[Powers] A Different Take on Temporary Disadvantage

[Varyon]

So, Temporary Disadvantage has always struck me as... off somehow. Losing your hands (Temporary Disadvantage: No Fine Manipulators) isn't that great for gaining access to a [10] Advantage, but may be worth it for an [80] Advantage - yet you only save [3] as part of the [10], but a whopping [24] as part of the [80]. It seems to me the percentage value of Temporary Disadvantage should scale with how close the traits are in absolute value, although that would be messy to work out.

What if, instead of Temporary Disadvantage, we used Alternate Abilities? Essentially, the character has the Disadvantage in question, then has an AA set of Negated Advantage and the desired Advantage. Instead of someone with arms that transform into wings having Flight (NFM -30%, Winged -25%) [18], he would have No Fine Manipulators [-30], Negated Disadvantage: NFM (Alternate Ability x1/5) [6], and Flight (Winged -25%) [30].

What this ultimately works out it to is, if the Disadvantage is worth as much as or less than the Advantage, you take it at 80% value. If the Disadvantage is worth more than the Advantage, you get the Advantage at 1/5th price. Note that, in both cases, we're talking about the absolute values of the traits.

Now, there may be some disadvantages to going this route. First off, activating the ability takes a second to switch it to "On," which I don't think is normally the case for Temporary Disadvantage-Limited Advantages. Secondly, having the Advantage disabled while in use means you are stuck with the Disadvantage until you regain access to it. Thirdly, this may be giving characters too much of a discount, even if it is sorta-kinda-RAW - above, the character is gaining access to Winged Flight for [6], when even a maximum-Limited Flight costs [8]!

This can also lead to perverse incentives, where players try to put the Temporary Disadvantage only on a trait that is as close to the absolute value of the Disadvantage as possible. Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. For example, a fire-blaster super with a 7d Burning Innate Attack worth [70] might decide it actually involves his arms turning into fire to lash out at the foe. With default GURPS, that's Temporary Disadvantage: No Manipulators, for -50% (end cost [35], although TD might not be available for attack powers). Under my suggestion, he might instead opt for a step-wise fashion - the first 2d are freely available, but he can transform his hands into flame for an additional 3d, and his entire arms into flame for an additional 2d. This is 2d [20], plus an AA set of 3d [30] and NFM [-30] for net [6], plus an AA set of 2d [20] and NM [-20*] for net [4], for a total cost of [30]. It takes him a second (hands) or two (hands+arms) to ramp up in power, which can ultimately serve to make things more dramatic. Personally, I think the fire manipulator who gradually loses his arms to increase his attack power is more interesting than the one who just loses them from the beginning.

Another consideration that may be good or bad, depending on how you look at it, is that as this is technically built as a character with a Disadvantage (that is later negated by part of an AA), there may be concerns with a campaign's Disadvantage limit.

*No Manipulators here is applied on top of No Fine Manipulators, so you use the difference in price.


So... thoughts? Does this seem like a good idea, or a bad idea? Any negative ramifications I'm missing?

[Leynok]

An interesting take, I've wanted to change up Temporary Disadvantages for my own house rules for a while now, never gotten around to it. The thoughts off the top of my head were apply them as limitations to the Disadvantages similar to Mitigators of sorts, but your idea is quite inventive.