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Patron advantage
How's everything?
Enjoying your Games Diner meal? Is the wait staff attentive? Is the chef bathed? (Then it must be a Sunday.) You do know that a little eggshell in the French toast adds calcium, right?
Okay, that clarifies it: "+1 DX (only affects Balance, Stealth and DX based Athletic skill rolls)" includes Acrobatics and Climbing, so they get double the effect. Got it.
You're right about fatigue costs; I hadn't thought about pricing that either. I wonder whether taking some fraction of the Fit/Unfit costs would work?
Otherwise, sounds good. Incidentally, is the term "meta-trait" new to GURPS in 4e? Natural encumbrance always has been a "meta-trait" in GULLIVER (as have Size and some other goodies); I called them "package traits", but I guess "meta-trait" is the new locution. That's OK by me.
A side issue: I assume that you'd intend these traits to be used separate from the actual GURPS encumbrance system. That is, an elephant would buy the trait associated with heavy encumbrance, but otherwise start using the regular rules for None, then Light, then Medium, etc. encumbrance as his handlers started loading him with gear (as opposed to starting at Heavy, then moving up to X-Heavy when his gear hits that threshold, which is the current GULLIVER approach).
Is that the intent? If so, I think it's technically a less proper approach, but it's been suggested to me before, and plays a bit easier; I can live with it. It also avoids the need to build yet another factor into the meta-trait (i.e., the fact that the encumbered creature is already part of the way toward his max carry, with less capacity remaining).
If the meta-trait is thus removed from the regular encumbrance system, I think it should be renamed; "positive / negative encumbrance" would no longer fit well, nor easily describe what the meta-trait does. "Reduced / Increased Agility" would fit much better, though even shorter names would be welcome. What do you think?
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Okay, that clarifies it: "+1 DX (only affects Balance, Stealth and DX based Athletic skill rolls)" includes Acrobatics and Climbing, so they get double the effect. Got it.
You're right about fatigue costs; I hadn't thought about pricing that either. I wonder whether taking some fraction of the Fit/Unfit costs would work?
Otherwise, sounds good. Incidentally, is the term "meta-trait" new to GURPS in 4e? Natural encumbrance always has been a "meta-trait" in GULLIVER (as have Size and some other goodies); I called them "package traits", but I guess "meta-trait" is the new locution. That's OK by me.
A side issue: I assume that you'd intend these traits to be used separate from the actual GURPS encumbrance system. That is, an elephant would buy the trait associated with heavy encumbrance, but otherwise start using the regular rules for None, then Light, then Medium, etc. encumbrance as his handlers started loading him with gear (as opposed to starting at Heavy, then moving up to X-Heavy when his gear hits that threshold, which is the current GULLIVER approach).
Is that the intent? If so, I think it's technically a less proper approach, but it's been suggested to me before, and plays a bit easier; I can live with it. It also avoids the need to build yet another factor into the meta-trait (i.e., the fact that the encumbered creature is already part of the way toward his max carry, with less capacity remaining).
If the meta-trait is thus removed from the regular encumbrance system, I think it should be renamed; "positive / negative encumbrance" would no longer fit well, nor easily describe what the meta-trait does. "Reduced / Increased Agility" would fit much better, though even shorter names would be welcome. What do you think?