Active abilities

Active abilities is a phrase GURPS Powers uses the phrase on pages 10, 26, 59, 79, 157, The explanation of "Active vs. Passive Abilities" on page 153 elaborates.
It mentions for example that Active Defense changes Damage Resistance from passive to active. This is useful compared to Requires (Attribute) Roll or Unreliable for preventing loss of FP for failures, because passive abilities MUST roll.
This is key for understanding which powers can have Extra Effort applied to increase their capability, or which can be Crippled (pg 156) or suffer cumulative Multiple Feats penalties (pg 158)
Also 159 has a major drawback for active:
:When the roll to activate an active ability fails, the user may wait five minutes and try again at no penalty.
:If he tries that particular feat sooner, this is a “repeated attempt” (see p. B348) and costs 1 FP.
:Furthermore, the roll for the second attempt is at -1.
:Should this effort fail, he can spend 1 FP and try again at -2, and so on, until he passes out from FP loss or his effective skill drops below 3, at which point success is impossible.
:If a repeated attempt succeeds, later attempts at that feat no longer cost FP or worsen skill penalties.
:However, the current skill penalty remains until the user waits a full five minutes
==See also==
*passive abilities
*Switchable
*transient ability
Category:Abilities