Intracranical Explosive Charge

[Lyonid]

Good afternoon everybody!

I am building a character for a new campaing. He is bonded to his duty of professional soldier by an explosive charge implanted near his brain, which can be activated by an NPC.

How could I build this Disadvatage?

Thank you all in advance!!!

[Anders]

This looks promising.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Lyonid

Good afternoon everybody!

I am building a character for a new campaing. He is bonded to his duty of professional soldier by an explosive charge implanted near his brain, which can be activated by an NPC.

How could I build this Disadvatage?

What do you see as the game effect here? It's usually just an Involuntary Duty (the NPC uses it as a blackmail tool to get the PC to do stuff).

Potentially if the NPC never asks for anything, it's worth zero points. It has the same kind of pricing issue as Terminally Ill really - if the GM isn't going to absolutely forbid having it removed or the NPC isn't absolutely certain to set it off in less than two years (which presumably it isn't if the thing is being used as a blackmail tool, he might want something more than 24 months from the start of the campaign) then the bomb itself is worth nothing. If the PC can just ignore it and nothing happens, it's not a disadvantage.

If some third party can set it off, notionally I suppose it's a Weakness to whatever the trigger is, but given that a bomb trigger is invisible before use and instantly fatal that's basically unplayable. Since the GM must actually trigger the Weakness occasionally or it's not worth points, and when he does it's certain death..... I suppose you could call it a -15 point Destiny.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Lyonid

Good afternoon everybody!

I am building a character for a new campaing. He is bonded to his duty of professional soldier by an explosive charge implanted near his brain, which can be activated by an NPC.

How could I build this Disadvatage?

!

This piece of "gear" is listed as a Bomb Implant in UT in the Cybernetics section and a note there says it may result in an Involuntary Duty.

This is a standard disad in Basic and I would consider it to be not only Involuntary but also Extremely Hazardous. the only question left is how often it comes up i.e how often the people with the remote detonator call upon him.

[Anders]

As for stats, just assume it's instantly lethal.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by Anders

As for stats, just assume it's instantly lethal.

Sure, but is it a small charge, just enough to reliably kill the victim or a bigger one that can cause damage to close bystanders? We need to know whether there is a muffled crump! noise and the guy falls over with his eyeballs hanging out or whether his brains spraypaint the wall while skull fragments lethally ricochet around the room.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by mr beer

Sure, but is it a small charge, just enough to reliably kill the victim or a bigger one that can cause damage to close bystanders? We need to know whether there is a muffled crump! noise and the guy falls over with his eyeballs hanging out or whether his brains spraypaint the wall while skull fragments lethally ricochet around the room.

It's probably zero points regardless. You can determine the power based on a chosen quantity of TL-appropriate explosive if you want, but the amount of collateral damage when your brain gets remotely reformatted is a feature from a character building perspective.

(If you had a brain bomb that was under your control or went off on death or something, you might use the guidance here. You might also turn to it if you were calculating point value for some kind of minion whose master would have the detonator, similar to how GURPS Zombies addresses exploitable infectiousness.)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

This piece of "gear" is listed as a Bomb Implant in UT in the Cybernetics section and a note there says it may result in an Involuntary Duty.

This is a standard disad in Basic and I would consider it to be not only Involuntary but also Extremely Hazardous. the only question left is how often it comes up i.e how often the people with the remote detonator call upon him.

How Hazardous the Duty is depends on what it requires, not what happens if you refuse to do it. You could have a brain-bomb as 'motivation' for a non-hazardous duty.

[Varyon]

I'd be tempted to build it as Enemy (Hunter, One person more powerful than the PC, Constant), negated by an Advantage - Negated Enemy (Pact: Duty).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

How Hazardous the Duty is depends on what it requires, not what happens if you refuse to do it. You could have a brain-bomb as 'motivation' for a non-hazardous duty.

Perhaps but I don't think it matters if the hazard of instant death comes from the people your detonator-holders are sending you aganst or from thems3elves. You're always at risk of death.

This is certainly a bigger Disadvantage than anything that threatens you with a civil judgment or a fine or even imprisonment. Having the enforcement of the Duty being Extremely Hazardous instead of just the Duty itself looks like a distinction without a difference to me.