Limiting a counter-trait

[Gef]

From another thread:

Originally Posted by Kromm

As for disadvantage + not disadvantage constructions, please note that the post in which I was quoted is going on six years old. At that time, most of what's now out for GURPS Fourth Edition was still a work in progress. At this stage, enough art has been published to revise that opinion to reflect the state of the art: Such constructions are fine when they don't give a bigger discount than an equivalent Mitigator and meet with the GM's approval.

First, let me propose the term "counter-trait" in place of "not disadvantage".

If you have a disadvantage of a certain value, then not having it would be an advantage of additive inverse value. For instance, No Legs (Wheeled) is worth -20 points, so its counter-trait is an advantage with a base cost of 20 points to a wheeled robot character.

This is important because most of the modifiers in GURPS are priced for advantages, not disadvantages, so they work great when applied to counter-traits. To extend the example, suppose a wheeled robot has a pneumatic jet so it can jump, but it takes some time to charge up the air compressor. That's No Legs (Wheeled; -20) with a Counter-Trait (Takes Recharge -10%; 18) for a net cost of -2. Since it can go everywhere a normal man can go, and only has to take some extra time for those occasions when it must make a series of jumps, this is about right.

GEF