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The first thing that came to mind when I read Horror Adventures. It's a first draft--what do you think?
I don't know enough about the corruption rules to give a more meaningful analysis, but I like what I'm seeing and it gives me ideas.
The progression doesn't seem to fit with the theme of corruptions, I think. You can be infected with nanites, and the only thing you need to do to have no risk whatsoever is simply not use nanite surge. Nearly every corruption has at least two ways to progress. If the first way is under your control, then it requires doing something (eating the flesh of sentient beings, submerging in sea water, spending time in dark isolation, etc.) to avoid making the save, and there's always a second trigger that you can't control (generally falling below 0 hp).
In this case, you tie a lot really powerful utility of the abilities to a nanite surge, but not the entire ability, so I'd bump it up to a flat 25% chance each use and set up some conditions under which you have to make a save as if you'd triggered a nanite surge. Dropping below 0 hp should be one, failing a reflex save against electricity damage or taking 25 points at once, and expose to alien tech, for example.
Or instead of using triggered abilities, make it a cumulative 10% per surge, and use the Hive corruption's progression rules.
The progression doesn't seem to fit with the theme of corruptions, I think. You can be infected with nanites, and the only thing you need to do to have no risk whatsoever is simply not use nanite surge. Nearly every corruption has at least two ways to progress. If the first way is under your control, then it requires doing something (eating the flesh of sentient beings, submerging in sea water, spending time in dark isolation, etc.) to avoid making the save, and there's always a second trigger that you can't control (generally falling below 0 hp).
In this case, you tie a lot really powerful utility of the abilities to a nanite surge, but not the entire ability, so I'd bump it up to a flat 25% chance each use and set up some conditions under which you have to make a save as if you'd triggered a nanite surge. Dropping below 0 hp should be one, failing a reflex save against electricity damage or taking 25 points at once, and expose to alien tech, for example.
Or instead of using triggered abilities, make it a cumulative 10% per surge, and use the Hive corruption's progression rules.
That is indeed an oversight (I was playing around with different percentile numbers to find out what constitutes a reasonable number of uses per day, and then forgot to add a secondary uncontrollable trigger condition).
2% cumulative seems way too low. You can use it seven times and still have less than a 50% chance overall of needing to make a save.
To be precise, ~45% is the chance for having to make at least one save after 7 uses.
I guess it depends a bit on how likely you are to beat that Fortitude save, but at what chance would you no longer feel comfortable pushing your luck?
I made some changes based on your feedback, but I still think the cumulative percentile chance works best as a mechanic to represent temptation in a way that gives the player some agency (the psychological effect of seemingly small numbers that quickly add up).
Another thing I was contemplating is having the cumulative chance reset to 0 only at times when the character is forced to make a progression save. That forces progression saves more often, but also makes them more predictable, which is somewhat contrary to the aforementioned point (in this case, it might even be tempting to provoke a progression check in a controlled environment when the percentile chance gets too high).
A lot of the 'bad nanite' stories I've read have a possession element - in fact, that's a major element in the current Shadowrun metaplot, with rogue AI's using nanites to overwrite themselves into people's minds. It's also been a major plot point in the last several Schlock Mercenary storylines, but the idea predates both.
You're right and that's an interesting suggestion! In Pathfinder, the default assumption for nanotechnology seems to be 'left-behind technology from an alien civilization', meaning it's not very likely for the creator/coder to be around. I don't want to focus on the possession aspect (we already have a corruption for that), but I'll see if I can implement or at least insinuate the possibility.