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Old 01-02-2010, 03:26 PM   #21
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
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.
No, it's not an Extra Attack. The pilot (or vehicle) shouldn't, in principle, need to be taking an Attack maneuver for the tail gunner to fire.

Due to the physical independence of flight control and turret control, it makes perfect sense for a CM to be able to operate the tail gun even though it isn't a purely mental action.

I don't think there's any way to stat that appropriately, though. The tail gun Innate Attack doesn't have anything differentiating it from, say, a breath-weapon innate attack that couldn't be directed independently.
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Old 01-02-2010, 03:36 PM   #22
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by dalsharin View Post
if you read it it takes a concentrate manuver to charge a spell and the Compartmentalized Mind give you multiple concentrates
AFAIK it is legal to take Compartmentalized Mind with a hefty "Only for casting spells" Limitation. I don't remember what the Limitation value is,though. It could be -60% or something like that, but I'm not sure.
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Old 01-03-2010, 01:20 AM   #23
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
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)?
I would actually argue that those are the same advantage.

Let me give a clearer spell-casting example, since I'm sure you would agree that 1 and 2 could both be charging a Fireball each, creating a double ball, what's the difference between them both then charging a single Fireball?

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
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.
CM controls can be operated by each mind, so one driving, one navigating, one on top guns, one on tail gun, etc., multitasking without penalty. Of course if the controls aren't electronic/telepathic, the limitation comes in the normal physical body limits to doing what the minds are capable of.
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Old 01-03-2010, 10:06 AM   #24
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha View Post
I would actually argue that those are the same advantage.

Let me give a clearer spell-casting example, since I'm sure you would agree that 1 and 2 could both be charging a Fireball each, creating a double ball, what's the difference between them both then charging a single Fireball?
Well one difference is that the two fireballs require two to hit rolls. And DR resists them separately. And you make separate dodge rolls. And the fatigue cost could be different at high skill. And...

Both of them could be composing a separate novel too, so what's the difference between them both composing the same one twice as fast? I think everybody knows working with a collaborator doesn't often halve the time it takes to finish the book.
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Old 01-03-2010, 11:37 AM   #25
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
Well one difference is that the two fireballs require two to hit rolls. And DR resists them separately. And you make separate dodge rolls. And the fatigue cost could be different at high skill. And...

Both of them could be composing a separate novel too, so what's the difference between them both composing the same one twice as fast? I think everybody knows working with a collaborator doesn't often halve the time it takes to finish the book.
That's the thing, it's not a collaborator, it's the same person who has the capability to parallel process, there's no split personality psychosis or anything like that.

If you didn't like my Garrett P.I. reference, think of a 2 CM computer with the ability to parallel process, so on one hand the minds can drive, shoot and navigate all at the same time, on the other hand the three minds can all collaborate in calculating an escape route and produce it 3x faster than they would if only a single mind could work on it.

Spells work like a computer processing a mathematical formula, the more processors on the job, the faster the result.
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Old 01-03-2010, 11:39 AM   #26
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
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.
I agree with this. There should be a separate Advantage for "speeding up" mental processes; it doesn't make sense to use CM for that.
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Old 01-03-2010, 11:53 AM   #27
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Default Re: Very important question

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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.
If it's akin to duplicate mind, it's one where an existing gestalt between the minds is default. They communicate and coordinate unless one of them is under outside mental influence or if the split personality disad comes into play.
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Old 01-03-2010, 04:42 PM   #28
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha View Post
If you didn't like my Garrett P.I. reference, think of a 2 CM computer with the ability to parallel process, so on one hand the minds can drive, shoot and navigate all at the same time, on the other hand the three minds can all collaborate in calculating an escape route and produce it 3x faster than they would if only a single mind could work on it.

Spells work like a computer processing a mathematical formula, the more processors on the job, the faster the result.
Um, computers with parallel processors don't work like that. There's a body of software technology being developed which gets computers with parallel processors to sort-of work like that most of the time, but it's certainly not inherent. If you write a program to compute a large factorial, without deliberately splitting it for multiple cores or using something like Grand Central Dispatch that splits it, and run it on a quad-core CPU, it'll rail one core while the others sit idle.

Now, if you have a bunch of mathematical formulae you need solved, like one for each pixel in an area, parallel processing will handle that just fine. But that's like needing a bunch of 1d fireballs dropped down a murder hole, three mages can do that as well as one mage with CM:2 in anybody's book.

To me, CM is roughly worth ATR(mental). However, CM has the "side" benefit of compartmentalization - mind-control effects only affect one compartment at a time. Compartmentalization also has the same drawback as a multi-core CPU, serial tasks can only benefit from one compartment. Having one or the other I'd say is a wash, but having the best of both worlds should be worth more. Kromm apparently felt it fit to assign the best of both worlds to the base form, which I'd say contradicts the Basic Set, but could be a balance fix. How would you rate a limitation that removes the resistance to mind control, or one that removes the ability to use it like ATR(mental) on serial tasks?

Now, from one perspective, resistance to mind-control is worth nothing because GMs usually avoid using it on PCs anyway… But that doesn't apply to Allies, and it certainly doesn't apply to Enemies. And I'm not sure even 4ed embraces that perspective in the first place; there seems to be a meme that in modern psi campaigns, the PCs should spend points on resistance to mind control, presumably because not holding it back is part of the genre.

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If it's akin to duplicate mind, it's one where an existing gestalt between the minds is default. They communicate and coordinate unless one of them is under outside mental influence or if the split personality disad comes into play.
Yup. (That's also a change from 3ed.)
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Old 01-03-2010, 10:48 PM   #29
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha View Post
Spells work like a computer processing a mathematical formula, the more processors on the job, the faster the result.
That's not true even for all mathematical formulas. Some (probably most) things don't run in parallel well, and judging by how hard you have to work at ceremonial magic, spells sure seem like one of them.

Another way of looking at the issue is to increase the number of compartments to an absurd level and think about what happens. Consider 60 compartments. Each of them obviously could increase the power of a fireball by 1 point in a given turn. Suppose they all do this on the same fireball. Should that fireball go from 1 to 61 points in a turn? By the parallel interpretation, it probably should, even though fireballs *can't* be increased to 61 points. Since the processes can run in parallel they must be "add a point", it can't be the case that say one mind is increasing from 1 to 2 and another from 2 to 3, because that would not speed up the process, the second mind would have to wait for the first to finish, so none of them are attempting the illegal e.g. 3 to 4 step. Of course you can house rule an effect, but why should you have too?
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Old 01-04-2010, 03:17 AM   #30
Ze'Manel Cunha
 
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Default Re: Very important question

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
That's not true even for all mathematical formulas. Some (probably most) things don't run in parallel well, and judging by how hard you have to work at ceremonial magic, spells sure seem like one of them.
Well, Kromm should be back from his vacation soon, so you can always ask him the question again, try to get it in the FAQ either way for future reference.
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