Health And Unliving Weirdness

[Tallor]

Health represents a lot of things. Physical robustness against trauma; overall fitness; resistance to poisons, disease, and various other metabolic hazards.

But when you're undead, you have Immunity to metabolic hazards, and often the suite of "Doesn't" advantages that makes fitness, resistance, healing, and even aging basically null.

What I'm saying is--when I build a zombie point-by-point, would it be easier to assign Hard to Subdue (since unconsciousness = death for this sort of undead) to represent more robust, complete corpses?

What do you think?

[Boomerang]

Are you planning on having zombie PCs? If not, I don't see the point of building them using points.

I do agree that hard to subdue makes sense. They should probably also have disadvantages that reflect their lack of social awareness and lack of a sense of self preservation.

[Ulzgoroth]

Why does unconsciousness equal death? That's...not any normal rule I can think of.

Hard to Subdue also doesn't stop you failing death checks.


Physical robustness to trauma is highly relevant for anything GURPS can stat without severe discomfort. Give 'em an HT stat.

[Tallor]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Why does unconsciousness equal death? That's...not any normal rule I can think of.

Hard to Subdue also doesn't stop you failing death checks.


Physical robustness to trauma is highly relevant for anything GURPS can stat without severe discomfort. Give 'em an HT stat.

If a creature has Fragile (Unnatural) and is destroyed at -HP, being damaged past 0 HP is fairly similar to being both nearly unconscious and nearly dead.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Tallor

If a creature has Fragile (Unnatural) and is destroyed at -HP, being damaged past 0 HP is fairly similar to being both nearly unconscious and nearly dead.

Being half way to dead is pretty different from being dead, even if it's a lot closer than potentially being only a sixth of the way to being dead.

And hitting 0 HP isn't the only way to lose consciousness.

[Tallor]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Being half way to dead is pretty different from being dead, even if it's a lot closer than potentially being only a sixth of the way to being dead.

And hitting 0 HP isn't the only way to lose consciousness.

I was just taking a note from GURPS: Zombies, Ulz!

"Hard to Subdue [2/level]: On undead zombies with Fragile (Unnatural) or Unkillable, this is a good way to avoid hard-to-explain unconsciousness, if the notes given here for those traits don’t fit the GM’s vision of what’s going on. For living zombies, it’s appropriate in all the same situations as Hard to Kill."

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Tallor

What I'm saying is--when I build a zombie point-by-point, would it be easier to assign Hard to Subdue (since unconsciousness = death for this sort of undead) to represent more robust, complete corpses?

What do you think?

Why are you building zombies point by point? Are players going to be playing them? Are the players going to be shapeshifting into them? Are players going to be taking them as allies? If no to all of the above, then points are a waste of your time.

You should focus, instead, on mechanics. How do zombies fight and work? You can use stats as a shorthand, but don't bother with "And they cost X number of points," because it's not pertinent. Check out Monster Hunters or Dungeon Fantasy for examples of NPC bad guys. Note that they do not have point totals, just trait lists.

I mean, you might think a 50 point zombie would be a good challenge for a 50 point PC, but if that 50 point PC is an accountant with twinked out Administration and unique Financial techniques that help him ferret out corruption and decent levels of Administrative Rank, then a 50-point zombie is a bad match for him (the accountant will run circles around the zombie when it comes to financial acumen, and the zombie will be able to casually crack this guy's skull open and eat him).

[Anders]

He could be wanting people to use zombies as Allies or (god forbid) Dependents.

[Tallor]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Why are you building zombies point by point? Are players going to be playing them? Are the players going to be shapeshifting into them? Are players going to be taking them as allies? If no to all of the above, then points are a waste of your time.

You should focus, instead, on mechanics. How do zombies fight and work? You can use stats as a shorthand, but don't bother with "And they cost X number of points," because it's not pertinent. Check out Monster Hunters or Dungeon Fantasy for examples of NPC bad guys. Note that they do not have point totals, just trait lists.

I mean, you might think a 50 point zombie would be a good challenge for a 50 point PC, but if that 50 point PC is an accountant with twinked out Administration and unique Financial techniques that help him ferret out corruption and decent levels of Administrative Rank, then a 50-point zombie is a bad match for him (the accountant will run circles around the zombie when it comes to financial acumen, and the zombie will be able to casually crack this guy's skull open and eat him).

I build all my characters, monsters, and NPCs on spreadsheets. It's good to know what I'm dealing with for future reference.

[Varyon]

Some FP-damaging effects can still hit zombies, in which case they damage HT rather than FP (note here I'm assuming your zombies lack FP, this isn't necessarily the case), so a larger pool is useful. You need to roll against HT to avoid both unconsciousness and death (unless you also have Fragile: Unnatural). Some exotic/supernatural abilities can still hit zombies and would be resisted by HT. Holy abilities and the like that specifically target undead are often resisted by Will, but I could see justification to use HT as well. Zombies who lack Unhealing (Total) heal more quickly with higher HT (although zombies with Regeneration can ignore this). There are also a number of HT-based skills that zombies (or other undead - vampires in modern fiction typically have Sex Appeal) could theoretically get use out of.

So, if your zombies have Fragile: Unnatural and either Unhealing (Total) or Regeneration, and you don't bother with effects that reduce FP (like heat, or starvation if your zombies need some brains to munch on), and there are no special Resisted by HT abilities that can affect zombies, and your zombies don't make use of HT-based skills, you can get away with Hard to Subdue instead of HT. The fewer of the above factors that are true, the more worthwhile it becomes to just buy HT instead of trying to handle things piecemeal.

Originally Posted by Anders

He could be wanting people to use zombies as Allies or (god forbid) Dependents.

Can't remember the name of it now, but there's a manga where the main character's sort-of girlfriend becomes a zombie and could count as a Dependent. Note we're talking about a sapient zombie here, of course. Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker also has Clod, a Lifeless (basically a zombie) who used to be a close friend of some of the characters, who could similarly count as a Dependent (although he's more an Ally - Lifeless retain skills, and he was an exceptional swordsman when he was alive), and is of the mindless variety. Wildbow's Twig has a character who's Stitched (a zombie who's mind is somewhere between a Dedicated AI and NAI - this one tends toward NAI) servant who would definitely count as a Dependent (she is successfully used as a hostage against him at one point, IIRC). So, I could certainly see someone with a zombie Dependent.