Mental power

[steph]

Hello hero friend,

 

A Mental power like mind control. Do we need to apply the range modifiers to the roll attack ? 
 

steph 

[BigJackBrass]

According to Champions Complete page 144, no. 

 

"… Mental Combat works on a Line Of Sight basis; if an attacker can see the target, he can attack him without suffering the Range Modifier. Typically, none of the Combat Modifiers apply either." 

[IndianaJoe3]

Depending on circumstances, it might be appropriate for the GM to require the attacker to make a Perception roll to establish LOS to the target. That Perception roll would be subject to range modifiers.

[unclevlad]

10 hours ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

Depending on circumstances, it might be appropriate for the GM to require the attacker to make a Perception roll to establish LOS to the target. That Perception roll would be subject to range modifiers.

 

Note that's largely, albeit not entirely, implicit in the post above.  "Can see the target" isn't entirely linguistically equivalent to "sees".  6E1 p. 148:

 

Quote

Mental Powers do not have the standard Range (10m x Base Points) — a character can use them to attack any character within his Line Of Sight (LOS). LOS means the character has direct perception of or can perceive any part of the target with a Targeting Sense. A character can establish LOS with any Targeting Sense. The Range Modifier does not apply to Mental Powers.

 

That makes clear that perception is a factor, and thus implicitly incorporates range mods to perception.  Also note that sight's not necessary, if you purchase, say, Targeting on your hearing, or even on your clairsentience.  On the latter, you also have to be able to have the clairsentience and the mental power active together;  that's not necessarily easy to accommodate.  Clairsentience gets expensive.

 

Note that applying ACV on a power does NOT do this;  nor does AVAD vs. Mental Defense.

[Derek Hiemforth]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

That makes clear that perception is a factor, and thus implicitly incorporates range mods to perception.

 

But not to the attack roll, which was the original question.

 

Also, perception is much more under GM discretion than combat range modifiers are.  If you fire an ordinary ranged weapon from 32m away, you're going to be at -4 to hit even if you can see the target clearly.  But if the GM thinks you can see the target clearly, then you don't have to attempt a PER Roll at all, despite the fact that you would get a -4 for range if the GM made you roll.  

[LoneWolf]

Actually Clairsentience does not establish line of sight even if it is purchased with targeting.  This is specifically stated in the rules under Clairsentience.  The GM can of course allow this but by default it does not.  But any other targeting sense should work.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Clairsentience does not establish line of sight even if it is purchased with targeting.

 

What, exactly, does targeting establish if not the ability to target?

[archer]

When I was a kid, I could see someone who was a quarter of a mile away at the back of the field which was behind our house. And that was long before I got glasses.

 

I couldn't tell who it was, but I could see that someone was there.

 

If the treeline had been further away than a quarter of a mile, I could have seen someone at a further distance and without any particular effort on my part other than turning my head in that direction and looking. And I wouldn't have had any minuses on my PER roll because the person was standing there in plain sight: I could see the person every time a person was there and I bothered to look.

 

I don't know what the RAW intend for mental powers, but I've always taken "line of sight" to be literal: you can attack if it is in the character's line of sight.

 

Now whether you can accurately identify who or what your target might be is another matter.

 

If someone was setting up a line of mannequins within your line of sight, you can spend a phase trying to Mind Control one of them. It won't work well because the targeted mannequin has no INT or EGO and it would have worked much better if you'd picked the person who was setting up the mannequins. But you could use the power because the target is within LOS and there's no range modifiers applied in the rules to the term "Line of Sight".

 

If you could see a black speck against the white snow, regardless of distance, you could use mental powers on it during your phase without range modifiers because it is within LOS. Yeah you might be guessing as to whether the speck is a person, a dog, a dead person, a dead dog, or a rock...but you can try use up your phase trying out your mental powers on it. 

 

2 cents, YMMV

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah its pretty much left up to GM interpretation, my limit is "identifiable" within line of sight.

[archer]

1 minute ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah its pretty much left up to GM interpretation, my limit is "identifiable" within line of sight.

 

That seems to be a reasonable limit.

 

When you say "identifiable", do you mean "identifiable as a legit target for the power" or do you mean "Hey! That's Mrs. Jones, the mayor's wife!"?

[Ninja-Bear]

On 4/10/2021 at 11:00 PM, LoneWolf said:

Actually Clairsentience does not establish line of sight even if it is purchased with targeting.  This is specifically stated in the rules under Clairsentience.  The GM can of course allow this but by default it does not.  But any other targeting sense should work.  

Yeah this is one of those RAW that confuses me. It seems to me counterintuitive. I’d let it pass.  (Then probably see why it was illegal 😂).

[Christopher R Taylor]

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When you say "identifiable", do you mean "identifiable as a legit target for the power" or do you mean "Hey! That's Mrs. Jones, the mayor's wife!"?

 

Just identifiable as a type of target: that's a human, not a statue.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Yeah this is one of those RAW that confuses me. It seems to me counterintuitive. I’d let it pass.  (Then probably see why it was illegal 😂).

 

 

If you are just shopping random opinions on why it's illegal, I'll toss out this one:

 

Yes; my gut says that Clairsentience should, by default, tell you exactly where your target is, not just let you look at him.  After all, you had to search around with your Clairsentience to find him, right?  Stands to reason that if you know exactly where he is, then you know exactly where he is.

 

_However_, I also accept that it doesn't actually have to work that way.  You may just have a psychic link to a person that lets you see him and his surroundings all the time-- or at least whenever you wish.  If he's in a walk-in pantry somewhere, that's all you're going to see, and you didn't even have to hunt for which panty.  So in this case, Sure: it makes sense that it wouldn't let you be able to target from your brain to his, simply because you don't know what direction he is.  Thanks to elevation and the shape of the earth, you actually have to pick one direction from what could be more than a hemisphere and fire away.

 

Once you accept that possibility, there are others: Magic Mirrors that let you see the party even deep in the Forbidden Wood, but you don't know just _where_ in the Forbidden Wood.  Even if you recognized a landmark, you couldn't just point your finger in precisely the right direction.

 

One way to think of it is as a pair of mirrors.  Two mirrors are angled such that one sees the party and the other mirror; the second sees the other mirror and you.  You are seeing everything, but not in direct I-can-target-this-line kind of way.

 

 

Mechanically, I _totally_ get it.  It prevents getting Clairsentience at ridiculous ranges that allow you to fell your opponent while you remain safely protected by the bulk of the planet between the two of you.

 

 

I don't know if any of that helps, and as I said: I found it hard to swallow, too, at first.  However, the more you look at how such things are used in various works of fiction, the more "normal" it seems that you can see or hear or taste the target and still not know _precisely_ where he is.

 

 

[Grailknight]

2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Yeah this is one of those RAW that confuses me. It seems to me counterintuitive. I’d let it pass.  (Then probably see why it was illegal 😂).

 

Duke does a better job of giving genre reasons so I'll stick to the simple Meta reason.

 

Play balance.

 

Clairsentience doesn't have a defined way to be blocked like other Senses that can penetrate barriers, it has no range penalty and if you make your viewpoint Mobile you can easily follow most people especially if they don't have a clue they're being watched. You can also add viewpoints and watch several people/places at once. It wouldn't replace Mind Scan totally, but the only thing Mind Scan does better is find people whose location you don't know. Once you do locate them, there'd be no Breakout roll or +EGO threshold to overcome unlike Mind Scan which can have it's lock broken and which may not be strong enough to use Mental Powers.

 

Ninja-Bear, Bing used your profile pic as my random daily screen saver two days ago. Didn't think they used pics that old.

[Derek Hiemforth]

7 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

What, exactly, does targeting establish if not the ability to target?

 

To me, it establishes that you can attack with full OCV.  And I think that may also be part of why Clairsentience doesn't establish Line of Sight.

 

For any "normal" attack (one without LOS targeting), then even if you have the target sighted with your Clairsentience (and are therefore perceiving them with a Targeting Sense), you still might need your attack to be Extended Range or Indirect or who knows what in order to be able to attack effectively, even if you have your full OCV.

But with a LOS attack, if Clairsentience established LOS, then it would also bypass all of those other issues for free. That would make Mental Powers with Clairsentience much more powerful than "physical" powers with Clairsentience.

 

Also, it's "Line of Sight," not just "Point of Sight."  You not only need to see what you're aiming at... you also need to see what's between here and there.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Mechanically, I _totally_ get it.  It prevents getting Clairsentience at ridiculous ranges that allow you to fell your opponent while you remain safely protected by the bulk of the planet between the two of you.

 

This is really what it comes down to, whatever attempts people make at trying to explain why it doesn't work.  It would be something you could use to replace Mind Scan with (although more awkward to use, since you have to actually look for them), and if people used it cleverly it could be really powerful. 

 

But I mean, so does Mind Scan, it can be hella powerful and allow people to just kick back at home and zap people.  So I am not sure its really a necessary rule.

[dmjalund]

What if yo use Clairsentience with Mind Sense?

[LoneWolf]

The reason clairsentience does not establish line of sight is to prevent the old scry and fry.  In an earlier edition of fantasy hero I saw a character use this combination to clear a dungeon without even going in to it.   He used Clairsentience to find all the creatures and a low dice killing attack BOECV does body.  Basically if you did not have resistant mental defense you were dead. 

 

With Mind Scan you at least have to know who and what you are looking for.  You also have roll high enough to attack the target in addition to hitting the target.   And last but not least Mind Scan is a two way street.  If you can attack a target with a mental power you can also be attacked with a mental power by the target.  
 

[Ninja-Bear]

Duke Bushido as usual had some good points and did everyone else. Now let me pose this question. CCTV is usually presented as Clairsentience. Now if would it not be reasonable to allow the Viper goons to use the the CCTV to attack the fool heroes when they show themselves on camera?

[IndianaJoe3]

15 hours ago, archer said:

When I was a kid, I could see someone who was a quarter of a mile away at the back of the field which was behind our house. And that was long before I got glasses.

 

I couldn't tell who it was, but I could see that someone was there.

 

If the treeline had been further away than a quarter of a mile, I could have seen someone at a further distance and without any particular effort on my part other than turning my head in that direction and looking. And I wouldn't have had any minuses on my PER roll because the person was standing there in plain sight: I could see the person every time a person was there and I bothered to look.

 

This is the canonical example for not needing a Perception roll. The target is by itself, in the open. There's nothing to interfere with LOS.

 

Now, move to an environment where the target might be behind cover, or confused with a bystander. How do you know that you have LOS and that it's the right target? Because you've made a Perception roll.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The reason clairsentience does not establish line of sight is to prevent the old scry and fry.  In an earlier edition of fantasy hero I saw a character use this combination to clear a dungeon without even going in to it.

 

Yeah, but you can do that with Mind Scan, so... *shrug*  Seems like the real problem was the attack build.

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Yeah, but you can do that with Mind Scan, so... *shrug*  Seems like the real problem was the attack build.

 

Not saying the attack power wasn't part of the problem, but...

 

Can you?  This'd be an area search.  OK, the scan can give "there's about X minds in that area."  There's no connection to any mind, and the minds are not distinct.  (All you've done, essentially, is "hit their hex.")  You have to pick one to lock onto;  how are you going to do that?  Also note that any such method will presumably run afoul of some of the Mind Scan modifiers, particularly unfamiliar mind.

 

The attack power as given also *can't* be used through Mind Scan.  RKA BOECV/ACV is not a Mental Power (5E Rev, 253 for BOECV;  6E 318 for ACV).  Granted:  make it Mental Blast, Does BODY, and you could possibly get there, but that's more expensive and less lethal. 

 

Clairsentience that includes the Mental Group...now this is possible, but recognize you have to buy the Mind Scan separately to do that.  Clairsentience with a Sense Group only works with the senses you purchase.  The Mind Scan's point of origin would be the point at which the Clairsentience is based, so you don't have to worry about the sheer number of minds between you and the area you're scanning;  you also have the clean definition of the area you scan...the area your Clairsent is observing.  BUT...there's no connection between the meat body your Sight locates, and the mind for purposes of Mind Scan.  So I think you can use Mind Scan to link to a random chump, but you can't pick a specific target.  And last, you're still limited in the attacks you can deliver, by what Mind Scan can do in this scenario.

 

I have the feeling that many of us (including me) don't chase down through the weeds far enough with some of these powers.  Case in point...I strongly suspect we often don't realize that Clairsentience's range isn't that great, and let it be used at much further ranges than we should.  Clairsentience is an incredibly nit-picky, fine-detailed power.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Mind Scan is one of those really awful powers just sitting there not being abused by most players, but its really hinky.

 

I usually don't take it with mentalists because it feels cheaty, especially at the 60 active point level.

[dmjalund]

Anyone with a Mental Ability has Mental Sense

[LoneWolf]

It costs a lot less to be able to pull off a scry and fry with clairsentience than it does with Mind Scan.   

 

For 55 points I can purchase Clairsentience for the sight group with Targeting, Mobile Perception Point at a range of 1,600m and +5 to the perception roll.  With this I can sit outside a dungeon or other structure and search the whole thing.

 

For the same 55 points I can purchase 8d6 Mind Scan that affects Humans, Machines, and Animals.  Assuming I hit the target I will on the average be able to affect a target of 18 Ego for about 1 round before he breaks the lock.  Assuming the structure is about the size of an apartment building that means my attack roll is at a -6 DMCV.

 

If Clairsentience establishes a line of sight it allows me to attack anyone within 1,600m an unlimited number of times.  I will eventually find the target and when I do there is nothing they can do to stop me. With Mind Scan the target can use his own mental power to attack me.