Modular Abilities and Limited Use?

[Dorin Thorha]

When you use modular abilities, can you take Limited Use limitations on the advantages you take? It seems unbalanced. For example take my 300/-150 super, Universal Man: He has 50 points in a basic build and a high Innate Attack skill, and 400 points in Cosmic Pool 20 (Physical and Mental). So suppose he faces the mighty mage Kazmoto, and Kazmoto starts charging a Lighting spell. Universal Man concentrates for 1 second and puts 20 points into DR (Ablative, Magic Electricity, any other useful limitations). After the mage fires, burning a huge amount of FP and probably inflicting only minor damage, Univeral Man thinks up an Innate Attack (Toxic, 1 Use Only): 25d ftw! This is effectively making Takes Preparation (1 second) a -80% limitation. Is this the rules? Does it need a explicit GM ban? Or am I missing something?

[Refplace]

It wasnt specifically listed as a ban from anything I read but I consider limited use to affect the whole power/modular ability not just waht you bought.
So if you limit use on MA then it ties up those points for the day.

[Anaraxes]

It's legal to modify either the power that goes into the slot, or the MA as a whole. The two methods give you somewhat different feel in play. (Either "I've burned my power for the day" or "I've burned my power until I can reconfigure".)

See the rules under MA about reconfiguring your "slots". As I recall*, the change on a whim, anything you like at the moment method is Cosmic mod that makes the slot cost 10 times as much as just buying that power would be. Buying a power for the slot as One Use Only (1/5th cost) means you're still paying twice as much for it.

UM's DR is only going to stop half of Dedicated Lightning Mage's attack. UM is flexible, but weak for the point cost.

*IDHMBWM

[Bruno]

If you configure Modular Abilities into something bought with Limited Use or Takes Recharge or another limitation that "knocks your power offline" for a time, the points you assigned into that ability are "offline". You may or may not be able to reconfigure them before they come "online" again (GMs call), but you can't USE them until the next day (for Limited Use) or whatever the Recharge period is.

The alternative is to forbid it on the configured advantage entirely, which is also fair and has the advantage of simpler book-keeping.

[munin]

Would you apply the same rule to inherently limited advantages like Luck? If you allocate Luck and use it, you can't reallocate the points assigned to it until an hour has passed?

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Is there any way, without breaking the system, to create an Enhancement for Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power) that allows a character to "add" points to their Cosmic pool by buying Disadvantages? Not just any Disadvantage, but specifically those that apply constantly rather than having a periodic trigger: ie, One Arm or Blindness, but not Draining.

First I thought +100% for a Cosmic enhancement would be OK, but that seems very under-costed. If all the Disadvantages I thought would be acceptable were added up, attached to the character, and then countered by giving them enough Cosmic Power points to buy off those Disads whenever they like, then I get over 600 modular pts, not including the modular points that let you buy Advantages!

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by munin

Would you apply the same rule to inherently limited advantages like Luck? If you allocate Luck and use it, you can't reallocate the points assigned to it until an hour has passed?

Definitely. If you want your points available sooner, you'll need to allocate more points for higher levels of Luck.

Otherwise there's nothing stopping you from swapping it to Luck, using it, swapping it to Combat reflexes for one turn, and then swapping it back to Luck, using it immediately, etc.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Is there any way, without breaking the system, to create an Enhancement for Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power) that allows a character to "add" points to their Cosmic pool by buying Disadvantages? Not just any Disadvantage, but specifically those that apply constantly rather than having a periodic trigger: ie, One Arm or Blindness, but not Draining.

Apply the disadvantages as Temporary Disadvantages to the advantages you configure the Modular Ability to? (It's a limitation from the Basic Set).

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Is there any way, without breaking the system, to create an Enhancement for Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power) that allows a character to "add" points to their Cosmic pool by buying Disadvantages? Not just any Disadvantage, but specifically those that apply constantly rather than having a periodic trigger: ie, One Arm or Blindness, but not Draining.

It's probably asking for abuse to just have introduce a "Can take disadvantages to increase cosmic power pool." You could take some of your higher levels of Cosmic Power with Temporary Disadvantages.

Another reasonably fair and RAW way to do something along these lines is Alternate Form, and the alternate have a higher level of Cosmic Power and disadvantages.

I suppose you could also just take a bunch of disadvantages, and treat "Not Blind," "Not One Armed," etc. as advantages that you can spend your cosmic pool on. Not quite RAW, but might be interesting to see in play.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I suppose you could also just take a bunch of disadvantages, and treat "Not Blind," "Not One Armed," etc. as advantages that you can spend your cosmic pool on. Not quite RAW, but might be interesting to see in play.

Yeah, I statted it out that way, and for just those disadvantages that fit within Physical Only, Retains Shape, and Mass Conservation (limitations ported over from Morph) I got 560 points of disadvantages! Which is ridiculous, because nobody would give themselves that many Disadvantages all at the same time.

Doing it with Temporary Disadvantages attached to the Advantages would be way cheaper, and is much cleaner than what I was trying to do... it would also limit how much of a point break each Disadvantage gave. Would allowing that even require an enhancement? It seems like it wouldn't.

[Dorin Thorha]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

It's legal to modify either the power that goes into the slot, or the MA as a whole. The two methods give you somewhat different feel in play. (Either "I've burned my power for the day" or "I've burned my power until I can reconfigure".)

See the rules under MA about reconfiguring your "slots". As I recall*, the change on a whim, anything you like at the moment method is Cosmic mod that makes the slot cost 10 times as much as just buying that power would be. Buying a power for the slot as One Use Only (1/5th cost) means you're still paying twice as much for it.

UM's DR is only going to stop half of Dedicated Lightning Mage's attack. UM is flexible, but weak for the point cost.

*IDHMBWM

Yes, Cosmic Pool is 10 points per, and 20 points if you want physical advantages. So Universal Man has 20 points to arrange. But One Use Only brings it up to 100, and then he can add limitations for anything Mage-Boy can't do to him, so he's going to have a LOT of DR. To build a Lighting Spell with enough power to penetrate is going to take almost the 400 point UM spent on his ablilities. With so many points in the Lightning Spell, Magery, and other stuff, Mage-Boy isn't going to have much defenses with which to stop UM's return fire.