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Old 12-28-2021, 03:38 PM   #11
maximara
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
In terms of characters there's no 3e immunity anymore so you can't be indestructible in 4e, just have loads of DR or injury divisors.
There is "immunity" in 4e; it is the highest level of Resistant:

*Immunity - never have to make resistance rolls (x 1)[3]
*+8 to all HT rolls to resist (x 1/2)
*+3 to all HT rolls to resist (x 1/3)

4e Resistant: "The bonus from Resistant applies to all rolls to resist noxious effects within a particular category – usually some combination of disease, poison, and environmental syndromes (altitude sickness, the bends, space sickness, etc.). It also applies to rolls to resist attacks that use these effects" (...) "You are totally immune to all noxious effects, and never have to make resistance rolls (write this as “Immunity” on your character sheet." (sic) Basic Set 80-81
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Old 12-28-2021, 03:43 PM   #12
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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Originally Posted by naloth View Post
Nah, it means DR 26+ (GM assigned) or an explanation like "lots of spares" such as Corsair in Super Scum. Such devices should also have an assigned weight and HP.
"Lots of spares" would arguably mean no Gadget Limitations - because if such a device is stolen, you've still got those spares.

I'd say without the Breakable Limitation, this means either a) the gadget somehow still functions even if destroyed, and probably repairs itself or b) there's an informal contract with the GM that the item won't be damaged, but the PC won't take advantage of this "indestructible" nature (say, by throwing it into a jet engine or wherever else a truly-indestructible item would wreck havoc).
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Old 12-28-2021, 05:23 PM   #13
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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There's always the hypothetical tight-beam burning that snipes the blade by some deific allfather
There is. But why have one? Why would the deific all father be doing something so pointless with his power?

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But if you have "excalibur" as "a sword gadget that gives me the power of Healing" you should probably also have to pay for an actual Innate Attack to represent that.
If it's indestructible, yes.

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Also it seems strange to say "this has DR and HP to be destroyed but that DR and HP doesn't function as cover" which is why I figure you could buy the object as an ally, and the DR-based 'can be destroyed' limitation linked to it is a factor of "how hard it is to deprive me of my advantage"
If it's indestructible it doesn't have DR and HP to be destroyed.




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It's just weird to think of.

"I have an SM 0 gadget the size of me, attacks can hit it, but it can't provide cover". How's that even work,
How that works is "The GM tells the player to stop making things that can't exist".
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Old 12-28-2021, 06:16 PM   #14
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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[(Generator DR)*(Generator Area)*(Hilt power cell weight)*(Hilt power cell time)]
[2*(Force blade surface area)*(Generator power cell weight)*(Generator time)]
Now that I'm back home and can access my books, let's look at this. Looking at UT, we can't use barrier force screens for our calculation, because those fail to note how much power they consume - I assume they're all meant to use the nebulous "external power."

Using a personal force screen should work for us; note here we can get rid of the (2) divisor, because we aren't going from more-efficient power cells to less-efficient ones, we're directly comparing C to C. Something that conforms to the body would have a surface area of 21.35 square feet, as per the Pyramid armor design articles. A C-cell lasts 15 minutes, and the personal force screen provides DR 60 and weighs 2.5 lbs. A force sword, meanwhile, weighs 2 lbs and a C-cell in it lasts only 5 minutes. It also has Reach 1,2, which implies a length of perhaps 1.5 yards rather than the 1 yard I assumed above; we'll boost surface area from 0.2 square feet to 0.3 square feet. So:

60*21.35*C*5
0.3*C*15

The weights of the C-cells cancel out, so we're looking at DR 1423.33. However, I think I messed up with the initial equation - most of the factors are where they should be, but I have hilt time and generator time reversed - the less time the force blade lasts on an equal amount of energy, the stronger it should be. So, swapping those above, we're actually looking at DR 4270. The hilt is around the same size as the personal force screen (2 lbs vs 2.5 lbs), so we don't need to worry about losing efficiency there. I'd be inclined to cut DR in half to account for pumping half the energy into creating the annihilating energy, for DR 2135. However, to make my suggestion of reducing damage linearly with reduction to DR easier to use, let's make it DR 2000 - every -250 to DR is -1d to damage.

And, of course, here we come to the bit about "anything that can break the force sword will destroy the hilt and wielder." It's DR 2000. Anything that does that sort of damage is going to have enough "splash" to basically liquefy the wielder. If you're dealing with characters in heavy power armor fighting with force swords, of course, they can probably survive the splash effects, but I really don't think the hilts would.

EDIT: Whoops, I thought it was weird that swapping the times only gave x3 to DR. I must have messed up on the math (I suspect I did x15 and then /15, rather than x15 and /3), because the starting DR is actually 12,810. Even if we assume 80% of it goes into creating the 8d(5) burn effect, that's still DR over 2500.
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Last edited by Varyon; 12-29-2021 at 06:46 AM.
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Old 12-29-2021, 03:26 PM   #15
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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Originally Posted by naloth View Post
Nah, it means DR 26+ (GM assigned) or an explanation like "lots of spares" such as Corsair in Super Scum. Such devices should also have an assigned weight and HP.
I'm not aware of any rule text that supports that assertion.
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Old 12-29-2021, 03:32 PM   #16
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

I see you have found the Force Sword Paradox.

Thinking on it just now I offer this proposition:

The force field that projects from the hilt is attractive - specifically it attracts the annihilating energy to conform to the surface of the force field.

This means that the annihilating energy is actually and always exposed to do it's job and as that energy cuts through things to the same width as the sheath of energy the slightly smaller diameter force field can slide along any path made.
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Old 12-29-2021, 03:57 PM   #17
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
[(Generator DR)*(Generator Area)*(Hilt power cell weight)*(Hilt power cell time)]
[2*(Force blade surface area)*(Generator power cell weight)*(Generator time)]
There's no evidence that force fields are linear in area, nor particularly good theoretical reasons to think they should be (things like magnetic shielding are not).
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Old 12-29-2021, 04:42 PM   #18
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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There's no evidence that force fields are linear in area, nor particularly good theoretical reasons to think they should be (things like magnetic shielding are not).
Are you saying that you don't think there will ever be a way to shape fields to our whimsical needs?
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Old 12-29-2021, 05:47 PM   #19
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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There's no evidence that force fields are linear in area, nor particularly good theoretical reasons to think they should be (things like magnetic shielding are not).
I'm not certain what you mean by "linear in area," here. My assumption is that the DR of GURPS force screens scale with weight (of the generator) and surface area (of the projected field) in the same manner as the DR of armor does, because that's the way force screens in GURPS Spaceships scale. It's certainly possible that concentrating it down into such a small area would result in a loss of efficiency, of course, but a starting value of DR 12,810 gives a lot to work with.
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Old 12-29-2021, 09:32 PM   #20
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Default Re: should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I'm not certain what you mean by "linear in area," here. My assumption is that the DR of GURPS force screens scale with weight (of the generator) and surface area (of the projected field) in the same manner as the DR of armor does, because that's the way force screens in GURPS Spaceships scale.
Force screens do not explicitly multiply their weight by area in Spaceships, it just scales DR with SM. Ultratech p191 seems to use a scaling of DR*radius, though my preferred formula is DR^2*radius.
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