When Unkillable Shuts Down...

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

Apparently dead people still have privileged status as characters who can be the subject of effects, per the ruling in re Resurrection Lite by RPK himself.

That doesn't really make a difference in this situation. Having any version of Unkillable means you "never make a HT roll to stay alive", up until you reach the -10xHP threshold. When you get to that threshold one of three things will happen depending on your ability, you will either die (Unkillable 1), you will fall unconscious and automatically prevent any damage that would push you past -10xHP (Unkillable 2), or you will become a non-physical entity that can't be trapped or damaged at all (Unkillable 3).

If you don't currently have any of these, then none of that applies, regardless of why you don't have the advantage (be it "I didn't buy it" or "it's currently off" or "it's currently negated"). This means you do roll death checks and can die, and even if you did get to -10xHP you don't get the special effect for hitting that threshold (other than now being a smear or lump of ash, which can't be restored to life). So if you're slain, your corpse can be affected by as many effects as it likes - but even a restored/afflicted copy of the Unkillable advantage doesn't do anything for you whilst you're a corpse.

Unkillable doesn't 'resurrect' you when you die, it just allows you to ignore death checks until that set trigger event, where it then kicks in to prevent death once more and stops you from running off into negative infinity HP. You can mutilate the corpse after death till it reaches -10xHP if you like, but it doesn't allow Unkillable 2 and 3 to restore you to life. A corpse with Unkillable 2 or 3 at -10xHP is allowed to "heal normally" - but when your dead this just allows you to continue 'not healing' as all good corpses do, even if you're now an energy pattern of a corpse or an indestructible skeletal corpse.

Hmm... indestructible skeletal corpses sound like a fun type of Undead monsters... and Unkillable does say that "With the GM’s permission ... you can trade in Unkillable and use the points to buy a spirit or undead racial template (if such things exist in the setting), becoming a ghost, revenant, etc." which I think would apply in this case. So there is still technically a loop hole to play with here. So you wouldn't be dead anymore, just Undead, which is fine - as you did properly die for once. Good luck to the PCs who thought they'd put you down for good, hey?

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Unkillable doesn't 'resurrect' you when you die, it just allows you to ignore death checks until that set trigger event, where it then kicks in to prevent death once more and stops you from running off into negative infinity HP. You can mutilate the corpse after death till it reaches -10xHP if you like, but it doesn't allow Unkillable 2 and 3 to restore you to life. A corpse with Unkillable 2 or 3 at -10xHP is allowed to "heal normally" - but when your dead this just allows you to continue 'not healing' as all good corpses do, even if you're now an energy pattern of a corpse or an indestructible skeletal corpse.

I guess all this makes sense. Then perhaps Time Spanning on any level of Unkillable (or, for that matter, Supernatural Durability) if you want it to restore you to life in case it's down when you're... down. Is Time Spanning the right enhancement? Or does it need a beefier thing, like Cosmic: Works on the dead (which, on the Resurrection build, is applied to the Affliction, not the embedded Unkillable advantage).

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

I guess all this makes sense. Then perhaps Time Spanning on any level of Unkillable (or, for that matter, Supernatural Durability) if you want it to restore you to life in case it's down when you're... down. Is Time Spanning the right enhancement? Or does it need a beefier thing, like Cosmic: Works on the dead (which, on the Resurrection build, is applied to the Affliction, not the embedded Unkillable advantage).

I prefer the Cosmic, simply because waking up again before your "killer" leaves is probably a bad idea.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

Is Time Spanning the right enhancement? Or does it need a beefier thing, like Cosmic: Works on the dead (which, on the Resurrection build, is applied to the Affliction, not the embedded Unkillable advantage).

Time Spanning is almost a version of Cosmic in and of itself, and would allow you to recover should the negating affect be removed. Note that any permanent affects (which may be true permanent or "special condition to dispel" permanent) or any persistent local conditions that are negating the power would still thwart this version until appropriate dealt with - likely by a still living partner.

Using Cosmic to add utility (generally costed at 50%) that would allow you to come back from actual death should you reacquire (or acquire for the first time) Unkillable 2 or 3 is pretty much the same as Time Spanning - so see above.

Adding Cosmic as a power source would mean that only an affliction that also paid to remove a Cosmic version of the ability would affect it. This is a prevention rather than cure, but it does neatly avoid the problem. Until whoever had the original Affliction has some more CP to pump into a new Affliction to include Cosmic Unkillable (which if they want you dead, I'm sure they'll do). Although ensuring your power source isn't one that is easily disabled/weakened is generally wise for something which you're relying on 24/7 though, so no Unkillable (Magical, -10%) if you can help it.

If the game you're using has multiple levels of Cosmic then taking the highest level as a power source will help a lot, but again, is still not proof. You could go on the offensive and attempt to negate the force which is removing your Unkillable advantage, like picking up Mana Enhancer if your Unkillable is magical. Using your own Affliction to negate other Afflictions could work in theory too - but you're basically just engaging in an arms race by this point, anything you can do can be undone by anyone who knows how you did it and is able to use it first.

Oh, and as has been said before, some levels of Extra Life on top of Unkillable can help in these situations to make up for when Unkillable is down. Note that these can be negated just like Unkillable can though, so its just another layer of defence and another lock that needs to be broken before you're down and out for good.

In GURPS, there is no way to become entirely invulnerable, you can try pretty hard and get very close - but death comes for everyone eventually. Nothing lasts forever, so I'd suggest making peace with the fact that even the Unkillable die, and just attempt to assassinate those silver bullet carrying antagonists before they get a shot off on you.

EDIT:
One last thing, picking up multiple copies of the same advantage but with different sources can be a good way to add yet another layer of defence - as all of them would have to be taken down before you were vulnerable. However anyone determined enough can overcome this, and really, you could just be spending your CP on being more powerful by this point! Paranoid turtling of your powers will only get you so far, eventually you'll get so weak comparatively that it wont matter if you're alive or not - you're not doing anything meaningful any more.

[Otaku]

I don't know if the argument is really settled here.

One one hand, yes I get the idea; Unkillable 2/3 trigger at a specific point; if something blocks that from triggering... you die and it can't trigger again, right?

Depends upon the character, the GM, and the setting. Maybe I just missed it in RAW (I no longer have a copy of Characters or Powers handy to peruse at my leisure), but I don't recall this being explicitly stated.

So I believe that a GM is within his or her rights (ignoring the option to flat out ignore/rewrite the rules anyway, so long as the group is in agreement and they don't mind the risk of "breaking" the system) to say "The entire point of [insert character's/] Unkillable 3 is that even if they die... they get better. Kill them in a place where the advantage is being negated, and their body will sit there and rot. Their soul gets stuck in limbo... until the negation ends. Then the advantage "checks" says "Okay, conditions met to trigger" and triggers.

I am not saying that this is not generous (it is), but especially in a setting where this is how it is meant to work anyway, the GM shouldn't need to add an Enhancement to justify it.

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Otaku

in a setting where this is how it is meant to work anyway, the GM shouldn't need to add an Enhancement to justify it.

A setting where 'this is how it works' will likely have a bunch of toggles and dials set so that other stuff 'just works like this' - at which point, yes feel free to allow it without any extra Enhancements.

After all, in a setting where Unkillable folk are so incredibly rare there are only a handful of unique individuals with it - and as such have to pay for an UB to acquire it (thus raising the cost of the advantage). Equally in a setting where death is cheap and characters literally respawn all the time (emulating a computer game world, for instance) then it may actually be given to everyone for "free" by just making it mandatory and raising the assumed CP level so that everyone can easily accommodate it.

That said, the rules are still there for when you're not twisting the dials all the way in one direction. In the case of someone having invested in a power specifically designed to negate the Unkillable advantage or allowing Unkillable to have a power source that can be overcome - then I think its fair to say "tough luck, you went up against the True-Slayers and really-actually-died because of it" or "tough luck, you let yourself get cornered and killed in a no-mana zone, that's you really-actually-dead".

As I said in my first post:

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Ultimately though, this is what the GM is for

So if they rule it one way, those are the rules now.

[Nereidalbel]

A thought occurs: Unkillable 2/3 check for -10x hp. If you died due to negation at -7x hp, technically, neither will trigger by their own rules. In order to get better, you would need somebody to come along and mutilate what's left of your corpse, which I'm sure anybody intending to kill the unkillable would prevent, probably by just burying you immediately.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by PseudoFenton

Except Unkillable 3 states "at -10xHP, you become a ghost, an energy pattern, or some other incorporeal form that cannot be contained or damaged through normal means." - that is to say, it does not say "whilst dead, your ghost/energy pattern etc can reform".

Hitting -10xHP triggers an event which avoids ordinary death from occurring and just takes you out of the game for a while in a state that can't be tampered with. If when you hit -10xHP (or just die) and you don't have this advantage currently, well this affect doesn't occur you become a regular old dead person, who may have a ghost - but not the sort that puts its body back together so it can return to life.

That doesn't read as a one-off 'triggers at the threshold' to me. It reads as a state change. Thus if the ability was turned off and you hit -10xHP, you'd die, and then when it turned back on, you'd change state to a ghost and start healing.

The way I see it:

Unkillable 1 - Once you're dead, you're dead. This level just suppresses the checks (including the auto-fail ones at -5xHP and below) until you hit -10xHP, so should you fail one and die while the ability is 'off', too bad.

Unkillable 2 - Normally at -10xHP you're an 'indestructible skeleton' (though I expect many GMs would vary that for flavour - some might be just a skull, others, their indestructible ever-beating heart). If the ability is turned off, and then on again, I'd say you're okay as long as you didn't hit -10xHP while it was turned off - if you were, well your 'core' wasn't invulnerable and it's paste just like the rest of you. Tough luck, mate - you're gone.

Unkillable 3 - As I mentioned earlier, you really are impossible to remove permanently - once your ability is no longer suppressed, you start coming back.

This gives Unkillable 3 more for the extra 50 points than 'should the GM be merciful you're harder to capture once 'killed' than Unkillable 2'. EDIT - Essentially, I'm looking at Unkillable 3 as Unkillable 2 + Cosmic.

One thing I do wonder though - how does one model someone who is 'unkillable' in a similar way to Unkillable 2, except that they have to make death checks normally, and then start healing up as with Unkillable 2 once they've 'died'? Extra Life is not an option - this ability is unlimited, whereas Extra Life is limited.

[chandley]

Originally Posted by Rupert

One thing I do wonder though - how does one model someone who is 'unkillable' in a similar way to Unkillable 2, except that they have to make death checks normally, and then start healing up as with Unkillable 2 once they've 'died'? Extra Life is not an option - this ability is unlimited, whereas Extra Life is limited.

Sounds like a new version of Unkillable, at 50 points, since its basically Unkillable 2 without the features of Unkillable 1.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Rupert

One thing I do wonder though - how does one model someone who is 'unkillable' in a similar way to Unkillable 2, except that they have to make death checks normally, and then start healing up as with Unkillable 2 once they've 'died'? Extra Life is not an option - this ability is unlimited, whereas Extra Life is limited.

Not Unkillable 1 is a -20% modifier.