[weby]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think that has to be wrong. Yes, Afflict usually confers undesirable traits; but it can just as well confer desirable ones, as discussed under Beneficial Afflictions (GURPS Powers, p. 40). That basically gives you the ability to confer the power in question on yourself. But nothing in the discussion of Affliction in either the Basic Set or Powers even hints at this.

It does not specially say one way or other, but several supplements talk about that, places like thaumatology sorcerya and psionic powers including the exoteleport description itself.

Originally Posted by whswhs

(a) I'm asking for views on what is assumed in the RAW.

RAW seems to say pretty clearly that you need the time or get the penalty regardless of how or what you use.

But it is not clear on this case on the two possibilities:
1)no preparation possible, roll at the penalty
2)prepare before the affliction in used

In this specific case I would go with number 2 as it uses a single roll for both parts of the process. In other cases without that feature and thus with two separate rolls I might be inclined to see that it is number 1 as normally you cannot concentrate on one thing do a second thing and get the time bonus for the first thing.

But what of those two options applies is not spelled out by RAW.

But PK has clearly ruled that in Psionic powers at least you can concentrate as per option 1. From exoteleport description "The preparation modifier is based on how long you concentrate first."

(b) That said, applying the penalty makes Affliction: Warp either useless or insanely expensive. For the former, per the RAW, you need 30 seconds of concentration to have no penalty for time spent; that's really slow in combat. For the latter, buying the penalty off with Reliable +10 is a +50% enhancement, which adds 50 points to the cost of Warp, which is +500% to Advantage: Warp, which makes the Affliction cost 50 extra points.

Note that the Psionic powers version uses the psionic powes time methods and thus has the Reliable 10, so that one second is total +0 base. (-5 blind, -5 for 1 second +10 reliable with time over 1 second giving bonus).

As for expensive: Yes affliction warp is expensive if you want to use it in combat, after all you are talking about a 100 point advantage with a built in additional use time limitation. A base combat warp should not be thought of as 100 points, that is the non combat warp(30 seconds or more). A basic combat warp would be the reliable 5 version where you can do the thing in one second at base skill. Blind only effectively reduces both by 25 points as you mostly want the 5 more reliable to balance the -5 from blind.

Overall I am no longer sure what you are trying to get done, is it understand the current ability or to build some non psionic powers ability that is somewhat similar without the reliable and blind or what?