[Psionic Powers] Do inanimate targets resist Malediction with HT or Will?

[munin]

Originally Posted by Gurps Fan

... I'm not looking at "the forest" but I'm looking to an "individual tree" (Pyrokinesis ability), but it's because "this one rule" is the what I'm trying to discuss. ...

Not all source-specific rules will be a beneficial or limiting to all the abilities in a power. It's possible that a source-specific rule might affect only one ability in a power. That doesn't change the fact that it's a source option, not an ability modifier, and thus you look at whether the source options are roughly balanced across the entire power, not just whether they're balanced on a single ability.

Consider the Additional Contact rule (GURPS Psionic Powers, p. 6). This is a beneficial option (it provides a bonus under certain circumstances) that only applies to ranged abilities that might involve a subject of some sort. But it doesn't help with the Seekersense ability, even though it's a ranged ability, because once you are able to make contact with the target there's no point in using the ability. It is neither a limitation on the Seekersense ability that it can't benefit from the Additional Contact rule, nor is it an enhancement on other abilities that they can.

The "HT instead of Will" rule is a limiting source option because it makes it harder to affect inanimate objects with psi. Psi already has more beneficial options than limiting options (as most sources do -- there are at least twice as many possible defined beneficial options as limiting options in GURPS Powers anyway so this happens), so this helps improve the balance of the source. The fact that the rule only applies to certain kind of psi abilities doesn't affect the cost of those abilities.