not quite the World of Darkness v3

[naloth]

Geist the Sin-Eater (88 points)
[ 20 ] DR 20 (Plasma; Ablative -80%)
[ 28 ] Detect (Supernatural; Reflexive +40%)
[ 3 ] Hard to Kill +5 (Costs 3 CP to use x1/5)
[ 32 ] Insubstantiality (Projection* -50%; Costs 2 fatigue + 1/min -10%)
[ 20 ] Psychometry (Death Events Only -30%; Sensitive +30%)
[ 10 ] Regeneration (Regular; DR -40%; Only at Haunts -20%)
[ 10 ] Resistant +3

[ -10 ] Obsession (TBD)
[ -1 ] Quirk: Inhuman Blood
[ -20 ] Secret (Sin-Eater)
[ -4 ] Unhealing (Plasma Only; Not at Haunts)

Total: 88 points

Notes: Geists are a fusion of a ghost and a person given a second chance after a death experience. They suffer from a bit of ability bloat that would be hard to translate directly, so I'll try to capture what I did (gWoD) vs what they can normally do (CofD):

Damage Resistance: In CofD Geists and bleed plasma to mitigate damage. ADR 20 allows them to take 20 raw points of damage (ignoring penetration modifiers) before having to actually take damage against HP. In CofD, geists can pick and choose when to use this ability and as a GM, I'd let them do that here as well. The trade off between saving ADR later for damage that might have a penetration modifier between taking it now seems more like a risk than a benefit, and the other benefit is to appear more human.

Detect: In CofD Geists can see anyone current health, see ghosts, and see possession. Currently I have them able to reflexively detect anything supernatural, which misses out on some of the functionality of a "health sense." I've toyed with See Invisible (Ghosts -20%) plus Detect (Health; Analyzing +100%; Reflexive +40%; Sense-Based: What you see -20%), but wasn't sure if it was worth the extra points.

Hard to Kill: CofD Geists can come back from being dead at the cost of a stat point, if they have stat points available. I figured a "powered by CP" ability to resist dying (base HT15 is a 95% chance of success) was enough.

Insubstantiality: In CofD Geists and burn a resource to allow their physical body to interact with ghosts in the underworld (like Affects Insubstantial for their entire body). It makes Geists physically vulnerable to both worlds as well as being able to interact (touch, grapple, and attack). Projection normally leaves a vulnerable inert body behind, but it seems like a fair trade off to effectively make you both part of the ghost world and the physical world at the same time.

Psychometry: In CofD Geists are sensitive to the stains that are left behind when someone dies. They can also actively use it to get info about how someone died either at the location or off the corpse.

Regeneration: In CofD plasma can be regenerated in all sorts of ways, but it primarily boils down to visiting Haunts or interacting with ghosts. Because I didn't want to limit Geists to being ghost hunters, I went with the former. Basically to heal ADR, Geists need to spend time hanging out in creepy, often death aspected places.

Resistant +3: Geists normally get a bonus to resistance based on their plasma level. Hazards affect them, but are resisted easier.

Obsession: Actually dying only to be revived by a spirit, is a life changing experience. In CofD you choose if you react by: living each day to the fullest, trying to prevent others from from dying, dealing death to those that deserve it more, being helpful however you can, or working on unfinished business.

Quirk: Geist blood isn't normal. Plasma (when used to prevent injuries) looks like milk. Actual blood that leaks out looks pale quickly reverts to being like it came from a (long dead) cadaver.

Secret: All these templates have a 20 point secret because you can easily attract unwanted attention (the death or imprisonment kind) of other supernaturals, the government, or hunters.

Unhealing: This only affects ADR and it's effectively lessens the cost of regeneration since that will be the primary way ADR is healed.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Duty...is a weird thing for me, but I don't think it can be magically created with blood. .

Just a Gurps-y note but Sense of Duty and Duty are distinct and non-interchangeable.

Sense of Duty in internal and represents soemthign like deeply held (or perhaps felt) belief about what you _should_ do. If a "blood-bond" bombed the recipient's brain with trust and postive feelings hormones like oxctocin related to the bonder the result might be something like a SOD.

Duty is external and legally required by some sort of society but not felt if it's not supported by another Disad. Vampire society could hold that certain members had legal duties to other vampires and it could punish those who violated those duties but by itself it would be external and forced only.

[patchwork]

Quite. My position is that Duty might be suitable for historical games, but flatly does not exist in modern settings. Sense of Duty is still a thing. But the Enlightenment erased Duty. No, modern cops and soldiers emphatically do not have a Duty as defined by GURPS. I tend to replace Duty in a template, when someone includes it, with a Sense of Duty and/or a Delusion. I don't think it's something you can get points for. I'm aware many GURPS players don't feel the same.

"Crafty" players trying to use loyalty juice in a one-off encounter looks like "enough rope" to me. Now you have an NPC who you only wanted to interact with once spending three months searching the city for you. Just to make sure you're ok. It's the sort of turn-a-smooth-transaction-into-a-fiasco they won't do twice. But yeah, different tables, different games.

[Inky]

What does "ST!" mean, in the vampire template? Difficult one to search for - even doing a "site:" search in a search engine wasn't distinguishing "ST" from "ST!".

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Inky

What does "ST!" mean, in the vampire template? Difficult one to search for - even doing a "site:" search in a search engine wasn't distinguishing "ST" from "ST!".

Pretty sure it means Lifting ST + Striking ST but not HP.

[David Johnston2]

Personally I'd give vampires some level of Unkillable, especially if they are expected to burn hit points.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Personally I'd give vampires some level of Unkillable, especially if they are expected to burn hit points.

That would be the most effective way to do it, but not the OWoD way. Using up your blood points for other stuff made you more likely to die or go into torpor if you got hit for a lot of damage, because going into the "you might really die" level of injury from non-aggravated damage burned off your remaining blood pool automatically like a zero-action heal before you really felt it.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

That would be the most effective way to do it, but not the OWoD way. Using up your blood points for other stuff made you more likely to die or go into torpor if you got hit for a lot of damage, because going into the "you might really die" level of injury from non-aggravated damage burned off your remaining blood pool automatically like a zero-action heal before you really felt it.

But that's the thing. They would go into torpor rather than dying. They wouldn't die unless someone opened up a can of aggravated whoop-ass.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

But that's the thing. They would go into torpor rather than dying. They wouldn't die unless someone opened up a can of aggravated whoop-ass.

Right, but that's the first thing that would happen once they went into torpor unless the attacker wanted to take them undead for some reason. My point being that spending your blood to fuel powers (represented by HP in most GURPS treatments) would leave you more vulnerable to incapacitation in the system being emulated here, which Unkillable would dodge around a bit.

[Inky]

What about a shedload of Hard to Kill? That doesn't prevent characters being incapacitated, it only means they pass out but don't die. Also thanks about "ST!", that makes sense.