Well, hm. It's not our original intent for the sellbacks to count when tallying the impact of the powers represented.
That said, I think a case can be made ... sort of.
Here's what I consider: If someone has a Physical Immunity with a stacked catch saying it only protects against Fire, and they get hit by a fire attack, I'm not sure I'd want to treat them to a hunger attack of 8 for that, ignoring the value of the catch.
So in order to apply some reasonable thinking here, I'd think along the lines of the order in which the rebates are applied, since each rebate has requirements for what the cost of the power affected needs to look like; no rebate can reduce the cost of a power to zero. If you have an Item of Power providing Toughness which has a Catch on it, I'd say that the Catch gets applied before the Item of Power does. (Really, the Catch is "a part of" each toughness power it connects to, so it's an easy choice for "applied first".) If the Catch reduces the cost of the Toughness ability to, say, 2 points, you can't then apply an Item of Power with a rebate value of +2. You're limited by the post-rebate value of the Toughness power(s) in this situation.
Feeding dependency would sequence similarly, for me. I'd use a logic of "if I take away the feeding dependency, does what's left still make conceptual sense". If so, it's a unit. If not, it's not.
But then there's the other way of looking at it: is the other rebate something you can *lose* when the dependency robs you of all of your abilities? Or to put it another way around, how many points of the rebated ability can you lose before you lose access to it? I'm thinking about the FD proviso, "If you cannot or do not wish to spare consequences, then you must lose access to a number of your powers, up to a refresh cost equal to the amount of stress taken."
If you're taking the 8-strength Hunger Attack from that full Physical Immunity, it also means you can absorb up to 8 stress with that ability. If you're treating its post-catch cost of, say, -3 as the attack value (Good), then it only takes an absorption of 3 stress.
This second principle tends to trump the first, I think.
I'll try to illustrate its application by getting into the particulars of the question:
1. I'm Red Court Infected, with Inhuman Toughness [-2], Inhuman Recovery [-2] and the standard +2 Catch. I use both powers (and nothing else) in a scene, is the Hunger Attack at Fair (for their actual Refres cost) or Great (for their unmodified Refresh cost)?
This is an edge case for me, where the first principle above has trouble because of how it matches against original intent. The original intent is that this is a Great hunger attack. The logic of the first principle says that the Catch is part of the unit, making it a Fair attack. You could go either way when it comes down to it, because a +2 Catch applied after a +1 Feeding dependency rebate nets the same -1 cost as the other way around. Here, I'd apply the second principle, treating it as a Great attack, because I'd assert that each ability can absorb 2 hunger stress. If you want to, say, treat it such that each can only absorb 1, then it's only a Fair attack.
2. Say I'm a were-crocodile with a Feeding Dependency on raw meat applied to all my powers. If I shift into crocodile form (Beast Change [-1], Inhuman Strength [-2], Inhuman Toughness [-2], Claws [-1], Human Form [+1]) and use all my powers, is the Hunger attack at the scene's end at Superb or Fantastic?
First principle: Does human form make sense absent the other powers? (I'd say no, though you could make the case that you can still shapeshift when the other powers are gone, just that you're not able to take advantage of the advantages of that form -- you're a human dude with human skills in the body of a very weak croc.)
Second principle: which of your -2 powers can only absorb 1 hunger stress?
3. I have an Item of Power, say a soul-drinking sword. It grants me Inhuman Strength [-2] and Inhuman Speed [-2], as well as being an Item of Power [+2] and having a Feeding Dependency. Would the Hunger Attack after using it be Fair or Great?
First principle: I feel like a soul-drinking sword means the sword contains the feeding dependency. Therefore the IoP rebate can't apply to the powers until after the Feeding dependency has.
Second principle: Doesn't need to be engaged, really, if you accept the "IoP contains FD" logic from the first. Great.
4. Say I have Modular Abilities [-6], with a Feeding Dependency on mystical energy to reflect magical self-ehancement. I use this to have Inhuman Strength [-2] and Inhuman Speed [-2] for the scene. Is the Hunger Attack at Great or Fantastic? Does the answer change if I used Inhuman Recovery for a round in there too, before going back to Inhuman Strength?
Well, there's no rebate in operation here, so the principles aren't quite as active. Instead, there's a question of the timeframe of the powers. But let's think second principle for a bit: how does this power erode when it is absorbing hunger stress? I'd say it loses its form points one for one until it has zero, at which point the power effectively becomes inert. This would indicate to me that when combined with Feeding Dependency, the hunger stress principle is about how many form points you made use of during the scene.
But then we get to the question of reconfiguration. If you *reconfigure*, that says to me you're using the upcharge component of the power, the -2 portion that does not get you form points. At that point, you're using the abilities covered by your form points PLUS the refresh that's devoted to being able to reconfigure them.
So two parts to this answer.
First part: I'd say you don't get the +2 to the hunger attack unless you reconfigure your abilities in the scene. Reconfiguration counts as use of that -2 refresh portion.
Second part: I'd say that when absorbing hunger stress, you could always choose to take the first two stress to the reconfiguration portion of the power -- at which point whatever your current configuration is would "lock in" and be unable to change, but would remain at full power until you start taking hunger stress against those abilities you spent your form points on. Or you could save it for last and treat it as the thing that gives you a final buffer for 2 more hunger stress after you've already lost your other modular abilities.
