should there actually be "indestructible" weapons?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

"Can Be Policed" seems roughly comparable to Mundane Countermeasures (for building Power modifiers), which is -5% IIRC. That is, it's something to be expected if you're captured (and may be used in other cases where mundane characters are expected to disarm, like meeting a local ruler or whatever), and may be used against you in combat (mundane countermeasures are often a bit harder to setup, but have a more reliable and absolute effect than "I have to draw one of my backup wands").

Mundane Countermeasures is -10%. See Elemental.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Mundane Countermeasures is -10%. See Elemental.

Ah, thanks for that. Looking in GURPS Powers, I was thinking of the entry under Anti-Powers (P20, the section right after Mundane Countermeasures), for specialized technology, which is -5%. Whether Can Be Policed is more like that or more like the actual Mundane Countermeasures entry is up to the GM, so I could see Can Be Policed being -10% or so.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Ah, thanks for that. Looking in GURPS Powers, I was thinking of the entry under Anti-Powers (P20, the section right after Mundane Countermeasures), for specialized technology, which is -5%. Whether Can Be Policed is more like that or more like the actual Mundane Countermeasures entry is up to the GM, so I could see Can Be Policed being -10% or so.

I have played with the idea of developing Powers of the State (written up briefly in GURPS Horror). My version of them would be subject to countermeasures such as injunctions, police action, or withdrawal of authorization from your sponsoring agency; I would take those as mundane countermeasures worth -10%. "Can be policed" seems to fall into the same range.

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by Plane

In terms of characters there's no 3e immunity anymore so you can't be indestructible in 4e, just have loads of DR or injury divisors.

It seems however there are certain Ultratech objects which enjoy this property.

UT164 Stasis Switchblade

Due to the stasis web,
the switchblade cannot be broken
and can be used to parry a force blade
or similar energy-based attack

UT166

a blade of annihilating energy extends from the hilt and is held in shape by a force field.
The blade cannot break

[SNIP]

Ultratech seems to have tweaked it too: critically successful parries (even unarmed ones?) no longer suffer from automatic Burning Damage anymore...

This in theory means "I can bare-hand touch the tip of your 7-yard Force Whip and I'm just fine".

That Critical Parry may very well have been to the emitter or the opponent's arm holding it so no mystery there and the defender is not bare-hand touching any annihilating energy.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

That Critical Parry may very well have been to the emitter or the opponent's arm holding it so no mystery there and the defender is not bare-hand touching any annihilating energy.

Critical Success in that case could mean any of:

1. My weapon (which can include a hand) contacted the foe at the emitter, the hand, or the arm, and pushed the attack off-target.
2. My movement during the Parry actually got me completely out of the way of the attack, and no contact occurred (Parry doesn't necessarily mean "I stand completely still and only move my arm to intercept the attack," even when not combining it with a Retreat/Slip/Sideslip).
3. My Parry actually put something else in the way (a piece of rubble, a passing bird, whatever - don't forget, a Critical Success means you got incredibly lucky), which took the damage instead of my weapon.
4. The contact involved in my Parry was so brief the force sword failed to properly ramp up to full power, so it failed to do more than cosmetic damage to my weapon (a discoloration that can just be polished off on a weapon, singed hair and extremely minor burn on a hand, etc). Note this assumes force swords use energy to generate the blade and keep it stable, but have to pump more energy in on contact to have a serious effect (this isn't uncommon to come across for descriptions of lightsabers; in theory this would mean the weapon should have a longer duration, but burn up multiple seconds of use upon activation and on each hit, and possibly recover some seconds upon being turned off, but that would be rather complex in play).
5. In that instant, the contact was actually only with the force-field part of the weapon, not with the annihilating energy, so no different from pushing a bludgeon out of the way. Like the above, this makes an assumption about how force swords function - in this case, you've got a fluctuating force field containing some annihilating energy; in most instances, this fluctuation is rapid enough that it doesn't make a difference, but if someone is incredibly lucky, the brief moment of a Parry could interact only with the force field.
6. Any number of other things that can be explained with "I got really lucky."

That's assuming the "no damage" thing is overriding the normal effect of a Critical Success on an Active Defense, which IIRC converts the foe's attack into a Critical Failure - and plenty of those results preclude actually being able to hit the target.

[Black Leviathan]

In GURPS as a theme, absolutes tend to work poorly. And in games in general they really only work as a shortcut for making a mechanical effect of the resilience. Ultimately you're going to run across the thing that can break anything and it will be one of the other. May as well just have rules for the effect

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

2. Anything strong enough to break through a powered blade would be far past the power needed to just pull the person arms out of their sockets or push the blade back upon the person.

That would depend on the strength of the wielder. Yeah if it's a normal human but what about some superhuman/demigod wielding a force sword?

Originally Posted by Emerikol

The blade would immediately reform if an energy blade.

Or maybe take a full second to reform? Seems to be what force swords require.

Originally Posted by Emerikol

Even imagining strong enough arms how does the person stay on their feet? What stops them and their blade from being thrown across the room?

Having all-around good ST to resist knockback instead of just Arm ST

Originally Posted by Varyon

just as PC's don't have to take each other as Allies

The idea of forcing PCs to buy each other as 24/7 allies is actually sort of hilarious.

Like if you don't have enough points to pay for the relative point-increase of your allies gaining XP faster than you, then you get reduced FOA and if you fail a roll the GM splits you up in the dungeon where you're all more vulnerable.

I think the biggest problem of "allies having allies" is stuff like "A makes FOA roll to have B show up as ally, but B fails FOA roll to have A show up as ally" situations.

Like either they're together or they're apart... do imbalanced situations like this mean B can help A but A can't help B?

Maybe if you could somehow make these 0pt features by "to be an ally of someone means you have a duty to them" so you have it so the cost of ally is paid for as a duty.

It seems like "you can't be each other's ally simultaneously" means if they both roll a successful ally w/ each other then you should reroll until only one wins, and the solo winner gets to determine what the adventure is?

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

That Critical Parry may very well have been to the emitter or the opponent's arm holding it so no mystery there and the defender is not bare-hand touching any annihilating energy.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. If your arm is not long enough to reach the arm of the person wielding a longer force weapon, then how are they diverting it?

Originally Posted by Varyon

Critical Success in that case could mean any of:[list=1][*]My weapon (which can include a hand) contacted the foe at the emitter, the hand, or the arm, and pushed the attack off-target.

This is why I brought up the "seven yard force whip", this explanation doesn't work.

Plus I always like to say "contact has consequences".

Someone might well have a Burning Aura where "anyone who touches my hand gets incinerated, but my force sword emitter-handle has enough DR to be fireproof" in which case "I touched his hand" wouldn't work.

Originally Posted by Varyon

[*]My movement during the Parry actually got me completely out of the way of the attack, and no contact occurred (Parry doesn't necessarily mean "I stand completely still and only move my arm to intercept the attack," even when not combining it with a Retreat/Slip/Sideslip).

Parries aren't meant to be dodges though, and there's a specialized kind of non-contact parry you can perform using only limbs/weapons to yank them out of the way (akin to a dodge) but that isn't usable in cases like where your torso is targeted.

Parries explicitly mean contact in the traditional sense which is important for stuff like keeping zombies away with flesheating diseases.

Originally Posted by Varyon

[*]My Parry actually put something else in the way (a piece of rubble, a passing bird, whatever - don't forget, a Critical Success means you got incredibly lucky), which took the damage instead of my weapon.

You could be fighting the seven-yard-force whip in a void with no other matter to serve that roll.

Originally Posted by Varyon

[*]The contact involved in my Parry was so brief the force sword failed to properly ramp up to full power, so it failed to do more than cosmetic damage to my weapon (a discoloration that can just be polished off on a weapon, singed hair and extremely minor burn on a hand, etc).

Seems somewhat akin to the "graze" rules in Pyramid where success-by-zero attacks do half damage and failure-by-1 parries halve damage so you can get 1/4 damage attacks.

These are still fractions based on an underlying amount though, so 100d force swords are still going to do 25d damage.

Something like "thousands of damage will do 0 because of a narrow miss" is hard to get the head around.

If it's possible to get this kind of "parried so fast the Aggressive Parry didn't work" result accidentally, shouldn't it also be possible to get it intentionally via some penalized technique?

Originally Posted by Varyon

[*]In that instant, the contact was actually only with the force-field part of the weapon, not with the annihilating energy, so no different from pushing a bludgeon out of the way. Like the above, this makes an assumption about how force swords function - in this case, you've got a fluctuating force field containing some annihilating energy; in most instances, this fluctuation is rapid enough that it doesn't make a difference, but if someone is incredibly lucky, the brief moment of a Parry could interact only with the force field.

Seems like if that's the case, if you were perceptive/fast enough you could intentionally time the FF contact to avoid injury too, not just get lucky.

Originally Posted by Varyon

That's assuming the "no damage" thing is overriding the normal effect of a Critical Success on an Active Defense, which IIRC converts the foe's attack into a Critical Failure - and plenty of those results preclude actually being able to hit the target.

Prior to Ultratech introducing the "no damage on a crit success parry" rule, we have a situation where I think that would apply: yeah you took damage to the parrying limb, but you still managed to deflect it from it's original target, and you still turned it into a critical failure with all the bells and whistles.

The armed crit fail table on B556 as far as I'm aware doesn't negate stuff like "the parrying implement took damage" where that is mandated (like pre-Ultratech force swords, or Innate Melee Attack w/ Aggressive Parry which lacks the Ultratech drawback)

IE if you rolled a 5, first the parrying limb took the damage, then it bounced back and hit the attacker's limb too.

Result 15 is kinda strange... everyone is equally likely to strain their shoulder from a crit failed armed attack, even in situations where they might only be attacking using 10% of their Striking ST, or have crazy-high arm HP, maybe "resistanct to arm lock" toughness ,etc..

I'm thinking maybe something like "take swing crushing to your own arm" (like targeting yourself w/ Wrench Limb) based on striking ST used in attack.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Plane

I'm not sure what you mean by this. If your arm is not long enough to reach the arm of the person wielding a longer force weapon, then how are they diverting it?

By stepping inside the swing, which is an unlikely thing to successful do, but that's why it's a critical.

This is why I brought up the "seven yard force whip", this explanation doesn't work.

GM's do have to make judgement calls for specific circumstances that make a normal outcome impossible. That doesn't mean the default rule for more normally scaled energy melee weapons should be changed.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

This is why I brought up the "seven yard force whip", this explanation doesn't work.

In cases where the foe is more than 1 yard out of your Reach, sure. Use a different explanation. Same for if your own weapon has some flavor of Destructive Parry.

Originally Posted by Plane

Parries aren't meant to be dodges though, and there's a specialized kind of non-contact parry you can perform using only limbs/weapons to yank them out of the way (akin to a dodge) but that isn't usable in cases like where your torso is targeted.

Parries explicitly mean contact in the traditional sense which is important for stuff like keeping zombies away with flesheating diseases.

A Critical Success with an unarmed Parry against a foe who is dangerous to touch should probably be treated just like one against a force sword - the dangerous touch doesn't come into play. If the player wants to do some sort of follow-up (Judo Throw, for example) that the GM feels would require there to have been contact, however, the player can waive the "no contact" benefit.

And if you insist that Parries cannot involve moving out of the way, then sure, this option doesn't work. But that's because you're purposefully restricting the definition of Parry.

Originally Posted by Plane

You could be fighting the seven-yard-force whip in a void with no other matter to serve that roll.

Frictionless, featureless vacuums may be useful for modeling certain aspects of physics, but most fights aren't going to involve them. That said, if nothing can get in the way, use a different option.

Originally Posted by Plane

Seems somewhat akin to the "graze" rules in Pyramid where success-by-zero attacks do half damage and failure-by-1 parries halve damage so you can get 1/4 damage attacks.

These are still fractions based on an underlying amount though, so 100d force swords are still going to do 25d damage.

A graze is more contact than is involved here. If you want this to still cause some fraction of the weapon's normal damage, try 1/30th damage and x10 DR, perhaps. That will make 8d(5) typically deal 0 damage (average roll is 28, the DR 1 granted by having a net (0.5) Armor Divisor will negate this), but a really powerful force sword may cause some damage.

Originally Posted by Plane

If it's possible to get this kind of "parried so fast the Aggressive Parry didn't work" result accidentally, shouldn't it also be possible to get it intentionally via some penalized technique?

[...]

Seems like if that's the case, if you were perceptive/fast enough you could intentionally time the FF contact to avoid injury too, not just get lucky.

If you allow a Technique that makes it literally impossible for someone to defend, one that causes triple damage, one that makes an attacker hit themselves with their weapon, one that automatically knocks a foe out if any Injury is caused, etc, then sure. It should have comparable difficulty to each of the above, seeing as we're talking about Critical Successes.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

In cases where the foe is more than 1 yard out of your Reach, sure. Use a different explanation.

it should basically never be the explanation because the person parrying should be required to specify where they are making contact with their parry (on both ends) before rolling

Originally Posted by Varyon

A Critical Success with an unarmed Parry against a foe who is dangerous to touch should probably be treated just like one against a force sword - the dangerous touch doesn't come into play.

This posits a universal rules change which is a pretty big wrench to throw in the works.

Why don't we just design something like Force Extensions (only on a critically successful parry -80%) to represent this?


If the player wants to do some sort of follow-up (Judo Throw, for example) that the GM feels would require there to have been contact, however, the player can waive the "no contact" benefit.
[/quote]
TG22 is pretty clear: "A successful parry allows the defender to avoid the effects of the attack, but involves some contact"

The UT version is still technically 'contacting' the sword (for example, it can set up a "Beat") just not suffering it's damage.

Originally Posted by Varyon

And if you insist that Parries cannot involve moving out of the way, then sure, this option doesn't work. But that's because you're purposefully restricting the definition of Parry.

Parries CAN involve moving out of the way, but only if a hand or weapon is targeted, per MA122's "yanking" text.

Not something you can do to avoid an attack on your foot w/o contact, nor if your forearm gets targeted: those require a dodge to prevent contact.

I could however see this as a place where you might fiddle around using "Technique Adaptation" perks. Like "I can use a leg parry to yank my foot out of the way of an attack" or "I can use a yanking parry to avoid an attack on my forearm".

Originally Posted by Varyon

if nothing can get in the way, use a different option.

Whatever that different option is should be the default option regardless then.

Originally Posted by Varyon

If you allow a Technique that makes it literally impossible for someone to defend, one that causes triple damage, one that makes an attacker hit themselves with their weapon, one that automatically knocks a foe out if any Injury is caused, etc, then sure. It should have comparable difficulty to each of the above, seeing as we're talking about Critical Successes.

We're not talking about emulating ever aspect of a successful critical defense though, like how a critical success parry will make the attacker roll on the crit-fail table.

How many "+1 per die" do you figure one needs to emulate triple damage? If avg of 2d is 7 then to get to 21 I guess that's +14 or +7/die.

Crit attacks don't always do triple though ,they just have a chance too. Obviously some of those table results are better than others (triple vs double) so shouldn't just pick the better result and weigh based on that.

7>14 is only +7/2die to double, half the technique penalty.

I can't find " automatically knocks a foe out if any Injury is caused" closest I can see is treating as major wound if any injury, doubling shock penalty, or forcing to drop stuff if any injury.

There's also for headblows ignoring DR, automatically knocking off balance, or automatically dropping weapons.

Kind of picturing mosquitos dive-bombing my face and despite my 100 DR helmet I'm dropping my guns and losing my balance.

There really ought to be some minimum threshold of at least "basic damage" relative to HP to make that kinda stuff happen, even if one doesn't require it to penetrate/wound.

IE "if it penetrated your DR it would have caused shock" for example, would require 2 basic damage against the 20 HP giant to allow a crit to force him to stumble or drop his giant sword.

This would prevent the mosquito-bite panic issues if you send an army of 1,00,000 mosquitos (or hummingbirds) to brute-force crit successes via headshots until getting that result.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

By stepping inside the swing, which is an unlikely thing to successful do, but that's why it's a critical.

Critically successful parries don't give you free retreats or change your hex, we have the "slip" as a combat option to represent this very thing.