can Jumper (Tunnel) cause harm?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The typical result is "the portal fails to close if it can't cut through whatever is sticking through". If this is interdimensional horror sending tentacles through, this means it's up to the PCs to kill all the tentacles so the portal can be closed.

This is kinda cool but if it leads to portals being open indefinitely there should be some sort of penalty for that happening for the user.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Plane

This is kinda cool but if it leads to portals being open indefinitely there should be some sort of penalty for that happening for the user.

You mean like he can't open a new portal til the old one closes? That might already be implicit in the rules. "Can have multiple portals open at the same time" sounds like an Enhancement to me.

[transmetahuman]

Originally Posted by johndallman

In Infinite Cabal, ...there was at least one case when a tunnel was very long and winding, and took several minutes to traverse. The start closed after a normal length of time, but the tunnel closed up at about 5 yards/sec, so the party were able to keep ahead of it.

Now I'm curious. Where did that one go? What made it different?

[Plane]

This mention of Cabal prompted me to go look up equivalent in GURPS Magic...

M80's "Magical Gates and Portals" has this note:

If an unwilling (or unwitting) person sticks a hand into a gate, removing it can be difficult; 1d seconds of effort, the same amount of FP, and a Will roll is required. Only one try is permissible; if the Will roll fails, the victim has no choice but to either stay stuck in the gateway, or to pass through.

Interesting since it basically scales up with ST (costs FP regardless) but nothing about severing

[Emerikol]

I definitely don't think keeping it open indefinitely should be an option.

Close the portal and push anyone crossing through towards their greater mass. If it's a tie then dice for it. (Someone mentioned this above).

If you want, make them take some damage. Just decide how much and apply it. Maybe being thrown forward or backward does some of it.


Now as a GM:
Your players will weaponize this so unless you want them to do that I would just skip the damage.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

Close the portal and push anyone crossing through towards their greater mass. If it's a tie then dice for it.

Or always dice for it, weighted by the proportion of mass on either side.

*waves hands about collapse of Schrodinger wave functions localizing objects*

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I definitely don't think keeping it open indefinitely should be an option.

Perhaps one option if you have a "per use" cost for the ability is to charge that every extra 3d seconds it is open?

That doesn't really help with Limited Use or Requires Recharge though.

One idea might be in cases where the ability wouldn't allow an extra use, you're FORCED to buy "Temporary Enhancements" so that the ability could be reusable.

Failure on the roll could mean your ability is crippled.

Though maybe portals can just "sizzle out" (fade into nothingness) rather than "close".

Sort of like if you were walking across a bridge and it fizzled into dust rather than spread apart in a gap?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

Perhaps one option if you have a "per use" cost for the ability is to charge that every extra 3d seconds it is open?

That can potentially avoid abuse (although one's foes could weaponize it - shove a stick partway through and cause the portal-maker to pass out in short order from FP loss). However, what happens when the portal-maker dies and can no longer be drained of FP to keep the portal open?

That said, I'd have no issues with a character choosing to keep a portal open (regardless of if there's something stuck in there or not) by paying the price again every time it expires (I might even be inclined to charge half the price, as for continuous abilities that cost FP). I'd probably call for a Concentrate maneuver to stabilize it, and for the character to be within a yard or so of it (as a bonus, this also means if you modify the ability to be free, the character can't just leave it open indefinitely without repercussion - he/she's got to stay in range and be able to use Concentrate every ~10.5 seconds).

Originally Posted by Plane

Though maybe portals can just "sizzle out" (fade into nothingness) rather than "close".

Sort of like if you were walking across a bridge and it fizzled into dust rather than spread apart in a gap?

That still doesn't answer the question of what happens to whatever was passing through the portal when it fizzled.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

That still doesn't answer the question of what happens to whatever was passing through the portal when it fizzled.

Yeah, I guess it really has to be thought of as sort of a "touch teleport" though in the cast "Accessibility: requires walking" the touch-teleport effect only occurs after having walked through a 1-yard area.

[RyanW]

I would personally say that anything in transit either gets pushed through to the destination, back to the origin, toward whichever they are most in, or holds the portal open (and allowing Things Man Was Not Meant to Know push their way through). Pick when designing the power.