In Nomine character traits to GURPS 4e
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Ben Finney b...@benfinney.id.au
Howdy all, GURPS In Nomine has a bunch of traits suitable for the Celestials in that world, that I'm having trouble converting to GURPS 4e.
The "Awareness (Symphony)" is priced at 15 points; GURPS Update 4e tells me that level of Awareness should be "Detect (Symphony)" for 30 points now. No problem; if that's what it costs in 4e, that's what it costs.
However, "Disturbs Symphony" is a -15 point disadvantage, clearly meant to balance the Awareness with having one's actions being easily detectable to others with the same advantage. So I need something priced around -30 points to balance the new price of that advantage.
How should I model that? I can't find a -30 point disadvantage for "Can be Detected easily" or "Draws attention". "Noisy" is about the closest, but it includes a reaction penalty I don't need, it isn't limited to overt actions by the character, and is priced way too low; if I were to remove the reaction penalty and limit it only to the character's actions and only detection by other celestials, it'd come to pretty much nothing. Not the -30 points I'm looking for.
Some more: "Costs Essence" is a modifier that is similar to "Costs Fatigue", but is twice as large because Essence is harder to renew than Fatigue. Is this now covered by something in Powers or BS? If so, I've missed it.
The 3e "Non-Reciprocal Damage" advantage is noted in Update as being a modifier to Alternate Form. If so, why can't I find that modifier in BS or Powers? It seems a pretty common variation on shape-shifting.
It's not normally this hard to convert 3e material, is it?
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David Johnston rgor...@block.net
Why? Just calculate the new cost of the package and leave it at that.
Since every supernatural being disturbs the symphony it's really no disadvantage at all. But bear in mind that all your powers are probably going to get some kind of power source limitation. That's going to add up. Why not just make it cost twice as much fatigue?
Page 75 Powers. You just overlooked it.
robk ...@deadspam.com (Rob Kelk)
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Hash: SHA1 On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:55:37 GMT, David Johnston <rgor...@block.net> wrote: Not every In Nomine character is a supernatural being.
As for the original question... I don't know.
Because Essence is not Fatigue - humans have both.
<snip>
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David Johnston rgor...@block.net
Didn't say they were. But from the point total, I ***ume that "Disturbs the Symphony" is a Detect Supernatural power. Therefore being detectable by it is not a disadvantage apart from the power source limitation. What does it do besides fuel powers?
Ben Finney bignose+hates-s...@benfinney.id.au
It is a severe disadvantage compared to normal humans, who *don't* disturb the Symphony. And many IN characters will be humans with "Detect (Symphony)", so they should get the advantage *without* the corresponding disadvantage.
True. I'd have to look over the template and see what traits should have a "celestial" power source modifier.
I'm asking about an advantage modifier. "Costs SomethingLikeFatigue" is different to "Costs Fatigue" if the two energy banks are different, but should still be similar. Is there something in Powers or the BS for this?
Powers does have "Energy Reserves" on p. 119, which encourages buying ER points like FP. It does mention powers can normally draw on FP as well; "if they can't, add -5% to the power modifier". That doesn't take account of the fact that this particular ER is *harder to replenish* than FP, so spending it is a greater limitation than spending FP.
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Travis Foster tfoster...@comcast.net
"Disturbs Symphony" is just a specific case of "easier to detect" and would be a limitation on all appropriate powers.
You should end up with more than just celestial; ethereal and sorcery at the very least.
Read the rules for energy reserves and look at slow recharge and special recharge. which both give you a price break for reserves that recharge slower.
Ben Finney bignose+hates-s...@benfinney.id.au
Ethereal, perhaps; sorcery doesn't seem to be a separate source, just a different discipline.
I probably will make Essence an Energy Reserve as per those rules.
You don't agree that the advantages that "Cost Essence" should have a different modifier to "Costs Fatigue"?
I think I'll just use "Costs Essence, -10% per level" -- double the size of "Costs Fatigue". Precedent: "Costs Hit Points" on Powers p. 110.
Travis Foster tfoster...@comcast.net
You're right, I forgot that part.
If you sense a disturbance, can you tell what the source is (i.e.
celestial, infernal, sorcerous, ethereal)? I haven't located my copy of the CPG, but sorcery isn't just band/superior attunements for mortals, but a set of skills. There have been unofficial versions of sorcery that aren't Infernal.
No, I don't think that it is necessary. After the slower/special recharge limits on the ER, you don't get much more for an extra 5%. I thought that you can spend essence for extra effort and other die roll related benefits (IIRC, that's how mortals spend theirs if they aren't soldiers or sorcerers- and they spend all of their reserve at once).
If you spend all of your essence, are there any problems? Spending HP can kill you or directly make you easier to kill. I don't recall being out of essence being as bad as being out of fatigue let alone as bad as being out of HP.
Ben Finney bignose+hates-s...@benfinney.id.au
I'll check later. I'm pretty sure you can tell, with a good enough Per result; but I'm also fairly sure that sorcery merely invokes powers that are Celestial or Ethereal in nature. If that's true, I wouldn't have Sorcery as a separate source.
This would probably be easier if I had *both* of In Nomine and GURPS IN, to use the former as the source and the latter as a strong guide to the 4e conversion. Unfortunately, I have only GURPS IN to work with, and I'm not likely to ever buy the In Nomine core books as well.
That just changes the value of Essence; it doesn't make "Costs Essence" an equivalent-sized modifier to "Costs Fatigue". Consider: HP and FP are priced differently for their different properties, *and* "Costs Hit Points" is a different-sized modifier to "Costs Fatigue".
It's bad in that Essence is significantly harder to get than FP, so "Costs Essence" should be a greater modifier on the advantage than "Costs Fatigue".
I'm fairly sure that being out of Essence also has immediate bad effects for a non-corporeal being; again, I'll check later.
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robk ...@deadspam.com (Rob Kelk)
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Hash: SHA1 On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:25:34 GMT, David Johnston <rgor...@block.net> wrote: Non-supernatural beings, including most humans, can't detect the Symphony at all. "Disturbs Symphony" only matters to the supernaturals, who should get a bonus to notice someone with the disad.
Game-mechanic-wise, nothing. (So it can't be used as a marker for how exhausted the character is, the way Fatigue can.)
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Rob Kelk Personal address (ROT-13): eboxryx -ng- tznvy -qbg- pbz "There's always somebody who's going to hate your work, no matter how good it is. DON'T LET HIM CHASE YOU AWAY FROM WRITING, BECAUSE THAT WAY HE WINS." - Robert M. Schroeck, 18 July 2006
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Jefferson Jeff_Wilso...@bigfoot.com
Uh. The second doesn't follow from the first. Detects are expensive, being able to be detected generally isn't worth anything. You're not going to balance point costs. Additionally if "Detects Symphony" functions automatically it's going to cost even more than 30 points.
Bad Smell (BASIC 124). Most of the time, "Can be detected as X" is a 0 point feature.
An _optional_ reaction penalty. -2/level is suitable for being more noticeable to a single sense or detect.
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Jefferson http://www.meanspc.com/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/
Ben Finney bignose+hates-s...@benfinney.id.au
The advantage grants the ability to make Per rolls. It's not automatic. It works like Detect on p. B48, so I've chosen "Detect (Symphony)" as equivalent to "Detect (Supernatural)", as the GURPS Update advises.
Thanks, I'd missed that. However, it is even more about reaction penalties and less about being detectable.
Reading it more closely, you're right; the reaction penalty is only "in some circumstances".
In this case, "Disturbs Symphony" is much more limiting than the human norm of "Can be seen by sighted people" and the like.
Disturbs Symphony -15 points (celestials/ethereals only) This is a racial disadvantage for all celestials and ethereal spirits, reflecting the fact that their actions in the corporeal realm [where a lot of the campaign will take place] disrupt the natural progression of the Symphony. This disadvantage covers only the disturbance related to physical destruction (see `Perceiving the Symphony`). Many [advantages] also cause disturbance, but those may sometimes be used by humans, so they have a similar Nuisance Effect limitation built in, instead.
[GURPS In Nomine, p. 37] Any destruction you do, no matter how discreet and imperceptible it is to mundanes, is detectable to those with "Detect (Symphony)" in direct proportion to how much *damage* is done. It lingers even after you've left the area, letting perception rolls (by those with the corresponding Detect advantage) grant some idea about what you did there.
In a realm where most inhabitants can't distinguish you as what you are, your enemies and rivals -- powerful beings like you -- *can* pick out your destructive actions easily, and possibly trace them to you. All this is a significant hindrance on free action, so it sure sounds like a disadvantage.
Your arguments would seem to indicate you don't think this should be a disadvantage; your comparisons to Bad Smell and Noisy certainly show you don't think it's worth -15 points, let alone -30. But those have none of the attention-drawing feel of the above disadvantage, and I don't think they're nearly as limiting to the character.
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Jefferson Jeff_Wilso...@bigfoot.com
It was a poor but acceptable decision in 3e. It doesn't follow at all in 4e where the cost of a sense lies completely with the advantage. A better solution would be to give all mortals Resistance: Immunity to Detect Symphony [30 points] (***uming Detect Symphony is very common). I suppose you could reverse it to give non-mortals No Immunity to Detect Symphony -30 points, but that doesn't follow the standard rules.
[snip] If it automatically grants the ability to make Per rolls, it doesn't function like Detect. Standard Detect grants the ability to make Per rolls while concentrating after one second.
[snip] No it's not. The fact that a positronic robot is detectable to positronic detectors is a 0 point feature (or at worst a quirk) no matter how many restrictions that may place on a character that is otherwise completely indistinguishable from human.
Social Stigmas and Enemies may result from such detection, but they are not part of actually being detected.
Which is all part of the nature of the sense (Detect) ability.
The fact that a character causes such a response is a 0 point feature.
That's a reason to raise the occurrence of the Enemy disad. The fact that you leave such a trail isn't meaningful on its own.
You haven't demonstrated to me that being detectable is limiting.
Yes, what people do with that information can cause problems, but that's a completely separate issue (in 4e) from the ability to be detected.
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Jefferson http://www.meanspc.com/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/
David Johnston rgor...@block.net
On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 20:04:25 -0700, Jefferson Except that mortals are automatically immune just by not being what the sense detects.
Ben Finney bignose+hates-s...@benfinney.id.au
Okay, comparing "Awareness" in 3e (CI) against "Detect" in 4e, I see that this is indeed a difference.
Which is puzzling: how is it that 3e's "Awareness" at 15 points requires no concentration or time, but 4e's "Detect" costs 30 points *and* requires a second of concentration? GURPS Update just says to replace the one with the other, at the new point cost.
Presumably, attempting to model the 15-point 3e "Awareness" would cost even *more* than 30 points under 4e. What justifies this? Was the 3e ability vastly under-priced? How so?
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Jefferson Jeff_Wilso...@bigfoot.com
Yes, how senses are defined changed significantly between 3e and 4e. In 3e it was possible to say that being able to sense something was an advantage and that being sensed by something unusual was a disadvantage. However, this created numerous problems, among them often giving a character free points for being able to be sensed by something which wasn't all that likely.
When 4e redefined how senses are handled they made it quite clear that the full point cost of being able to sense something is contained in the advantage (though this is never stated outright). Being able to be sensed by something is at worst a quirk (and only for things which are very unusual) and is otherwise a 0-point feature. As a side effect of this, the cost of of most senses in 4e have increased. Simplified, where before you might have a 15 point advantage matched with a 15 point disadvantage, now it's a 30 point advantage without a matching disadvantage. Balance has shifted to put the full cost into the advantage.
In 3e handling senses drove me crazy. The different senses weren't balanced against each other or even against general character development. How senses were handled was one of the first things I checked when I got my 4e BASIC, and I was quite pleased at the changed that were made. The way senses are handled fit together and are balanced both with each other and with the rest of the advantages. (I'm not claiming they're _perfect_ -- it's quite possible to take a sense which is overpriced -- but they're a whole lot better than the mess in 3e.) It is book legal to use Resistance:Immunity to make a character undetectable to a specific form of Detect. However, this is an ugly kludge and (after some thought) I can not recommend it.
There is a gray area dealing with characters that are more easily sensed than the average. In general, I follow the rule for Size Modifiers and rule that the advantages and disadvantages are equivalent. (You're more easily sensed as a magic creature, but you can also use that to impress the people doing the sensing.)
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Jefferson http://www.meanspc.com/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/
Ben Finney bignose+hates-s...@benfinney.id.au
First, thanks for your patient reply to my questions.
Okay, from what I've found comparing the two (after feedback in this thread) this certainly seems to be right.
This is the first time I've heard of it. I'm not doubting you at all, I'm just trying to find more information on this and failing. Can you point to other discussions that shed some more light on these problems in 3e's handling of sense traits?
I can't find any mention of "Detect", "Awareness" or "sense" in the FAQ either. Is there anything online from GURPS insiders that says more about this?
That's a consistent way to do it. There's a lot to be said for a simple, internally-consistent rule to model something like senses.
I find that unsatisfactory in the case of "Disturbs Symphony" though. The limitations on overt action has the distinct feel of a GURPS disadvantage for the individual who must take care in their activities, but by the above reasoning that can't be done in 4e.
Can you be more specific, or point to something more specific? Again, I don't doubt these problems exist, but I've never heard of them before and would like to know more.
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Jefferson Jeff_Wilso...@bigfoot.com
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.gurps/browse_frm/thread/... or http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z2851512E Not that I'm aware of. There was some discussion about this during the POWERS playtest, where it was decided that the existing rules were explicit enough.
[snip] I can understand that, but your first task is to specifically define what the disadvantages are.
It's certainly difficult. If this was ***ociated with an active power it would warrant a "Nuisance Effect: Obvious -5%." You might apply the limitation to the cost a template ***igns to strength, or the equivalent striking strength.
See the above link. I remember a few more bits and pieces, but that's the only coherent discussion I can recall.
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Jefferson http://www.meanspc.com/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/
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