House rule advantage to "give advantages to others"

[Biscuri]

As the title implies, I'm searching for an advantage for an NPC that makes him give his own advantages to another.

I have a player with some unexplained supernatural abilities (it's a fantasy setting, but a human that's impossible to kill is still very strange). He has a 150% points Ally, so, I'm planning to use that Ally to explain why the player has advantages such as Impossible to Kill, Immutable Age, Regeneration, and so on.

Here's the situation:

The Ally in question is a spirit (I'm using the base book meta-trait with some adjustments) that possessed the player after a ritual, they have Affinity (if he is killed, the player is killed permanently), and the NPC can sometimes control the body of the player if the player so desire (or by winning a Will quick contest), having access to his own advantages.

So, do you guys recommend some existing advantage, or have a house rule for that?

[whswhs]

I'm pretty sure there is a discussion of this structure in GURPS Thaumatology.

[Biscuri]

After a quick research, I see that there are rules about imbuing weapons using advantages, but I didn't find any mention to literally giving the advantages themselves to characters.

[Refplace]

The standard ways are Affliction or Useable by Others, though Pyramid has a Possession modifier that also does this.

[evileeyore]

Isn't this in Affliction's wheelhouse?

[Daigoro]

If they're due to an Ally, that's Granted by Familiar. There's a Kromm-post a few years ago with an optional detailed breakdown, but the base cost is -40%, iirc.

ETA: Oops, that's for the PC. The Ally would have Afflictions.

[Biscuri]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

If they're due to an Ally, that's Granted by Familiar. There's a Kromm-post a few years ago with an optional detailed breakdown, but the base cost is -40%, iirc.

ETA: Oops, that's for the PC. The Ally would have Afflictions.

Oh, that solves the problem, found it on 4th edition base, it's indeed -40%. I think the player will be very happy about it, since that's gonna save a lot of CP XD

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Isn't this in Affliction's wheelhouse?

Originally Posted by Refplace

The standard ways are Affliction or Useable by Others, though Pyramid has a Possession modifier that also does this.

I think Affliction is too expensive for this, since we are talking about 100+ points, permanent advantages here. I didn't find that "Useable by Others" modification, it's on base?

Found that Possession modifier on Pyramid #3/83:

New Special Enhancement
Transformative:
You grant certain physical traits to your host while possessing him. Add these traits to your host’s template after a successful possession. Determine which traits you add when you take this enhancement. The price of this enhancement varies; it costs +1% per point of trait bestowed on the host during possession.

That's really usefull for giving physical advantages, but not mental ones. Still, since in my situation the advantages are physical, it works fine.

The problem with that approach is the cost, if I'm interpreting this right, it would cost +250% for Regeneration (10 per second) and Impossible to Kill 3, for example. While if the player buys the same abilites Granted by Familiar, he gets a -40% discount (costing only 150 points instead of 250!) and the Ally needs only the base advantages.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Biscuri

Oh, that solves the problem, found it on 4th edition base, it's indeed -40%. I think the player will be very happy about it, since that's gonna save a lot of CP XD

Note that you get that savings because it is a serious drawback. If the Ally dies, decides to leave you, doesn't make his Frequency of Appearance roll this session, or just moves out of range, you lose the advantage. That probably isn't what you want. If those sorts of problems aren't possible (as they may not be in this case) then you don't get a cost break either.

I think Affliction is too expensive for this, since we are talking about 100+ points, permanent advantages here.

Granting a lot of points to somebody else should be expensive. I don't particularly *like* the mechanics for Afflicting advantages myself, but honestly I usually think they come out too cheap. In this case though I think you should probably be getting a cost break of some sort for usable only on one target at a time.


I do think you may be looking at this wrong though. If both characters are players, and hence you actually need point costs for both, charging both of them for what is essentially the same ability may end be cheating the party as a whole. If the total cost between them comes out to more than the full cost should only one character pay it, there's an issue there. If you just think you need to calculate the point total of the Ally only to figure the cost of the Ally advantage, don't - abilities Granted by Ally are paid for by what you pay for the abilities, they aren't intended to also raise the cost of the Ally. It's actually conceptually a sort of Accessibility limitation (only when the Ally is nearby and happy with me), and if you called it that instead of using the word "Granted", there wouldn't be any particular reason to think the Ally had any traits related to it at all.

[Biscuri]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Note that you get that savings because it is a serious drawback. If the Ally dies, decides to leave you, doesn't make his Frequency of Appearance roll this session, or just moves out of range, you lose the advantage. That probably isn't what you want. If those sorts of problems aren't possible (as they may not be in this case) then you don't get a cost break either.

You have a point. I'm thinking of the ally having some drawbacks on his own advantages, such as Hindrance (requiring a special ritual to come back) on Unkillable/Regeneration.

On lore, the player has been "killed" on a ritual and then brought back to life by that spirit via possession (the ritual was intended to ressurrect that spirit on a subject's corpse, but the subject comes back to life and share his body with the spirit).

They are linked via Possession and the ally has Sympathy [-50%], so if the ally reaches -5xLP by receiving spiritual damage (wich is very common in my scenario) or is exorcised from the player, the player dies. This would act like an Achilles's Hell for the player, justifying the -40% drawback (since the ally can simply "turn off" the ability if he's not happy too, it should cost more than just the Achilles's Hell drawback), while not costing too many additional points to the NPC himself.

Originally Posted by malloyd

I do think you may be looking at this wrong though. If both characters are players, and hence you actually need point costs for both, charging both of them for what is essentially the same ability may end be cheating the party as a whole. If the total cost between them comes out to more than the full cost should only one character pay it, there's an issue there. If you just think you need to calculate the point total of the Ally only to figure the cost of the Ally advantage, don't - abilities Granted by Ally are paid for by what you pay for the abilities, they aren't intended to also raise the cost of the Ally. It's actually conceptually a sort of Accessibility limitation (only when the Ally is nearby and happy with me), and if you called it that instead of using the word "Granted", there wouldn't be any particular reason to think the Ally had any traits related to it at all.

It's an NPC ally and a player. The goal is for the ally having special abilities which he gives to the hosts he possesses, but not only momently, it's until the host "dies" when the spirit himself is incapacitated (-5xLP) and has to be brought back via a new ritual. Thinking of it as an Acessibility would be inconsisted with that lore, imo.

I could achieve the same result with affliction, but it would put all these points on the ally instead of the player, and it would surpass the 150% CP power limit of the ally. Even if I manage to fit the cost, that would be VERY broken, 300+ advantage points for 20 points! So putting drawbacks on the player's advantages seems like a good solution to me.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Biscuri

On lore, the player has been "killed" on a ritual and then brought back to life by that spirit via possession (the ritual was intended to ressurrect that spirit on a subject's corpse, but the subject comes back to life and share his body with the spirit).

I'm not sure I would do that with Ally myself. I might call it a single character with switchable versions of the advantages, a Split Personality that might choose to switch them off, and a special vulnerability (spiritual damage or exorcism can kill you).