Thoughts on Unkillable

[Varyon]

I (and apparently the forum, judging by some of the threads that have been recently made or necromanced) have been thinking a bit about Unkillable recently. Of course, in my case, it's because I've been working on some Undead templates* (which I started on before the recent Pyramid, incidentally) which have Unkillable 2 or 3 with some Limitations. My concerns are with Hindrance and Achilles Heel, as well as the (not-quite-RAW) Mortal Limitation and interactions with Fragile (Unnatural).

Hindrance isn't much of an issue (that is, it works as intended) for Unkillable 2/3, but becomes problematic if you allow it for Unkillable 1 (which I think isn't actually a RAW option, but seems potentially legitimate to me). Unkillable 1 with Hindrance would mean that, with the Hindrance in effect, you die just as readily as a normal person, but if the Hindrance is removed and you're above -10xHP you come back to life. Of course, there's nothing preventing your foe from just continuing to hack away at your (say) staked corpse until you hit -10xHP, which means in this case Hindrance is functioning more like a slightly-harder-to-invoke Achilles Heel. Thus, for Unkillable 1, it seems Hindrance should have a higher point value, but not as high as Achilles Heel. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking it should be about halfway in between - does this sound about right? Additionally, a character with Unkillable 1 or 2 who has the Hindrance applied after being killed (say, you reduce the vampire to -10xHP so it collapses to the ground, then you stake it through the heart) would logically have it still apply, but Unkillable 3 ignores this - would it be appropriate to reduce the worth of Hindrance for characters with Unkillable 3?

Related to Hindrance, what about things that temporarily shut down the power, like Magic or Psi and dragging the character into a No Mana Zone or Psi Static field? It seems to me that these things should function more like Hindrance than Achilles Heel, as their effect on other abilities is more similar to the former than the latter. In a case where, say, killing the wizard in a No Mana Zone means he's fully dead (bypassing his Unkillable outright), would it be appropriate to increase the value the Limitation to more match an Achilles Heel than a Hindrance? Affliction (Negated Advantage) would similarly be treated as a Hindrance, although you could increase the price to make it function as an Achilles Heel.

Achilles Heel has a similar issue, but only for UK 2. It works as intended for UK 1 and UK 3 - defeating the foe with the Achilles Heel kills him permanently - but runs into a serious issue with UK 2. As an example, with the undead I'm working on, those of the Ghoul and Skeleton classes have Unkillable 2 with Decapitation as an Achilles Heel. Well enough, if you kill one of those by cutting off its head, that's the end for it. However, it also means that if anyone has a cutting weapon on hand, any method of killing one of those will end it permanently - because it's not very difficult to hack off the head of a corpse. While it's a bit more difficult to manage, you can similarly drag a slain Vampire-class undead out into sunlight and watch its corpse be reduced to ash. I'm thinking that, for characters with Unkillable 2, Achilles Heel should be worth more than usual (and/or that Achilles Heel should only work when they deal the killing blow - by all means, chop off the head of a slain Ghoul and burn the body, it will still rise again later). It may be appropriate to give similar treatment to Hindrance, honestly - perhaps covering that slain Ghoul with salt does nothing, even though had you covered him with it before you took him down it would have prevented him from rising until it was washed off.

For Mortal, which is a -20% Limitation on Unkillable that means you die just as readily as anyone else (death check at each multiple of -1xHP, instant death at -5xHP), I'm mostly just considering extending it to Unkillable 1 (it's usually only available for 2/3). In this case, it would mean you function the same as someone with Unkillable 2 (Mortal), but if your corpse is reduced to -10xHP, you cannot come back. On one hand, this is negating a lot more of the effect of Unkillable 1 than Mortal usually does, but on the other hand a character who would have failed a death check (or is at or below -5xHP anyway) has a good chance of having already fallen unconscious, and if not usually isn't a very effective combatant anyway. Is -20% still appropriate, or should we give the character a higher value? Note this is nearly making normal damage into a Hindrance for the character (although in this case the character still regenerates, unlike with a proper Hindrance). I'm leaning toward the default -20%, but am uncertain.

Finally, Fragile (Unnatural), which I intend my undead to have, is noted in Zombies to be mutually exclusive with any level of Unkillable. However, the idea of an undead that is fairly fragile (automatically dying at -1xHP) but nonetheless will rise again without appropriate precautions seems legitimate. However, not actually dying as a result of Fragile (Unnatural) makes that trait much less problematic. This needs some discussion.

First off, it seems like Mortal would be an appropriate Limitation on Unkillable to allow for Fragile (Unnatural), as it resets the "death" condition to normal (if potentially temporary), allowing to then shift over to Unnatural. As already noted, however, such a character's Fragile (Unnatural) isn't as much of a Disadvantage as usual, implying it should also have a Limitation. To determine the cost of this, let's consider a character with Unkillable 1 (Mortal) and Fragile (Unnatural; Unkillable 1). This seems to me to be overall a Feature - he's easier to "knock out," as it were, but markedly harder to kill outright. The two traits are already equal value before Limitations, implying the Limitations are of equal worth - -20% each. Fragile (Unnatural) seems like it would be worth less when combined with Unkillable 2 (Mortal), as now there's no (outside of Achilles Heel and the like) way to make death permanent. And, with Unkillable 3 (Mortal) meaning the character automatically escapes upon death, Fragile (Unnatural) seems it would be worth still less there. I'm thinking -20% with UK1, -40% with UK2, and -60% with UK3 - note this also means you could simply do away with the two Limitations (Mortal and Unkillable n) and end up with the same end cost. It might also be appropriate to reduce the value of the Limitation (such that the trait gets you more points back) if the Unkillable has an Achilles Heel, as this means the death thus inflicted can become permanent.


So... thoughts? Do these seem like valid arguments, and if so, do my prices look about right - and what sort of price increase would be appropriate for "still works after death" Achilles Heel and Hindrance?


*While I don't necessarily intend for players to have access to these templates, they may nonetheless have such creatures as Allies or Enemies, in which case a point value is needed.