Mitigator with side effects

[Anders]

John suffers from Paranoia [-10], but is on a monthly injection of anti-psychotic drugs (-70%). However, the medicine makes him drowsy, causing him to suffer from Laziness [-10]. How does this modify the value of the mitigator? I'm thinking that the modification should be twice the value of the disadvantage to the mitigator modifier. So twice times [-10] is -20, modifying the -70% to -50%.

Edit: In this case the two traits are of equal value, but what do I do when they're not of the same value?

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Anders

John suffers from Paranoia [-10], but is on a monthly injection of anti-psychotic drugs (-70%). However, the medicine makes him drowsy, causing him to suffer from Laziness [-10]. How does this modify the value of the mitigator? I'm thinking that the modification should be twice the value of the disadvantage to the mitigator modifier. So twice times [-10] is -20, modifying the -70% to -50%.

Either way, you have a -10 point disadvantage, so the most elegant solution should be around -10 points.

Possibly just Paranoia (-10) and Personality Change (Lazy instead of Paranod when on medication) (-1).

[Anders]

But what do I do when they're not of the same value. Ideally, the resulting disadvantage should be worth less than the original one.

[Culture20]

Ideally, but I could see someone willing to put up with some serious side effects to avoid Sadism:CR6 or another very socially/legally unacceptable disad.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Ideally, but I could see someone willing to put up with some serious side effects to avoid Sadism:CR6 or another very socially/legally unacceptable disad.

True. Bruce Banner in many versions would put up with a lot to get rid of his Berserker/Split Personality/Alternate Form combination, for example.

[Anders]

So what do you think of my proposed cost?

[Varyon]

Instead of putting a Mitigator on the Disadvantage, give the character Negated Disadvantage, with a Limitation to represent it being dependent on the Mitigator. Then go ahead and add Temporary Disadvantage to the Negated Disadvantage. So, Paranoia [-10], Negated Paranoia (Mitigator -30%; Temporary Disadvantage, Laziness -10%) [6]. To clean it up, just rename Temporary Disadvantage to Alternate Disadvantage and reverse the sign - Paranoia (Alternate Disadvantage +10%; Mitigator -70%) [-4]. Note Alternate Disadvantage has to be combined with Mitigator or similar.

Note this is a pretty poor point return considering how much of a disadvantage it is for your Mitigator to just replace one problem with another (rather than eliminating the Disadvantage outright, at least so long as the Mitigator is in play). That's more a function of Temporary Disadvantage being worth so little when it's put onto a low-price trait. As I've suggested before, using an Alternate Abilities-like build for Temporary Disadvantage may give fairer results. In this case, the character has Laziness [-10], Paranoia [-10], Negated Laziness [10], and Negated Paranoia (Mitigator -30%; AA x1/5) [1.4]. That last rounds up to [2], for a net [-8]. This approach is somewhat problematic, however, as it suggests that someone who can freely switch between Laziness and Paranoia would also be at a net [-8].

[PTTG]

I would always assume that the more expensive disadvantage is the one being mitigated by the other, even if narratively the other way around. For example, if you have Delusions ("The trees are always listening, but never do anything")[-1], and you take a drug which prevents that but causes Chronic Depression [-15], you have the option of mitigating the second by suffering the first.

[namada]

Put both of the Disadvantages on the character - Paranoia modified by Mitigator, and Laziness modified by Only While Medicated.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Anders

So what do you think of my proposed cost?

I think it's problematic. On the medication you have a -10 point disadvantage, off the medication you have a -10 point disadvantage. Your solution ends up as as only -5 points.

The canonical way to handle something similar to this is Split Personality. With Split Personality, you have two sets of disadvantages of equal cost and you get full value for them (plus the value of Split Personality).

Originally Posted by Anders

But what do I do when they're not of the same value. Ideally, the resulting disadvantage should be worth less than the original one.

As someone else said, you could take both disadvantages with a mitigator.

If you set the value of the mitigator at -50% for both, then the cost of having one of 2 different 10 point disadvantages is -10, and the total cost is always the mean of the two disadvantages. So Paranoia with a Laziness Side Effect is -10, but Paranoia with a Shyness side effect is -8, and Paranoia with Chronic Depression is -13.

This seems mostly fair. You could justify a Quirk for the reaction penalty from people who notice the change in your personality and a Perk for, essentially, having some control over which disadvantage you have at any given time. But the easiest thing would be for these two costs to cancel out.