Afflictions: Advantage and uncontrollable/unconscious only

[oneofmanynameless]

In basic set it says that afflictions that grant advantages go off immediately, or last for a duration based on the affliction. Are these advantages all inherently uncontrollable + unconscious only? (with the intelligence that controls the advantage being the caster of the affliction?)

For instance, if you have an affliction that grants a fireball innate attack, it would go off immediately. But would it be controlled by them or by the caster?

Are there ever circumstances where it could be under the subjects control instead of the casters?

I'm just wondering the exact mechanics of this. I've needed to make a number of abilities that are essentially afflictions that grant modular abilities and knowing what limitations everything needs is pretty important to me.

[Imion]

The 'caster' of the Affliction controls the bestowed advantage, which is not the same as Unconscious Only or Uncontrollable.

In your example of a fireball attack the attack would originate spatialy from the target of the Affliction, but the controller would still be the caster of the Affliction, ie he would specify the target of the fireball and make other applicable decisions.

Are there ever circumstances where it could be under the subjects control instead of the casters?

Why not? Off the top of my head, I'd call it Cosmic, +50%. YMMV.

[Imion]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

If a -40% thing is built into the cost then instead of multiplying cost by 3/5 you divide by 3/5 to get there. That is the same as multiplying by 5 and dividing result by 3.

So say for example Jumper is 100 points. Uncontrollable Uconcious Only Jumper is 60.

60 times 5 is 300, div 3 is 100, back where we started.

Adding a Uncontr/Unconsc advantage with affliction is +10% per point. So it would cost +50/3 per point to buy those off. That's 16.6 repeated. Could round that up to 17 or even 20 to make it easier.

Erm...

Pardon me, but I do not even know what you're talking about.

How is that related to oneofmanynameless's question?

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Are there ever circumstances where it could be under the subjects control instead of the casters?

Yes, While the default Assumption of Affliction they are under the control of the granter. however when built they can be defined as under the subject control [like Tinkerbell's pixie dust grants the Affliction Flight under the subject's control]. However this is a 0% modifier at the time of defining of the Affliction.

This is normally also done Influential affections where you role HT+level to acactiave rather than HT-level to resist.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Imion

The 'caster' of the Affliction controls the bestowed advantage, which is not the same as Unconscious Only or Uncontrollable.

Actually, that varies. When you build an ability with Affliction (Advantage), you choose whether the "caster" controls the advantage, or the person afflicted. Once you set that, it's permanent. This allows you to build both negative effects that happen to use advantages (things like using Alternate Form to inflict transformations, or Jumper to teleport people), as well as more beneficial things like giving people advantages they can use themselves.

You don't actually need an enhancement to use Affliction to just give another character an advantage they can control - it's about the same, power-wise, to have the ability to give your enemies negative effects as to give your allies advantages they can use.

To answer the original question, how long an advantage lasts when Afflicted is sort of the same - without modifiers affecting the duration, an Affliction always lasts for (target's margin of failure) minutes. However, the number of times they are affected by the advantage, or can use it, depends on a few factors.

First, bear in mind that all of these options are "set" when the affliction is built, and can't be changed later.
If the advantage is under the caster's control, and it has discrete uses, then it either triggers once, and then stays "on", if it has ongoing effects, for the remainder of the Affliction duration, or it can be triggered by the caster. The benefit of the first setting is that it takes effect as soon as the Affliction goes off, with no need for the caster to worry about it after that, while the drawback is that the caster can't end it early by switching it off. The benefit of the second setting is that the caster can control things more finely, but the drawback is that they'll have to take at least a second of concentration to trigger it each time.

If the advantage is under the control of the target, then it's activated just like it would be if they had taken the advantage normally - if it takes concentration, they must concentrate, and so forth.

So, for your example of an Affliction of a fireball Innate Attack, there would be three options. If the caster is in control, but doesn't keep control, the Innate Attack could keep going off, starting on the turn the target was afflicted, but the caster couldn't target the fireballs. The victim couldn't either, of course, but they could move to point themselves away from any friendly targets, and just let fireballs fly out randomly where they couldn't do damage. If the caster retained control, then they would have to concentrate for a second every time they wanted the target to fling a fireball, but they could pick the target. And, if the target was in control, then they could simply fire a fireball when they wanted to, at whoever they wanted, and would use their own skill to fire it, and would retain the ability to do so until the duration of the Affliction ran out.

[Imion]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

(...)
To answer the original question, how long an advantage lasts when Afflicted is sort of the same - without modifiers affecting the duration, an Affliction always lasts for (target's margin of failure) minutes.

Not necessarily. But see below.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

So, for your example of an Affliction of a fireball Innate Attack, there would be three options. If the caster is in control, but doesn't keep control, the Innate Attack could keep going off, starting on the turn the target was afflicted, but the caster couldn't target the fireballs. The victim couldn't either, of course, but they could move to point themselves away from any friendly targets, and just let fireballs fly out randomly where they couldn't do damage. If the caster retained control, then they would have to concentrate for a second every time they wanted the target to fling a fireball, but they could pick the target. And, if the target was in control, then they could simply fire a fireball when they wanted to, at whoever they wanted, and would use their own skill to fire it, and would retain the ability to do so until the duration of the Affliction ran out.

Originally Posted by B36

Advantages with instantaneous effects affect the target once, as soon as he is hit (...) Advantages that can be switched on and off (such as Insubstantiality) are automatically “on” for one minute per point by which the victim fails his HT roll

Since an Innate Attack is quite transient, I read that as you got one shot per 'being afflicted' and that it must be taken at once.

[Imion]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

If a -40% thing is built into the cost then instead of multiplying cost by 3/5 you divide by 3/5 to get there. That is the same as multiplying by 5 and dividing result by 3.

So say for example Jumper is 100 points. Uncontrollable Uconcious Only Jumper is 60.

60 times 5 is 300, div 3 is 100, back where we started.

Adding a Uncontr/Unconsc advantage with affliction is +10% per point. So it would cost +50/3 per point to buy those off. That's 16.6 repeated. Could round that up to 17 or even 20 to make it easier.

OK, after sleeping on it, I think I know what you wanted to say.

Unfortunately you seem to have got the cost of Modular Abilities completely wrong.

Modular Abilities cost a number of Charatcer points for the 'slots' you can use simultaneously, and a number of points for the 'value' of each slot.

Eg:

If you take the Computer Brain option of Modular Abilities and want to be able to run one 'program' with up to 5 points worth of abilities it would cost you 1 × [6] + 5 × [4] = 26 points.

If you take Chip Slots with three slots, each valued at 2 points of abilities, you woud have to pay 3 × [5] + 3 × ( 2 × [3] ) = 33 points.

So if you wanted to be able to use Jumper [100] in a Modular Ability you would have to pay the cost for the 'slot' and the cost that is needed to put Jumper into said slot. If we take Chip Slots (though one might be hard pressed to justify how Jumper would fit the theme) the costs would be [5] + 100 × [3]. 305 points in total. A far more fitting option would be to take Cosmic Power and cough up the 1,000 points this would cost.

Taking your example of Jumper (Unconscious Only, -20%; Uncontrollable, -10%*). The cost would be 70 points.
If we put this into Modular Abilities (Chip Slots)**, the cost of this would be [5] + 70 × [3]. 215 points in total.


*: Note that Uncontrollable explicitly gives -10% for Jumper and other abilities that cannot inflict damage. See B116.

**: Ignoring the fact that an Uncotrollable and Unconscious Only ability would be of rather questionable use, given it's limitations.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Imion

Unfortunately you seem to have got the cost of Modular Abilities completely wrong.

Modular Abilities cost a number of Charatcer points for the 'slots' you can use simultaneously, and a number of points for the 'value' of each slot.

Well That one of the two types. Yes there is the Slotted one, but there Are also the POOL type Like Cosmic, and Divine Inspiration which don't have it point broken down into slots

[Imion]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Well That one of the two types. Yes there is the Slotted one, but there Are also the POOL type Like Cosmic, and Divine Inspiration which don't have it point broken down into slots

You're quite right. I might have insinuated that but didn't mention it explicitly.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Imion

Since an Innate Attack is quite transient, I read that as you got one shot per 'being afflicted' and that it must be taken at once.

Whoops, you're right.

Of course, an Innate Attack with an ongoing effect (a burning attack with Aura and Always On, for example) could be Afflicted as a curse of sorts, and would stay on for the duration. But that's turning the Innate Attack into a non-transient ability anyway.