Power Rewrite: Physical Immunity

[Silverblaze]

Topic:  Rewriting a power called Physical Immunity

Reasons:
1. Cost is likely too low.
2. Stacked catch is confusing when combined with other catches.
3. Immunity to all/but a catch is a poor way to handle immunities.

#3 example: it is easier to say "I am immune to fire".  Than to say "I have physical immunity to fire with a catch of everything else.  Or I am catched by everything except for fire." 

Solution:

White Wolf Publishing created a book called Freak Legion prior to the New World of Darkness supplements.  It contained ways to create antagonists that fight their version of werewolves. One of the powers they could purchase was called Immunity.  This power had a varying cost with a chart full of examples to use as a guideline.  This system had no catches.  You could simply pay X points and make a monster immune to fire.

My proposal is a power that does just that.  We decide how much it should cost to be immune to fire.  That is the refresh cost.

Power: Immunity
Refresh (Varies +0 to - X [X being the cost for full immunity to all damage{physical, mental, social etc} aside from a plotline or plotline introduced ritual or item])

As a community we come up with a passable chart of examples to use as a guideline for immunity to various things and the costs for it.  Forget what you know about hte existing power.  Forget catches.  Immunity should serve as a way to make werecats always land on their feet (never take damage from falling).  Fire giants should be immune to fire.  etc.

Example:
-0 aging, bad smells, sweating
-1 fatigue, disease, poison
-2 drowning, falling, monkey wrenches (only monkey wrenches)
-3 metal weapons, claws, (the book claims mortal magic....I think that cost is too low...)
-4 fire, cold, electricity, explosions, pure force?
-5 magic
-6 mental damage or social damage
-7 weapons of any sort
-8  attacks from immortal beings or mortal beings
-9 physical or social or mental immunity
-10 two immunites listed above
-11 immune to all three (aside from plot like mentioned above)

Please, Please note this isn't set in stone. This is simply an example of what I wish to accomplish.  I don't expect to be agreed with.  I would prefer constructive criticism to..."NO.  I disagree".  That isn't helpful..please offer a change in the power, or cost, or chart, etc.

[sinker]

Personally I see the partial immunities costing too much under your model. Under the current system you can gain immunity to fire or magic for about 2 refresh which makes it so that you won't have to center an entire character around it. Seems about right to me. Consider that at chest deep your immunity to fire will cost more than half of your available refresh. It's not that useful. I think it's the higher levels that need adjustment.

[ways and means]

I agree with Sinker I see an immunity to magic being worth 3-4 refresh and an immunity to something like fire being worth 2-3.

[sinker]

Although, now that I'm thinking about it, I've realized that there's a problem with having a static cost list like this. It doesn't take into account the idea that different things will have different usefulness in different games. W&M just mentioned magic being 3-4 refresh, but I recently played an outsider scion with PI to magic and it came up maybe once per session. Not one conflict per session, but once. One action. That's totally not worth 3-4 refresh, but I could certainly see a game where it would be or even be worth more.

[Silverblaze]

You can't model a power on how useful it will be in a given campaign.  The GM can technically make sure any immunity comes up NEVER.  Quite literally.  They can choose to do it on purpose.

As far as point costs.  I already said, I was just using the table as an example for what I was trying to do.  So I should make most things cheaper?  But the higher end stuff more.

So more like:


-0 aging, bad smells, sweating

-1 fatigue, disease, poison

-2 or -3 drowning, falling, monkey wrenches (only monkey wrenches)
 metal weapons, claws, (the book claims mortal magic....I think that cost is too low...)
 fire, cold, electricity, explosions, pure force?
magic

-6 mental damage or social damage
-7 weapons of any sort

-8  attacks from immortal beings or mortal beings

-10 physical or social or mental immunity
-12 two immunites listed above
-14 immune to all three (aside from plot like mentioned above)




Opinions?

[sinker]

You can't model a power on how useful it will be in a given campaign.  The GM can technically make sure any immunity comes up NEVER.  Quite literally.  They can choose to do it on purpose.

Actually you can provided that you and the GM are working together instead of being antagonistic to each other.

The current system I use for The Catch (and to a lesser extent the RAW system for The Catch) is modeled on how useful it should be in a given campaign.

[UmbraLux]

Have to agree with Sinker on modeling cost based on usefulness.  I'll even go a step further and say the closer you tie a power to narrative, the more you should base cost on usefulness. 

Take sponsored magic as an example - beyond basic casting, its cost ends up being tied directly to use in the form of compels.

[Tedronai]

Compels are cost-neutral.

[Sanctaphrax]

The usefulness of every Power, from Addictive Saliva to Worldwalker, depends on the game. This ensures that no matter how well you balance things, actual play will throw you off.

But since play unbalances in every direction randomly a well-balanced Power will rarely become excessively over or under powered in play. The variation tends to remain within reasonable bounds.

So giving Powers flat costs is quite a sensible idea. Skilled system-users can change those costs to fit individual games if they like, others should probably not mess with them if they care about balance at all.

That being said, I prefer a "how often will this matter" based cost for situational Powers like this. It minimizes this issue while providing an easy way for people to cost weird restrictions.

PS: Social Immunity probably should not be possible. How could anyone ever be immune to a bad reputation? Resistance to social stress makes sense, but immunity is just weird.

[sinker]

Sue is likely immune to social stress, both because she doesn't exist except as a construct, and because she's indifferent to her reputation.

[Tedronai]

She might be indifferent to her reputation, but the mob loaded up with torches and pitch forks certainly isn't.

[Haru]

There are 2 kinds of Physical Immunity that are relevant, and as far as I can tell, it is only the "always, but..." part that seems to be causing headaches. I suggest simply removing that part. If someone or thing can only be killed by one thing, that sounds to me like a plot device anyway and I think an aspect should be enough here. And yes, that includes PCs. You can still be taken out in a conflict, the power does not remove the stress you take. You can buy toughness powers as well to do that. I like this approach, because it only dictates the taken out result, not the stress intake. And stress does not only mean damage but all kinds of disadvantages that lead you to lose a conflict.

A more expensive full PI would not really accomplish much in my eyes. PI in my eyes has one definite drawback: it is boring. If you put a high price on it, then a character who actually takes it would not have anything else to play with. If you reduce the "impossible to hurt" part to "impossible to kill", things get way more interesting again, but the power is not really worth all that much anymore.

If we do that, we can take the remaining Physical Immunity and make the "+2 if it only protects from one thing" bonus always on and get a [-6] Physical Immunity power against one specific thing with a stacked catch. I would also force this specific thing to be more narrow than a catch on other toughness powers. So "Immunity against fire" would be fine, "immunity against magic" would not.

If you still think is is too cheap, separate the Immunity power from the rest of the toughness powers, so the catches won't stack.

I do not like a fixed list, because it does not take into account the creature itself. An "Immunity to garlic" would cost a werewolf [-0] refresh, but a black court vampire would have to pay in full and it would remove his other catch bonus as well.

PS: Social Immunity probably should not be possible. How could anyone ever be immune to a bad reputation? Resistance to social stress makes sense, but immunity is just weird.

Some sort of mindcontrol comes to mind. It would probably be very limited, but it would be possible.
Or how are you going to hurt Marcone? Everyone knows he's a criminal, so is is going to be immune to attacks in that area. But again, I would suggest a pointer to an appropriate aspect instead of a full blown immunity.

[Tedronai]

Or how are you going to hurt Marcone? Everyone knows he's a criminal, so is is going to be immune to attacks in that area. But again, I would suggest a pointer to an appropriate aspect instead of a full blown immunity.

You make him look weak.  You make him look stupid.  You make him look sloppy.  You make him look untrustworthy (he may be a criminal, but he's still known as Gentleman Marcone).  You make him look like the sort of heartless bastard that would condone the murder of a child.  Or who would engage in that sort of thing himself.  And who would enjoy it.

[CottbusFiles]

The usefulness of every Power, from Addictive Saliva to Worldwalker, depends on the game. This ensures that no matter how well you balance things, actual play will throw you off.

It's also based on how well you yourself can use it.

[Silverblaze]

The usefulness of every Power, from Addictive Saliva to Worldwalker, depends on the game. This ensures that no matter how well you balance things, actual play will throw you off.

But since play unbalances in every direction randomly a well-balanced Power will rarely become excessively over or under powered in play. The variation tends to remain within reasonable bounds.

So giving Powers flat costs is quite a sensible idea. Skilled system-users can change those costs to fit individual games if they like, others should probably not mess with them if they care about balance at all.

That being said, I prefer a "how often will this matter" based cost for situational Powers like this. It minimizes this issue while providing an easy way for people to cost weird restrictions.

PS: Social Immunity probably should not be possible. How could anyone ever be immune to a bad reputation? Resistance to social stress makes sense, but immunity is just weird.

Hermits / Loners like mountain men of old, from the Ozarks didn't much care about their reputation at all.  That said, some ancient being with a god complex could easily not be effected by social consequences or stress.