include Improved G-Tolerance, even when they did have Pressure and Vacuum Support. (It might be worth checking ones in Hi/Ultra-Tech and Space; I don't have those in PDF.)

So there's certainly a good argument for including any non-directly-damaging effects of acceleration in the protection granted by ItMH.

[NineDaysDead]

Corebook says:

Originally Posted by Basic Page 81

Very Common: A broad category within the noxious items described above. Example: Metabolic Hazards (all threats that only affect the living, including all disease and poison, plus such syndromes as altitude sickness, bends, seasickness, and jet lag). 30 points.

Common: A group of related items encountered as often in nature as in an attack, or some other suitably broad subset of “Very Common.” Example: Poison (all toxins, but not asphyxiants or corrosives) or Sickness (all diseases and environmental syndromes). 15 points.

Occasional: A group of closely related items more often encountered in nature than as a deliberate attack, or a subset of a “Common” group. Examples: Disease (all bacteria, viruses, fungus infections, etc.) or Ingested Poison. 10 points.

Rare: A specific item or environmental syndrome, or a subset of an “Occasional” group. Examples: Acceleration (blackouts due to extreme G-forces), Altitude Sickness, Bends (decompression sickness), Seasickness, or Space Sickness; Nanomachines. 5 points.