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Old 03-28-2012, 06:33 AM   #11
NineDaysDead
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Default Re: No Achilles Heal

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
PCs do not act like sensible people. Fight until you drop has a different meaning when dropping equals death.
That's not a problem with the advantage, that's a problem with the player making tactically stupid choices. Unless they have On the Edge, they shouldn't be behaving like that.

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Originally Posted by Phil Masters View Post
Sounds like the problem is less HT than a dingbat Code of Honour.

"I am a proud warrior, significantly wounded but still on my feet, and facing powerful foes. All my allies are dead, unconscious, or fled. Do I:
(a) Execute a tactical retreat, snarling defiance at my foes and making a mental note of any who suggest that I am fleeing that I may wreak terrible vengeance upon them later,
(b) Cunningly feign death, lying beneath the corpses of my friends and kinsmen that I may later wreak terrible vengeance upon their slayers from behind enemy lines,
or (c) Stand here like a macho idiot, waving my sword around and being a minor nuisance to the enemy until their archers convert me into a pincushion and I go to join my ancestors?"

Yes, I'm aware that there are codes of honour which strictly require (c). My contention, however, is that Conan types recognise that one can still be "honourable" while opting for (a) or (b), and frankly both cooler and less dead.

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
If your players really want it to be possible to lose a fight without dying, then they just have to roleplay it: retreat when clearly getting trounced but still able to flee, surrender when badly wounded, play dead when too hurt to negotiate (or lacking a common language), and accept that imprisonment, loss of equipment, and perhaps even torture are all "less bad" than being dead. To encourage this, you in your role as GM have to make sure that the foes don't consistently chase retreats, reject surrenders, slit the throats of corpses, and/or execute prisoners. If the players are unwilling to do anything but fight to the death, and their foes are unwilling to settle for any outcome less than TPK, then the problem is less with HT rolls and more with your gaming contract.

Likewise, if your players truly desire outcomes other than "We killed every man jack! Arrh!", then they must roleplay: let beaten foes retreat, accept surrenders, and consider how much more valuable ransom and prisoners for interrogation are than a stack of rotting corpses and an endless supply of vengeful eldest sons. Again, you have to encourage this as the GM by having foes retreat or surrender before dying. If all baddies always fight to the death, then the problem once again has more to do with how you're running the game than with HT rolls.

The fact that GURPS has rules for being knocked down, stunned, knocked out, crippled, and killed doesn't mean that affrays need to end only when one or more of these things has happened to everybody on one side. Very few realistic conflicts of any kind -- from street fights to total war -- go that way in reality. Most battles end inconclusively with a few percent to a few tens of percent casualties, and the rest end conclusively with surrender and/or retreat.

Save the total bloody slaughter for situations where a specific group of foes is a mindless horde (e.g., zombies), a supernatural abomination (e.g., a summoned demon who at worst will lose an avatar and return to Hell), or the direst kind of scum. It'll make such foes scarier and boost the campaign's drama level considerably.



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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Also mind control means your allies have to kill you to stop you.
Or Grapple you, or lift you of the ground with TK, etc.

Last edited by NineDaysDead; 03-28-2012 at 06:39 AM.
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Old 03-28-2012, 09:10 AM   #12
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Default Re: No Achilles Heal

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Didn't some other thread suggest 50 points as how much it should cost to be immune to unconsciousness?
It actually endangers the character as they can't be passively taken prisoner, etc.
If you can't be killed, that stops being an issue.
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Old 03-28-2012, 09:51 AM   #13
Kromm
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Default Re: No Achilles Heal

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Originally Posted by NineDaysDead View Post

That's not a problem with the advantage, that's a problem with the player making tactically stupid choices. Unless they have On the Edge, they shouldn't be behaving like that.
Agreed! I've heard about these gamers who treat every combat as a fight to total annihilation of one side or the other, but fortunately, I've never gamed with them!



Immunity to Unconsciousness [30] is only slightly better than Doesn't Sleep [20], and I can accept its pricing given that Coma is +250% while Sleep is +150% as an Affliction. I also agree that it gives you additional options. For sanely played characters, this isn't the same as Immunity to Being Taken Prisoner . . . the fair cost of which would be the price of Warp (Accessibility, Only when taken prisoner, -40%; Reflexive, +40%) [100], or 100 points, because that's roughly what it does for you. Unconsciousness ought to be a rare cause of capture in plausible stories – most imprisonment should result from surrender by the prisoners, betrayal by their apparent allies, or (at its most violent) grappling and restraint. Thus, I'd be hesitant to price Immunity to Unconsciousness on the grounds that it's Immunity to Being Taken Prisoner. Mostly, it's Immunity to Being Bored While Waiting For Your PC To Wake Up.
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Old 03-28-2012, 01:09 PM   #14
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Default Re: No Achilles Heal

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Agreed! I've heard about these gamers who treat every combat as a fight to total annihilation of one side or the other, but fortunately, I've never gamed with them!



Immunity to Unconsciousness [30] is only slightly better than Doesn't Sleep [20], and I can accept its pricing given that Coma is +250% while Sleep is +150% as an Affliction. I also agree that it gives you additional options. For sanely played characters, this isn't the same as Immunity to Being Taken Prisoner . . . the fair cost of which would be the price of Warp (Accessibility, Only when taken prisoner, -40%; Reflexive, +40%) [100], or 100 points, because that's roughly what it does for you. Unconsciousness ought to be a rare cause of capture in plausible stories – most imprisonment should result from surrender by the prisoners, betrayal by their apparent allies, or (at its most violent) grappling and restraint. Thus, I'd be hesitant to price Immunity to Unconsciousness on the grounds that it's Immunity to Being Taken Prisoner. Mostly, it's Immunity to Being Bored While Waiting For Your PC To Wake Up.
This Immunity to Unconsciousness would cover unconsciousness to fatigue loss as well? If so, then it doesn't fit the description of that aspect of Supernatural Durability, which seems to me like Immunity to Subdual [15] (an extrapolation from Hard to Subdue); no knockouts.

Also, as an aside, I believe some characters could still fall unconscious with that total Immunity to Unconsciousness, namely those with Unkillable 2 and 3 when they "die" at -10xHP. The immunity would make those advantages a lot more powerful if we assumed it applied there as well.
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Old 03-29-2012, 10:59 AM   #15
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Default Re: No Achilles Heal

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Originally Posted by JCurwen3 View Post
This Immunity to Unconsciousness would cover unconsciousness to fatigue loss as well?
It sounds like it. Instead of unconsciousness at -1xFP, I guess you would just remain in the state of near collapse that results from having FP ≤ 0.
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