Bootstrapping Gods

[AlexanderHowl]

So, I was considered something in an earlier thread. Let us say that you have a character with the ability of Affliction 1 (Accessibility, Only during consensual sex, -30%; Advantage, Modular Ability 1 (Cosmic Power, Mental and Social, +50%), +150%; Advantage, Modular Ability 1 (Cosmic Power; Physical, +50%), +150%; Aura, +80%; Blood Agent, -40%; Cosmic, +50%; Cumulative, +400%; Delay, Variable, +20%; Extended Duration, 1000x, +120%; Melee, C, -30%; No Signature, +20%; Selectivity, +10%) [100]. What would occur if the character used their ability during unprotected consensual sex?

I think that during an unprotected consensual sexual encounter with another entity, the character could give their lover 1 level of Modular Ability 1 (Cosmic Power, Mental and Social, +50%) and 1 level of Modular Ability 1 (Cosmic Power; Physical, +50%) an average of every other second. If an average sexual encounter for the character lasted thirty minutes, their lover would end up with an average of Modular Ability 900 (Cosmic Power,Mental and Social, +50%) and Modular Ability 900 (Cosmic Power; Physical, +50%) for a minimum of 15 hours. In effect, their lovers would gain 27,000 CP worth of advantages from a half hour of sex (and the character could delay the final allocation of Modular Abilities until a specified time and their lover would not realize what had happened until the chosen abilities appear when the delay ended). We will assume that the character cannot use the ability on themselves to avoid infinite recursions.

Am I reading too much into this or would this technically be a legal (if never allowed) interpretation of the ability? Would anyone ever allow such a thing in their campaigns? If you did, what would you do with such a character?

[naloth]

Not that it really matters much to the overall effect you're going for, but I'd be more stringent about the usage with that combination and value of limitations. You're taking -100% for something that doesn't seem as limited as the "acid blood" example in Powers that only qualifies for -90% of limitations.

Cumulative is really the issue, though, as it can break the point system with beneficial traits you're giving out.

EDIT: on a side note, I would suggest that player discuss with the other players and GM what they want to introduce into the game. Games are a bit of a pact with everyone. If the GM allows it you can be be sure that the newly 27k point PCs will have proportional threats thrown at them, or threats that their points won't help with. GMs aren't on a fixed point budget; don't try to beat them in an arms race.

[AlexanderHowl]

I do not know if the PCs would actually benefit from it, not unless they had sex with the character. Come to think of it, since the character chooses which abilities manifest through the Modular Abilities, the resulting increase in effective value would be 1,800 CP rather than 27,000 CP (since they would manifest 1,800 CP worth of abilities). I think that the more problematic aspect would be that a character could temporarily buff an Ally or Dependent by effectively 1,800 CP with just a half hour of work.

Now, you could potentially have a character give 27,000 CP worth of abilities to their lovers with a similar, though less flexible, build. If the ability instead gave DR 1 (Absorption, +100%; Force Field, +20%; Hardened 4, +80%) [15] and Innate Attack (Tight-Beam Burning Attack; Armor Piercing (10), +200%; Melee, 1-2, Destructive Parry, Dual Weapon, +0%) [15] you would have a character who could temporarily make their lovers c-scale threats, as their lovers would have DR 900 and Innate Attack 900d on average. How would you deal with a supervillian who used sex to transform his lovers in c-scale combat monsters?

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Now, you could potentially have a character give 27,000 CP worth of abilities to their lovers with a similar, though less flexible, build. If the ability instead gave DR 1 (Absorption, +100%; Force Field, +20%; Hardened 4, +80%) [15] and Innate Attack (Tight-Beam Burning Attack; Armor Piercing (10), +200%; Melee, 1-2, Destructive Parry, Dual Weapon, +0%) [15] you would have a character who could temporarily make their lovers c-scale threats, as their lovers would have DR 900 and Innate Attack 900d on average. How would you deal with a supervillian who used sex to transform his lovers in c-scale combat monsters?

You could do that if you swapped Social for Physical, but otherwise you the resulting powers would likely be of the psi/summoning variety.

For the latter part, it doesn't really matter how super villians make minions or how many points you make the minions. GMs aren't on a budget, and they can use whatever. The general goal is to challenge the PCs and make it fun.

Points are an attempt to a) keep things balanced between PCs and b) give you a benchmark to compare things. GMs handle the plot and story, which runs on the currency of enjoyment.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by naloth

For the latter part, it doesn't really matter how super villians make minions or how many points you make the minions. GMs aren't on a budget, and they can use whatever. The general goal is to challenge the PCs and make it fun.

I see that said a lot, but it's not how I do things. Any NPC who's intended to be a major or recurring adversary gets a full point build. That compels me to think through their capabilities in details, and their motives, which is an invaluable resource in roleplaying them. The goal here isn't to limit them—I decide the point budget after I've written up their major traits—but to concretize them. It's like painting a figure in detail rather than having them be a vague, threatening shadow (even if I don't immediately reveal all the detail).

[whswhs]

Incidentally, this sounds to me a lot like Infectious Attack or Dominance.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I see that said a lot, but it's not how I do things. Any NPC who's intended to be a major or recurring adversary gets a full point build. That compels me to think through their capabilities in details, and their motives, which is an invaluable resource in roleplaying them. The goal here isn't to limit them—I decide the point budget after I've written up their major traits—but to concretize them. It's like painting a figure in detail rather than having them be a vague, threatening shadow (even if I don't immediately reveal all the detail).

I've done it both ways. Starting with a concept and evolving it or pointing out an adversary so I had a concrete idea what I wanted him to be able to do. The statement was more about budgets, though, which I believe we handle roughly the same way. I enjoy building out stuff to see how it would work and to formalize what I'll be rolling against for consistency. I've also learned that it forces me to flesh them out better with stuff that won't come up immediately. I don't do it because it has to fix in a certain point budget.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Incidentally, this sounds to me a lot like Infectious Attack or Dominance.

Not quite, as either results in the transmission of a template (a very cheap transmission of a template). There is no reason why a character cannot do both though, like modern fictional interpretations of vampires.

[kreios]

I don't really get the focus on transmitting the ability by sexual contact - it seems to be liable to cause tensions between players when done in a real game, and isn't really efficient munchkin-wise in a thought experiment.

What is both effective and efficient, though, is the following:

Bootstrapping (Affliction) [84]
- Grants Advantage (Modular Ability; Cosmic; 1 level [10]): +100%
- Malediction (-1/yard): +100%
- Cumulative: +400%
- Extended Duration: True Permanent: +300%
- Contact Agent: -30%
- Melee Attack (C): -30%

Since you can afflict yourself, you'll be able to inflict a Modular Ability onto yourself every second. Since you'll choose not to resist, it only fails if you critically fail your will roll, which is seldom. Instead, you get about 840 points after fifteen minutes. Why is 840 points important? Because that lets you add another level of Bootstrapping from your modular ability, doubling the rate at which you accumulate more modular abilities [1].

All in all, that should grant you a few billion points after an eight-hour day.

Now, is this rules-legal? It arguably might be:
- Combining Malediction with Contact Agent and Melee Attack is iffy. Leaving this off, on the other hand, brings point cost to 90 and only slightly slows down accumulation.
- From the link above, "you can't change the details on how [the afflicted advantage is] being used midway". Since changing what it does is arguably the main point about Modular Abilities, it might not apply here.
- Both the Basic Set and Powers explicitly warn GMs that they might want to disallow Permanent on afflictions that grant advantages exactly because of this scenario. That's not a rule, however [2].

Would I (or anyone sane) allow it in game? Of course not.


[1] If you're point-restricted, drop the Malediction (which roughly doubles to triples the time to double your point accumulation), drop the extended duration down to reversible permanence (+150%; you'll add the True Permanent ability later). That reduces points to 59.
[2] Note that extrapolating the table on Extended Duration, +300% might also give you ~50 years of duration, which would be acceptable too.

[AlexanderHowl]

No GM would allow such a power to exist in a Cumulative version and allow a character to afflict themselves. In general, I think that it would be safe to say that Cumulative afflictions should be unable to target the user and any GM that allow it will have to deal with the consequences. Anyway, using Affliction on yourself is not in the GURPS FAQ, so it is not a canon interpretation of the ability and just a house rule.

The primary reason for consensual sexual activity was to limit the ability in some reasonable narrative fashion. If a character can only target an individual during consensual sex, they cannot be tortured into using it for the enemy (or rationalizing raping another character because it gives their victim abilities). It also makes the ability somewhat altruistic, as the character can only bootstrap other people.

If you increased the cost of the power by 50 CP to 150 CP, you could add additional capabilities, though passive abilities are probably best (active abilities trigger immediately, or when any delay is triggered, and can only be used once). For example, Chameleon 2 (Dynamic, +40%) [14], DR 2 (Absorption, +100%; Force Field, +20%; Hardended 4, +80%) [30], Lifting ST 2 [6], Mind Shield 1 [4], Silence 2 (Dynamic, +40%) [14], Striking ST 2 [10], and Temperature Tolerance 2 [2] would give useful abilities that make the resulting 72,000 CP entity a formidable opponent.