Confused by the FAQ on Afflictions

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Brandy

I don't believe so. Old forum threads indicate that being able to end an affliction early would be an enhancement (+10% seems to be the hive wisdom), and basic says explicitly that the subject of an afflicted advantage isn't under control of the advantage.

But when the subject isn’t in control (not always the case), the afflictor is. If the subject and afflictor are the same person...

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Culture20

But when the subject isn’t in control (not always the case), the afflictor is. If the subject and afflictor are the same person...

I don't think that's correct. I think that without other modifications if I afflict you with insubstantiability neither of us can end it before the duration expires.

If characters or Powers says otherwise I haven't seen it.

[Donny Brook]

But if I Afflict you with Warp, I decide where you go. And if I Afflict you with Flying, I control your flight. Unless I have a [0] modifier on Afflict that puts the target in control.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

But if I Afflict you with Warp, I decide where you go. And if I Afflict you with Flying, I control your flight. Unless I have a [0] modifier on Afflict that puts the target in control.

Some GM arbitration is required, but affliction isn't something you have to keep concentrating on. It's a fire and then you're free to do something else letting the affect you "cursed" (or blessed) the target with takes its course without your direct supervision.

Warp gives one use when you afflict it. Flight shouldn't allow you to move the afflicted, but it would give you the ability to give them and turn on the ability to fly. The "under control" bit isn't active control, but who gets to choose if it power is activated.

[Donny Brook]

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...82&postcount=7

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=52139

Is this consistent?

[Plane]

Maybe the idea of 'the Afflicted does not control the Warp destination' somehow overrides the 'the Afflictor controls the Warp destination' when the Afflictor and Afflicted are the same person?

I would say that any time an Afflictor controls an Afflicted advantage, perhaps they should have to use standard maneuvers to do so? So if you did Affliction: Warp on a target, they should not immediately Warp unless you want to roll at IQ-10 for a Warp done with 0 preparation. Otherwise, you would need to take the standard number of Ready maneuvers to lower the penalty...

So the drawback of doing Affliction on yourself and then Readying that Affliction's Warp is that you have to take the time to do an Attack maneuver first (to apply the affliction) before taking the Ready maneuvers, whereas if you possess the Warp advantage inherently, you can begin taking those Ready maneuvers right away and don't need to waste a turn making an Attack on yourself.

It also means, if you are attacked and need to Warp as a dodge, you're probably out of luck?

[Culture20]

I see no inconsistency in those two posts.

Originally Posted by Plane

Maybe the idea of 'the Afflicted does not control the Warp destination' somehow overrides the 'the Afflictor controls the Warp destination' when the Afflictor and Afflicted are the same person?

exo-teleport, aka afflicted warp, is the poster child for afflicted advantages. In Supers, exo teleport explicitly can be afflicted on oneself as long as the weight capacity fits

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...82&postcount=7

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=52139

Is this consistent?

Reasonably so? Rev offered alternatives while the thread discusses other beneficial afflictions.

A better example would be shape shifting, ala the "I turn you into a toad" affliction. As a GM I would not require you to spend 10 seconds concentrating on the target (or force the target to take specific maneuvers) while the affliction kicks in. Instead, it would be cast and what follows happens non-interactively. What is going to happen should be (where there are options like a destination of warp) specified upon first use.

Where you are gifting a power, you can specify "I am giving this advantage to the user as if they had it for the duration" as an effect.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by naloth

A better example would be shape shifting, ala the "I turn you into a toad" affliction. As a GM I would not require you to spend 10 seconds concentrating on the target (or force the target to take specific maneuvers) while the affliction kicks in.

I would. The general precedent is that if an afflicted advantage is under the afflictor's control, they have to pay any costs of the advantage, which to my mind certainly includes the time needed for shapeshifting. If you want to be able to transform someone instantly, rather than taking 10 seconds, you should pay for Reduced Time on the Alternate Form. Doing otherwise opens it up to abuses, like using Afflicted Alternate Form to transform your allies faster and cheaper than if they bought the Alternate Form themselves.

[Bruno]

I don't let someone use Afflict: Flight as Telekinesis. I'm a harsh enforcer of the ABC rule from Powers, because my fragile sanity dictates I draw the line somewhere.
A = Accurate
It is accurate to use Telekinesis to pick someone up and wave them around.

B = Basic
It is basic to use Telekinesis, rather than Afflliction and its mess of modifiers and the hairball of questions about control, and jankyness of durations. Telekinesis already exists, in the core rulebook no less.

C = Cheap
Affliction: Flight can be cheaper for man sized targets.

However, Accurate is the highest priority test, and Basic is second-highest, and Afflict: Flight as a ghetto telekinesis fails the Accuracy and Basicness tests, so the fact that it passes the Cheap test is irrelevant.

Some advantages are "steady state" when turned on, but advantages like Flight enable you to do a new thing while it's active (ie not disabled by a limitation, antipower, whatever). For those powers, I strictly require Affliction to be interpreted as "blessing" the subject with the advantage - they may not be able to "turn it off", but they can control the abilities it gives them.

Steady state advantages (Damage Resistance without Absorbtion for example) are under nobodys control once afflicted. They're just on. These advantages "do something" to the target.

For adjustable advantages that don't enable you to do new things while you are using it, I allow you to set the parameters when you Afflict it, but after that you have no interaction with it. If you have Afflict: Growth 6 (along with the requisite ST with the Growth limitation), I don't mind you choosing whether you want to apply Growth 1 or Growth 5 at the time of affliction - but you don't get to keep monkeying with their size afterwards. If you do want to, recast it.

Afflict is One-And-Done. Warp epitomizes and demonstrates the one-and-done nature of Afflict: there is no useful duration on Warp, but if you have control over the Warp, you only get to teleport the person once. You don't get to keep teleporting them around willy-nilly for the entire duration of your Affliction.

It may be a special (and somewhat extreme) case - but because you can't keep warping people around, I'm absolutely fine with layering on Fixed Duration and a bunch of Reduced Duration to take the duration of Afflict down to 1s (although I won't let you concentrate to reduce the Warp penalty any longer than the duration). I know this isn't done on the official examples of Exoteleport, but this isn't even intruding into Houserules as in new-rules territory, more Houserules as in "there's a billion ways to do it in GURPS, I like this one".

Of course if you're just "Blessing" them with the ability to Warp under their own control, reducing the duration of Afflict is probably not useful to you.

Because Afflict is One-And-Done, I require Afflict: Alternate Form to always have enough Reduced Time on that Alternate Form to bring it down to 1 second. [1] Same thing with Shapeshifting, which is also an adjustable advantage and follows my ruling on those - you can pick whatever shape you want them to be in when you Afflict Shapeshifting, but you can't change it afterwards without reapplying the Affliction. However, the duration of the Affliction is the duration they're transformed, so buying it down to 1 second is probably not useful.

Alternate Form/Shapeshifting is a bit of a wacky advantage in that it's sort of ambiguously an active power and a passive power and bleh. Because of that, I'm never surprised that it requires clarifications or special rulings.

I consider all of the above to be somewhat obvious interpretations, but of course YMMV.

[1] In actuality in my games I've increased the base cost of Alternate Form and Shapeshifting and reduced the change time to 1 second. Without my house rule, requiring the enhancement is what I'd do and is equivalent.