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Protection From Sunlight


Steve

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Change environment would work (at least it does in my games) but it's kind of noticeable that you are going around in a shroud of darkness. As a GM, I wouldn't go for life support (after all, this is presumably a major complication we are talking about here), but at a pinch you could go for multiple layers of heavy robes and cloaks. That's also kind of noticeable, though not as much, but that's the point: "Burns in Sunlight" is a major complication and not something that should be able to be casually handwaved away. As Cassidy the Irish vampire puts it "Sure and what have we got to fear but the sun herself?"

 

cheers, Mark

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When I've seen this subject come up during discussions with Steve Long, he usually recommends reducing the Frequency or Severity of a character's Vulnerability Complication, reflecting that he usually has the means available to counter it. If you want a character to have a specific Power reflecting this, I would conceptually pair the reduced Complication with whichever Power construct you define as blocking the detrimental effect of sunlight. It needn't necessarily work for any other creature damaged by sunlight, but it does for yours.

 

One of our board colleagues once posted about his powered-armor villain who was also a vampire. Wearing his armor shielded him from the sun; that wasn't statted as a Power, but was reflected in the reduced Complication frequency.

 

If one character is trying to counter the sunlight debilitation of another, IMO that shouldn't be reflected in the Complication value unless the countering character is usually available to help the one with the Vulnerability.

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I'd rule that the same construct as a Naked Advantage or Limitation buyoff could be used to construct the "power".

 

Presuming the "Takes Damage from Sunlight" is a 25 point Disad, it's a 25 AP effect, add Incantations, charges, or other limitations to get the effect you want.

 

Chris.

 

FWIW IIRC, a Complication buy-off with Limitations is one of the few constructs that Steve Long went on record as opposing for the rules. I believe that ruling was in the FAQ; I'll need to check my records.

 

OTOH I like and use that construct myself, and Steve no longer has the authority to send the Rules Police after me. :P

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When I've seen this subject come up during discussions with Steve Long, he usually recommends reducing the Frequency or Severity of a character's Vulnerability Complication, reflecting that he usually has the means available to counter it. If you want a character to have a specific Power reflecting this, I would conceptually pair the reduced Complication with whichever Power construct you define as blocking the detrimental effect of sunlight. It needn't necessarily work for any other creature damaged by sunlight, but it does for yours.

 

One of our board colleagues once posted about his powered-armor villain who was also a vampire. Wearing his armor shielded him from the sun; that wasn't statted as a Power, but was reflected in the reduced Complication frequency.

 

If one character is trying to counter the sunlight debilitation of another, IMO that shouldn't be reflected in the Complication value unless the countering character is usually available to help the one with the Vulnerability.

If a Character has the ability to counter a limitation, he is not as limited as the book value sugests (less severity and/or frequency).

The same goes if the GM thinks it he is unlikely to invoke the complication (a Waterbreather* needs a breathing apparatus in air, but the GM considers not letting it come up enough for a complication).

 

*According to Life Support rules a character can autoamtically breath in one environment - wheter this be Oxygen Air or Oxygen Water.

 

How about ordinary sunburn? I'm thinking it's a 1-point Life Support power.

Sunburn is listed as Environmental Effect on 6E2 143.

Very severe cases (hours of exposure) do normal Damage (Body and STUN, no Defense) depending on "how much skin was affected".

Less severe ones deal half those numbers and STUN only.

Note that teh stun loss works more like a Stun Drain or body loss - after treatment you can recover from it once per day (and painkilelrs might remove it temporarily). Body damage heals normally.

There is no listed defense, other then "wear clothing".

 

The Robocop example Greywind posted might actually fall under limited: "LS: Radiation, Only Ultraviolet", as it is based on teh Ozone layer being gone.

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Well, I wasn't only thinking of vampire torches, but also walking across a desert. It sounds like Change Environment or Life Support could keep one comfortable in a desert (see page 73 of Ultimate Mentalist for an image of someone protected from the sun while an unprotected grunt walks along behind).

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Well, I wasn't only thinking of vampire torches, but also walking across a desert. It sounds like Change Environment or Life Support could keep one comfortable in a desert (see page 73 of Ultimate Mentalist for an image of someone protected from the sun while an unprotected grunt walks along behind).

As CE it would propably be like one level of Temeprature or wind level.

Of course going all the way to Darkness is an option too.

Otherwise if this Sunburn is a regular danger in a setting, LS: Sunburn would be possible and might even cost 1 point. But then again most people jsut wear light clothing as protection against the sun. General heat is more of a danger.

 

Judging from the CE example for strong magnetic field one could trigger a Vampires vulnerability with about 5 Base Points of CE. If the GM allows such a power in his game.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For a vampire, is it the UV or that it is sunlight? I've seen it approached from both sides, and each one has its pluses and minuses.

 

If its just sunlight, then simply eliminating the UV component in it does no good. Even at the bottom of a pool of water, a vampire will burn in direct sunlight. However, no form of artificial sunlight will bother them.

 

If its the UV, then a good sunscreen is all that us needed. Also, UV lights will burn a vampire.

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For a vampire, is it the UV or that it is sunlight? I've seen it approached from both sides, and each one has its pluses and minuses.

 

If its just sunlight, then simply eliminating the UV component in it does no good. Even at the bottom of a pool of water, a vampire will burn in direct sunlight. However, no form of artificial sunlight will bother them.

 

If its the UV, then a good sunscreen is all that us needed. Also, UV lights will burn a vampire.

That depends what the specal effect of "vulnerability to sunlight" is.

Is it the scientific component (UV light)? Also note that Sunscreen has limits to how much it can counter effectively.

Or is it the mystical component, with sun as "giver of life" or "prime god that curesed the vampires"? If so that mystical aspect could be preserved (stored) too, using magic/divine items.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For a vampire, is it the UV or that it is sunlight? I've seen it approached from both sides, and each one has its pluses and minuses.

 

If its just sunlight, then simply eliminating the UV component in it does no good. Even at the bottom of a pool of water, a vampire will burn in direct sunlight. However, no form of artificial sunlight will bother them.

 

If its the UV, then a good sunscreen is all that us needed. Also, UV lights will burn a vampire.

If you didn't buy it as "Vulnerability to UV" then it's just to sunlight.  Presumably that means "to UV" is worth more than "to sunlight" since sunlight always has UV but not all UV is sunlight. 

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I don't know if this is quite what you're looking for, and it's not rules as written, but when I've written up vampires who have sunlight protection I just modified how their Susceptibility works. I determine an Onset Time and a separate Damage Interval, and then use the value of Time Chart increment directly between them on the Susceptibility chart. So for a vampire who can stay out in the sun for 5 Minutes without taking damage and takes damage every Turn, my version would look like this:

 

Susceptibility (To sunlight, Very Common, Onset 5 Minutes, Interval 1 Turn, Must Touch Character's Skin), which would be worth 20 points

+15 for Very Common Substance

+10 for 3d6 damage

+0 for the time increment (since 1 Minute is the midpoint between 5 Minutes and 1 Turn, and 1 Minute is worth 0 points)

-5 because it Must Touch Character's Skin

 

You can do it with farther-apart increments too; Onset 20 Minutes, Interval 1 Phase also has a midpoint of 1 Minute. For a VERY sun-resistant vampire, Onset 6 Hours, Interval 1 Phase would be -5 points instead of 0 (because the midpoint between them is 5 Minutes), although at that point I probably would make the entire complication worth 0 points because a 6-Hour Onset is so forgiving. That was really more to demonstrate the pricing.

 

If the midpoint would fall between two Time Chart increments, use the one that is lower on the chart as the midpoint.

 

Of course that's for vampires who have some innate ability to resist sunlight for a time, rather than a spell or ability they can actively use to make the sunlight go away, so I don't know if it helps. But I hope it does. :)

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I gave the desert-dwelling Dark Elves in my homebrew setting a 1-point Life Support power making them immune to sunburn. Perhaps it's not "insignificant" on a 150 point build, but it's pretty cheap, and it makes one health hazard of the desert a complete non-issue for them.

 

Of course, this doesn't address the issue in the OP. The question there doesn't make much sense to me; how can one character be simultaneously Susceptible to and immune to sunlight? Seems to me that the "power" you're looking for would be not taking the complication in the first place, or (as mentioned above) taking it at a reduced value.

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  • 4 weeks later...

In the Cold fire trilogy by CS Friedman, Gerald Tarrant makes the observation that anyone who can see stars at night is still under the sun, but that the sting is more bearable. ..

 

So vampires are never really free from the sun unless they're inside. It made me think about that for a bit.

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  • 3 weeks later...

From a scientific perspective, the only difference between the sun and a star is how far away it is. From a magical perspective, one is THE Sun, and the other isn't, in the same way that sunlight reflected from the Moon is now Moonlight, not Sunlight.

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