No Range Mind Scan

[drnuncheon]

I'd like to give a character a power of a Mind Scan that is centered on himself - that is to say that unlike the normal Mind Scan, he could not stand in New York and scan LA - at least not without including everything in between.

Would that be a legitimate use of the No Range limitation, or would No Range effectively limit it to people he physically touches (and thus make the power utterly useless)?

J

[drnuncheon]

Alternately, would there be some way to 'buy off' some of the +1 1/4 worth of Megascale that Mindscan has automatically?

J

[Dust Raven]

I think the actual "No Range" Lim would just about negate the worth of the Power, but could see a "Must Scan All Minds Between Self & Target Area In A Radius From Self" (or something more elegantly put) being worth a -1/2 as a completely different Lim.

[Chris Goodwin]

It's perfectly legitimate to have an Area Effect Power that is No Range, meaning that it hits everyone within X inches of the character. A No Range Mind Scan would be something like this.

[PhilFleischmann]

A Mind Scan with No Range is perfectly legitimate. Just like any other power that's inherently area-affecting, like Change Environment. CE No Range means you can create a snowstorm with yourself in the middle of it, but you can't create a snowstorm away from yourself. Mind Scan with No Range works just like you said. You could scan everyone in the room/building/neighborhood/city/state/country/continent/planet where you are, but not in another room/neighborhood/city/etc.

[Dust Raven]

A Mind Scan with No Range is perfectly legitimate. Just like any other power that's inherently area-affecting, like Change Environment. CE No Range means you can create a snowstorm with yourself in the middle of it, but you can't create a snowstorm away from yourself. Mind Scan with No Range works just like you said. You could scan everyone in the room/building/neighborhood/city/state/country/continent/planet where you are, but not in another room/neighborhood/city/etc.

Mind Scan doesn't work like Area Effecting Powers. Not even AE with Nonselective. It only affects one target, and only affects that target if it happens to be in the area scanned, and at a huge penalty if there are more potential targets in the area.

In fact, you can even put AE on Mind Scan so you can affect several targets at once (say, to automatically roll your dice versus everyone's EGO in the area scanned).

With No Range, you could only target Mind Scan on someone 1" away.

[Magmarock]

In the past, my group has always allowed the power Mindscan to work two ways. First is the traditional way which is to search for a specific mind, with penalties for the large area. The second is to be able to scan a set area and determine the number of minds and types of minds in the area. Of course, that was with 4th Ed.

Now with 5th, it would be more correct to buy a special detect, such as Detect Minds: AE, Megascale. Maybe even make it so you can zero in on one mind an analyze it.

In FReD, there doesn't seem to be a limit on the area, though it does suggest one shouldn't be able to Mindscan beyond their own plane of existance. That is an extremely powerful thing, assuming you have a clue where your target is at so you can narrow your search. With that in mind (pardon the pun), limiting the range to the country, even the city, and centering it on the mentalist himself, are reasonable limitations.

As for what those limitations are worth, I think it depends on the GM and the campaign. If, for instance, the campaign will never leave the planet, then taking a LIM: Area limited to Planet wouldn't be a limitation.

Likewise, if the campaign is generally a citywide campaign, then limiting it to the city isn't really a limitation either. In my opinion, no one should get a break on points if the limits never come into affect. This is not to say that one can't take a Vulnerability to, say, radiation because the GM can reasonably and librally sprinkle that SFX into the game without bending the campaign concepts. But if you know the game will be in the city, within boundries, then saying your power doesn't work outside that area is about as silly as saying your PC is addicted to oxygen.


Mags

[PhilFleischmann]

Mind Scan doesn't work like Area Effecting Powers. Not even AE with Nonselective. It only affects one target, and only affects that target if it happens to be in the area scanned, and at a huge penalty if there are more potential targets in the area.

In fact, you can even put AE on Mind Scan so you can affect several targets at once (say, to automatically roll your dice versus everyone's EGO in the area scanned).

With No Range, you could only target Mind Scan on someone 1" away.

It doesn't matter how many targets are affected, the question was about range. Mind Scan really works a little like AE with Selective. If the person you want to select isn't in the area, nothing happens (except that you know they aren't in the area). But you definitely do select an area to scan when you use mind scan. That area can be anywhere in the same plane of existance, and it can be as big or as small as you like, and it can be anywhere you like. That's a lot of flexibility. If you limit that flexibility, isn't it worth a limitation?

I sit here in SoCal, and I can look for a specific mind in Australia, Italy, Nebraska, Boise, the Empire State Building, the first floor of the Gold Spike casino in Las Vegas, or room 901 of the engineering building at UCI (just to give examples of various sizes and distances, continent, country, state, city, building, large room, small room). If I want to limit my mind scan with No Range, I could scan North America, the contiguous states, California, Redondo Beach, my neighborhood, my apartment building, my unit, or my bedroom. I couldn't find someone in Australia unless I scanned the whole planet, which would make the scan considerably harder. If I wanted to find someone in the Empire State Building, I would have to go there or scan the entire country, even if I knew exactly where in the building my target was. How is that anything other than the No Range limitation?

If you want to put on an additional limitation "Can Only Scan One Mind At A Time," i.e. the area selected can be no bigger than an individual person, that renders the power almost useless and would probably be at least a -2 limitation.

[Dust Raven]

I don't think Mind Scan is quite that powerful. I run it like Clairsentience and Teleport. If you can't see or relatively perceive/be aware of the target area you need to make a to hit roll. A miss means you scan the wrong area. Of course, sense you can't perceive the area, you won't even know if you scanned it right.

The book also says that Mind Scan is inherently MegaScale (enough to cover the planet). So I use the MegaHex to determine range modifiers, but I still rule that it's shooting blind. Familiarity with the target location adds a bonus (or negate the blind penalty) but doesn't eliminate the range penalty.

Of course, if an area is sufficenlty large or close by I don't worry about that to hit the area roll. If you are scanning the entire state of Texas missing by 10 km won't matter much.

As far as restricting whatever area you can scan to always be centered on the character, read my first post. I'd agree it's a -1/2, but I wouldn't call it No Range.