spatial Awareness

[Macamboy]

Quiz question on using this expensive ability in 5th edition.

How exactly does it work??

I've a player who has the ability, but I'm not sure if I'm being too harsh on interpreting how it works.

For example, if I have three rooms next to each other, doors closed etc to normal sight, each containing a person, would Spatial Awareness tell the player who was in each room?

My thoughts are it would tell them there's someone there, but no detail.

Any thoughts?

[Steve Long]

This seems to me to be an attempt to start a conversation, so I've moved it to the Discussion board where anyone can chime in, rather than just me. If and when any specific rules questions get distilled down out of the discussion, please feel free to come back to this board with 'em.

[Macamboy]

Sorry Steve, It's been a while since I posted!

[Era Scarecrow]

Based on the description it would be similar to Superman looking through walls, or DareDevil seeing via audio and passive sonar.

 

Obviously it allows you to selective ignore materials/objects that you want.

 

While Superman's would probably get a Discriminatory and Analyze adder, daredevil obviously wouldn't.

 

 

Basically, as long as the material isn't protected by something that blocks your sight (say lead), you pretend the wall isn't there for the purposes of seeing/targeting. Does this give you LOS? Probably, but you still have to deal with the walls...

 

 

As for identifying who was in the other rooms... No. You could probably tell how tall they are, if they are wearing armor, holding a sword, talking on the phone, etc, but that's based on body language and size/shape of objects and how they are being interacted with; You couldn't see/identify their faces unless it was Discriminatory. I'd probably see it very much like looking at those early game mockups where the models have general distinct shapes (like 200 polygons), but no textures and are just shades of grey.

[DasBroot]

It would tell the player there were people in the rooms (and how many, as each can be Targeted), and allow them to target them with powers even (were the powers able to target through obstacles) but in my opinion in order to get reasonable information about who was on the other side you would need to throw on discriminatory.

 

Obvious differences, however, shouldn't need discriminatory - you should be able to tell a person from a couch or a chair, etc.

 

When picturing what requires discriminatory and what requires analyse I use the only inherently (partially) discriminatory targeting sense the game - sight.  Thus discriminatory on a sense should make that sense as good as sight (as impossible to fathom as it is for our brains to comprehend - how can one smell red?) - so by adding it they can tell anything through spacial awareness that they could by using their eyes (color, size, shape, reading books without opening them, etc).

 

To me Analyse takes it beyond what the eye can tell with precision (weight, mass, density)

[Era Scarecrow]

Actually I think SuperHot has a perfect example of this. The game is very simplistic, little textures, but you can tell what everything is. This would be HOW you see it with the Spatial Awareness. You can't tell Guy A from Guy B (Except by maybe other details, like if they are wearing a trench coat or wielding a weapon) but you won't confuse them for a lamp or anything like that...

[Macamboy]

Thanks guys, this was pretty much my view on its use.

 

With the passive nature of the skill, I'm guessing that if someone was, say, asleep in one of those rooms mentioned above, a perception roll would be appropriate to detect them at all?

[Era Scarecrow]

Yes I would think so. A flat bed is quite obviously different from one with a big lump in it. Although if they stuffed it in a way to make it only LOOK like someone was sleeping... well, not sure about that, depends on the power. If you had X-ray vision and could see bones, then you'd be able to tell no one was there (and maybe what gender if you're aware of biology to that degree)...

[mrinku]

A lot depends on the chosen special effect/thing that blocks it.

 

Passive Sonar might not penetrate a sealed room, might be confused by sound absorbing surfaces etc. What sense it's associated with will determine what invisibilites work against it. i.e. Daredevil's "Radar Sense" is passive sonar and can detect Invisible Woman just fine. If her forcefield is up she appears as a blob to him.

[Macamboy]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

One thing I should have done is establish how the player thinks it's works. When I asked the question, the answer was it just does, which doesn't really help much.

[mrinku]

If the player doesn't know how it works, the GM has carte blanche to decide how it does. And what it doesn't work against.

[dmjalund]

maybe if you ask why his character has the ability, you might get an idea how it works.

 

If he says he just has it, you may want him to think more of the concept of his character.

[Era Scarecrow]

Here's a few that come to mind, I could be wrong so take these with a grain of salt.

 

sound: Unless there's no movement (dead inside) and is shielded, there's likely always sound or vibrations (exception: vacuums)

 

heat: There's always heat going to be heat differences, unless shielded or say for example in a freezer where everything hits the same identical temperature somewhere below freezing

 

radiation: Everything gives off some type of background radiation. some things give off far more. Heat can also be a form of radiation that can be given off.

 

Magnetism: everything has some type of magnetism, field or otherwise pull or repel of it. Although how you'd represent it or see such weak fields that more or less go through the environment I don't know. Feels like a lot of pull/lines would go towards metal and very little else, it would be a lot more what movement you see/feel rather than statically trying to make sense of something.

 

Radio: There's radio waves going everywhere, both background as well as active (say a radio station), this information passes through and bounces off things. Even if there was no radio signals on earth, there's still background noise in the universe that go everywhere (probably)

 

Gravity: While there's always gravity, I don't know how this one would be useful, as unless something has sufficient mass it wouldn't show up... or unless someone could ignore the background noise gravity of large objects like the planet, you could then focus on tiny gravity movements, but this is so slight I don't think that would even show up unless it's something the size of, I don't know... Texas...

 

Electricity/static: Unless something is dead and dry, there's probably a static or electrical charge. But especially in modern technology, as well as all living things have some form of electromagnetic chemical reactions going on. Although how that would be viewed or looked at I'm not sure. Then there's a number of electrical bursts that are going to be too small to worry about unless in large quantities.

 

 

Water: Nearly everything has water. Even something 'dry' has some amount of water in it, it's just not enough to be wet. Certainly there's exceptions (say, steel and the like) but wood or other things are bound to have some amount of H2O left behind. Although this is far less 'passive' you'd have to be actively looking for this (probably).

 

Other inert substances: Same as water, more or less just some form of detection/analyze as you probably won't get a passive feedback.