Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
Sure, but they can just buy those other connections.
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If the character is actually supposed to be physically moving twice as fast, sure. But absent all those other connections, which are not required, perhaps ATR should simply have a simpler name, reflecting its lesser scope, and avoid the fluff text that does say you're doing things twice as fast, even though for many things you're not (from this Advantage itself).
ATR says that "your rate of time perception is faster than that of a normal human. The first level of this advantage lets you experience time twice as fast as a normal." ATR's fluff is directly intruding on the proposed turf for ETS as the perception and thinking speed advantage, while ATR is only the active, physical part.
"Out of combat, Altered Time Rate allows you the luxury of extensive planning, even in crisis situations." "If you have ETS, your rapid thought processes always allow you to ponder a problem thoroughly and respond in the manner you think best..." Not at all a clean distinction when it comes to thinking, especially since ATR owns the extra Concentrates as the superset of Compartmentalized Mind.
Or even acting, since ETS "improves your mental speed – notably your reaction time – but not how fast you physically move once you react." Yet ETS is the ability that's a gatekeeper to improved defenses like parrying bullets, which certainly involves movement. (Otherwise, you're simply realizing you're going to get hit thanks to your mental speed, while being unable to actually do anything about it, like put something in the way or get out of the way yourself.)
Which only leads back to the debate about how much of Per is thinking and understanding what's happening (it's IQ-based, after all) and how much is just physical reactions of cells experiencing low-level stimuli -- and where subconscious reflexes and drilled reactions fall on that scale from physical to mental. How thoughtful does thought have to be before it becomes the province of ATR and multiple Concentrates per turn, rather than ETS and faster perception, reaction, and "pondering" and "responding" -- especially when the high end anchors in both Advantages?
It's easy if you buy everything, because then you don't have to worry about what you don't have, and can more easily ignore the question of exactly which bucket is the source of some ability. It's not so easy figuring out where the boundaries are when you leave out some of the parts, whether not purchased or somehow deactivated by enemy action or misfortune. It's also relatively easy if you just stick to mechanical effects listed in the text, but then the fluff text isn't very appropriate, and it becomes hard to extrapolate to any unlisted effects. (There, the simplest answer is again to deny that there are any such implied effects -- you didn't buy those connections; in fact they're not even listed anywhere! --, and just treat it as a collection of arbitrary abstract mechanics, while suffering the gnashing of teeth of simulationists and logical extrapolators.)
Perhaps just houserule ETS as a prerequisite for buying ATR. It's a relatively simple way to merge the two, at least, to avoid the issues from missing pieces of the puzzle.