Very important question

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

And you'd be incorrect unless you created a limited form of CM, since the rules allow for CMs to be able to do exactly that.

Here's the FAQ entry if anyone has any doubts:
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/faq/FAQ4-3.html#SS3.2.30

Er, that's not what the FAQ entry says. In fact it says more or less the opposite, that you have two copies of your mental abilities, not that you can run one of them twice as fast.

Kromm's post, referenced downthread, does say this, explicitly calling Compartmentalized Mind a form of ATR (mental actions only), but I think that's a mistake. If you are going to ignore the meaning of the word compartment, you really need to ignore it across the board, for example you could recover twice as fast from a mental attack, but not have one mind affected and the other not, you couldn't have a different split personality in each mind, and you couldn't use one of your mental abilities twice trivially, any more than I can split my concentration effortlessly to do two things at once half as fast. Either that, or there needs to be a cheaper form of CM that only allows doing two things. They're two different advantages.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Er, that's not what the FAQ entry says. In fact it says more or less the opposite, that you have two copies of your mental abilities, not that you can run one of them twice as fast.

When you have TK running in both your minds at the same time you can be using them on the same item too.

Now granted, TK ST adds to the total of BL, not linearly, but you could use one mind to toss something up to the other and relay something higher and up, juggling as an example. Charging a spell is simply mental juggling.

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Charging a spell is simply mental juggling.

I'd disagree there. Notably, you can't have two casters share an 8sec cast time to get the spell cast in 4sec. You could do a ceremonial casting involving only your various compartments, but that's something of a mug's game.

Personally, I've allowed a +0% modifier on Compartmentalized Mind that converts it into a sort of mental ATR; but you lose the resistance to mind control in exchange.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Darekun

I'd disagree there. Notably, you can't have two casters share an 8sec cast time to get the spell cast in 4sec. You could do a ceremonial casting involving only your various compartments, but that's something of a mug's game.

Personally, I've allowed a +0% modifier on Compartmentalized Mind that converts it into a sort of mental ATR; but you lose the resistance to mind control in exchange.

Do you think we should ask Molokh to add an new FAQ for clarification then, since you're clearly wrong?

After all, as quoted in:
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...1&postcount=55

Originally Posted by Kromm

A: Yes. This is wholly mental, and also entirely on your internal clock and not dependent on anybody else's reactions. For this purpose alone, you can think of CM as ATR (Mental actions only). That's why it's very expensive.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Do you think we should ask Molokh to add an new FAQ for clarification then, since you're clearly wrong?

After all, as quoted in:
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...1&postcount=55

I'm not confident regarding this one at all. While it is Kromm's word, it's quite a big patch. I wouldn't officialize it without him saying this is explicitly a change from the wording in Basic. I'm saying this with only half of my Keeper hat on, because I'm biased against the ruling.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Molokh

I'm not confident regarding this one at all. While it is Kromm's word, it's quite a big patch. I wouldn't officialize it without him saying this is explicitly a change from the wording in Basic. I'm saying this with only half of my Keeper hat on, because I'm biased against the ruling.

It's not a patch/change at all, it's simply an explanation/clarification of how CM works.

If CM didn't allow for parallel processing then CM is an even more overpriced advantage. As it is it's so expensive that one can tweak/limit ATR to do some of the same stuff cheaper.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

It's not a patch/change at all, it's simply an explanation/clarification of how CM works.

If CM didn't allow for parallel processing then CM is an even more overpriced advantage. As it is it's so expensive that one can tweak/limit ATR to do some of the same stuff cheaper.

First, CM is more akin to Duplication (Digital, Own Mind) than ATR in the Basic description. Secondly, I don't think one can limit ATR to work like CM, both in terms of points and of available limitations.

I'm not against parallel processing (that's pretty obvious). But I'm very dubious about treating it as vanilla ATR (Concentrate), since many sorts of mental activities do not get a speed boost from the number of cores in the processing unit. Spellcasting is a strange one, since, indeed, two normal mages cannot normally halve the time to cast.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Molokh

First, CM is more akin to Duplication (Digital, Own Mind) than ATR in the Basic description. Secondly, I don't think one can limit ATR to work like CM, both in terms of points and of available limitations.

I'm not against parallel processing (that's pretty obvious). But I'm very dubious about treating it as vanilla ATR (Concentrate), since many sorts of mental activities do not get a speed boost from the number of cores in the processing unit. Spellcasting is a strange one, since, indeed, two normal mages cannot normally halve the time to cast.

It's akin to TK or telepathy usage, if you have a half dozen CM minds working on it, they can work together for greater results, though as mentioned, TK combines by adding BL not TK lv.
Always reminds me of the Glen Cook Garrett P.I. books...

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

It's not a patch/change at all, it's simply an explanation/clarification of how CM works.

I honestly don't see how you can get that out of the description in Basic, which includes lines like "magic...and the like affect them separately" and "or two mental maneuvers (e.g., Concentrate on [two] spells)" (emphasis original)

If CM didn't allow for parallel processing then CM is an even more overpriced advantage. As it is it's so expensive that one can tweak/limit ATR to do some of the same stuff cheaper.

This is a more legitimate pricing issue, but that's surely a different issue. Though I do think Altered Time Rate, Extra Attack, Enhanced Time Sense and Compartmentalized Mind all do somewhat similar things and an Extra Actions advantage with various limitations seems like it ought to cover them all.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

It's akin to TK or telepathy usage, if you have a half dozen CM minds working on it, they can work together for greater results, though as mentioned, TK combines by adding BL not TK lv.
Always reminds me of the Glen Cook Garrett P.I. books...

On the other hand, if I have half a dozen duplicates, or even half a dozen allies, we can combine TK lift, but can't cast spells any faster, so I don't think there is any real analogy to be drawn. Ignoring the rules for a moment consider a pair of advantages:
(1) you have a telepathically linked Ally that happens to share your body.
(2) you can do mental things twice as fast.

I don't think anybody would argue that these are the same advantage. If Compartmentalized Mind is (2) by default, then I suppose we need a rule addition to do (1)?

And CM controls only confuses the issue more. Can my two operators combine to control a vehicle with this twice as fast? Then again the bit about the tail gun, surely ought to be Extra Attack right? There probably are too many separate advantages in this conceptual space.