Is Teleport a "Mental Power?"

[Hugh Neilson]

They are two different ways of achieving a measure of versatility.  A 60 point Cosmic VPP (control cos 30 x 3 = 90) is a 60 point Multipower with infinite variable slots.

2 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

But when your Ninja can dodge bullets from a hail,of minibus (via Desolid) and gets dropped by a musket ball with 'affects Desolid," there might just be a better way....

 

I suggest that the "better way" is running the game in a manner that respects SFX and schticks.  Buying "affects desolid" on that musket ball after allowing the Ninja to buy "desolid as defense" seems unreasonable to me. 

 

Buying it to simulate a mystic musket ball that the Ninja cannot effectively dodge would bring it back into the game, IMO.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Friendly nitpick:

 

So your only complaint with this is the semantics laid on top of the abusive mechanics?  Bad semantics (it is far to slow to dodge, maybe?) Then the mechanics are abusive.  Good semantics (here be gypsies and magic muskets), it's okay?

 

 

As stated: this ia a friendly nitpick.  The example was pulled as an analogy to Independence day, where jet fighters  had no chance against the alien interceptors, but a cropsustinf biplane took out the mothership.

 

Yeah-  goldblum,and Smith, yadda yadda yadda..

 

I don't disagree, mind you.  Touchscreen sucks mule anus as a means of communication; I have to guess at what can and cannot go unstated; what can be reliably considered shared assumption or at least understood context, else I get to shove the straw up th3 mule'a butt again and,drink even deeper of the touchscreen juice.

 

>:-{

 

 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

So your only complaint with this is the semantics laid on top of the abusive mechanics?  Bad semantics (it is far to slow to dodge, maybe?) Then the mechanics are abusive.  Good semantics (here be gypsies and magic muskets), it's okay?

 

As stated: this ia a friendly nitpick.  The example was pulled as an analogy to Independence day, where jet fighters  had no chance against the alien interceptors, but a cropsustinf biplane took out the mothership.

 

The flexibility of Hero comes with a need to assess how some items will be built in a given game.  If the agreed  method for getting that "can't be hit" effect is Desolid, then you don't abuse that by slapping "affects desolid" on powers just to get around that "can't be hit" effect.  You use it for abilities that have an appropriate in-game concept.  Perhaps there is no appropriate in-game concept, in which case you don't build around it.

 

As a more blatant example, you also don't tell the player who shows up with a character with 75 STR "No, you can't have more than 50 STR - that will be the "Strongest One There Is" in this game, then toss in a 60 STR opponent every two or three games.  It's part of setting the parameters of the game which the players and GM build with the Hero system toolbox.

[Ninja-Bear]

@phydauxFwiw, I was reading the description of Flight (4tg ed)and its suggests that one of the sfx is sheer force of will.  So there you go.

[dmjalund]

anything can be a Psychic (Special Effect) power, but in HERO, Mental Power has a specific meaning

[Duke Bushido]

20 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

anything can be a Psychic (Special Effect) power, but in HERO, Mental Power has a specific meaning

 

 

This is an especially important distinction when determining the value of a limitation.  Is the VPP limited only to those powers that use mental power _mechanics_- in which case it is extremely limited- or can powers with BOECV be created as well?  In this case, it is still limited, but less so.  

 

Is the limitation "powers that have psychic special effects"?  If that is the case, the value of that limitation (which should default as extremely low) may be absolutely nothing, depending on bothe the experience and imagination of the player.

 

I dont think that there is a single person on this board who could not justify every single power via "psychic powers" as the SFX, and again with magic.

 

We had a fun conversation here some years ago about justifying every single power through Stretching, just to kind of help one guy "get it" with the split between mechanics and SFX.

 

For what it is worth, the difficulty of nailing down in-game what the restrictions are of an SFX-based limitation (demonic powers only, for example) is one of the reasons the player and I "contract" the limitation- writing down as best as is possible how the pool is limited, what is a definite yes, and what is a definite nthe fact that even contracting up front doesnt solve all the complaints or disagreements is the number one reason I dont often allow them in my games.

[unclevlad]

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I dont think that there is a single person on this board who could not justify every single power via "psychic powers" as the SFX, and again with magic.

 

 

Some would be much harder than others, but that's probably at least close to true.  Even if there's isolated exceptions, the point's made.

 

My standards would be:

--RAW defines it as a Mental Power;  also, anything like Mental Entangle, where it's stated to be "as a Mental Power," or Psychokinesis, where the book explicitly notes it's another interpretation.

--Uses OMCV for attack, DMCV as the avoidance, or Ego Def as the resistance.  Any one of the three may be enough;  2 of the 3 is pretty much a lock.

--Frequently described as a mentalist-class power in comics, sci fi, or fantasy.  Summons based on charming/mental control, for example.

--Relatively easy derivations of TK, like telekinetic blasts

--Hmm...one that's a little different, and specific to Hero.  If the character has a Power skill, make it based on EGO, not INT.  Especially in 6E where you're not getting OMCV and DMCV from that.

 

Things that generally do not fit mental power:

--energy manipulation, particularly involving energy creation and distribution.  Psionic Lightning Bolt is a major stretch that D&D did, to give psions parity with magical casters.  

--Teleportation is dicey.  Flight can be derived from TK.

--Shape shifting.

--Duplication...?  Full-on bioduplication, no.  Construct-style, possibly.

--Item creation or alteration.  

 

Some of this depends...3E psionic classes have "ectoplasmic manipulation" linked more-or-less to the protomatter of the Ethereal Plane.  But again, how much of that was just trying to broaden the appeal, and to make the psion more than the illusionist...another relatively narrow, specialist class?  IIRC, ectoplasmic manipulation does have connections through Lovecraft, so it's probably reasonable to incorporate it.  When you've got that, then particularly short-lived item creation, and thus construct-style duplication and summoning (critters created from nothing, as opposed to called).

[DShomshak]

In Real Magic, P. E. I. Bonewitz postulated "Cellular Psychokinesis" and Atomic Psychokinesis." Between them, between them they could achieve feats such as psychic surgery, shapeshifting, and, yes, lightning bolts from one's fingers or materializing objects from thin air. Very much the old wine of magic in the new bottle of "psi." At that point, yeah, "Only Mental Powers" becomes meaningless as a Limitation.

 

One of the PCs in my "Avant Guard" campaign has a small VPP. (There's no way I'd allow a PC to have a *large* VPP, after the stories another player told of gaming at MIT where *every* character had a large VPP.) The SFX is Primal Magic: "I tell the Universe what it is and the Universe conforms, with no backchat, because I am a goddess." The Limitation "Only Magic" gets a -1/4 value, and that only because the character must define any feat must be written out in Ancient Sumerian, in terms that would make sense to someone 5000 years ago. So for instance, I allow the character to make an Enhanced Sense to detect anything made from an alien metal... but she needs an actual sample of that metal so the spell becomes "Guide me to more of this substance, whatever it happens to be." It forces the player to think at least a little.

 

Dean Shomshak

[pawsplay]

It might be a "psionic power" but it's not a Mental Power. Decide whether the pool can do Mental Powers, or Psionic powers, and price accordingly.

[Tech]

Seems we're at the point where we're trying to decide what 'we' think could be a mental power. This goes back to what I said about the GM having to decide and let the player know.

[Ockham's Spoon]

I have had mentalists with Teleport, defined as the psychic ability to visualize a tesseract and step through it to effectively teleport.  This allowed characters with no psychokinetic powers (no TK or flight) to have some kind of movement ability to keep up with other heroes.  But in that game, mental powers were split into three groups: psionic (telepathy, mind control, etc.), psychic (ESP, precognition, etc.), and psychokinetic (anything that affects the physical world), so anyone wanting a limitation on a VPP would have to have "Only psionic" or "Only psychic" or "Only psychokinetic" as a limitation instead of "Only mental".  This was done specifically because mental powers otherwise end up being just "magic" with a different sfx and they lose coherence since they let you justify anything.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 11/6/2022 at 9:05 PM, pawsplay said:

It might be a "psionic power" but it's not a Mental Power. Decide whether the pool can do Mental Powers, or Psionic powers, and price accordingly.

 

Good point - is this an SFX limitation (only mental powers as I define that SFX) or a mechanical limitation (only those powers that Hero defines as "Mental Powers")?

 

Maybe someone should write a game where SFX and mechanics are independent?

[steriaca]

5 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

5 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Maybe someone should write a game where SFX and mechanics are independent?

Humm...Big Eyes Small Mouth...GURPS...TWURPS...Fusion..and some sort of system of some kind.

 

And maybe more.

[Strand]

Though this has already been answered, I want to share this. I read a Science Fiction book some years ago.The characters had Psionic powers and were miners. They travel the galaxy or where ever because they could detect which star system had the gold or other minerals they needed. Then there was a guy that could Teleport them AND their ship. At some point they said forget about the ship. The story is just a bit over powered for Champions, but if you need to ask if some writer had the idea, there you go.

[Matt the Bruins]

For what it's worth, Menton has Teleportation listed as an example power from his Vast Psionic Powers VPP under the name Psychokinetic Body Transmission. So it's at least theoretically available as a psionic power in the Champions setting, though there probably aren't that many powers Menton is unable to access as such.

[unclevlad]

Not trying to nitpick, but there is no theory here.  It's completely GM (or writer) discretion.

[Opal]

It's interesting. 

Apparently the first use of "teleportation" only goes back to 1931 and was, indeed, used to describe unexplained or psychic phenomena, like, y'know, your keys moving from where you were sure you left them to a spot you'd just checked a moment before.

It wasn't until the 50s, that is started being used to describe matter transmitters and other nominally  scientific but very unconventional means of transportation. 

 

The closely related words/concepts apportation and dematerialization go back to 19th century mediums, though. 

 

You'd think that something as strongly associated with magic would be much older, but no.