Self-Affliction

[AlexanderHowl]

I was wondering about using your own affliction on yourself, since it is allowed under the rules. For example, let us assume that I have a character with the following ability: Wild Eruption.

Wild Eruption (+1,020%): Affliction 1 (Advantage, Wild Talent 1 (Reliable 10, +50%; Retention, +25%; Wild Ability, +50%), +500%; Cumulative, +300%; Extended Duration, 1000x, +120%; Malediction 1, +100%) [112]

What is there to prevent me from using Wild Eruption to give myself hundreds of uses of Wild Talent over the course of an hour for the next week?

[Nereidalbel]

Aside from the GM saying "no" to your plan? Well, there's the GM ruling that a critical failure burns out both the power and your Afflicted stats from it. Remember, just because the rules say it's legal, doesn't mean the GM is going to let you do it.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

What is there to prevent me from using Wild Eruption to give myself hundreds of uses of Wild Talent over the course of an hour for the next week?

The GM saying, "No."

While GURPS is pretty good about keeping consistent point costs for similar advantages which provide similar levels of game effectiveness, it isn't perfect. That's where the GM comes in.

Wild Talent gives you the ability to use a particular skill once per game session - it's entirely GM-dependent how long a particular Wild Talent skill lasts. It could be a second for the use of a combat skill or years for a long-term task.

In terms of game mechanics, you've spent 112 points on an advantage which gives you skill level 12 with any skill, regardless of TL. It's equivalent to buying 5.51 levels of ordinary Wild Talent.

Comparatively, for ~100 points, you could get IQ or DX +5, IQ or DX +2 with 4 levels of a 15-point Talent, IQ 14 + 3 levels of Magery, Altered Time Rate, Warp, or Jumper, DR 20, or a truly devastating attack power.

As long as the GM rules that you get at least 5 uses of your power per game session, on average, with the chance of getting a couple of extra uses if the dice favor you, the trait isn't ridiculously unbalanced. On the down side, you need to make an attribute roll to activate it, which sets you up for possible failure or critical failure and also limits your ability to use "spontaneous" skills, like Shield skill to make a Block attempt.

That makes your character very useful for long-term, routine, non-combat tasks like flying an airplane to get from Point A to Point B, or building a suit of armor, but nearly useless in extended combat, social interaction, or any other situation which requires lots of resisted skill rolls.

[evileeyore]

The GM is there to stop anything they feel is abusive.


[EDIT]
That's what I get for initially typing "The GM." and then having to make the post longer.... Pursuivant betting me to the punch.
[/EDIT]

[Extrarius]

If you want to infinitely boost yourself, why not effectively just give yourself character points:
Affliction 1(Advantage: Cosmic Modular Ability 1pt (Incl Physical): +200%, Cumulative +300%, Permanent +300%) [90]

With repeated use, you have a large enough pool to recreate the affliction after 90 seconds. Twenty seconds later, you can use your CMA to create the same affliction but granting 2 points in the pool for each use. Using that ability, it takes 10 seconds to give yourself 20 more points in the pool, so you can then make the ability give 3 points. With 3 points per use, it only takes 7 seconds to get 21 points so you can grant 4 points at a time.

If you just use the pool to create more powerful versions of the affliction, after only 162 seconds (2 min, 42 seconds) (90+20+10+7+5+4+4+3+2+2+2+2+2+2+1+1+2+1+1+1) you can grant 20 points with each use of your ability, and thus each use of your ability can be used to boost itself.

I don't feel like doing the calculations, but before long, you'll be able to use your cosmic modular ability to give yourself Affliction 1(Advantage: Altered Time Rate, Cumulative, Permanent), and then you can essentially boost yourself infinitely without taking any more 'real' time (if your GM allows you to grant yourself altered time rate and then make use of it the same turn). As far as I can tell, you could even use Extra Attack instead of Altered Time Rate since an affliction is an attack, but if you're going for infinite power, you might as well grant yourself the more versatile ability.

[vicky_molokh]

There seems to be a conflation of the question of self-affliction, and the question of loophole builds.

[weby]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

What is there to prevent me from using Wild Eruption to give myself hundreds of uses of Wild Talent over the course of an hour for the next week?

As others have said: The GM.

Any thing with cumulative modifier should be checked by the GM specially carefully for abuse.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I was wondering about using your own affliction on yourself, since it is allowed under the rules. For example, let us assume that I have a character with the following ability: Wild Eruption.

Wild Eruption (+1,020%): Affliction 1 (Advantage, Wild Talent 1 (Reliable 10, +50%; Retention, +25%; Wild Ability, +50%), +500%; Cumulative, +300%; Extended Duration, 1000x, +120%; Malediction 1, +100%) [112]

What is there to prevent me from using Wild Eruption to give myself hundreds of uses of Wild Talent over the course of an hour for the next week?

"Cumulative" is meaningless applied to that mess of traits.

[GodBeastX]

I decided to be different.

Because you bought 16 HT and now the ability never works. Shame on you.

[weby]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I decided to be different.

Because you bought 16 HT and now the ability never works. Shame on you.

Except that the trait has malediction so the target can chose to not resist.