Jump to content

"He knows when someone touches his car from a continent away."


Recommended Posts

I'd go with a very limited (-2) Danger Sense that only affected the car (from anywhere in the world).

 

Danger Sense (any area, out of combat, Function as a Sense) (41 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only his car; -2), Roll 15- . Real cost 14.

 

... and then charge him probably 0 for it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Touching someone's car doesn't necessarily mean there's danger, so I don't think Danger Sense cuts it.  This hero will know if someone caresses the car's lines -- and maybe even if a bird craps on the car. As a result, I think detect with megascale is the right answer ... with discriminatory and/or analyze (as appropriate) to represent the the intensity of the awareness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem with Megascale on a sense is that ... well, you can't have it on a 'sense' level power (ie bought as a sense so it doesn't take time to activate or use).

 

"Using a MegaScale power at any Range or Area above personal scale requires a Full Phase Action, and the character is at ½ DCV" CC - 110
 
So you couldn't buy the detect as something that would always alert him the moment his car was touched: He'd have to concentrate on it from time to time to see if someone was messing with his car.
 
That leaves a sense with tons of range doubling (more legit) ... and all the mess that comes with that (penetrative, telescopic or enough enhanced perception to take advantage of that extra range, etc).  That's why I'd prefer the pre-baked danger sense as a template  - and let the characters level of paranoia about the car fuel what triggers it (if anything touching the car is a threat, in his mind, where's the harm in letting the power reflect that? It's literally the only thing the power does.)
 

 

Mind Link

 

I've done this as well - mind link to inanimate objects - but it's still clunky: mind link doesn't share senses directly, nor does the vehicle have any senses to share nor a way to pass information to you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The problem with Megascale on a sense is that ... well, you can't have it on a 'sense' level power.

 

"Using a MegaScale power at any Range or Area above personal scale requires a Full Phase Action, and the character is at ½ DCV" CC - 110
 
So you couldn't buy the detect as something that would always alert him the moment his car was touched: He'd have to concentrate on it from time to time to see if someone was messing with his car.
 
That leaves a sense with range doubling (more legit) ... and all the mess that comes with that (penetrative, telescopic or enough enhanced perception to take advantage of that extra range, etc).
 

 

 

I've done this as well - mind link to inanimate objects - but it's still clunky: mind link doesn't share senses directly, nor does the vehicle have any senses to share nor way to pass information to you.

 

You can megascale a sense if the GM allows it.

 

Something less clunky might be to have the vehicle possess the sense ... and a means of communicating what's sensed to the vehicle's owner.  In todays' world, the car's glass break sensor goes off and the vehicle uses a cellular connection to send a signal to OnStar or similar, from which notification is then sent to the owner by phone, text, etc.  Extending that model to touch and some tiny com device (perhaps without the middle layer like OnStar) seems a sane way to go, but that's a subtly and distinctly different capability compared to someone just knowing the vehicle was touched.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always toyed with the idea of expanding the floating fixed points and regular fixed points of teleportation to encompass other powers as well - something like for 1 character points a character could have a fixed power origin location. Due to the limitations (something you paid for cp for, basically, for fixed and an extra turn of 'marking' the area for a floating) I can't think of much that could be abused by it (it could threaten indirect, possibly, in edge cases - but indirect is messed up anyways).

 

 In context in this situation it would allow the sense of the character's choice (touch?) function without a range penalty so long as they had sufficient range on the power to reach the point. That's kind of like Clairvoyance but more fire and forget.

 

Still leaning towards a custom talent called "Car Sense" that functions like Danger Sense, but only grants information related to your car (someone looking at it, touching it, a cop coming to ticket it, etc).  That's pure GM fiat, though, so the quest to legitimately build it continues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone touched my car!:  Clairsentience (Touch Group), Telescopic:  +21, Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (53 Active Points); Fixed Perception Point (-1) (26 RC)

 

Would that actually work? You'd have to be in standard range to 'mark' the car (and it could only be the car due to the fixed perception point) for your clairsentience point but then you could feel the area around that point without range penalty from anywhere on earth?

 

Something about it feels... off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always toyed with the idea of expanding the floating fixed points and regular fixed points of teleportation to encompass other powers as well - something like for 1 character points a character could have a fixed power origin location. Due to the limitations (something you paid for cp for, basically, for fixed and an extra turn of 'marking' the area for a floating) I can't think of much that could be abused by it (it could threaten indirect, possibly, in edge cases - but indirect is messed up anyways).

 

 In context in this situation it would allow the sense of the character's choice (touch?) function without a range penalty so long as they had sufficient range on the power to reach the point. That's kind of like Clairvoyance but more fire and forget.

 

Still leaning towards a custom talent called "Car Sense" that functions like Danger Sense, but only grants information related to your car (someone looking at it, touching it, a cop coming to ticket it, etc).  That's pure GM fiat, though, so the quest to legitimately build it continues.

 

 

Why not just use Clairsentience with the appropriate range with x21 Telescopic for 21 points (entire earth)?

 

Unfortunately with both Car Sense (per GM fiat) or Clairsentience with a lot of range ... you're talking a LOT of active points for a power that doesn't really do all that much.  The active point cost is simply too high to justify the expense in many cases -- unless of course the character spends most of his/her time in the vehicle or has lots of his/her abilities tied to it in some way.

 

Per massey's idea, Mind Link with a single other mind has the right sort of point cost (5 CP ... to get planetary range) for what you actually get from the power ... and even covers some of the right sensory abilities (people who are linked can 'hear' what is said to one another ... which is easily translated to being able to remotely sense touch as if it were your own) ... but the vehicle would need to be intelligent for this -- and some limitations (touch only, one-way communication/sensation, etc.) would need to be slapped on it.  Since there is precedent for mental powers with machines (even those that lack EGO  -- as The Ultimate Mentalist covers Ego Powers that are based on INT [which is a -1/2 limitation]), you may be able to justify Mind Link with an intelligent yet non-sentient machine if it has a computer on board through which most controls are routed ... as this satisfies the intelligence (i.e. the computer/vehicle has INT without needing EGO) requirement ... making it DMCV 0 for the purpose of establishing the Mind Link.  Presumably that computer would need to be able to 'feel' touches in order for someone to be able to perceive this via a mind link, but that's easily covered with a hyper sensitive alarm system tied into the computer -- bought as a sense (detect touch, as a sense) on the vehicle.

 

Like massey, this is the direction in which I'd lean, too.  Most modern vehicles, today, have 'brains' in the form of a centralized, under-hood computer that controls all sorts of things.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone touched my car!:  Clairsentience (Touch Group), Telescopic:  +21, Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (53 Active Points); Fixed Perception Point (-1) (26 RC)

 

Would that actually work? You'd have to be in standard range to 'mark' the car (and it could only be the car due to the fixed perception point) for your clairsentience point but then you could feel the area around that point without range penalty from anywhere on earth?

 

Something about it feels... off.

Hrm. That is because it is off,

 

Per 6e1, 180:

 

Calculate the Range Modifier for PER Rolls made via Clairsentience from the perception point, not from where the character actually is.

So once you establish the perception point it does not matter how far away you are.

 

So it is more like:

 

Someone touched my car!:  Clairsentience (Touch Group), Persistent (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (35 Active Points); Fixed Perception Point (-1) One Sense only: Normal Touch (-1/4) (15 RC)

 

You could reduce it further by making it Perceivable in some way to the person touching the car (so they know they were perceived) or having a side effect that if someone damaged the car you took stun or end loss as a result.

 

- E

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately with both Car Sense (per GM fiat) or Clairsentience with a lot of range ... you're talking a LOT of active points for a power that doesn't really do all that much.  The active point cost is simply too high to justify the expense

 

This is the main problem, the clair build is like 192 active points to tell if someone touches a car globally (the earth is about 40,075,000 meters across, so that's about 18 doublings of range, plus 0 END and persistent)

 

That's ridiculous, to put it mildly.  As a GM for such a minor and insignificant power, I'd lean more toward the susceptibility build massey suggested, or some kind of Danger Sense alternate.  Its just not worth more than 5 points to know something like that.

 

Its like Shadowjack's power in the Roger Zelazny book.  If anyone says his name in shadows, he can hear it.  How much should that cost?  Not much.  In fact it might be really annoying and worth points.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chris, did you read my construct above with the rules from 6e? 35 AP is not horrible. Probably a bit pricey still in RP. As a GM, I would personally probably put a limitation on it, something like "Only to have plot relevant knowledge of a specific action / object interaction" (-2), which would bring the real cost down to 8 RP. All of this assumes that the player does not just want to pay in game to have an alarm system on the car that could likely tell him the same thing but be more likely to fail versus someone with car theft skills.

 

- E

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it is a scaling down problem, honestly. Hero scales UP awesome. It scales down to a certain point well and after that, poorly. A nearly useless detect still costs at least 3 points, before you add anything to it. The difference between a zero strength running throw and a one strength running throw is 6 feet. It doesn't even go down below 2 meters! Clairsentience for taste costs the same base as sight. Invisibility cannot be bought for a single sense, it must be bough for at least one group. 

 

Some of them are not a big deal. Others get ridiculous in some settings. In the end, with all it's bumps and curves, still the best system by far I have ever found.

 

- E

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...