Corrupting Wounds

Corrupting Wounds are an aspect of the Gaining Corruption explained on GURPS Horror 147. It is a property of "some creatures – demons, wraiths, vampires, and alien horrors especially"
"Every point of injury received from such a monstrous opponent adds a point of Corruption" is an outcome some might want to try emulating somehow.
==Using Affliction Modifiers==
===Direct Corruption===
First consider using corruption as a Disadvantage (enhancement) from Affliction (advantage).
10 points of corruption is a 1 point disadvantage, and afflicting a 1 point disadvantage is a +1% enhancement for Affliction.
For it to be stackable this would take +400% Cumulative.
Cumulative could at most be reduced to +80% by applying -80% of Limited Enhancements to it.
===Gradual Corruption===
consider first the relationship between FP, ER and Corruption.
A mage with magic ER can spend that instead of FP.
A mage can also take on Corruption instead of FP.
For that reason "Costs Fatigue -5%" could functionally (at character's whim) function like "Costs Corruption".
Abilities which can normally be fueled by ER in addition to FP are -5% if they can only be fueled by ER.
This doubles the value to -10%.
This -10% means an ability can't be used at ALL if one actually lacks an ER (making it worthless).
Allowing Corruption to stand in restores it's worth.
==Followup Affliction of Corrupting Advantage==
This won't work because costs paid by using abilities (like FP) are paid by the afflicter.
==Followup Affliction of Corrupting Limitation==
That could work if you can specify a limitation to be added to an existing advantage but would still require them to "use" it.
If it was non-transient (switchable) a temporary disadvantage which caused corruption could also be used.
Draining represents HP/FP loss over time.
One could posit that if FP loss could cause death, corruption happens instead.
That's also an alternate take on magic failing if paying the cost is not possible.
==Followup Affliction of Disadvantage==
Afflictions always give HT rolls to resist so to make guaranteed corruption from wounds requires making failure very likely.
Wounding means you got past DR so that at leas twill not add to the HT roll to resist.
==Side Effects==
The allure here is that this has a direct effect matching Penetrating Damage.
PD always results in a loss of at least 1 HP. Whether or not it's larger depends on Damage Type, sometimes Hit Location, and any Injury Tolerance or Vulnerability which could act upon it. That determines the final injury.
This is not the same as INJURY though (as Syptoms below is) so it would need to be altered to match that somehow.
It is also RESISTIBLE so floating Margin-Based from Affliction might be a possibility.
+50% and then +3% and then +400% (you don't have to triple Cumulative) and then +300% Permanent would make it +753% to permanently afflict cumulative corruption equal to MoS.
There's no actual way to penalize this HT roll so it's very easy to ignore! You can at best shift that to a different attribute roll. You can't convert it into a quick contest! That's only if you add 'Resistable' to a 'Requires IQ roll' type thing. 
==Symptoms==
Symptoms uses base (+401%) for a 2/3 threshold (1/3 lost to attacks
*a 1/2 threshold (1/2 lost to attacks) would be double: +802%
**a 1/3 threshold (2/3 lost to attacks) would be triple: +1402%
Unlike Symptoms however, there is no indication that healing the lost HP would actually remove the corruption.
*Symptoms ignores how durations normally operate, replacing "MoS minutes" defaults of Affliction with "until healed"
**certain abilities like Mind Control or Possession have a "post duration" which takes effect
***it might be reasonable to allow "Persistant" on Symptoms to represent "extra time after healing before it goes away" and then buy tha tup to permanent
Cumulative is also not explicitly allowed under Symptoms, so this really limits emulating this rule unless that is allowed.
Rather than gaining 10 points of corruption all at once upon reaching the threshold, a GM might potentially assign different amounts. For example, if you gain 10 points after losing 5 HP, you could perhaps gain 2 corruption per lost HP. 10 points after 50% lost is essentially 2 points after 10% is lost, or 1 point after 5% is lost.
In it's basic form, against 10 HP creatures, this is already stronger than the rule! A better solve could be a "half point" rule.
If it is a +2% enhancement to afflict 10 points of corruption on someone at 1/2 HP, then it seems reasonable it should be a +1% enhancement to afflict 5 points of corruption on someone at 1/2 HP, for example. This would (for an average 10 HP human) mean 1 point of corruption gained per 1 dmg taken, or 1 corruption per 10% of HP lost.
Using the 1% baseline, if you need to lose 2/3 HP to gain 10 corruption, it would make sense to gain 5 corruption after 1/3 HP, or 1 corruption per 1/15 HP lost.
The differences are:
*corruption naturally goes away once the damage is healed
*there is a maximum of corruption that can be gained
The CW rule in Horror seems to assume some kind of application of "Cumulative", and where the strength of disadvantage-as-symptom (number of corruption points) scales up and down with the HP of the target, and where the disadvantage does not go away even when healed.
Using "Corrupting Wounds", low HP creatures can't take much damage so they can't accrue a lot of corruption at once without dying. Conversely, 1 damage is 50% of the HP of a 2 HP creature, so a single point could afflict 10 corruption to a small thing.
Category:Rules