Repelling animals / insects?

[eepjr24]

What would you use to repel insects or animals, either of the garden variety or the giant type? Mind Control? PRE attack? Illusions or Mental Illusions? Something else?

 

And how would the above interact with those creatures having been summoned instead of stumbled upon or found in their nest / hive / den?

 

- E

[archer]

Most insects have inefficient respiratory systems which is why they're especially susceptible to poisons (at least that's what I've been told).

 

Putting down something that's both smelly and poisonous would motivate the insects to not come close.

 

 

On the other end of the spectrum, DEET which is used in mosquito repellant, screws up the insects' sense of smell so it can no longer detect its prey.

 

If a PC had the proper alchemy and inventor skills, he could probably come up with a solution along those lines.

 

Insects sensing danger with their already existing senses isn't a big trick. You could probably build poison as a RKA, AOE, Constant, Continuing Charges, especially visible to multiple senses, only vs insects (or a certain kind of insect). 

 

That's probably how those campsite insect foggers are built.

 

The DEET angle would Darkness, Flash, Transform to something which can't detect prey, etc.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I guess it depends on what you mean by "repel" really.  Do you mean kill?  Force to flee?  Hold at bay?

 

The easiest way to build the whole thing is a little damage that obliterates the little ones and call it "drives them away" but if you want giant insects too, its going to be some form of fear or revulsion.

• That's classic mind control (a few levels so that they stay away rather than attack), but that's ridiculously expensive.  There's a good argument for going back to the multiplier rather than +10 levels of mental powers, just to represent how easy it is to affect very mindless or idiotic creatures, but that's another topic.
• Change Environment to make them move away unless they make a CON or EGO roll works, but they can still attack from range that way, if they have the means. 
• A Barrier that they cannot penetrate (but has no effect on anything else) would keep them back, at least, until they broke through it.
• Telekinesis that pushes everything away constantly is quite expensive (area effect, always on, invisible, etc).
• Flash bought as disorient works, because they won't be able to reasonably attack and will be confused and move around blindly.

 

[eepjr24]

Repel in this sense would be along the lines of "Find easier prey". If there is no easier prey to be had, it is not an absolute. 

 

I like the change environment idea since it has a mechanic for resistance on a die roll. At -1 to EGO and EGO based rolls, for normal and large insects that are not summoned you would have a mechanism for a summoner to win their ego contest by more than the insect failed theirs and force them in anyway. Probably would be something like:

 

[Repel Wasps] Change Environment: -1 EGO and EGO based rolls, make EGO roll or move out of affected area, -2m Flying; Area of Effect Radius: 8m (+1/2);Only versus Wasps (-1), etc.

 

I think I will limit the effect to only "Animal Intelligence" or "Instinctive Intelligence". Outside of that you would need to go to Mind Control or they could reason around it by holding their breath, etc. Situational modifiers like defending the nest or extreme hunger might provide bonus of 3-5 on the roll.

 

Thanks for the ideas. I think the darkness would have been the second best. It does not have a roll mechanic, but being blinded in an area is a good reason to avoid it. Spiders and Scorpions would be especially difficult to handle with this though, due to special senses. 

 

- E

[theinfn8]

The change environment approach is what I would have gone with. Something to discourage them a little.

 

If it was just a player that wanted something ancillary and not combat related, I might say it's an affect of Life Support, Immune to Normal Insects, with AoE applied. The whole shouldn't cost more than 5 pts.

[archer]

2 hours ago, theinfn8 said:

The change environment approach is what I would have gone with. Something to discourage them a little.

 

If it was just a player that wanted something ancillary and not combat related, I might say it's an affect of Life Support, Immune to Normal Insects, with AoE applied. The whole shouldn't cost more than 5 pts.

 

Life Support is a very interesting approach. I'd have to give some thought to it before I allow it into a game to figure out whether it's too over-powered. Or maybe at least define with the player what "normal" is in advance.

 

But I could definitely see that as a potential clerical spell, if nothing else.

[theinfn8]

Yeah, mostly, to me it comes down to, how effective is the ability? If it's just "My character hates mosquitoes and bugs" and is therefore mostly an RP thing, I wouldn't want them to have to spend more than a handful of points (and maybe none at all if I never intend for it to affect play). If I were running some hardcore jungle/swamp game, then not getting stung could mean no diseases and potential side quests related to finding a cure, so they would pay at least pay something for it. If there were going to be a lot of bug type encounters (like a Shadowrun type bug spirits game), then I would definitely make them pay for it, maybe even going with a more expensive route.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well, and as he notes, this would work on giant insects as well which can be incredibly dangerous, so that kind of setting its worth pretty good points to protect yourself from insects/arachnids et al

[pawsplay]

CE could work of it's something noxious to insects; they would take a penalty to their Ego roll to avoid being inclined to move, although it's not Mind Control and this may not work on controlled swarms.

Mind Control for an Anti-Insect Barrier. Expensive, but effective, decisive, and generally useful. Might work on giant insects, if they exist. Might even work on insectoid "people" if they exist, too.

You can do this with Barrier, for a type of control that has a very specific effect of not letting them cross, with appropriate modifiers.

[Ninja-Bear]

Has anyone suggested invisibility to insect senses? 

[archer]

57 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Has anyone suggested invisibility to insect senses? 

 

Since "Invisibility to Human senses" doesn't exist, no.  

[Ninja-Bear]

@archer, that was very in-sense-active of you! 😜

[Christopher R Taylor]

Invis could work, although it would be a little spendy for a minor effect in most cases.  You'd have to cover smell, sight, and hearing, and obviously no END and no fringe.

[archer]

35 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Invis could work, although it would be a little spendy for a minor effect in most cases.  You'd have to cover smell, sight, and hearing, and obviously no END and no fringe.

 

Normal insects (non-mutated and non-alien) might not be intelligent enough to associate a fringe effect from invisibility with possible prey. They're not going to be thinking to themselves, "Oh, look! I'll bet that's an invisible person hiding over there!"

 

And invisiblity wouldn't protect everyone in the party, just an individual. Many of the other options which were discussed would protect the party and possible innocents as well.

 

Of course, swarms of insects might also be dumb enough that being invisible wouldn't be much of an obstacle to them. They'd just fly through or crawl over an area and smack into someone, whether invisible or not. A wasp, for example, will instinctively try to sting you when it's startled, whether there's a target in range of its stinger or not. And it'll keep trying to sting until it either hits something or gets away.

[Old Man]

The correct answer is a 0 END AOE Armor Piercing Cumulative Major Transform.

[eepjr24]

18 hours ago, Old Man said:

The correct answer is a 0 END AOE Armor Piercing Cumulative Major Transform.

Isn't that like 42, pretty much the answer to everything?

[Ninja-Bear]

7 hours ago, eepjr24 said:

Isn't that like 42, pretty much the answer to everything?

No; XDM useable against others is! 😁

[dmjalund]

Striking Appearance, Insects find you repellant

[theinfn8]

On 2/12/2021 at 1:11 AM, dmjalund said:

Striking Appearance, Insects find you repellant

 

This comes back to an EGO roll type situation. But it's brilliantly simple.

[Old Man]

On 2/11/2021 at 8:21 AM, eepjr24 said:

Isn't that like 42, pretty much the answer to everything?

 

No, that's PRE attack.

 

I messed up on the major transform, though.  I forgot to add Autofire.

[LoneWolf]

A change environment could work if you only want to keep out smaller creatures.  A 1 STR TK will be enough to push back something that weighs less than 18 pounds.  Many giant insects fall in that range.  If you are talking about something larger it will get expensive.  

 

Most creatures don’t like taking damage so you could also use the 1 pt of damage from change environment.  It would probably be enough to kill normal insects and unless the insects are controlled in some way even the bigger ones would probably back off when they take damage.  Apply the modifiers area of effect radius so it takes them more than a move to get in.  
 

[archer]

You could try rappelling the insects rather than repelling them because it would give you more options. 

[Dr.Device]

 

On 2/18/2021 at 10:29 PM, archer said:

You could try rappelling the insects rather than repelling them because it would give you more options. 

 

Yeah, but you've got to be careful with your lines, else you could get tied up in gnats.