[Chargen] Constant Damage as a Disadvantage

[Kopheay]

Essentially, what is the best way to model a character which is permanently and unstoppably taking damage? I realize ordinarily this would result in very swift death, but if it's meant to be used in conjunction with magical healing, or regeneration, or ultra tech medical assistance that either negates or overcomes it then it becomes interesting.

In this specific case I want to create a character which is on fire. All the time. He has regeneration high enough to survive indefinitely, but he is still in immense pain, numb all over, and generally unhappy.

Is it just easiest to take a -4 to all DX and IQ based skills to simulate agonizing pain (max shock penalty), and numb for crippling nerve damage?

[Railstar]

GURPS Zombies has the Irreversible enhancement (+100%) to Weakness, meaning once exposed you keep taking damage eternally. An irreversible weakness to something very common, like air, for 1d a minute, would be in the [-120] range. Unfortunately it wouldn't cover any of the other effects, like pain, inability to touch, risk of setting everything else on fire. Those would need to be purchased separately.

Chronic Pain
Numb
Weakness: Irreversible

Innate Attack with Aura & Always On

[Toptomcat]

Even assuming that their physical powers keep them from outright dying, why is this character not unplayably insane?

[Kopheay]

Originally Posted by Toptomcat

Even assuming that their physical powers keep them from outright dying, why is this character not unplayably insane?

Yeah, this character is going to be used as a bit of a chained dog thst they let loose to wreak havoc.

[Kopheay]

Originally Posted by Railstar

GURPS Zombies has the Irreversible enhancement (+100%) to Weakness, meaning once exposed you keep taking damage eternally. An irreversible weakness to something very common, like air, for 1d a minute, would be in the [-120] range. Unfortunately it wouldn't cover any of the other effects, like pain, inability to touch, risk of setting everything else on fire. Those would need to be purchased separately.

Chronic Pain
Numb
Weakness: Irreversible

Innate Attack with Aura & Always On

Thst works out pretty nicely. I find it bothersome that everything in gurps likes to happen some percentage of the time, for a certain length of time. There ought to be a universal modifier that makes a trait apply it's effects constantly.

Other question, can disadvantages be cosmic? Say a god cursed you with this whole on fire thing, would cosmic help to make it defy all attempts to stop or mitigate it?

[Kelly Pedersen]

I'd be strongly inclined to not specifically model taking the damage at all, if it's going to be instantly regenerated. That strikes me as an enormous pain to do the bookkeeping on, if nothing else. If the character's regeneration exceeds the damage they're taking, just model the "spare" regeneration. So, if you assume they're taking an average of 3 burning damage every turn, and they can heal that and have enough regeneration left over to heal 2 more HP, just give them enough Regeneration to heal 2 HP a round.

For the constant pain, I'd use Chronic Pain, with a custom frequency of appearance of "Constant", for a X5 modifier to the price. I wouldn't use an interval multiplier at all, since of course if its constant, there is no interval. Maybe give it a relatively small Mitigator limitation of "oxygen-free environments" or something like that, though.

[Kopheay]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

I'd be strongly inclined to not specifically model taking the damage at all, if it's going to be instantly regenerated. That strikes me as an enormous pain to do the bookkeeping on, if nothing else. If the character's regeneration exceeds the damage they're taking, just model the "spare" regeneration.

For the constant pain, I'd use Chronic Pain, with a custom frequency of appearance of "Constant", for a X5 modifier to the price. I wouldn't use an interval multiplier at all, since of course if its constant, there is no interval. Maybe give it a relatively small Mitigator limitation of "oxygen-free environments" or something like that, though.

15 or under and 8 hours is worth 5x. Shouldn't constant be 6 at least?

Also I'm not only interested in this character. I want to set a president for future useage. It seems like something that GURPS should have rules to handle.

But for this time, I'll probably do what you recommended.

[Anthony]

Given that the pain is actually constant, I'd just write a character sheet with the character's capabilities while on fire, and then call being on fire and in permanent pain a special effect.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Kopheay

15 or under and 8 hours is worth 5x. Shouldn't constant be 6 at least?

Actually, 15 or under and 8 hours is worth X6, since you don't add the multipliers together, you just multiply by one, then the other. But you're right, X6 for Constantly is low. I'd go with X8 instead. That's a cool -90 points for constantly being in agonizing pain, and taking -6 to all DX and IQ rolls and self-control rolls, which sounds more reasonable.

Originally Posted by Kopheay

Also I'm not only interested in this character. I want to set a president for future useage. It seems like something that GURPS should have rules to handle.

That makes sense, but I'd use the build I recommended above for a PC too. Basically, it seems to me that there's three cases such a character can be in:

• They can be getting harmed more than they're healing, on average. This is not a viable character, because they'll just die in a few minutes, or hours if you have a longer cycle of damage.
• They can be healing exactly as much as they're being damaged, on average. I don't feel the chance that someone may be down 1 or 2 HP on any given round is really worth creating a whole new trait for. The bookkeeping involved in rolling damage every turn, then applying their regeneration, just makes my head hurt.
• They can have more healing ability than they are taking damage. This is similar to the 2nd case, except that they'll almost never actually be down an HP, so it matters even less, and the bookkeeping becomes even more pointless.

Even if you're looking for the ability to inflict something like this on someone else, I can't really think of any cases that wouldn't already be covered by just Innate Attacks with Cyclic and other appropriate modifiers.

[talonthehand]

Oh, I could see it coming up. Just off the top of my head, if the curse is cosmic or whatnot, and the regeneration is magical, casting dispel on the character would stop their regen and quickly kill them.

I'm away from my books, but this almost sounds like a bizarre version of supernatural durability - where anything that ends the regen kills the character.