07-26-2018, 06:48 PM | #1 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Reliable Luck
From the Luck thread:
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Your ability usually works as intended. Perhaps you have extensive experience or natural aptitude with it, or maybe it's just easy to use. Whatever the reason, you get a bonus on all rolls to use it.That's the summary of what the Enhancement is. But what does it mean? That's where the very next part comes in: This works exactly like Talent, and can't affect anything that Talent wouldn't affect. It's cumulative with Talent, where applicable.There seems to be a common misconception that Reliable is an Enhancement counterpart to Unreliable, which makes perfect sense when you consider their names. But GURPS has a history of using misleading names (see Honesty, which would be more accurate if it was called Law-Abiding), and Reliable is another case of this. “Reliable” actually has nothing to do with activation rolls, a point that I'll get to shortly. What Reliable does is spelled out very clearly in the above text: it acts like a Talent where that single Advantage is concerned. What it can do is defined by what a Talent can do when applied to the Advantage in question: it can do everything the Talent can do (with one exception, which I'll get to shortly), and can't do anything that the Talent can't do. As for the exception, it's mentioned in the third and final part of the write-up: Reliable is handy for advantages that routinely suffer large penalties (e.g., the -8 to use Precognition actively). It isn't available for ranged attacks — use Accurate (p.B102) for those. Reliable costs +5% per +1 bonus, up to a maximum of +10.So the one thing that Reliable can't do that a Talent can is to add to ranged attacks. Otherwise, it's a one-trait Talent. Note that when I say “Talent”, I mean “Power Talent”. Power-Ups 3: Talents makes a point to distinguish between the two, effectively warning against conflating them: The only deliberate omission [in this supplement] is power Talents (see p. B255 and GURPS Powers). While these are related to the traits defined on pp.B89–91 in the sense that both grant bonuses to success rolls (whence the similarity in name), they aren't identical. Power Talents affect the use of advantages, not skills.So, when does a Talent apply? That's described in Powers on page 158, under “The Role of Talent”. I won't quote the whole section because it takes up the better part of a page; but here are some highlights: Talent with a power acts as a bonus to all success rolls against attributes, secondary characteristics, or skills to use the power's abilities. This include rolls to activate, attack with, control, or defend with these abilities. This doesn't include damage rolls, reaction rolls …, appearance rolls for Associated NPCs bought as abilities, rolls required by limitations, or rolls made by the ability's target.: • Reality-altering abilities: Each use of an ability that produces a direct change in reality gets a bonus equal to Talent on the first die roll it influences. Examples: Luck, Serendipity, and Super Luck.: See the Powering Up entries in Chapter 2 for many specific suggestions. Extra Effort (p.160), Defending with Powers (p.167), Talent as Resistance (p.169), and Stunts (p.170) describe other situations where Talent gives a bonus.And on p.59, in the Powering Up entry for Luck that the above references, we have this: Talent gives a bonus to any die roll influence by Luck — but only if that use of Luck is declared in advance.And there you have it: that's what Talent (and, by extension, Reliable) does for Luck. You may choose to house-rule it to work differently; but be aware that it would be a house rule. And that goes beyond what I've been talking about: I've been focusing on getting to the truth of what the rules actually say, not what people think they say or want them to say. If you think that the actual rule is broken, that's a separate issue — and on that issue, I'd probably agree with you, if only because Reliable is usually so cheap. (At a minimum, I'd treat it as a Perk equivalent of Talent; and even that might be too cheap.) Last edited by dataweaver; 07-26-2018 at 07:15 PM. |
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07-26-2018, 07:45 PM | #2 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Reliable Luck
For completeness sake, let me also address this:
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Talent doesn't affect these bonuses at all. A “Wisdom of Horus” power might offer IQ+10 as one of its abilities, and give +10 to IQ and IQ-based skills when it works, but the Wisdom of Horus Talent would give no further bonus.The section that that's from also says that you can only include something like an IQ bonus in a power of it has some sort of limitation that genuinely limits its utility, such as Costs Fatigue, Limited Use, Trigger, or being subject to countermeasures, which the above arguably doesn't have as written. But even if it did, Reliable wouldn't add to the IQ bonus. |
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07-27-2018, 01:11 AM | #3 | |||||
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Reliable Luck
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Note, prior to Powers, Reliable appears exactly once and does exactly one thing: It makes Warp more Reliable. With Powers we now get crazy builds like Innate Attack (Melee C-1, -20%; Reliable +10, +50%). That's why a number of us reject the interpretation from Powers. Quote:
#2 up there can mean having a useless Power Talent. Quote:
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Talent with a power acts as a bonus to all success rolls against attributes, secondary characteristics, or skills to use the power’s abilities. Quote:
What this sidebar is calling attention to is that by doing this (making an Attribute Bonus into a Power) one often get's Attributes cheaper and that stacking Talent on there as well would be broken. Also, it doesn't have to be built as a 'Power'. IQ 10 (Reliable +10, +50%) [100] sure sounds kosher* to me... (note the lack of a "+" in front of the 10) * As kosher as Visualization (Reduced Time, +140%; Reliable +10, +50%; Selectivity, +10%) [30]. Last edited by evileeyore; 07-27-2018 at 01:15 AM. |
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07-27-2018, 03:13 AM | #4 | ||||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Reliable Luck
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This works exactly like, and is cumulative with, a power Talent (see Powers for details).Note that this supplement specifically calls out enhancements in general as a potential source of abuse that the GM should watch out for; and Reliable is marked as “may cause significant problems all on its own”. So yeah, there's an official acknowledgement that it can be problematic — but at the same time, it doubles down on what it is. Saying that it works differently than it does is just misleading; saying that it should work differently than it does is another matter, though I'd still Artie that it's okay to use it as written, given proper GM oversight. Quote:
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Again, fair enough; it appears we had a case of crossed wires. Quote:
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This is a much better example of how this Enhancement can be abused, as it doesn't have the aforementioned “Attributes as Abilities” box covering for it. |
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07-27-2018, 03:25 AM | #5 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Reliable Luck
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07-27-2018, 03:31 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Reliable Luck
Still, all it does is reinforce the point that enhancements can be abused, and that the GM should keep an eye out for abuse. The alternative would be to say that all Enhancements rated at three or four eyes should be scrapped or rewritten — which is a valid route to go; but scrapping them removed possibly valid uses, and rewriting them takes us into house-rule territory.
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07-27-2018, 07:25 AM | #7 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Reliable Luck
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07-27-2018, 08:48 AM | #8 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Reliable Luck
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The published rules for Reliable are very clear, with no room for ambiguity: Reliable works like a power Talent does, except it doesn't apply to ranged attacks. So if Talent applies to Damage Resistance by adding to Power Block attempts, so does Reliable; if Talent gives a bonus to die roll influence by Luck but only if that use of Luck is declared in advance, then so does Reliable. If you choose to do it differently in your game, that's your right; but when you say that the above is objectively wrong, you're mistaken. |
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07-27-2018, 10:20 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Reliable Luck
If Reliable can be applied to Damage Resistance at all. And if it can that lends itself to some very abusive builds if say, you only only have one level of Damage Resistance.
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07-27-2018, 10:55 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Reliable Luck
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The closest thing to an abuse that I can think of would be to take as many levels of Reliable as you can without causing the price to increase: DR 1 (Reliable +2, +10%) would still cost 5 points (5.5 points, rounded down), but your Power Block would succeed on a 4 + HT/2 roll instead of a 3 + HT/2 roll. A free +1! Yay! And even if there is a way to do an abusive “Reliable DR” build, the GM still has the prerogative to veto the abusive build, while still allowing non-abusive builds to stand. “It can lead to abusive builds” is not sufficient grounds to say that a reading of the rules is faulty; otherwise, every Enhancement that Power-Ups 4 gives multiple eyeballs should be considered faulty. Finally: “if Reliable can apply to DR at all.” Remember that Powers carries a default assumption that all of its abilities are in some way or another switchable: Reliable DR probably represents something like a force field or active control of an element. If it represents something like redundant organs or natural armor, you probably don't get even the Talent bonus; and if you don't get Talent, then you don't get Reliable. You always need to take into account the concept that a build is intended to represent; and if that concept is nonsensical, or the build doesn't match the concept, the GM can and should veto it. So yeah; “if Reliable can apply to DR at all” — the catch being that sometimes, it can. Last edited by dataweaver; 07-27-2018 at 11:11 AM. |
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