Psionic Powers: Question about a build

[weby]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think that has to be wrong. Yes, Afflict usually confers undesirable traits; but it can just as well confer desirable ones, as discussed under Beneficial Afflictions (GURPS Powers, p. 40). That basically gives you the ability to confer the power in question on yourself. But nothing in the discussion of Affliction in either the Basic Set or Powers even hints at this.

It does not specially say one way or other, but several supplements talk about that, places like thaumatology sorcerya and psionic powers including the exoteleport description itself.

Originally Posted by whswhs

(a) I'm asking for views on what is assumed in the RAW.

RAW seems to say pretty clearly that you need the time or get the penalty regardless of how or what you use.

But it is not clear on this case on the two possibilities:
1)no preparation possible, roll at the penalty
2)prepare before the affliction in used

In this specific case I would go with number 2 as it uses a single roll for both parts of the process. In other cases without that feature and thus with two separate rolls I might be inclined to see that it is number 1 as normally you cannot concentrate on one thing do a second thing and get the time bonus for the first thing.

But what of those two options applies is not spelled out by RAW.

But PK has clearly ruled that in Psionic powers at least you can concentrate as per option 1. From exoteleport description "The preparation modifier is based on how long you concentrate first."

(b) That said, applying the penalty makes Affliction: Warp either useless or insanely expensive. For the former, per the RAW, you need 30 seconds of concentration to have no penalty for time spent; that's really slow in combat. For the latter, buying the penalty off with Reliable +10 is a +50% enhancement, which adds 50 points to the cost of Warp, which is +500% to Advantage: Warp, which makes the Affliction cost 50 extra points.

Note that the Psionic powers version uses the psionic powes time methods and thus has the Reliable 10, so that one second is total +0 base. (-5 blind, -5 for 1 second +10 reliable with time over 1 second giving bonus).

As for expensive: Yes affliction warp is expensive if you want to use it in combat, after all you are talking about a 100 point advantage with a built in additional use time limitation. A base combat warp should not be thought of as 100 points, that is the non combat warp(30 seconds or more). A basic combat warp would be the reliable 5 version where you can do the thing in one second at base skill. Blind only effectively reduces both by 25 points as you mostly want the 5 more reliable to balance the -5 from blind.

Overall I am no longer sure what you are trying to get done, is it understand the current ability or to build some non psionic powers ability that is somewhat similar without the reliable and blind or what?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by weby

Overall I am no longer sure what you are trying to get done, is it understand the current ability or to build some non psionic powers ability that is somewhat similar without the reliable and blind or what?

I'm trying to understand the current ability, as a means to building a different ability. But it's not my goal to change the RaW. How things are doing in PsP seems like a possible guide to how the RaW actually work.

Your citation of Psionic Powers as supporting the view that you take time penalties when you afflict isn't helpful; I find the Exoteleport build in PsP hard to make sense of, which is why I'm asking all these questions. Your citation of other books is less so, as I don't know what pages you're looking at, and searching through an entire chapter is time consuming. Can you give specific references?

[weby]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm trying to understand the current ability, as a means to building a different ability. But it's not my goal to change the RaW. How things are doing in PsP seems like a possible guide to how the RaW actually work.

Your citation of Psionic Powers as supporting the view that you take time penalties when you afflict isn't helpful; I find the Exoteleport build in PsP hard to make sense of, which is why I'm asking all these questions. Your citation of other books is less so, as I don't know what pages you're looking at, and searching through an entire chapter is time consuming. Can you give specific references?

The time penalties have nothing to do with different books. It is based on the basic set. The warp description says that you can use from instant to 8 hours to use it. Thus when affliction says it affect instantly you are left with the two options I specified(instant at penalty or concentrate before). If you want to ignore a part of the rules for an ability you need to add a specific cosmic or another modifier that specifically says it overrides some part. Neither of those two are present in the described advantage so instant either means the normal penalty for instant or that you can prepare before. PK has apparently decided on the prepare first option.

The reference to thaumatology sorcery is about afflicting yourself. That part is under buff spells on page 9, the first paragraph. In Psionic powers the afflict yourself is used also for example in p48 disease shield last paragraph.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by weby

The time penalties have nothing to do with different books. It is based on the basic set. The warp description says that you can use from instant to 8 hours to use it. Thus when affliction says it affect instantly you are left with the two options I specified(instant at penalty or concentrate before).

I don't think those are the only options. It's also perfectly possible to read it as "the instantaneous effect specified under Affliction overrides the variable time specified for Warp, and thus sets aside all the bonuses and penalties for taking different times."

Note that it says, "The victim immediately experiences the effects of a specific physical or mental advantage" (p. B36). The *effect* of Warp is that you teleport from point A to point B. Taking 30 seconds to concentrate is not part of the effect; it's part of the process through which you obtain the effect.

(a) You can't be required to concentrate after afflicting the Subject; the effect is *immediate.*

(b) You aren't required to concentrate before afflicting the Subject; concentration for prolonged times isn't part of the mechanics of Affliction, and there's no provision for concentrating on Affliction to affect the workings of the thing you afflict. (PK has arguably altered that by changing the two rolls, Will to afflict and IQ to teleport, into a single roll; but that's an explicit modification, and "the exception establishes the rule for the things not excepted"—the very fact that he provided that features testifies that things work differently if you don't have the feature.)

(c) So you afflict the Subject, the affliction takes place immediately, and the subject warps instantaneously, with no preparation time. That would normally be a -10 IQ modifier. But that means that even a max-IQ human would only have a 50/50 chance of teleporting a Subject 10 yards (20-10-0 = 10).

(d) To avoid this, you need to change the preparation time to "none" and have no penalty.

(e) One way to do this is to disregard the preparation time penalties and bonuses, saying they don't apply because Affliction overrides the standard rule for Warp.

(f) Another way is to say that to take Warp as an effect of Affliction, you have to buy it with Reliable 10, to cancel the IQ modifier for preparation time.

(g) When you do that, though, you have no Reliable left over to cancel the -5 for Blind.

[Anaraxes]

Re-reading Blind Only, I can see interpreting it strictly mechanically. It doesn't require you _not_ to be able to see the target. It's just that being able to directly perceive the destination doesn't make things any easier for you. Mechanically, "Blind Only" just moves the default state for Warp rolls by -5 success and doubles FP (2 FP instead of 1, that is).

Imagine if the Limitation were named "Difficult Warps (-50%)". The word "blind" and the bit about coordinates can be seen as fluff text. Perhaps the Limitation is there just to make the Exoteleport ability harder to use, and also cheaper.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I have always assumed that ranged attacks on subjects you can't see worked the same as melee attacks on subjects you can't see.

The thought that you'd likely use the usual -10 penalty for "can't see" did occur to me. And given that the rules don't actually say you have to be able to sense a ranged target, perhaps that's even intended.

But it started to bug me in the WSOD / "realism" sense. Vision is a dominant sense for humans, but it's not the only one. You can sense someone nearby from sound, air pressure, heat, etc, even without going full Daredevil Scanning Sense or Blind Fighting ninja mastery. So it's at least somewhat plausible that you'd know the general location of a melee target near you, at least generally enough for a desperation attack, and most melee attacks cover a large space relative to the size of a hex and the target. That desperate swing might connect even if the target isn't exactly where you thought. But I can't easily imagine somehow knowing the location of a sniper 300 yards away with enough precision to return fire even at -10, and a tiny angular error makes for a huge miss distance at range.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Re-reading Blind Only, I can see interpreting it strictly mechanically. It doesn't require you _not_ to be able to see the target. It's just that being able to directly perceive the destination doesn't make things any easier for you. Mechanically, "Blind Only" just moves the default state for Warp rolls by -5 success and doubles FP (2 FP instead of 1, that is).

Imagine if the Limitation were named "Difficult Warps (-50%)". The word "blind" and the bit about coordinates can be seen as fluff text. Perhaps the Limitation is there just to make the Exoteleport ability harder to use, and also cheaper..

"Target" is ambiguous here; I think you are using it to mean Destination, but it could mean Subject.

I don't have a problem with your comments about the Destination. I'm assuming that (a) you usually will be teleporting the Subject to a Destination you can see, since you are defining it in relation to the Subject and you can see the Subject but that (b) you still define the Destination as "so many yards from the Subject in such and such direction," not as "above the middle of that swimming pool over there." Blind Only isn't about where you can see the Destination; it's about how you identify the Destination, by coordinates rather than visually.