01-26-2018, 03:55 PM | #1 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Pain
Chronic Pain is a mundane physical disadvantage that comes as a toolkit, rather than with a fixed cost. Essentially, you have something wrong with you that produces pain, for long enough and often enough to be a problem. This disadvantage appeared at GURPS 4e, as a generalisation of the 3e disadvantage Migraine.
Pain comes in levels, mild, severe, or agonising, which give penalties of -2, -4 or -6 to IQ, DX and self-control rolls for disadvantages that relate to keeping a cool head. If pain attacks happen when you should be sleeping, you don't get to sleep, and suffer sleep-deprivation penalties instead. An attack of pain lasts for some fixed time (the "interval") , which modifies the value of the disadvantage, and then you get to attempt a HT roll to recover. If you fail it, you carry on experiencing the pain until another interval has passed, and try again. Pain attacks are rolled for once a game day, at a time set by the GM according to your activities. They use the Frequency of Appearance value modifiers. The overall range of possible values is [-1] to [-90]. Clearly, Chronic Pain can take mitigator modifiers, which could reduce the level or interval, or reduce the likelihood of attacks. Drug side-effects could apply, or even be the cause of the disadvantage. This is mostly useful in character design for "old war wounds" and migraines. It's also important for side-effects of injuries, missing Dependency or Maintenance, and the like, and its occasional appearances as an option on character templates reflect this. Bio-Tech has this disadvantage as a potential side-effect of drastic bioengineering, plus ways to treat it, including implants, physiotherapy and surgery. Fantasy-Tech suggests electrical treatments. Horror adds some disturbing reasons for Chronic Pain while Madness Dossier has ways to cause it. Infinite Worlds' Reich-5 has bio-tech Jumpers that suffer it; Low-Tech has treatments of its own. Martial Arts has lasting injuries that cause this disadvantage, as can Powers: The Weird radiation. Pisonic Campaigns points out pain as a Temporary Disadvantage, and Psis has more detail. How has this disadvantage made itself felt in your games?
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. Last edited by johndallman; 01-26-2018 at 03:57 PM. Reason: Markup |
01-26-2018, 04:09 PM | #2 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
Could a kindly moderator correct the thread title? Please?
Edit: Thanks!
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. Last edited by johndallman; 01-27-2018 at 04:05 AM. Reason: Title fixed |
01-26-2018, 04:28 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
I think I've made one character with Chronic Pain, but just Quirk-level, really, a bad knee. Former paratrooper, an old wound which ended his military career, but left him more or less capable of adventuring, with an occasional painful twinge when he did something especially strenuous.
In Jade Serenity, Danny O'Toole's psionic abilities cause him Chronic Pain, migraine-level headaches, up to literal bleeding from cranial orifices. Game mechanically, he's got mild Chronic Pain with a very low frequency of appearance and Mitigator (Not using his powers), with use of his abilities increasing the frequency and worsening the severity.
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Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 02-12-2018 at 01:41 AM. |
01-26-2018, 09:25 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
In my Batman Continues the Bruce Wayne NPC had both Chronic Pain and Bad Back to explain why he retired from the street. This with Tim Drake taking at least a year to recover from Bane and Cassandra Caine being pregnant made it time for the next generation to step up.
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01-27-2018, 12:46 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
A while back I wrote up a “generic” version of Chronic Pain: Chronic Affliction.
Chronic Affliction Variable You have a disadvantageous form of Affliction (p. B35), representing an injury, disorder, illness, or curse that afflicts you with an incapacitating or irritating condition regularly, perhaps when triggered by something in your environment. Roll against the frequency of appearance for your affliction once per day. If you roll below this number, you suffer from a bout of your condition. The timing of this attack is up to the GM, but is usually during waking hours — you might wake up with it, or some trigger might set it off during the day. The affliction endures for a fixed “interval,” after which you again roll against the frequency of appearance to recover. If you succeed, your ordeal is over — for today. If you fail, the attack continues for another interval, after which you may attempt another roll to recover, and so on. Find the point cost of Chronic Affliction by choosing an Incapacitating or Irritating condition (or, at the GM's option, a simple Attribute Penalty), determining the base cost, and then multiplying that cost to reflect the duration and frequency of attacks. Drop all fractions. Condition Chronic Effect has a base cost equal to one-quarter the value of the respective enhancement to Affliction (p. B35-36). Interval Multiply the base cost to reflect the length of the affliction's interval:
Frequency of Appearance Multiply the base cost to reflect the frequency at which the affliction occurs:
Triggered Afflictions Some afflictions are triggered by a particular condition; e.g., sneezing caused by exposure to pollen. Instead of a frequency of appearance, select a trigger, which modifies the cost of Chronic Affliction based on its rarity. Instead of rolling for recovery, you recover automatically after the interval is up if you are no longer exposed to the trigger; otherwise, the attack continues for another interval. Multiply the base cost to reflect the rarity of the triggering substance or condition:
Examples
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01-27-2018, 01:23 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Madrid, Spain
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
+1 to chronic affliction! It models very well some forms of allergy, mental conditions, sobrenatural disadvantages and divine curses. I don't know if it has been playtested but I like it.
IMO it deserves to be "official" in an hypotetical future revision of Basic Set or in a "Power up" supplement :)
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge" Albert Einstein |
01-27-2018, 07:21 AM | #7 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
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01-27-2018, 07:53 AM | #8 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
I'm going to take these points in reverse order for reasons I hope will become obvious:
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01-27-2018, 09:12 AM | #9 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
Whoops! Sorry, I searched for "Drowsiness" rather than "Drowsy" in my PDF, and I guess I didn't read the actual Irritating Conditions section very thoroughly. My bad.
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01-27-2018, 09:59 AM | #10 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: USA, Arizona, Mesa
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Chronic Oain
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chronic affliction, chronic pain, disadvantage of the week |
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