What is this "assimilation ability” in GURPS?

[Hide]

A creature feeds on intelligent creatures. It boosts its IQ score permanently using an advantage:

The IQ-6 slime feeds on many IQ-7 chimps.
Eventually the slime is IQ-7.

Then the IQ-7 slime feeds on many IQ-8 wolves.
Eventually the slime is IQ-8.

And so on.

[Anthony]

It's a perk 'can spend xp on abilities possessed by creatures consumed'.

[malloyd]

"Uses XP earned killing things of higher IQ to buy up it's IQ". I guess technically its a quirk.

More generally, any trait that produces a change over time, especially a slow or lasting change, is not going to work well in any point buy system. Any trait for which a substantial fraction of it's effect is that you will be better or worse off *in the future* but not right now, will fit in poorly - because you can't assign it a fair price without knowing or assuming something about how much future there is and what it is going to be like.

Edit: I suppose if I had to have this on a character sheet as an ability, I'd price it as the highest IQ you could ever achieve this way, with the points above whatever you have now having a limitation (must kill x number of IQ n or higher things sometime before you use this). How much that limitation is worth is tricky. If it's hard to do and generally illegal I might go as high as -40%.

[Bruno]

It's not a quirk. "Fixed IQ" is a zero point feature ("Taboo Trait") which means you can't ever upgrade your IQ.

"Fixed IQ unless it eats a billion things with that trait" is better than "can't ever", so it definitely can't be a Quirk, which is worse than a feature. Likely it needs to eat less than "a billion", which makes it even better than "can't ever"

If it can only upgrade something like IQ by eating victims with that trait, it's just a particularly mild Taboo Trait.

If it can upgrade traits normally, and gets access to special traits it normally wouldn't be able to buy if it eats appropriate creatures, that's a perk. They still need to spend CP to get the traits.

If you want things permanently, you spend CP on them.

If you temporarily get the IQ boost, there's some rules in GURPS Zombies for getting it. There's also rules in there for getting an IQ boost for being near others of your own kind.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Edit: I suppose if I had to have this on a character sheet as an ability, I'd price it as the highest IQ you could ever achieve this way, with the points above whatever you have now having a limitation (must kill x number of IQ n or higher things sometime before you use this). How much that limitation is worth is tricky. If it's hard to do and generally illegal I might go as high as -40%.

If you want to go that route, I'd say do a Potential Advantage (like Heir), which lets you make a down-payment to ensure you are definitely allowed to take the trait later when conditions are correct.

[Kromm]

There are two sides to this:

• Needing to kill and eat victims to improve.
• Being able to gain abilities that might otherwise be off limits.

In an anything-goes fantasy campaign where a great many things are quick and dirty, I'd call this a zero-cost feature. You could only take it at character creation – possibly only as part of a racial template – and you couldn't change it later.

People without this feature would be able to spend points freely . . . but only on stuff that's normally available for earned points (e.g., ordinary attribute levels and skills, plus traits on your template, in Dungeon Fantasy).

People with this feature would be able to spend points only on things their prey has and they don't (higher attributes and skills would count) . . . but could potentially pick up anything (with exotic and superhuman gifts, especially advantages, being the most interesting case).

In a campaign where everybody wants to break down everything for extreme rigor, or perhaps to allow this outside of a racial template, tricky thinking would be needed to determine what the parts are worth.

The bit about only being able to improve stuff that victims have and you don't comes closest to Cannot Learn [-30]. The fact that you could, in fact, "learn" nearly anything (i.e., DX, IQ, mental advantages, skills, techniques – and those superhuman abilities – as well as ST, HT, and physical advantages) with the right prey would amount to a Mitigator. To price this Mitigator, I'd look to the -50% level of Needs Sample for Morph. Thus: Cannot Learn (Mitigator, Eating suitable target, -50%) [-15].

The bit about being able to acquire just about anything with earned points would be more than a perk. A perk is something like Racial Gifts, which lets you add things from a finite and very narrow list. As that perk's wording says, "a specific set of exotic and/or supernatural advantages," followed by "The GM might require one perk per advantage for powerful, rare abilities." To set an upper bound, I'd look to the detailed information on power Talents in GURPS Powers. Heroes who possess Talent for a power can normally add abilities but may be subject to trigger conditions or training requirements; Talent for a power so broad as to encompass nearly anything costs 15 points/level. I think treating this as Cosmic Talent 1 [15] would be good enough. Think of it as Unusual Background [15] if you prefer.

So this would be a -15 + 15 = 0 situation.

The GM could arrive at a nonzero cost if either of the above assumptions seems suspect. Maybe the GM would like the advantageous side to be comparable to Reawakened [10], which also lets a character add new abilities with minimal explanation; that would make package cost -5 points. Perhaps the GM would prefer it to be comparable to Dominance [20], which lets a character acquire endless Allies by injuring or killing victims; that would make package cost 5 points. Conceivably the GM might feel Cannot Learn should have +50% for being unable to improve even the usual stuff (ST, HT, etc.), and be more like Cannot Learn (Mitigator, -50%; Not even ST, HT, and physical traits, +50%) [-30], which would make the package cost -20 to -10 points instead of -5 to 5 points.

I feel that -5 to 5 points is the fairest range for this, and would likely just go with 0 points to avoid hassles.

[Anaraxes]

Since no one's mentioned it yet: there is no fair price for an ability that lets you absorb additional character points (in whatever form). Whatever price you choose for the ability, the character only has to use it enough times for it to become a point crock. Hence all the earlier suggestions about having an excuse to spend CP that you earn some other way on some set of traits.

You might get away with structuring a Highlander campaign this way, but you're really just awarding big chunks of xp on killing the other Gatherers (much like a important-plot-point award system). It tends to work poorly with, say, supers that can permanently absorb others' abilities, a la Rogue -- unless you hand out CP to all the other PCs as well to keep up, in which case you have a game of rapidly escalating power. (Maybe what you want, but perhaps not.) The other place the problem seems to crop up a lot is in mind swapping / permanent possession. That's just begging for a character that's a brain-in-a-jar, planning to take over the first gorgeous hunk they happen across. Bingo, instant massive character point upgrade.

So, it's safest and easiest to just have such things not cost points, and require some other sort of CP before the ability can really have an effect.

[Plane]

How about...

Beneficial Affliction (Advantage: IQ +1 +200%; Cumulative +400%; Melee Attack C -30%; Contact Agent -20%; Requires Grapple -10%; Self Only -30%; Trigger: Ate something with higher IQ -10%) [60]

The last 2 limitations numbers are just guesses. One Person Only is normally worth -80% but it feels like it shouldn't be worth that full amount for "self" since self is ALWAYS available (and is usually most useful) while other people might be absent.

If you have to eat multiple somethings (10 chimps instead of 1 chimp) it should probably be worth more points as a trigger

[Hide]

Thanks everybody for your comments!

I believe this wraps it up:

Originally Posted by Kromm

There are two sides to this:

• Needing to kill and eat victims to improve
• Being able to gain abilities that might otherwise be off limits.

(...)
So this would be a -15 + 15 = 0 situation. (...) I feel that -5 to 5 points is the fairest range for this, and would likely just go with 0 points to avoid hassles.

Originally Posted by Bruno

(...) They still need to spend CP to get the traits. If you want things permanently, you spend CP on them (...)

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Since no one's mentioned it yet: there is no fair price for an ability that lets you absorb additional character points (in whatever form). Whatever price you choose for the ability, the character only has to use it enough times for it to become a point crock. Hence all the earlier suggestions about having an excuse to spend CP that you earn some other way on some set of traits. (...)

That's very clear, I really appreciate your ideas!

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Bruno

It's not a quirk. "Fixed IQ" is a zero point feature ("Taboo Trait") which means you can't ever upgrade your IQ.

"Fixed IQ unless it eats a billion things with that trait" is better than "can't ever", so it definitely can't be a Quirk, which is worse than a feature. Likely it needs to eat less than "a billion", which makes it even better than "can't ever"

Quirks don't all need to be equal in a theoretical value sense.

Also, maybe the slime doesn't have Fixed IQ of any kind.