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Old 02-16-2017, 09:20 PM   #41
whswhs
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
I treat it as "my armor looks like normal skin or clothing, but if you see bullets bounce off me then put two and two together and don't call it 'five'."
Well, in the first place, a normal person can't SEE bullets bounce off anyone; bullets travel too fast for the eye to follow.

In a gunfight at any usual range, if you pulled the trigger repeatedly, and your target didn't fall over, I think the usual assumption would be that you missed repeatedly. You might figure they had the devil's own luck, of course.

I'd also note that Low or No Signature normally is applied to *attacks*. Suppose, for example, that you have Flight. If you take it with No Signature, does that mean that you travel through the air, not needing to touch the ground, but no one can see that you're in the air? I think that would be really silly. I'm not sure it's even valid to apply No Signature to Flight, but if it is, it has to mean something like your moving through the air without making noise (though that would be better described by saying your ability lacks a Nuisance Effect that makes you obvious, wouldn't it?).

Even with an attack, if you have No Signature, it doesn't mean that your target doesn't show any signs of injury. It means the process that caused them isn't apparent. And a defense with No Signature wouldn't mean that you looked as if you were hurt; it would mean that people couldn't look at you and see what was stopping the attack.
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Old 02-17-2017, 01:43 AM   #42
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
It is either hidden, or it isn't. Being revealed by injury is how hidden armor is revealed regardless.
But, as you note, being revealed by injury is not how DR(No Signature) works. But being hidden is not how regular DR works. So hidden DR that is revealed by injury is neither of those.
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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Is DR (No Signature) "My armor looks like normal skin or body armor or something" or is "You don't realize I have DR even when you hurt me"? I thought it was the latter. The former seems like DR and no disadvantages from looking like monster or weapon.
No, DR without Disadvantages can look like a variety of things but it is obvious. It never should look like normal, non-protective skin. (There are GURPS books that ignore this, Supers for instance. And I don't necessarily think it's a good thing. But it is the stated rule.)
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Old 02-17-2017, 02:06 AM   #43
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

Personally I don't like Ablative, I due to the way damage taken and healing works it can work out funky, I prefer semi-ablative and tough skin.

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
GURPS Supers provides a perk that allows you to wear clothing over DR despite taking the "Can't Wear Armor" limitation. This is to allow things like Ben Grimm's blue boxer shorts. The clothing is understood not to have any defensive utility; it's there for the sake of genre conventions, decency, and possibly having pockets.
And what happens when someone decides to enchant those clothes? Hey it's a legitimate question, the clothes themselves don't have DR

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I love DR as a game concept, but there are a few beefs I have with it as is:

Its one price, regardless of tech level. I know that was done for simplicity's sake, among other things, but I always get frustrated when trying to build someone bullet proof using a pricing scheme that feels fair in iron age settings.
I've often wondered if there should be a reverse of Unusual Background for reducing the cost of traits that are supposed to be common in the setting.

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I also don't like the way to does partial DR, if only because it encourages you do not use partial DR. -10% for only torso? -20% to only protect that one arm?
I figure that this is because the Hot Location rules are optional and that even if they are used most hits are going to be to the Torso anyway, so giving a decent discount there is rather broken.

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Would making the upper layer Ablative reduce the munckin-y feeling of allowing the lower layer to lack No Signature?
I can't hear logic over the sounds of my inner strict GM and Munchkin fighting.
Mecha goes against layering ablative over normal armor, and there's a good reason, despite the fact that once you run out of ablative the layer(s) on top go way, the over layer(s) make the ablative last longer, otherwise just buy HP, probably a better investment.

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
You don't get a discount on Injury Tolerance: Homogenous if revealing it reveals your Secret. You don't get a discount on your Switchable Long Talons if revealing it reveals your Secret.

Heck, you don't get a discount on your 100d 1024yd radius Burning Attack, even though using it kind of explodes your Secret along with everyone within 1024 yds.
Technically you can do this, Required Disadvantage: Secret, so if you blow of Secret by using the Advantage you go into point debt, which is probably a BAD idea with you picking up some new enemies.
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Old 02-17-2017, 02:09 AM   #44
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
It is either hidden, or it isn't. Being revealed by injury is how hidden armor is revealed regardless.


Is DR (No Signature) "My armor looks like normal skin or body armor or something" or is "You don't realize I have DR even when you hurt me"? I thought it was the latter. The former seems like DR and no disadvantages from looking like monster or weapon.
Top layer is flesh like and doesn't look like armor. Under that thin layer is another more obvious armor.
I don't get why so many don't see it as even a hair more limiting than all of it being hidden.
If the top layer is on 1 DR, then that means any damage more than 1 pt would reveal information that would otherwise be hidden unless it penetrated all layers for say 12 pts of damage.
I guess people here are saying that it's a disadvantage not worth points, which is odd to me.
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Old 02-17-2017, 03:38 AM   #45
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Well, in the first place, a normal person can't SEE bullets bounce off anyone; bullets travel too fast for the eye to follow.
Large subsonic bullets, such as those from a .45 ACP, a muzzle-loader, or shotgun slugs can be visible in flight if the light is good. When they bounce unless the collision is close to perfectly elastic the bullets will slow down and as they'll be tending to come back in the general direction of the firer I'd say there's a chance they'd be noticed (unless the collision is inelastic and they just fall to the ground on impact).
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Old 02-17-2017, 05:37 AM   #46
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Well, in the first place, a normal person can't SEE bullets bounce off anyone; bullets travel too fast for the eye to follow.
Actually you can see pistol bullets as they bounce of steel plates and such as long as the range is reasonably short. At least I can see them usually, say 2/4 to 3/4 of the bounces at 20 yards and my eye sight is worse than average, though for things like a plate at 45 degree angle to the side I tend to lose track of the bullet fairly quickly after the bounce, but with say a plate that deflects them downwards I can usually follow the bullet all the way down.
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Old 02-17-2017, 06:42 AM   #47
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Champions says:
I'm not sure what another game system has to do with GURPS?


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Originally Posted by scc View Post
And what happens when someone decides to enchant those clothes? Hey it's a legitimate question, the clothes themselves don't have DR
Use the higher of the two DRs, they do not stack.


This comes by way of DF Denizens Barbarians, not sure if it's anywhere else.
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Old 02-17-2017, 06:50 AM   #48
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
I'm not sure what another game system has to do with GURPS?
He probably means Monster Hunters 1: Champions.
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Old 02-17-2017, 06:56 AM   #49
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by Anders View Post
He probably means Monster Hunters 1: Champions.
He does, unless the Illuminati have arranged a coincidence. His quote is right there on the noted page, under Armour of Faith.
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Old 02-17-2017, 08:59 AM   #50
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#32): Damage Resistance, Nictitating Membrane

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Originally Posted by scc View Post
And what happens when someone decides to enchant those clothes? Hey it's a legitimate question, the clothes themselves don't have DR
Well, there are two answers:

1. At that point you can't or won't wear them. You designed a character with the concept of an armored behemoth who walks around with their scaly/rocky/metallic skin showing; you stick with that narrative, and come up with rationales for why.

2. Okay, you've got armor. Now you're wearing armor over your built-in DR. Your built-in DR no longer functions as "can't wear armor." So it costs more points, and you can't spend points on anything off till you buy off the limitation.

I'd also say that applying "can't wear armor" to Ben Grimm, for example, is the GM being generous. Reed Richards came up with unstable molecules which could stretch around his own elastic body; he could surely tailor ballistic cloth to fit Ben. Or Tony Stark, an inventive genius, could probably make powered armor to fit him. That doesn't happen because the player is going to rely on the narrative convention that Ben charges into battle protected only by his own orange rocks, and the GM is willing to allow points for that because it looks cool. But then part of that same narrative convention is that Ben isn't going to be wearing a magic surcoat that turns enemy weapons, either.

If you don't like that narrative convention, then you don't want to play four-color supers; you want to play supers-in-the-real-world (ironically, the effect Lee and Kirby aimed at with Fantastic Four #1, though they soon departed from it). And then the GM shouldn't let you have the limitation, at least not for a trivial cause like that.

Technical addendum: It also doesn't matter if the clothes have DR. They're still excluded by "can't wear armor." This is what we call a "trivial case" in mathematics.
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