GURPS House Rule: Limited Use

What?

I’ve changed the price of the Limited Use limitation, and added a variable cost based on how big of a hindrance the limitation is.

Why?

Because sometimes Limited Use gives back more points than it should and other times it doesn’t give back enough. Using the same price when limiting all traits is the cause of this.

As we already see in the RAW, not all modifiers have the same value when applied to each trait. Switchable, for instance, is worth +100% on Mana Damper. This is because being able to switch that advantage on and off is worth more than the usual +10% price of the modifier.

It is generally understood that Limited Use provides too few points in the cases where players would most commonly want to apply it (such as combat abilities), and too many points in some other cases (such as on abilities that only need to be used infrequently to begin with).

The Rules

Limited Use

		Use Frequency
Uses/day	High	Medium	Low
1	-60%	-30%	-10%
2	-45%	-20%	-5%
4	-35%	-15%	n/a
6	-25%	-10%	n/a

Use Frequency is based on how often the ability is useful. An ability that is useful many times a day receives a higher discount than an ability that is useful few times per day (or that one receives little benefit from using repeatedly). For instance, an Innate Attack is useful many times per day, whereas a Detect Oil Reserves spell which informs the caster of the location of the planet's oil reserves provides nearly the same utility in one use as in many uses. So the former would be discounted as a high frequency use ability and receive -60% for 1/day, whereas the latter would be classed as low frequency and be discounted at -10% for 1/day.

It is up to the GM to determine which use frequency applies to which traits. In most cases this should be fairly obvious. Combat abilities are high frequency, abilities which are used somewhat often but perhaps not many times per day are medium, and abilities that provide nearly the same benefit from a single use per day as multiple uses are low.