Why holy water? And other questions about holy-powered PCs

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

I dont think it would work that may; the only way to avoid damage would be to be hermetically sealed. I dont think DR would stop damage in this case.

AFAICT, armor DR protects at 1/5th, since it's not otherwise specified for holy water.

[sir_pudding]

More of a problem is that it apparently only works on vampires and bleeders.

[jackcelso]

final rest spell is almost end of the way spell for enemys and PCs!!!!

while dead you can be summomed to answer questions, put on a sour jar, infused in a golen body, resurect, bring back as a undead, posses a diferent body e etc...

final rest spell end all this possibilits and can be cast on any remains killed by you or not!!!

after a final rest spell only GM FIAT can bring someone back!!!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by jackcelso

after a final rest spell only GM FIAT can bring someone back!!!

RAW (because GURPS Magic is badly edited), it's a permanent spell not an instantaneous spell, so you just cast dispel magic and then proceed with necromancy as usual.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Anthony

RAW (because GURPS Magic is badly edited), it's a permanent spell not an instantaneous spell, so you just cast dispel magic and then proceed with necromancy as usual.

I guess that by "GM FIAT" he meant something like divine intervention - ie a ressurection (or undead) power with the "Cosmic" modifiee

[tbone]

Thanks for the many answers. To comment on them en masse:


1) Why not just use acid: In the end, falls and other accidents sound like one of the biggest downsides of acid: there's a pretty good chance of vials breaking. Plus, holy water can have whatever miscellaneous beneficial uses the GM comes up with. (Along with emergency use as drinking water. Mmm, Dei-licious!)

Re the idea of using holy water in exorcisms, etc.: Definitely sensible. I recently came up with my own use for holy water & other "clerical consumables" as aids in "cleansing" tasks. Nothing fancy, or original: I just stole the idea from P. Dell'Orto's lovely Spell Components piece in Companion 3, treating consumables like holy water as a college component (replacing "college of spells" with "Turning, Exorcism, and other miscellaneous cleansing tasks"). I'll be tweeting the idea, and follow-ups to it, from tomorrow.


2) Splash vs armor: Thanks, all, for the reminder to reduce armor to 1/5 vs liquid grenades like acid or water. That makes some difference.

Even with that, though, there's a problem that a vial of acid or water isn't going to do any damage at all unless the target has DR 3+; otherwise, it breaks on the shield or falls to the ground to break, and Exploits 44 makes clear that "Corrosives and contact poisons must hit a person (not a shield or the ground) to work".

So against unarmored Dracula, it seems you really have to open the vial and splash him up close. Sounds easy enough to game – similar to a throw, but really short Range? I don't recall seeing any written rules for this sort of "splash a container of liquid" action, but I'll bet it's somewhere in the system...

Another thing about holy water as a weapon is this: Even if you manage to splash Drac with holy water or break a vial on him, 1d-3 dam isn't at all exciting. You'd probably do much better chucking rocks at him.

I'm thinking holy water dam vs vulnerable undead should be doubled (or made a neat 1d; close enough), just to make it interesting. Either that, or improvise more fun effects. ("A direct hit! The vampire claws at his face in pain, clearly stunned for a moment.")


3) Extreme resistance: I guess my question stems from the occasional rule that says "You can claim a bonus from A or B, but not both", and for some reason thinking that Higher Purpose + Resist Evil might be such a case. But as far as I can tell they stack just fine, and that's A-OK.

The results can be impressive. The undead hunter pre-gen in Companion 3 resists vampiric mental attacks, for example, with Will 15 + 3 for Higher Purpose + 3 for Resist Evil = 21!


4) @ confused: I see, it's the main character in the text interface of a roguelike game. Is this a specific game, though, or a common element in several games? Just curious.


5) Help me put this question to rest: I don't mind the idea that Final Rest has a huge fatigue cost. I'm guessing the intent is that the spell serve as the final, difficult task in the Big Quest to put away the ever-respawning Arch-Villain, Once And For All This Time. Sounds good to me.

Given that big cost, I was simply surprised to see the similar-ish Rest in Pieces as a cheap perk. But a close look shows significant differences, and, as far as I can tell, the 1-pt cost seems fine.


Thanks, all!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by tbone

4) @ confused: I see, it's the main character in the text interface of a roguelike game. Is this a specific game, though, or a common element in several games? Just curious.

Roguelike games are a category, but use of @ for the character avatar was moderately common for text-based games that used a map.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by tbone

1) Why not just use acid: In the end, falls and other accidents sound like one of the biggest downsides of acid: there's a pretty good chance of vials breaking. Plus, holy water can have whatever miscellaneous beneficial uses the GM comes up with. (Along with emergency use as drinking water. Mmm, Dei-licious!)

IIRC there's a Spanish folk tale where someone's holy water fails to function as intended specifically because he refused to allow it to be used as emergency drinking water, with the antagonist explaining that water that had been withheld from someone dying of thirst could not possibly be considered consecrated to God. That may or may not be official theology.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by tbone

Re the idea of using holy water in exorcisms, etc.: Definitely sensible. I recently came up with my own use for holy water & other "clerical consumables" as aids in "cleansing" tasks. Nothing fancy, or original: I just stole the idea from P. Dell'Orto's lovely Spell Components piece in Companion 3, treating consumables like holy water as a college component (replacing "college of spells" with "Turning, Exorcism, and other miscellaneous cleansing tasks"). I'll be tweeting the idea, and follow-ups to it, from tomorrow.

I've been doing that since I had a PC make the requisite Hidden Lore check to "know what Holy Water was good for" and decide that it was basically useless. So I expanded it to give bonuses to Exorcisms and bonuses as a Spell component to spells (anything that could be 'cleansing or driving away Evil' related) and to healing checks with Esoteric Medicine.

As soon as I did the above the PCs all started carrying one or two vials, several carry whole 'flasks' now since it's basically splashed around liberally when the Cleric starts getting in the weeds with penalties (especially the self-healing spells and checks). The Cleric also went in for an aspergilium 'conversion' on their mace and liberally splashes it around in fights with undead, to make the standard 'after fight' Exorcism easier (in unconsecrated areas undead have a habit of not staying redeaded, so they like to consecrate areas and put all dead and undead to rest properly).

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by tbone

It's been a while since I last posted a big batch of game questions. I have many more, but will restrain myself to small batches. Here are five questions related to clerics and holy warriors:


1) Why not just use acid?: Why stock up on holy water to fight vampires and the like? Holy water burns vampires like acid, which is cool – but know what else burns vampires like acid does? Acid. Which sizzles pretty much all enemies (and locks, grating bars, etc.), not just those with a rare Divine Curse.

Acid costs less, too! Sure, the clerical discount hands holy water the price advantage again, but the wee savings don't seem worth giving up acid's great usefulness. So, barring the GM granting other benefits to holy water, why not go all-acid? Maybe acid's danger factor (chance of acid vials breaking in a fall)? The chance of meeting a ghost affected by holy water but not acid? Special-order spotty availability? The "it's genre" factor of holy water? Something else I'm missing?

Just wondering whether anyone else has come across players asking "why holy water?".


2) Splash vs armor: How does holy water work against armor? Given 1d-3 dam, I guess the idea is that 1 or 2 points' worth might "get into" DR 1, and 1 point might work its way into DR 2... but I guess no water gets past DR 3.

No particular problem here. "Damage vs DR" is arguably an odd way of handling whether a liquid works its way into armor, but it'll do for simple resolution. (Obvious advice vs armored foes: Aim the water at exposed areas.) The question: Is there some alternate handling of liquid seeping through clothing/armor, tucked away somewhere in GURPS?


3) Extreme resistance: When a demon tries to use some evil magical effect on a holy warrior, do Resist Evil and Higher Purpose (Slay Demons) stack to create an awesome resistance roll? My understanding is "Absolutely!"; is that correct?


4) @confused: Exploits p90, under "Praying", says,

I guess I'm not familiar. What is this "@"?


5) Help me put this question to rest: What's the difference between Rest in Pieces and the Final Rest spell? At a glance, the latter seems the spell version of the former, but Rest in Pieces is a super-cheap advantage while Final Rest is one of the more hugely expensive spells available.

They would both seem to have the same general use of "stop your dead enemy from coming back as an undead or similar", but as the undead hunter profession in Companion 3 automatically has both the advantage and the spell, I gather the two abilities are intended to have distinctly different uses.

Looks to me like Rest in Pieces is indeed a cheap (no FP) Final Rest, but with the restrictions a) you have to have killed a living thing, not an undead, b) you have to have killed it yourself, and c) you only prevent the once-living corpse from returning as undead, not from returning as a resurrected living thing, some sort of automation, etc.

So, if any of a)-c) would be a problem, you want to use Final Rest, not Rest in Pieces.

Does that sound right? Or is there more to the distinction?

Because vampires are originally a subchristian legend. They are supposed to be demonic or at least associated with devils (if I remember Dracula was cursed for becoming Protestant for reasons of state). Holy water works on them not because of it's chemical properties but because it is holy.

As I said it is "subchristian". By that I mean it is from a weird combination of orthodox (meaning "reasonably sound in doctrine" not big O orthodox meaning, "Greek Rite") Christianity and peasant animism. It is of course heresy to say that a virgin would become a vampire (essentially be damned just because Satan says so) by being bitten by a vampire but vampires being afraid of holy water would be something they are familiar with.

That is why the ideas of vampires being intimidated by the icons of different religions does not work. Vampires were made in Eastern Europe and had the context of the lives of peasants who lived their. If for instance they were frightened of golems instead of holy water they would be a different sort of monster.