Limitations on Modular Abilities: Unbalanced?

[PK]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I don't believe it is. Social Advantages aren't available at all for Modular Abilities. Mental and Physical are the only categories. But Summonable Ally isn't a social advantage. It affects the exterior physical world (which is why it's the only form of Ally available to NPCs.). Therefore it's a physical advantage.

Are you saying that you use this as a house rule? Or are you saying that this is how the rules actually work? If the former, sure that's fair enough if you find summonable Allies unbalanced. If the latter, please provide a cite.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Are you saying that you use this as a house rule? Or are you saying that this is how the rules actually work? If the former, sure that's fair enough if you find summonable Allies unbalanced. If the latter, please provide a cite.

It was the impression I had from the Basic set. I didn't notice that they'd expanded it to cover social advantages in Powers, and frankly I find that to be a dumb idea. Still, I can't support my position that Summon Ally should be physical advantage, so I was wrong anyway.

[Yako]

that they'd expanded it to cover social advantages in Powers, and frankly I find that to be a dumb idea.

The rules do partially agree with you there, citing that a modular ability providing social traits should normally not be allowed, it is not really plausible in most cases after all.
But, say, you understand the modular ability ( in this case a cosmic power likely) as the wielder being able to manipulate the general subconsciousness of people around him, then you could say that it would allow giving yourself social abilities because you can fabricate a completely believable false identity on the fly.
Say, you concentrate for one second (as per cosmic power) and then suddenly everyone perceives you to be an official with legal enforcement power, or treat you as a member of a venerated social group, etc.

I know it is off topic, but that is how I would construct an ability like this, or alternatively, if it is a high tech level setting, hacking into the net to create a false persona with a seemingly perfectly legal record (which should then include modifiers to represent the danger of being found out, needing to make a succesful computer hacking role and needing, of course, network access in the first place).

@towishimp: Well, I understand it as a mental ability as well, my point was, that whether a mental or a social ability, in this case, would be irrelevant, as both cost the same. If it was a physical ability, indeed it would need the +50% modifier.
But as munin stated, the underlying assumption regarding whether a trait is the one or the other is based on if it is perceived as being associated with the body (physical), the mind / soul (mental) or the persona / identity (social).
And I guess physical receives the high price because there are simply more (and many very useful) abilities which are physical (take innate attacks and afflictions (which, though, can be made mental with malediction)).

Regarding the power gamer alarm, you are referring to the original version, which fully exploited the rules not being specific enough, or the later write ups which either use the 7 per slot / 5 per cp version with limitations, or the rule jeff wilson suggested and which I am going to adapt?

If it is the former, then you should have noticed that we are in agreement, if it is one of the latter, which are either RAW (with an official example to sanction it) or more expensive than that, then please explain where you think it is violating what you see as the spirit of the rules / game.

Further, the artificial assumption that "this is too powerful thus you have to add an enhancement which normally doesn't apply" doesn't solve the problem either, simply means more limitations needed to change it to what you want.

The approach of jeff does solve the problem though and it nicely fits a similar ability, alternate form (and morph), which also apply limitations (aside from the automatic - 10% limitation based on the fact that the alternate form will be lost in certain circumstances) only on the flat cost of 15 / 100, not the points you gain by shifting into your other form(s).
On a sidenote, for reasons of balance, I would apply the same model on the cosmic power as well, meaning that the minimal cost per point are elevated from 2 to 3.8, otherwise it is too cheap compared to the minimal cost of the slotted, quasi cosmic power (1.8 + 1.4 per slot).

My final version of the power now would be:

Demon Summoning Modular Ability:

5 points per slot, because it is limited to demons whose names can be found in books or researched through even more difficult means of contacting other demons (who usually do not pass on this information willingly, or worse, might give false information), which makes it on par with the limitations of super memorization.

Cost per point is four, as true names can be memorized or written down (and thus not necessarily costly), occasionally subjected to external influences (Certain constellations and areas might inconvenience the process of contacting the demon world) and usually takes at least one minute or two seconds per granted cp, whichever is more.

In compariosn, spirit trapping takes "several minutes" but is not stated to be subject to external interference, while Divine inspiration is twice as fast but the deity granting the ability has a veto power, which I would say is a more severe limitation than the ability being subject to occasional inaccessibility of the demon world, which in the setting should be more rare.
Alternatively, the minimum time required can also be extended to the several minutes of spirit trapping, dropping the external influence factor to make the ability completely RAW.

The limitations then would be the same as before, the ability always requires life energy expenditure and is, of course, limited to summoning demons:

- 50% (Summonable ally with demonic only)
- 20 % (Costs two HP)

Then, it is either:

- Preparation required (10 minutes) - 30 %
- Grimmoir required (Gadget limitation: Breakable (Not cannot be stolen since it is not obviously powerful to most people and doesn't work for a thief at all) DR 6 (because the book is enchanted to be more resilient to damage than normal paper); size modifier - 5) - 20 %

OR

- IQ Roll required - 10%
- Nuisance Effects (Critical failure will mean a different demon will appear or the demon will not be bound properly because the true name was not remembered / used correctly, which means, in both cases, that the demon will likely be hostile OR seriously inconvenience the caster at the GMs choice, failure can either be immediately obvious (normal rules apply) or the demon will be summoned but not under the summoners control (though not hostile either), GMs choice again) - 5%
-Nuisance effect (Only IQ names (and the many other details necessary to summon the entity correctly) of demons can be reliably memorized at the same time, changing the memorized names is time consuming) - 5 %

I decided that all material component requirements etc. will be moved solely to the summon-able ally advantage.

The cost now is 1 Point per slot and 1.6 points for each point of summonable ally.
For a 40 point ally, this would be 65 points.
...which might make me want to throw a small perk into the mix actually...;-)

It makes the ally more pricey for sure, but I think It is fair this way.