inflicting advantages with negative limitations

[starslayer]

I've made a couple builds that grant advantages via affliction with significant limitations, sometimes those limitations are powerful enough that they should constitute an attack in there own right.

Example:
Affliction DR 10, Temporary disadvantage ATR-1 [15]

Now this can make thematic sense, someone suddenly grows thick armour, but moves slower, however it does not make sense that you are afflicting ATR-1 for free AND getting a discount on the DR as a result.

This gets even more onerous when you tie it with costs HP/FP and worst of all, costs EXP;

Example:
Affliction Snatcher /w creation, and permanent, costs FP 10, Costs HP 15, costs EXP [34]

This can make thematic sense for some sort of 'convert your very soul' type ability, but the problem is you are getting a VERY powerful ability AND an attack AND costing the target (who is presumably a foe) a permanent EXP point.

I've considered a few ways to make this 'fair. One of them was 'you can't force someone to use afflicted advantages with limitations, another 'with harmful limitations, but I think I've hit upon a 'correct' way to do it.


An affliction which has limitations beyond limiting the power itself must be linked to an affliction or attack which causes those limitations

Examples from above:
Affliction DR 10, Temporary disadvantage ATR-1 [15]
must be linked with
Affliction ATR-1 [20]

Affliction Snatcher /w creation, and permanent, costs FP 10, Costs HP 15, costs EXP [34]
Must be linked with
Affliction Any quirk, permanent, cumulative (IE gives 1 point in disadvantage)
and
An attack inflicting FP 10, HP 15 with mods to make it have the same penetration as the affliction (which is most likely going to involve cosmic ignores DR, or Malediction)

What are everyone's thoughts about this?

[sir_pudding]

I don't even understand what mist of this is, ATR is Altered Time Rate? Which is an advantage, not a disadvantage, and therefore you can't have it as a Temporary Disadvantage. "Costs EXP" is "Costs Character Points"?

Temporary Disadvantage doesn't usually make much sense for Afflicted Advantages and Costs Character Points probably never does.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I don't even understand what mist of this is, ATR is Altered Time Rate? Which is an advantage, not a disadvantage, and therefore you can't have it as a Temporary Disadvantage. "Costs EXP" is "Costs Character Points"?

Temporary Disadvantage doesn't usually make much sense for Afflicted Advantages and Costs Character Points probably never does.

Atr can go both ways, as a disadvantage it gives you one action every two turns.

Yes exp==cp

I strongly don't agree that temporary disadvantage can't be associated with afflictions, potentially useful alternative forms basically fall into this category (ie, turn target into a tiger, or a bear, you are giving them the advantages of increased St, DX, hp, dr, but the disadvantages of no fine manipulators, reduced IQ, etc)

[Anaraxes]

I think the "ATR-1" is meant to be read as "Altered Time Rate minus one", which is to say reduced by one level, which is really called "Decreased Time Rate".

("Altered" doesn't cover all alterations, just increases, so it could be called "Increased Time Rate" just to pair better with "Decreased".)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Atr can go both ways, as a disadvantage it gives you one action every two turns.

The disadvantage you are thinking of has a different name.

I strongly don't agree that temporary disadvantage can't be associated with afflictions, potentially useful alternative forms basically fall into this category (ie, turn target into a tiger, or a bear, you are giving them the advantages of increased St, DX, hp, dr, but the disadvantages of no fine manipulators, reduced IQ, etc)

Firstly, I said that usually doesn't make sense; in most cases it would be better to just have the Affliction also separately inflict the disadvantage. Secondly Alternate Form isn't the Temporary Disadvantage limitation.

[Gef]

I understand your dilemma. Basic rule applies, if a limitation isn't limiting, then it gives no discount.

An affliction may be defined as beneficial, which would mean placing the advantage under the control of the target. For instance, "bestow power of teleportation" is different from "teleport enemy away" even though the builds look identical: Afflict Warp. For a beneficial affliction, temporary disads on the bestowed advantages make sense.

For a baneful affliction, temporary disads are the same as afflicting the disads, which should cost more, not less. However, one Affliction trait can afflict advantages and disads both, no need for a separate Affliction to be linked to the first; take Selective if you can afflict the disads without the advantage.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I don't see an issue considering a) Temporary Disadvantage cannot exceed 80% of the value of the original disadvantage; b) It's almost always going to be cheaper just to afflict the disadvantage anyways because advantages cost +10% per point while disadvantages cost +1% per point; and c) the GM has veto power. Period.

Using your example:

Affliction (Advantage, Modified DR, +100%) [20]. Notes: Modified DR is Damage Resistance 10 (Temporary Disadvantage, Decreased Time Rate, -80%) [10]

Affliction (Disadvantage, Decreased Time Rate, +100%) [20].


What you have here is the most extreme version of where you can go with this. Since the costs are the same it's probably balanced against one another - one is helpful and harms, the other just outright harms. I can see room for both of these depending on the circumstance.

[McAllister]

What really rustles my jimmies is that I want to make a solipsistic character who has the ability to reduce people to figments of their imagination (mechanically, Afflict them with Insubstantiality), but because it's an Advantage, this costs 80 points per level. Plus, Afflicted Advantages are automatically Always On, so there's no way to get that -50% on the Insubstantiality, despite the fact that taking away someone's ability to act on the material world is considerably disadvantageous. How would I have to modify this Advantage to turn it into a Disadvantage? No Vertical Move + a new limitation "No Movement Through Opaque Surfaces"? At some point does it become a feature, like Infravision (Instead of Normal Vision)?

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by McAllister

What really rustles my jimmies is that I want to make a solipsistic character who has the ability to reduce people to figments of their imagination (mechanically, Afflict them with Insubstantiality), but because it's an Advantage, this costs 80 points per level. Plus, Afflicted Advantages are automatically Always On, so there's no way to get that -50% on the Insubstantiality, despite the fact that taking away someone's ability to act on the material world is considerably disadvantageous. How would I have to modify this Advantage to turn it into a Disadvantage? No Vertical Move + a new limitation "No Movement Through Opaque Surfaces"? At some point does it become a feature, like Infravision (Instead of Normal Vision)?

As a 0 point Feature when buying an Affliction, you can declare that the advantage(s) is(are) under the target's control for the duration. Also, it should be noted that unless you pay for Can Carry Objects, your target ends up dropping everything they had, including their clothes! As a Malediction, you can use a Will roll to force somebody out of a 300 DR Warsuit. I'm thinking that's worth the points, tbh.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by McAllister

What really rustles my jimmies is that I want to make a solipsistic character who has the ability to reduce people to figments of their imagination (mechanically, Afflict them with Insubstantiality), but because it's an Advantage, this costs 80 points per level. Plus, Afflicted Advantages are automatically Always On, so there's no way to get that -50% on the Insubstantiality, despite the fact that taking away someone's ability to act on the material world is considerably disadvantageous. How would I have to modify this Advantage to turn it into a Disadvantage? No Vertical Move + a new limitation "No Movement Through Opaque Surfaces"? At some point does it become a feature, like Infravision (Instead of Normal Vision)?

Why aren't you just using Shadow Form (3-D Movement, +20%; Can Speak, +5%; Illusionary Form, +25%) [-12]?