Quote:
Originally Posted by Donny Brook
Cosmic Modular Ability 2 (20) (Physical +50%, Reduced time -1 +20%, Pool cannot be divided -10%, Max Duration 30 mins -25%, Takes Recharge 1hr -30%, Only skills you don't have -20%, Net -15%) [17]
ALTERNATIVE ABILITY:
Cosmic Modular Ability 4 (40) (Mental +0, Reduced time -1 +20% Pool cannot be divided -10%, Max Duration 30m -25%, Takes Recharge 1hr -30%, Only skills I don't have -20%, Net -65%) [14]/5=[3]
TOTAL: [20]
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Physical is unnecessary. Modular Ability works for skills, techniques, and mental Advantages - you only need to add Physical if you want to be able to use it to grant yourself a Physical Advantage (Winged Flight, increased ST, etc). So, you're actually just looking at something like:
Cosmic Modular Ability (Reduced Time +20%; Single Slot -10%; Max Duration 30 minutes -25%; Takes Recharge 1 hour -30%; Unlearned Skills Only -20%) [3.5/level].
Of course, I don't think the above build is legal - Takes Recharge means an otherwise-continuous-use ability only lasts for 1 minute, you certainly can't extend that to 30 minutes with a Limitation! Of course, this is more a case of Takes Recharge being a Horrible Bad Deal for continuous-use abilities - as you note here, a 1 hour recharge is -30%, yet Maximum Duration, 1 minute limits it to the same amount of time of use and requires a 5 minute cooldown (not an option with Takes Recharge), but is worth a whopping -65%! There probably
is room for a Limitation that can be taken in conjunction with Maximum Duration to extend its cooldown, but I don't think it would be worth quite as much... perhaps -10% for a 30-minute cooldown, -20% for a one-hour cooldown? With that adjustment, I'd be inclined to allow this (I'm largely fine with Unlearned Skills Only being -20% - Skills Only is -10%, and this is certainly a smaller subset of that, but I'd be inclined to replace Single Slot -10% with Only [1] in Each Skill -10%, as otherwise you have the oddity that this will improve a skill you don't know above the level of skills you do know if you have 2 or more levels of it*). Note, however, that I'd interpret any skills you gained via the Modular Abilities as being unavailable while the cooldown is in effect (I think technically MA being on a cooldown just means you can't rearrange your points, but that makes it into a bit of a point crock IMO).
*Consider a character who has Axe/Mace at DX-1[1], is relying on his Default of DX-5 for Broadsword, and has 4 levels of the above Modular Ability. With Single Slot, combined with Unlearned Skills Only, the character cannot use the Modular Ability to enhance his Axe/Mace skill, but he
can use it (in fact,
has to use it, if he wants to boost Broadsword at all) to boost his Broadsword to DX+1 [4]. To properly match Wild Talent (to a degree, at least), I'd be inclined to replace both of those - Single Slot, and Unlearned Skills Only - with a single Limitation, Cannot Raise Skill Above Attribute+0. Honestly, that's probably only worth -10%, but -20% wouldn't be egregious. Note you'd need 8 levels of it to be able to match Wild Talent when it comes to Very Hard skills, which would cost [28]. However, you could manage up to Hard skills with only 4 levels (which costs only [14]), the Modular Ability is much more versatile (with my tweaks, it can be applied to multiple easier skills at once, so long as none of them go above Attribute+0, and it can be swapped around for the 30 minutes it's available with each use), and it can be used much more frequently (in addition to lasting 30 minutes at a time instead of lasting for a single roll, you only have to wait an hour between uses, rather than having to wait until the next session of the game). So, yeah, Wild Talent is a bad deal.