Reincarnation Amulet

[David Johnston2]

Here's an interesting variant on Unkillable III I've seen in two Asian sources. In one it was an innate power in the other it was a magic item. Either way, it's obviously influenced by modern gaming. The character gets a "save point" set probably the same day. If they die, they return to the save point which is set by the GM and get a chance to avoid their death. So it would be Unkillable III linked to Jumper? Incidentally each of them were geased to be unable to explain what had happened to them. Now how does that work?

[Rupert]

The geas is a separate issue, but normal Unkillable III has this: "Once you are at full HP, your fully intact body will coalesce in a location of the GM's choosing." Therefore, there's no need for anything special to be added to the Unkillable to deal with the 'save point' - the GM just decides where it is each time - there's nothing that says the GM must choose once once and it's then fixed, or that they can't entertain player suggestions. The player getting to set the ress point would be worth points, though.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The geas is a separate issue, but normal Unkillable III has this: "Once you are at full HP, your fully intact body will coalesce in a location of the GM's choosing." Therefore, there's no need for anything special to be added to the Unkillable to deal with the 'save point' - the GM just decides where it is each time - there's nothing that says the GM must choose once once and it's then fixed, or that they can't entertain player suggestions. The player getting to set the ress point would be worth points, though.

The power actually rewinds time. I think that goes beyond the bounds of "a location of the GM's choosing".

[Ejidoth]

Yeah, that's fair. You don't need Warp, I don't think, but you might need some kind of heavily modified Jumper (Time) to cover for the fact that players might have their characters actively die on purpose to take advantage of the redo.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

Yeah, that's fair. You don't need Warp, I don't think, but you might need some kind of heavily modified Jumper (Time) to cover for the fact that players might have their characters actively die on purpose to take advantage of the redo.

There are two things that discourage such behaviour in the characters. The first is they never know when the save point is which limits their ability to plan and they have to make a fright check every time they die. I guess that would be a side effect?

[AlexanderHowl]

I would model that as a very powerful form of Precognition actually. With Precognition (Cosmic, Death Avoidance, +300%; Cosmic, No Roll Required, +100%; Reliable 8, +40%) [135], you could have the character model the events before they next died, meaning that they could perfectly avoid their own death. In effect, they would know exactly what events led up to their death and, at the last minute, could avoid their own death. In effect, the character cannot be killed not because they have Unkillable but, instead, because they know how to avoid their death. The 'save point' is just the time and place that they last used their ability.

[William]

The precognition description... honestly sounds like a pretty good explanation of "save points" that is maybe the first time I've heard one that makes some in-world sense that isn't incredibly meta. You have regular opportunities to experience a much-extended Death Vision.

You might even still have only adventurers or important people using them very much -- most people don't expect to die any time soon, most people who expect to die of natural causes probably know it's due some year soon and aren't interested in the gory details, and the experience of envisioning one's own death is, much like the description in the spell, no doubt intensely unpleasant. The breed of person who takes advantage of that sort of thing regularly is definitely more suited to the monster-slaying sort of profession.

Of course, if you use this there's also the Flowy effect -- you enter the room for the boss fight, the boss rises from their throne... the boss casually touches the save point next to him, and then draws his weapon...

[AlexanderHowl]

An interesting scenario. Of course, that type of save point would be a gadget...

[thrash]

In the most famous example, the character doesn't have the ability to control when the "save point" occurs, which would add Uncontrollable and Unconscious Only. In effect, play continues until the character dies (voluntarily or not), at which point the GM decides when in the narrative the ability activated. (In the story, the ability is treated as a curse, so the unpleasant aspects are more a feature than a bug. It is also implied that the save points are being manipulated by the entity that inflicted the curse, to unknown purpose.)

There is another, more limited, version of this power in the literature, where the character has to prepare a literal "save point" -- in this case, a bowl with burning incense (part of Buddhist funeral rites). If the character dies, she returns to the time she lit the incense. If the incense goes out or the bowl is knocked over before the ability activates, the save point is invalidated and (presumably) she will die without returning. This would be a some kind of strong gadget limitation, I imagine.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I would model that as a very powerful form of Precognition actually. With Precognition (Cosmic, Death Avoidance, +300%; Cosmic, No Roll Required, +100%; Reliable 8, +40%) [135], you could have the character model the events before they next died, meaning that they could perfectly avoid their own death. In effect, they would know exactly what events led up to their death and, at the last minute, could avoid their own death. In effect, the character cannot be killed not because they have Unkillable but, instead, because they know how to avoid their death. The 'save point' is just the time and place that they last used their ability.

It is in fact true that it is functionally nearly impossible for the characters using this power to distinguish "reversing time to get a second chance to make new decisions" from "getting visions of the choices that will lead to your demise unless you choose differently". But in both Re-Zero and Resurrecting Queen, there comes a point where the characters try to game the system by deliberately committing suicide only to find out that their latest save point is too late to avert the thing they wanted to avert. Even though in Resurrecting Queen's case the death of her mother happened less than a minute before her suicide.