Jumper (World) to Yrth and Beyond

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

However, Cosmic (no roll needed) is probably a valid +50% Enhancement....Perhaps more common might be Energy Reserve (World-Jumping).

Both could work--thanks!

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

Even with -25 and no great ability, you are still going to succeed on a 3 or a 4, which is 1 in 54 rolls. Even if you only try twice a day, it will only take weeks to escape Yrth. Further, on a critical failure, you'll go somewhere. Escaping from Yrth with Jumper is merely inconvenient.

You'll also critical fail just as often.

Frankly, if a pc used that logic on me, I'd say no, that's not how it works. If you are failing by -10 even with your natural 3 I don't care if its technically a crit. That doesn't fit the lore, and I frown on fishing for criticals in general (though its fine in combat, I guess)

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

Even with -25 and no great ability, you are still going to succeed on a 3 or a 4, which is 1 in 54 rolls. Even if you only try twice a day, it will only take weeks to escape Yrth. Further, on a critical failure, you'll go somewhere. Escaping from Yrth with Jumper is merely inconvenient.

I mean, if you're following rules as written religiously, then sure. I'm a bit more flexible, so sure, you could fish for that 1 in 54, but if when you crit fail you're going nowhere and your power is going to be crippled until I feel like it. Or maybe you do go somewhere, but it's to the equally inescapable Tentacle Plains or some other even worse parallel (or heck, Homeline but in the Arctic Ocean). Crit fail, in my view, is an excuse for the GM to hose you if they feel like it.

I also think it misinterprets the point of the -25 a little. It's -25, not because the designer was expecting an Archmage of gate magic to escape a few days after arriving, but because it's an excuse to make every +1 and +2 a juicy target for the player to collect towards the goal of escaping Yrth and making it back home. Talk to a sage who collects off-world memorabilia, +1. Break in to the Ministry of Serendipity and read their forbidden magics, +2. Cut a deal with a dragon to help him escape in exchange for helping you, +1. Find the exact location where the Banestorm was cast, +2. Stack them all up, invest a few character points into IQ to boost your roll a little higher, and after making the big roll the whole campaign has been building to...!

[Varyon]

For a character who can negate the penalty for travel to/from Yrth, and only that penalty, I'd argue a Technique would be appropriate; as a Hard Technique, it's worth [26] to get all the way from -25 to +0. That's not cheap, but it does cost less than Cosmic +50% or Reliable 25 +125% or whatever. That may require you to grab an appropriate Hard skill as per Skills for Everyone, adding another [4] (total [30]) to get it to IQ+0, but then that also means you can boost your normal Jumper ability for only [4] per +1 rather than the [5] per +1 of Reliable (actually, with your suggestion of [100] to negate the -25, I assume you're already using a skill).

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

Even with -25 and no great ability, you are still going to succeed on a 3 or a 4, which is 1 in 54 rolls. Even if you only try twice a day, it will only take weeks to escape Yrth. Further, on a critical failure, you'll go somewhere. Escaping from Yrth with Jumper is merely inconvenient.

Err, no. With a penalty of -25, you need skill 28 to get to make a roll.:

Originally Posted by Basic Set, p. 345

You may not attempt a success roll
if your effective skill is less than 3,
unless you are attempting a defense
roll (p. 374).

[Alden Loveshade]

Personally, I wouldn't want a PC I favor depending on a roll that's as likely to be a critical failure as a success. Especially when it's something like "What world/dimension am I about to go to? Wait, that isn't Hell, is it? Oh, no, not that. Whew! It's just the surface of Earth's sun. No, wait!"

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by ericthered

You'll also critical fail just as often.

Which will still get you off Yrth.

On a critical failure, you arrive at the wrong destination, which can be any time or world the GM wishes!

which I guess could be "you are still on Yrth" but seems against the spirit.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Err, no. With a penalty of -25, you need skill 28 to get to make a roll.:

Good catch.

[malloyd]

Obviously it's a 1 point perk: Rules Exemption (one highly specific penalty doesn't apply to me). Or one of those "I can ignore some irritating environmental condition" perks like Mars Adapted Lungs or Swamp Acid Immunity. Well it certainly could be in the right campaign.

More seriously, "I can have adventures somewhere not everyone can" enabling advantages generally need to be cheap because everyone needs to have or acquire them pretty quickly or you are going to have problems with the party being split. OK one person can have a power that carries the rest of the party along too, but that guy is paying the "participate in the game" tax for everybody, and if you make it expensive, he's much less capable than they are as a result. I'd worry about charging more than 10 points (think Aquatic or Terrain Adaptation) for something like that. I honestly think Jumper (World) is way overpriced for just that reason, it's only justified because it inherits so much flexibility from Warp. If it didn't allow you to leave or arrive anywhere you wanted, it wouldn't make sense at all at those costs.

Given that much of what the Yrth penalty does is remove those advantages - requiring you to make special preparations or find the uniquely weak spots or whatever, it ought to kick the price way down. Quite possibly down to a few points in Hidden Lore (Yrthian Interdimensional Access Methods).

I actually think if I were doing an IW campaign with Yrth as an important place, I might well do it that way. That is there isn't any enhancement to let it get you in or out from anywhere, but there are specific points you can enter or leave more easily with Jumper (or a conveyer, or by anybody at all stepping through a gate) if you know where and when they are. And knowing those is a perk or skill.

[pawsplay]

I was looking at the books again, and a proper sargasso doesn't allow Jumper to work at all, only magic. I kind of wonder how that would apply to Jumper with a Magic power modifier? But for a sargasso, you are going to want Cosmic at some level.

If a character is stranded on Yrth for the campaign, that's just an Unusual Background. If they end up in some circumstances where, due to changes in the campaign, suddenly their Jumper ability becomes relevant, I think they just go into character point debt. Maybe they are really rusty so it starts off with lots of modifiers, or even requires a CP expenditure.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

I was looking at the books again, and a proper sargasso doesn't allow Jumper to work at all, only magic.

I'd be curious to know which books you found that in (I'm guessing the following).

GURPS Banestorm lists sargasso in the text twice. That's once on p. 26 (dealing with magic), and once on p. 220 (dealing with demons.) On p. 183, it says the IQ roll is at -25 (for Jumper).

I did find this in GURPS Infinite Worlds on p. 150: "Yrth is a quantum sargasso; world-jumpers and conveyors can enter it, but they can only leave by using magic, a nexus portal, or (of course) a banestorm."

But I believe there's a character from GURPS Callahan's Crosstime Saloon who lives in, and can leave, Yrth. But off the top of my head I don't remember which book that's in (probably pre-Fourth Edition.)

To me, GURPS Infinite Worlds seems to contradiction what GURPS Banestorm says about using Jumper. But I'm certainly open to your and other people's interpretation.

Originally Posted by malloyd

More seriously, "I can have adventures somewhere not everyone can" enabling advantages generally need to be cheap because everyone needs to have or acquire them pretty quickly or you are going to have problems with the party being split. OK one person can have a power that carries the rest of the party along too, but that guy is paying the "participate in the game" tax for everybody, and if you make it expensive, he's much less capable than they are as a result.

I do see your point. In this particular case, I'm looking for a general rule. It seems the majority seem to favor the exact same point cost that another GM and I came up with many years ago.

We actually developed the rule to adapt an unaging, world-jumping PC from an earlier edition to Fourth. (That PC appears/is mentioned several times under different identities in various GURPS and other publications, and in an award-winning film. And is currently in two campaign, one run by a GM who wasn't even born when that PC was first played....)