building a mental "voice"

[dstarfire]

I'm building my first mentalist, and need help building one of his signature powers: a sort of mind voice, as the title says.

In simplest terms, this ability lets him "speak", gesture and interact in the usual fashion (including facial expressions, body language, etc.) with others directly through their mind.

Specifics of the power:


Is not affected by sensory ability (blindness, deafness, flash) or environmental conditions (background noise, darkness, etc.)

Is invisible to non-participants (except maybe for some body-language cues from other participants) , and each conversation is self-contained.

Uses the brains normal communications centers, so it's easily ignored (just slightly more so than "normal" communications), totally voluntary, and doesn't interfere with the "target"'s other perceptions/interactions.

Works with most any person the character can see, and any number of people within range.

Effective enough for casual use, as it would be the characters primary means of communication

(Optional) is bidirectional so the "target" could respond in the same manner (probably the target needing a skill roll to conceal what they're doing).


Every single Power I've looked at (Images, telepathy, mental illusions) has some innate feature that precludes these.

[ghost-angel]

What is it about Telepathy and/or Mind Link that is the issue?

[Hyper-Man]

What is it about Telepathy and/or Mind Link that is the issue?

Adding IPE (Invisible Power Effects) might be necessary. Otherwise I'm not sure what else is absolutely required to achieve the described effect.

[Derek Hiemforth]

What's the innate feature of Telepathy that precludes these? This sounds to me like Area Effect (Selective) Telepathy, with Limitations such as "Target Must Be Willing," and some creative SFX description. :)

[ghost-angel]

Adding IPE (Invisible Power Effects) might be necessary. Otherwise I'm not sure what else is absolutely required to achieve the described effect.

That was my thought, but I wanted to ask before offering a solution.

[dstarfire]

The primary difficulty with telepathy and mental illusions are the ecv and Effects rolls. if the target has a high ecv or ego, or I roll poorly it wouldn't work, and the target has no idea what I was trying to tell them.

While most powers should have something that can block them, in this case the defense is "I decide to ignore the person talking in my head, and continue on as before". Would not choosing to ignore the message possibly count as voluntarily allowing the "attack" to succeed?

[braincraft]

Images BOECV?

[ghost-angel]

The primary difficulty with telepathy and mental illusions are the ecv and Effects rolls. if the target has a high ecv or ego, or I roll poorly it wouldn't work, and the target has no idea what I was trying to tell them.

While most powers should have something that can block them, in this case the defense is "I decide to ignore the person talking in my head, and continue on as before". Would not choosing to ignore the message possibly count as voluntarily allowing the "attack" to succeed?

If you only want to be able to talk to voluntary minds, Mind Link has no effect roll and always works.

The Telepathy effect roll is mostly because Telepathy can be used to extract thoughts against the targets will. If you use the Communication Only Limitation on it and bought 10D6 worth at Standard Effect (30 points) you hit just about everyone's EGO (which is all that's needed to establish communication). At that point the GM should simply hand wave it and let you simply make the ECV roll to connect to the mind.

Missing the ECV could mean they're distracted and didn't "hear" you, or they chose to ignore the voice in their head. Another ECV roll could simulate you trying to "talk louder" at them.

I don't see this type of Telepathy being game breaking as you can only use it to talk - as GM I would fudge some of the exact rules for the flavor of the power.

[Sean Waters]

To take an alternative approach....This sounds like an ability to be able to talk and listen, basically. This can be very powerful in some ways - it could circumvent the 'telepathic command' advantage for mind control, for example, but in most cases is no more 'powerful' or 'useful' than having a voice and hearing.

Consequently, and with GM permsiion, you could build this as enhanced senses, like normal hearing and the 'voice' sense.

Detect mental communication (5 points) (mental sense group)
Sense
Transmit

9 points total (you get 'range' from the mental sense group)

Might work, or the GM might require everyone to buy a mental voice (or the above sense, to actually transmit) - 'voice as a sense' costs 20 points, so that should probably be the same.

It will still be affected by mental flashes etc.

[PhilFleischmann]

Detect mental communication (5 points) (mental sense group)
Sense
Transmit

9 points total (you get 'range' from the mental sense group)
Great! Except only others who have this sense can hear you and talk back to you.

It's juts like buying Transmit for any other sense: just because I can send out radio signals, doesn't mean you don't need a receiver to hear them, or a transmitter yourself to send a responce.

[gojira]

I'm thinking something like Mind Link, with a small creative Advantage that says "Target can see me too." Mind link says only the target can see it, and since it's in their *mind* it shouldn't actually be affect by Flash, Blind, etc...

Just my 2 cents.

[Sean Waters]

Great! Except only others who have this sense can hear you and talk back to you.

It's juts like buying Transmit for any other sense: just because I can send out radio signals, doesn't mean you don't need a receiver to hear them, or a transmitter yourself to send a responce.

I did mention that the GM might require the possession of a mental voice, or the sense, to allow communication in the original post.

It will depend, however, if the GM rules that anyone can 'receive' a mental voice, fine, or that everyone transmits mental chatter, fine...for that campaign.

I agree it would require all participants to have the ability to transmit and receive - it is just whether you need to pay for all of that. If mental chatter exists as part of the 'physics' of the world, someone with the transmit sense should be able to do mental conversation.

[Sean Waters]

I'm thinking something like Mind Link, with a small creative Advantage that says "Target can see me too." Mind link says only the target can see it, and since it's in their *mind* it shouldn't actually be affect by Flash, Blind, etc...

Just my 2 cents.

You could have a limitation that normal range modifiers apply (-1/4) which would mean that it would work only at relatively short range, and have a 'volume'.

The problem with using mental power though is the fact that you STILL require an attack roll - even for Mind Link, if the target is not willing to open up (and why would they, most of the time, unless they know you well?).

Some sort of 'voice' sense would enable mental communication (subject to the target(s) being able to receive) and is much easier to make work like a normal voice, albeit working on mental frequencies (Voice is AoE, for example, out to maximum perception distance, which is either a bit fiddly or a bit expensive to do with Mind Link) which sounds more like what the original post was after.

[Dust Raven]

My first impulse for this ability was to combine Mind Link, Transmit Only with Detect Minds (Mental Group). No need to make the Detect Targeting as you'd be attacking a 0 ECV, at least as far as I'm concerned.

As pointed out earlier, the GM should approve what information is sent along the Mind Link. I would have to problem with Mind Link sending the equivalent of facial expressions and body language. I say equivalent because you can't really send visual information, but you can send the conceptual information things like facial expression and body language would convey.