Mastermind, Jean Grey, Dark Phoenix, and Fred.

[KA.]

Okay, this is sort of a rules question, but not specific enough to ask Steve, so I am asking for your help.

Let's say you have an Evil Mentalist.
He wants to corrupt someone, possibly someone with some Mental Defense.
He is in no hurry, this is not to be done while "in combat", but over a period of time.
He starts by sending images of himself into the subject's mind, with a message that says "I am your friend."
No attempt at outright mental domination, and the person in question is not a known evil-doer, in fact they are a total stranger.

After a while, the message changes to: "You like me a lot."

Since "I am your friend." has been established by now, there would not be as much resistance to "You like me a lot." as there would be in the beginning.

Next message: "We are in love."
Next message: "Others are growing jealous of us."
Next message: "Your teammates are jealous of us."
Next message: "Your teammates may mean me harm."
Next message: "Your teammates do mean me harm."
Next message: "You must protect me from your teammates."
Next message: "Your teammates want to kill me."
Next message: "You must protect me from your teammates by any means necessary."

Each message is delivered while the subject is asleep, at least until enough control can be established to start creeping into the subject's waiting mind.

Again, each message is established over time, and based on the last message is not something repugnant to the character being controlled.

I know that something like this could be handwaved as a plot device, but how would you do it according to the 5th Ed. rules?

Mind Control?
Mental Images?

Drain on Mental Defense, followed by one of the above?
Transform (yuck! I would rather avoid this if possible.)

How?

Thanks in advance,
KA.

[Hugh Neilson]

Transform. Definitely transform.

I do prefer the Transform option, but a cumulative Mind COntrol with the "partial effect" advantagte designed for Transform would also work.

In either case, the attach could have a significant time delay limitation, reflecting the fact that the character can only "attack" so often. Maybe he can only make one attempt per day, add whatever damage he gets at that time, but can't add any more (whether Transform BOD or effect points for Mind Control) until his time interval has passed.

Thus, early on, he can only make small changes, that would require a low EGO roll. Later, as his effect points build, he can make more extreme orders. You'd need to modify te Mind Control with 0 END to maintain the effect without deteriorating breakout rolls, some form of Continuous so it stays in place over time, etc., and some advantage allowing new instructions without starting from scratch (unless he has to pick the ultimate instruction at the outset, from which you set uo the gradual chain of sub-commands to get there) but this could be a decent model.

[megaplayboy]

cumulative mind control, telepathic, with benchmarks getting changed each time, might work.

BOECV Transform, invisible to all but mental, works vs. EGO not BODY, partial transform(total +2.5 in advantages), would handle this perfectly, but as you said, you'd rather not do it this way.

If you want it to be effective on a mentalist, add the penetrating advantage on either of the above.

For the mind control approach, add +20 to the required effect level to have the target feel their thoughts and actions under mind control are/were their own thoughts and actions.

By the way, one advantage of cumulative mental powers is that any points which get past mental defenses effectively ignore mental defenses when determining final cumulative effect. IOW, if you have 5d6 cumulative x4 MC, and the target has 10 points of mental defense, then it may take longer to get the maximum effect, but once you do, the mental defense is not subtracted from the cumulative total when comparing the total to the target's EGO.

The first proposition, if the target has never met the mentalist, is probably an EGO+0 effect level(plus the aforementioned +20), while having the target fall in love is likely a +10 or +20. The final effect level, doing whatever it takes to stop her teammates, is still probably a +30(since they'd still be violently opposed to hurting or killing their comrades).

You'd probably also have to buy 0 END, persistent on the power, so the target didn't get time bonuses to their breakout roll.

[McCoy]

I would go with the transform, but you could make it work with mind control as well. In either case, I I would go with extra time, penetraiting, and invisible power effect.

[Blue]

I did a character under 3e that was exactly this sort of thing. It was indeed a transformation attack. [que grandpa simpson mode:] Of course, back in my day the mechanics were a little different....

But today I'd build it the same way. Transform, maybe with a delay on the second casting, but instead of "mind control" I'd give it a contested RSR (that acutally sounds kinda fun! have the target try and resist periodically an shrug off those hours of work...EGO probably.)

[Fireg0lem]

Mind Control 6d6
Mind Control +1d6, only versus opponent affected by Mind Control 6d6
Mind Control +1d6, only versus opponent affected by Mind Control 7d6
....etc.

This will give you the effect of a "buildup" to effects that are farther and farther along the Mind Control chart slowly and steadily, representing a power that is stronger against enemies already partially affected.

Alternitavely, Mind Control linked to Suppress Ego (the way to end the Suppress is by breaking the Mind Control).

[KA.]

Thanks for the replies so far.
Maybe my anti-transform prejudice is unwarranted in this case, so if you would like to write it up that way, go ahead.

Also, I was not really clear about one major aspect of the power.

I was thinking that once each level was "established" it would help in leading to the next level.

What I mean is, after a certain time, the character being "attacked" would accept "I am your friend." as the truth.

With no real reason to believe otherwise, this would not be all that hard.

So, in terms of "Mind Control" it would not be going against something that the character knows or believes, so you would only need to exceed Ego to achieve the effect.

Now, once the target believes "I am your friend", actually believes it as part of their reality, then you would only need to exceed Ego to achieve "You really like me."

And so on, and so on.

As far as I can tell, this is basically what Mastermind did, established little pieces of "reality" and then built upon them, rather than trying to just "force" Jean into doing what he wanted all at once. I see this as a subtle way of avoiding going "head to head" against a target's mental defenses. And, there should be some reasonable way for a target to avoid this. Maybe their friends notice that they are acting strangely, maybe they mention their new "friend", etc.

One more thing. I am looking at this as a GM, possibly wanting to do something like this to an NPC, or a DNPC.

But, I would like to do it through game mechanics, not just GM fiat.

(I mention this because some people tend to look at strange Power questions as:
"Here's some munchkin trying to figure out a way to slip something past their GM.
I don't want to be a party to it!")

Thanks again, and please keep up the good suggestions.

KA.

[McCoy]

How about linking a mental defense drain (again penetraiting) to the mind control? Or even an EGO drain? Put a custom advantage on it, "only vs [character]" so the PC still has full EGO/mental defense if any of their team mates try a contra mind control. I'd give that a +1.

[KA.]

How about linking a mental defense drain (again penetraiting) to the mind control? Or even an EGO drain? Put a custom advantage on it, "only vs [character]" so the PC still has full EGO/mental defense if any of their team mates try a contra mind control. I'd give that a +1.

Interesting. I was wondering how to get around lowering their overall Mental Derense, since that might give things away. This might work.

Thanks,
KA.