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Old 12-21-2020, 06:56 AM   #31
ravenfish
 
Join Date: May 2007
Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Originally Posted by Anders View Post
How did you handle critical hits? IIRC, you don't get to dodge them.
Luck lets you force an opponent to reroll a critical hit against you. Of course, it has a cooldown...
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Old 12-21-2020, 07:11 AM   #32
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

Stealth is generally better than defense. A DX 12 character with Craftiness 4 and Stalker 4 can acquire Stealth-24 for a total of 96 CP, and they have a lot more utility than just sneaking. The vast majority of superheroes, much less normal people, are incapable of dealing with a character with Stealth-24. That is someone who can use Stealth at an effective skill of 14 while running across an open field.
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Old 12-21-2020, 07:59 AM   #33
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Stealth is generally better than defense. A DX 12 character with Craftiness 4 and Stalker 4 can acquire Stealth-24 for a total of 96 CP, and they have a lot more utility than just sneaking. The vast majority of superheroes, much less normal people, are incapable of dealing with a character with Stealth-24. That is someone who can use Stealth at an effective skill of 14 while running across an open field.
In a highly cinematic campaign where the GM accepts such things, okay. But in a realistic campaign, if I were the GM, I'd just say, "No, that won't work; you can't even attempt it." At least, if the field were being watched by someone who was paying attention.
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Old 12-21-2020, 08:01 AM   #34
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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How did you handle critical hits? IIRC, you don't get to dodge them.
None of her adversaries ever made one. If one did, she would have gotten hurt, or worse. That would have led to a change in her motivation, I expect. But I was playing her as a teenage hotshot who didn't fully realize that she could die.
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Old 12-21-2020, 08:32 AM   #35
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
In a highly cinematic campaign where the GM accepts such things, okay. But in a realistic campaign, if I were the GM, I'd just say, "No, that won't work; you can't even attempt it." At least, if the field were being watched by someone who was paying attention.
A realistic campaign would not have Supernatural Durability. Anyway, that level of stealth is more for a NPC villain than a PC hero, as it allows for psycho killers move quickly and silently. Unless the PCs are 250+ CP heroes, they really should not have anything at 24+, even if it technically possible.
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Old 12-21-2020, 09:03 AM   #36
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
A realistic campaign would not have Supernatural Durability. Anyway, that level of stealth is more for a NPC villain than a PC hero, as it allows for psycho killers move quickly and silently. Unless the PCs are 250+ CP heroes, they really should not have anything at 24+, even if it technically possible.
Different campaigns have different rulesets. Buffy the Vampire Slayer has people with traits like Supernatural Durability, but less cinematic skills. If someone can move with unnatural grace it is likely because they have unnatural power, not just sheer ninja-like-skill. Someone sneaking up to someone in plain sight would not have Stealth-22. They would have something like Obscure, Invisibility, or Illusion. (or super-equipment)
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Old 12-21-2020, 11:20 AM   #37
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Different campaigns have different rulesets. Buffy the Vampire Slayer has people with traits like Supernatural Durability, but less cinematic skills.
A distinction that's become important in my long-running occult WWII campaign is between a magical ability, and a magical ability with no magical signature. Running magically-silent is a tactic that both sides have had to adopt.
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Old 12-21-2020, 11:33 AM   #38
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

Why depend on supernatural abilities when mundane advantages/skills are sufficient? A specialist with DX 12, Craftiness 4, and Stalker 4 could have Stealth-30 for only 120 CP total. They could walk past a pack of guard dogs and an array of closed circuit security cameras without any particular difficulty, even if they were carrying Heavy Encumbrance. Conversely, a character would need to actually spend more CP to get the same stealth benefits from Invisibility, though Invisibility is more generally more useful in combat.
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Old 12-21-2020, 12:09 PM   #39
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
A realistic campaign would not have Supernatural Durability. Anyway, that level of stealth is more for a NPC villain than a PC hero, as it allows for psycho killers move quickly and silently. Unless the PCs are 250+ CP heroes, they really should not have anything at 24+, even if it technically possible.
As a reminder,* there are two kinds of "realism" in GURPS... and really, when creating fiction.
  1. How the setting operates
  2. What the setting contains

You can have a world where nothing exists that isn't firmly established in the real world (or at least, our current understanding of it), and where no such things are absent, either. However, reality may operate differently. Gritty Realism or Harsh Realism can almost become unrealistic, because what can go wrong does seem to go wrong. The baseline level of realism in a setting does make allowances for the sake of game play and storytelling, after all.

Going the opposite direction, reality behaves in a manner more conducive to game play and story telling. You can get into "cinematic" game territory, "four-color" game territory - yeah, even sans superpowers - until you push all the way into silly. You can have a silly campaign set in the real-world; think "The Naked Gun" series (for a now dated example).

A.k.a. "Otaku points out how he thought GURPS is supposed to work, and hopes to receive either affirmation or correction as required.
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Old 12-21-2020, 12:46 PM   #40
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Why depend on supernatural abilities when mundane advantages/skills are sufficient? A specialist with DX 12, Craftiness 4, and Stalker 4 could have Stealth-30 for only 120 CP total. They could walk past a pack of guard dogs and an array of closed circuit security cameras without any particular difficulty, even if they were carrying Heavy Encumbrance. Conversely, a character would need to actually spend more CP to get the same stealth benefits from Invisibility, though Invisibility is more generally more useful in combat.
I think you are misunderstanding. A supernatural setting doesn't need to be overly cinematic, and if this is the case then very high skill levels are forbidden as a setting rule. Meanwhile in a cinnematic non-supernatural Kung-Fu movie I might let people run around With Staff-20, but I absolutely wouldn't let PCs take advantages like "Growth".

Something like the Castlevania Netflix show would certainly have some people with very cinematically high skills, mixed with incredible powers.

Meanwhile the Dean Brothers in the early* seasons of Supernatural has very mundane DX-based skills, but incredible supernatural powers are involved. You don't see anyone somersaulting in fights, but spooky monsters like demons can be strong enough to push open the pressurised doors of an in-flight aircraft. The brothers generally deal with this using their knowledge of the occult and deus-ex-machina thinking on their feet.

*Didn't watch it to the end, so I don't know if it changed and they started ninja-ing around.
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