Help with explaining why Superman can't get 300 DR for 5 points?

[Ragabash Moon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

In a campaign with absolutely open character concepts I'm afraid you need to untether things from points totals and build to concept only. We've done that a couple of times and it worked fine.

Well, I don't mean totally open maybe in the same sense you do, I mean in the case of Power Origin. Like 4th Edition, you take the Mind Control advantage, it works how it works. If you give it the Magical Power Descriptor, it is now magic. Psionic? It's Psionic. Spirit? It's Spiritual. That's what I meant by "absolutely open" that I am willing to work with players to help them make their concept while still staying within the rules.

Plus, I've tried to make it clear that just because weapons exist, doesn't mean everyone and his little sister has one. It's kind of like Firefly in that sense. Lasers exist but only the military and like one dude in one episode have one and its a big deal. To dial it back to modern day, sure criminals have guns, many have automatic weapons, but they don't have Rocket-Propelled Grenade Launchers except in VERY rare circumstances. The good guys? Well, I am reminded of a classic scene from one of the greatest TV shows.

The Judge: You are a fool. No weapon forged can stop me.
Buffy, as she pulls out a rocket-propelled grenade launcher: That was then. This is now.
The Judge: What's that do?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

All of which said, if what's really going on is an honest, well-intentioned debate about how to fit a character concept to a point total, I think you could do worse than the Signature Gear idea. I wouldn't complicate it with perks and a bunch of qualifications, though. I'd say this:

If the capability you want is attainable with gear sold for money in the setting – however rare or expensive such gear might be – then the price for an innate ability that does exactly what that gear does is the lower of the standard price for that ability and the point cost of that gear as Signature Gear.

This mostly runs into problems where the signature gear has side effects (weight, reaction adjustments, vision penalties, reduced manual dexterity, etc) that don't make sense for the innate capability.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

This mostly runs into problems where the signature gear has side effects (weight, reaction adjustments, vision penalties, reduced manual dexterity, etc) that don't make sense for the innate capability.

I'm saying to ignore them for the innate ability. The gear has the huge advantage that you can pass it around and give all your friends its upsides when you're not using it, which I think offsets its downsides.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm saying to ignore them for the innate ability. The gear has the huge advantage that you can pass it around and give all your friends its upsides when you're not using it, which I think offsets its downsides.

My own inclination would be to account for them due to how variable the downsides can be (with no weight downside, might as well get as high of DR as you can with Cheap Scale armor instead of springing for Masterfully Tailored Plate armor - although of course the GM can step in for egregious violations, like buying a helmet that full covers the eyes and claiming the Eye DR without having to deal with being blind), and I'd argue the ability to share is only offset by the downside of being readily-policeable ("You must surrender your weapons before you can meet with the king"). But with all that said, I can certainly appreciate the simplicity of "Whether it's actually Gear or is an Innate Ability, you pay the same regardless."

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm saying to ignore them for the innate ability. The gear has the huge advantage that you can pass it around and give all your friends its upsides when you're not using it, which I think offsets its downsides.

Really depend on the downsides of the gear. For a lot of armor, the actual monetary cost is not all that significant, the reason you don't wear it is because it's heavy, hot, inconvenient, and socially unacceptable. That's why I wound up calling it signature gear + payload. Its really "signature gear, non-nontransferable -?%, non-removable +?%" plus "payload, fixed contents -?%, items usable while in storage and don't apply non-weight-based inconveniences +?%" but I'm comfortable claiming those all add up to 0% (and hey, if you want to be visibly armored... take your payload as external).

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I can certainly appreciate the simplicity of "Whether it's actually Gear or is an Innate Ability, you pay the same regardless."

Simplicity has a value all its own. GURPS suffers badly from people trying to solve simple problems with complicated solutions like groups of multiple traits with modifiers when "close enough is good enough" would make typical gamers a lot happier. I have the feeling that the conflict alluded to in the original post is less "jerk player vs. sensible GM" or "jerk GM vs. sensible player" than "GURPS GM vs. player familiar with other games."

I'd ignore encumbrance rules, too, in a campaign like the implied one . . . It isn't like tough-due-to-armor supers and tough-due-to-intrinsics supers are normally portrayed as differently agile. Armor being heavy and bad is usually a fate reserved for overconfident bad guys. Again, in many games, you pick your ability and handwave the special effects like "I'm a mutant" or "I wear armor."

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Kromm

If the capability you want is attainable with gear sold for money in the setting – however rare or expensive such gear might be – then the price for an innate ability that does exactly what that gear does is the lower of the standard price for that ability and the point cost of that gear as Signature Gear.[/INDENT]So, if being immune to whatever you want to be immune to would cost 300 points as DR or whatever, but some suit available from Suitco Armor Products would grant the same benefit to anyone who spends 20 times starting money, then the cost for that immunity is the 40 points that suit would cost as Signature Gear.

The gear vs. innate argument is a red herring here, because Signature Gear functionally guarantees permanent access to your gear barring bad choices on the player's part or exceptional plot devices on the GM's part. The difference in intention between "I take off my Signature Gear and sell it!" and "I put the blaster nozzle in my mouth and let it bypass my immunity!" is close to nil, as is the difference between "The guy who runs Barter Town insists that you take off your suit!" and "Dr. Unpleasant temporarily suspends your immunity with his Plot-O-Matic Ray!" There's a level at which however you explain a capability, some action – sane or silly – will circumvent or suspend it.

I can't see how that approach squares with the purpose and nature of the gear limitations for Advantages.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'd ignore encumbrance rules, too, in a campaign like the implied one . . .

Sure, if encumbrance is being ignored in the campaign, it shouldn't apply to innate abilities either, but I saw no evidence for that.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I can't see how that approach squares with the purpose and nature of the gear limitations for Advantages.

It doesn't.

First, I'm pretty much saying that if your gear is guaranteed to come back unless you actively choose to let it go – which is what Signature Gear does – then those limitations don't make a lot of sense.

Second, gear limitations are meant for creating gear you can't buy with cash. The idea is that you have powers, just focused through an object that probably makes no sense as technology. I'd say that nothing available for money should ever be bought as advantages with modifiers.

So . . . Yes, you have powers. But they're boring powers, emulated or even exceeded by tech. So, gear limitations are off the table and cash is the order of the day. If you prefer to say it's innate, great, say that . . . but don't pay more points than the cash would cost.

In this way, someone with DR x bought as gear bought with cash for points and someone with DR x bought as an innate power no better than gear sold for cash are out the same number of points. This is only a bad approximation if (1) you're really into bean-counting, and (2) the GM enforces all the drawbacks of gear. My experience is that ordinary gamers rarely like #1 and most GMs find #2 a headache. YMMV.

[Kromm]

Put another way:

Player 1: "I am Armor Dude. I have DR 100 from gear bought at Armor-Mart."
GM: "Okay, that gear will cost you x points as Signature Gear."
Player 2: "I am Super Dude. I have DR 100 from powers."
GM: "Okay, you pay x points, too."
Player 2: "Great. Seems fair."
Player 1: "No, because my DR slows me down and makes me look like I'm looking for trouble."
GM: "No worries. Since Player 2 got to pay fewer points as a favor, you get to ignore weight as a favor, and I'll just assume that in a setting with DR 100 people, the armor gets overlooked. Now you both have DR 100 with the same cost and the same in-world effects."
Player 1: "Cool."
Player 2: "Cool."

This isn't verbatim from a campaign, but I've actually done it more than once and I've yet to have a non-rules-lawyer complain. Of course, "Well ackchyually" guy might complain, but that's a good example of holding up a perfectly good solution by standing on ceremony.