Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

[Gnome]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

DF is very gamest as opposed to simulationist*, giving them full HP would have probably made too tough for the game role they play.

Or possibly its simulationist of "that other game"!

Ok, if we're trying to be simulationist I don't have any opinions on that other than "that seems impossible and pointless." HP are clearly an abstraction of a horribly complex reality, and 99% of the time the only in-game effect is how much damage you can take before requiring a HT check or something. Occasionally, there's a slam (I prefer DFrpg rules for that, which are based off of ST, not HP) or a fall or other collision that requires you use HP.

There is no well-defined "death" for an inanimate sack of meat since that object has no discernible purpose. A hammer can "die" if you can no longer use it as a hammer, but even a hammer has "parts" (head and handle), so is it Unliving or Homogenous? Since it seems that it would be equally resistance to imp/pi damage as any other solid object, I would say Homogenous--the game effects determine the game stats. And there are good guidelines for how many HP to give a Homogenous object should we need to know that.

But why should there be rules for what happens if I am turned into a zombie or a flesh golem? In one universe, that might make me very fragile (in some zombie movies, the zombies seem to basically fall apart at the slightest hit), while in another it might make me nigh-indestructible (maybe even if you chop my arm off, it just kind of floats along next to the rest of my body and keeps acting like my arm until you throw me into a pit of molten ore or whatever).

I don't think it's worth reading more deeply into these IT advantages than the game effects, which is that it makes you more resistant to imp/pi damage (and have No Blood, etc.). Guidelines already exist for assigning HP to objects with these characteristics, but characters who have them are not realistic, so I say give them whatever HP makes sense in your world.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Gnome

But why should there be rules for what happens if I am turned into a zombie or a flesh golem?

So SJGames can sell you GURPS Zombies?

Originally Posted by Gnome

In one universe, that might make me very fragile (in some zombie movies, the zombies seem to basically fall apart at the slightest hit), while in another it might make me nigh-indestructible (maybe even if you chop my arm off, it just kind of floats along next to the rest of my body and keeps acting like my arm until you throw me into a pit of molten ore or whatever).

GURPS Zombies covers all of this.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Gnome

There is no well-defined "death" for an inanimate sack of meat since that object has no discernible purpose.

It's "death" is when the bag can no longer hold in the meat.

but even a hammer has "parts" (head and handle), so is it Unliving or Homogenous?

Homogenous. "Things that lack vulnerable internal parts or mechanisms." Basically, Unliving is for things with internal parts that keep it working, while Homogenous is for things that don't. A hammer is a solid piece of metal, a solid piece of wood or polymer, and some kind of glue or fastener. No internal parts.

But why should there be rules for what happens if I am turned into a zombie or a flesh golem? In one universe, that might make me very fragile (in some zombie movies, the zombies seem to basically fall apart at the slightest hit), while in another it might make me nigh-indestructible (maybe even if you chop my arm off, it just kind of floats along next to the rest of my body and keeps acting like my arm until you throw me into a pit of molten ore or whatever).

There aren't generic rules for what happens when you turn into a zombie. There's the Unliving injury rules, which is simply "intended mainly for machines and corporeal undead." The rules don't prescribe that you designate undead as Unliving.

Now, Unliving only gives wounding modifiers for impaling and (all) piercing damage; crushing and cutting damage is normal. Usually in zombie movies, zombies only fall apart when hit with crushing or cutting damage. When hit with bullets, which are various types of piercing damage, they just take them and keep walking. So Unliving actually works pretty well for that.

But if your game's zombies are different, by all means do something different.

I don't know what trait would let you keep using your arm after it's been chopped off — someone will undoubtedly be able to come up with something — but it's not Injury Tolerance.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

I don't know what trait would let you keep using your arm after it's been chopped off — someone will undoubtedly be able to come up with something — but it's not Injury Tolerance.

Are you sure? Injury Tolerance: Independent Body Parts, Powers page 52-53. Also mentioned in Zombies page 52-53.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Since hit points represent the structural ability to continue to function, it makes perfect sense that a corpse is less vulnerable to hit point loss than a living being. To destroy a corpse, you need to rip it apart. To kill a living being, you don't.

There is thus no problem with the rules as written.

Actually that's false as at 10xHP the body or object is destroyed... so why does dying (and reanimating) make the same flesh tougher?

[Anthony]

It seems like just giving unliving or homogenous objects some level of Unkillable reasonably reflects 'can take more damage before ceasing to function' without producing the odd effects you get from adjusting hit points (for example, a corpse still has the same basic hit points as a living person).

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Are you sure? Injury Tolerance: Independent Body Parts, Powers page 52-53. Also mentioned in Zombies page 52-53.

Sorry, I don't have an encyclopedia knowledge of the hundreds of GURPS books out there. So Powers added it. There ya go. It wasn't Injury Tolerance until Powers added it.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Actually that's false as at 10xHP the body or object is destroyed... so why does dying (and reanimating) make the same flesh tougher?

There's dying and there's destroyed. They're not the same thing. A living being can die without being destroyed. Failing a HT check at or below 0 HP means the entity ceases to function as that entity. In the case of a living being, this means it dies. In the case of an Unliving machine, this means it no longer operates. In the case of an Unliving zombie, this means it permanently stops moving. In the case of a Homogenous slab of meat, this means it's no longer meat-like or it can't hold itself together.

Frankly, there's not a lot of sense to the idea of a slab of meat having hit points without explaining what those hit points do. Which means there's not a lot of sense comparing the hit points of a living being with the hit points of a corpse.

Dying doesn't make the flesh tougher; it changes your consideration of the "function" of the entity from living to holding up structurally.

Originally Posted by Anthony

It seems like just giving unliving or homogenous objects some level of Unkillable reasonably reflects 'can take more damage before ceasing to function' without producing the odd effects you get from adjusting hit points (for example, a corpse still has the same basic hit points as a living person).

If I take a certain number of hits to my arm, my arm stops working. If my corpse takes the same number of hits to its other arm... well, the arm doesn't stop working, because it wasn't working anyway.

If you chop someone down and continue to hack at their corpse, what you're doing is continuing to treat them like a living being. They're already dead; their corpse never had positive hit points to begin with. These negative hit points are in comparison to the hit points of a living being. So if you wanted to treat a corpse like an object with a structure, rather than as the remains of a living being, you could give it hit points as a structure — but that structure is Homogenous.

I can't imagine any situation where you'd actually want to DO this. Maybe you've made a bridge out of corpses and you need to determine how much damage it can take before it falls apart. I dunno, something silly like that. You wouldn't take a bunch of corpses, each at -10 HP, and declare the bridge has -10 HP. It might have 10 HP — measuring the corpses as Homogenous meat rather than as the remains of living beings.

[Plane]

HP's role in knockback makes having twice as much if you're a 100pound robot compared to a 100 pound human sorta strange, it'd be hard to knock around unliving things. Is that the primary problem here?

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Plane

HP's role in knockback makes having twice as much if you're a 100pound robot compared to a 100 pound human sorta strange, it'd be hard to knock around unliving things. Is that the primary problem here?

Just take the extra HP with Massless +0%

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Dying doesn't make the flesh tougher; it changes your consideration of the "function" of the entity from living to holding up structurally.

If I take a certain number of hits to my arm, my arm stops working. If my corpse takes the same number of hits to its other arm... well, the arm doesn't stop working, because it wasn't working anyway.

That's the rub, isn't it? If you provide unliving or homogeneous with more HP to make them harder to damage, you've made the same flesh tougher. You can justify that in a few ways (magical enhancement, frex), but it doesn't change that takes more damage to dismember a corpse with twice the HP it had when it was living. Likewise if you provide machines such as cars twice as much ST/HP, machines will be harder to knock back than those pesky living creatures for the same weight.