Does 6th Edition makes Mental Powers weaker.

[LoneWolf]

One change in 6th edition was getting rid of figured stats. In doing so the cost of some of the primary stats were reduced.  EGO used to cost 2 points per point, but under 6th edition that dropped to 1 per point. Since EGO no longer determines your ECV this makes sense.  But the cost of mental defense has not gone up.  It seems to me that by reducing the cost of EGO it has made mental powers and mental defense less effective.  

 

Under earlier editions purchasing mental defense was the best and most efficient way to stop mental powers.  But under 6th edition that is no longer true. Other than damaging mental attacks buying up your EGO gives you the same effect as buying mental defense, but also has the added benefit of making it easier to make the breakout roll.  For 13 points I can buy either 13 EGO or 13 Mental Defense.  When determining if the character is affected by a mind control both have the same result.  But the character that purchased the extra EGO has a 14 or less EGO roll, while the character with Mental Defense has an 11 or less. This means the character with the higher EGO will breakout much sooner.

 

Under 5th edition the cost of purchasing 23 EGO would be 26 points.  For that amount of points the character would get 28 points of mental defense.  So, to affect the character with Mental Defense you need to roll 15 more.  The character with the higher EGO will have about the same chance of breaking out because of the higher roll will give them a -3 penalty on the roll.  The above assumes average rolls.

 

If the characters are ignoring mental attacks, it will not have any real consequences, but it does give incentive to buy up a character's EGO a bit.  If all the PC’s start buying up their EGO, it will reduce the effectiveness of mentalist.  I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  
 

[Grailknight]

Yes, although I would phrase it as less effective rather than weaker. What it really does is reduce the value of EGO Defense which is now only really a better option versus Mental Blast.

[Gauntlet]

You also can add the fact that in 5th edition you received additional Mental Defense for each 5 points of Ego, making it kinda like a figured characteristic.

[LoneWolf]

I already factored that into my example.  That is why spending 26 points gave you 28 mental defense. 

[unclevlad]

One of the other angles here is it points out that a rigid "no power may have more than 60 active points (or 12 DCs, if you allow reduced END)" approach breaks down, because as you note...with mental powers, 12d6 only barely lets you reach EGO+20 in many cases.  (And even then, the target will often get an EGO roll at no penalty.)

 

An aspect you didn't mention:  losing the EC hurts the pure or hybrid mentalist.  For example, Mind Scan at EGO+20 is "generally enough" to teleport to the target's location, per 6E1 264, if the GM allows it.  But to do that, you have to maintain the link...which means, if you want to activate a teleport, you need to keep it up.  In an EC, you can probably get a price break.  Without?  Gonna have to pay both sets of points with no break.  That's true with Scan/Link and, say, Telepathy too.  

 

Last aspect...buying up DMCV a bit is pretty cheap.  Don't bother with OMCV, but maybe consider buying up the DMCV.  Move a 14- to hit to a 12- takes 16% off their chance to hit.  It isn't the first thing to do;  it might be 3rd.  (EGO, then some Mental Def, then DMCV.)  But it's plausible to consider.

[Chris Goodwin]

I haven't built a 6e non-mentalist character with more than 13 EGO (with one exception, but she was an exception in a lot of ways), and most of mine have 10. 

[LoneWolf]

Actually 12d6 mental attacks will on the average get EGO +30 on a character with less than 13 EGO, but they would get a breakout roll with no penalties before they are affected.  That gives them a 62.5% chance to avoid the being affected by the power.  At the EGO +20 that drops to a 16.2% chance to avoid being affected.   But with the cost of EGO being so cheap it does not take a lot of points to resist mental powers.  Anyone spending about 15 points on EGO is extremely hard to affect with mental powers.  But as Chris Goodwin points out a lot of characters don’t bother boosting their mental resilience.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

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But the cost of mental defense has not gone up.  It seems to me that by reducing the cost of EGO it has made mental powers and mental defense less effective.

 

For my own part, I build characters to concept, so Ego costing half as much has not driven me to double my Ego spending, and the builds of characters in various books seems like that has not changed, either.  So possibly the cost change has not affected mental powers.

What has affected mental powers in 6th edition is the categories of minds rules, which I personally ignore, but definitely weakens mental powers.  If you simply cannot affect some targets now that you used to, your powers are weaker -- by how much depends on the campaign and how often the topic comes up.  It has a double effect by requiring mentalists to buy +5 point adders on every mental power they want to be able to affect different classes of minds, costing more (thus weakening their effect if there are dice or AP limits in the campaign).

[Tom Cowan]

13 hours ago, unclevlad said:

An aspect you didn't mention:  losing the EC hurts the pure or hybrid mentalist.  For example, Mind Scan at EGO+20 is "generally enough" to teleport to the target's location, per 6E1 264, if the GM allows it.  But to do that, you have to maintain the link...which means, if you want to activate a teleport, you need to keep it up.  In an EC, you can probably get a price break.  Without?  Gonna have to pay both sets of points with no break.  That's true with Scan/Link and, say, Telepathy too. 

hmm, I think 'Unified Power' is the new EC -1/4 for the powers that are put in the same group

so

Mind Scan 12d6 (60 Active Points); Unified Power (Mind Powers; -1/4) (for a cost of 48)

Mind Powers:  Multipower, 60-point reserve,  (60 Active Points); all slots Unified Power (Mind Scan; -1/4) (for a cost of 48)

with your other powers in the MP or also set as a Unified Power

[LoneWolf]

The classes of minds are also in 5th edition.  Considering how broad the categories are it really does not make mental powers that much weaker.  The vast majority of NPC’s will be of the human category.  The add on for additional classes of minds were actually reduced in 6th edition.  In 5th edition each additional class is 10 points, under 6th it is 5 points.  

 

What 6th edition does is not so much make mental powers weaker (or less effective), but it does make it cheaper to resist them.  The bonus to the breakout roll that EGO gives is much more important than a few extra points of mental defense gained under 5th edition.  Now the only reason to purchase mental defense is to resist damaging attacks that go against mental defense.  
  
I can see buying 3 points of EGO to make it slightly harder to affect with mental powers.  

 

Unified power can actually save more points than the old elemental control.  Since you can apply the limitation to any game element it can save a lot of points.  It is suggested a GM might require the points to be about the same cost, but that is not an actual rule. 
 

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, Tom Cowan said:

hmm, I think 'Unified Power' is the new EC -1/4 for the powers that are put in the same group

so

Mind Scan 12d6 (60 Active Points); Unified Power (Mind Powers; -1/4) (for a cost of 48)

Mind Powers:  Multipower, 60-point reserve,  (60 Active Points); all slots Unified Power (Mind Scan; -1/4) (for a cost of 48)

with your other powers in the MP or also set as a Unified Power

 

It helps a bit, but it's still more expensive, depending on how you do it...how many powers in the MP, how many powers need to be run simultaneously, what other limits you intend to apply.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Considering how broad the categories are it really does not make mental powers that much weaker.  The vast majority of NPC’s will be of the human category.

 

Yeah, it is not a significant reduction in power, in some campaigns it will be nonexistent (no aliens or animals to worry about, etc).  But it is a potential weakening of the power.

 

Quote

Now the only reason to purchase mental defense is to resist damaging attacks that go against mental defense.  

 

Since it takes 3-5 points to give a +1 to your Ego roll, I'd say that mental defense is still valuable.  It can easily make an EGO +20 effect become EGO +10 and might negate the power entirely without needing a roll.  For example, a mental illusion that is convincing at EGO +20 might be ridiculous at EGO +10 and ignored.  And as you say, its the only defense against a mental blast is mental defense, so that's always good.

[Chris Goodwin]

I think I'm probably going to house rule Mental Defense to 3 points for 5 Mental Defense, +1 point per +1 MD.

[LoneWolf]

To reduce the mental attack by 10 you need 10 points of mental defense.  For that same 10 points you can get 10 points of ego which reduces the attack the exact same amount.  But the 10 points of ego give you +2 on your ego rolls, including the breakout roll.   .  Buying up your EGO has the same cost as an equivalent amount of mental defense and has the same effect when it comes to reducing mental powers.   

 

The only benefit of the mental defense is that it reduces damage vs attack that goes against mental defense.  Considering a mental blast cost double what a standard attack does that means those attacks do less damage than other attacks.  If the campaign has a lot of mental blasts, it might be worth getting some mental defense.  
 

Elemental controls have a lot of limitations on what can and cannot be put in them.  There is no limit to what you can take unified power on, including frame works.  Being able to take Unified Power on a multipower or VPP saves a lot of points.  You can also put the limitation on characteristics and skills.   I rewrote some old characters using 6th edition and they all came out more powerful than the old version despite not having an elemental control.  The speedster was a lot more efficient in 6th edition.

[unclevlad]

On 9/21/2024 at 11:39 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Since it takes 3-5 points to give a +1 to your Ego roll, I'd say that mental defense is still valuable.  It can easily make an EGO +20 effect become EGO +10 and might negate the power entirely without needing a roll. 

 

 

20 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

o reduce the mental attack by 10 you need 10 points of mental defense.  For that same 10 points you can get 10 points of ego which reduces the attack the exact same amount.  But the 10 points of ego give you +2 on your ego rolls, including the breakout roll.   .  Buying up your EGO has the same cost as an equivalent amount of mental defense and has the same effect when it comes to reducing mental powers.   

 

LW's right...if my EGO is 10 higher than yours, then what's EGO+20 against you, is only EGO+10 against me.

 

Mental Defense becomes a consideration

a)  when Mental Blast is a concern, of course, and

b)  once you have your EGO roll high enough that going higher hits diminishing returns...even considering penalties to your EGO roll, because the high EGO is also making it harder for the mental attacker to get enough effect to apply a large penalty.

 

20 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Elemental controls have a lot of limitations on what can and cannot be put in them.  There is no limit to what you can take unified power on, including frame works.  Being able to take Unified Power on a multipower or VPP saves a lot of points.  You can also put the limitation on characteristics and skills.   I rewrote some old characters using 6th edition and they all came out more powerful than the old version despite not having an elemental control.  The speedster was a lot more efficient in 6th edition.

 

That much under Unified Power *screams* for Drains...because it'll nail ALL of them.  The character's massively vulnerable.  

 

I can also do the same thing in 5E.  I can put OIAID onto my EC and MP...with MUCH less risk when it matters.

 

Speedsters can easily be more efficient in 6E, because they *tend* to have less in STR and CON to start with (by comparison to many others).  In 5E that means their REC, END, and STUN start lower...and then you get crucified by the huge cost in 5E of buying them up...along with the higher *need* to do so.

[unclevlad]

On 9/21/2024 at 3:00 PM, Chris Goodwin said:

I think I'm probably going to house rule Mental Defense to 3 points for 5 Mental Defense, +1 point per +1 MD.

 

Umm, so how much would 10 points of MD cost?  Your phrasing isn't clear to me.  Not arguing against it, mind, but I think I'd stick with 2 points for 3 MD, which has been a scaling that's used in some other places.  Not sure 3 for 5 ever is.  Not like it's going to be much different overall.

 

I was thinking on this earlier as above, and considered posting that maybe Mental Damage Reduction was an option...because the baseline *defense* is 0.  That said, to get 15 points' worth of reduction, the attack has to reach 60 points of effect.  That's 15 dice with a somewhat above average roll, 17 with an average roll.  That's even with Mental Defense being an overpriced/underpowered option.  Lowering the cost on MD would make this even worse.

[Chris Goodwin]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Umm, so how much would 10 points of MD cost?  Your phrasing isn't clear to me.  Not arguing against it, mind, but I think I'd stick with 2 points for 3 MD, which has been a scaling that's used in some other places.  Not sure 3 for 5 ever is.  Not like it's going to be much different overall.

Flat 3 points for the first 5 points of MD.  After that, you pay 1 point for +1 MD.  Does that make more sense?

[unclevlad]

8 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Flat 3 points for the first 5 points of MD.  After that, you pay 1 point for +1 MD.  Does that make more sense?

 

Clearer, but...why bother at that point?  Save 2 points on the first 5 but that's it.  I'll take the +1 on the EGO roll for the extra 2 points on that first 5, and from then on, it's no different.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think just dumping the class of mind thing is a big first step, its an excess expense like having your blast have to buy different kinds of substances it affects.  Hero gives blank basic effects, then you tailor how it works in the game with modifiers, not built into the power. 

 

As for the other effects... it hasn't made any difference to half the cost of Ego in the game that I have experienced.  To do so, people would have to spend the same points for Ego, getting twice as much, and who does that?  Oh, Ego costs less, so now my brick has 28 Ego!  In theory it could cause inflation on Ego builds and hence weaken mental powers but in practice it doesn't, in my experience and in the official builds of characters.

 

In order for that to work, everything else would have to cost the same, so you had the extra points.  But because of the increased cost of buying characteristics without the figured ones for free, you actually have fewer points to work with when building a character in 6th.  Around 50 points in my experience doing old rebuilds.

Edited September 23 by Christopher R Taylor

[unclevlad]

14 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

To do so, people would have to spend the same points for Ego, getting twice as much, and who does that?  Oh, Ego costs less, so now my brick has 28 Ego! 

 

Why would they spend the same points?  Yeah, sure, with the cost of EGO reduced, instead of an 18 EGO (for 16 points), I've got a 23 for 13.  And a nice boost on any EGO breakout rolls I might need.  Or whatever.  Spending the same points isn't the only option by any means.

 

And I agree with the others, that the class of minds is next to nothing.  How many people ever take 2 classes of minds in the first place?  

 

20 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Hero gives blank basic effects, then you tailor how it works in the game with modifiers, not built into the power. 

 

No.  That's simply not true all the time.  Sure, it covers many powers, but there are others that are built on more specific effects.  MANY powers have adders as a major fundamental component, like Flash Attack.  That's all this is.  

[LoneWolf]

As I pointed out earlier the class of minds actually got cheaper under 6th edition.  They are also actually quite broad in scope.  Other than in a Fantasy Hero game the vast majority of targets are going to fall into the human category.  Under the earlier editions mental powers did not affect normal computers because they do not have an EGO score.  That meant that it only affected AIs.  In most Champions games you rarely encounter animals, and even when you do, they are usually more not as adversaries.  Exceptions will exist, but for the most part they are not that common.  The only other default category that leaves is alien.  The alien category is for something completely different than human.  Most races in star trek or Star Wars would be considered human.  The Xeonomorphs from the Aliens movies would be considered of the alien class, but Firewing or a Vulcan from star trek would be human.   The book even reinforces this by stating that all PC’s are affected as if they were Human.  It suggests that the Android should take a complication to also be affected as if it were a machine.  

 

Mental Powers are not the only power that is restricted in what it can affect.  Transformation also has three aspects for a sentient creature, and only affects one of those aspects.  With Transformation you actually have to buy separate linked transforms to change more than one aspect.   So, when you buy transform person into animal you end up with an animal with all the intellect and skill of the character.  The class of minds are a lot cheaper than this.  

 

Unless the GM is creating huge amounts of categories of minds the default “Human” class is still going to cover the vast majority of targets in most games.  If the GM is doing that, the problem is not the GM not the rules.  
 

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

As I pointed out earlier the class of minds actually got cheaper under 6th edition.  They are also actually quite broad in scope.  Other than in a Fantasy Hero game the vast majority of targets are going to fall into the human category.  Under the earlier editions mental powers did not affect normal computers because they do not have an EGO score.  That meant that it only affected AIs.  In most Champions games you rarely encounter animals, and even when you do, they are usually more not as adversaries.  Exceptions will exist, but for the most part they are not that common.  The only other default category that leaves is alien.  The alien category is for something completely different than human.  Most races in star trek or Star Wars would be considered human.  The Xeonomorphs from the Aliens movies would be considered of the alien class, but Firewing or a Vulcan from star trek would be human.   The book even reinforces this by stating that all PC’s are affected as if they were Human.  It suggests that the Android should take a complication to also be affected as if it were a machine.  

 

Mental Powers are not the only power that is restricted in what it can affect.  Transformation also has three aspects for a sentient creature, and only affects one of those aspects.  With Transformation you actually have to buy separate linked transforms to change more than one aspect.   So, when you buy transform person into animal you end up with an animal with all the intellect and skill of the character.  The class of minds are a lot cheaper than this.  

 

Unless the GM is creating huge amounts of categories of minds the default “Human” class is still going to cover the vast majority of targets in most games.  If the GM is doing that, the problem is not the GM not the rules.  
 

 

So why bother with classes of minds? Why have this added complexity if it's largely irrelevant? Are the rules not sufficiently bloated yet?

 

Let those "truly alien" minds pay for mental defense, like every other character pays for every other advantage they receive over the human baseline.  Animals Only can be a limitation, as can Not vs Animals, with the costing campaign-dependent.  Create a separate stream to apply mental powers to nonsentient machines like computers, likely at a lower cost as this will be considerably less versatile and more situational.

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

As I pointed out earlier the class of minds actually got cheaper under 6th edition.  They are also actually quite broad in scope.  Other than in a Fantasy Hero game the vast majority of targets are going to fall into the human category.  Under the earlier editions mental powers did not affect normal computers because they do not have an EGO score.  That meant that it only affected AIs.  In most Champions games you rarely encounter animals, and even when you do, they are usually more not as adversaries.  Exceptions will exist, but for the most part they are not that common.  The only other default category that leaves is alien.  The alien category is for something completely different than human.  Most races in star trek or Star Wars would be considered human.  The Xeonomorphs from the Aliens movies would be considered of the alien class, but Firewing or a Vulcan from star trek would be human.   The book even reinforces this by stating that all PC’s are affected as if they were Human.  It suggests that the Android should take a complication to also be affected as if it were a machine.  

 

Mental Powers are not the only power that is restricted in what it can affect.  Transformation also has three aspects for a sentient creature, and only affects one of those aspects.  With Transformation you actually have to buy separate linked transforms to change more than one aspect.   So, when you buy transform person into animal you end up with an animal with all the intellect and skill of the character.  The class of minds are a lot cheaper than this.  

 

Unless the GM is creating huge amounts of categories of minds the default “Human” class is still going to cover the vast majority of targets in most games.  If the GM is doing that, the problem is not the GM not the rules.  
 

 

So why bother with classes of minds? Why have this added complexity if it's largely irrelevant?

 

Let those "truly alien" minds pay for mental defense, like every other character pays for every other advantage they receive over the human baseline.  Animals Only can be a limitation, as can Not vs Animals, with the costing campaign-dependent.  Create a separate stream to apply mental powers to nonsentient machines like computers, likely at a lower cost as this will be considerably less versatile and more situational.

Edited September 23 by Hugh Neilson

[Grailknight]

The problem with the Classes of Minds isn't the base cost, it's that Adders are subject to all the other Advantages on a power. It's not a huge difference but it does factor in.

[LoneWolf]

Unless you have a lot of advantages on your mental powers the adder will usually be cheaper.  

 

For the most part unless you are getting exotic most mental powers, I have seen don’t have a lot of advantages.   They already have quite of few advantages for free, it already will affect most characters that are Desolid, it has Line of sight, it uses an alternate combat value that is much cheaper, it goes vs an uncommon defense, it is only visible to the mental sense group.  That works out to be a +2.5 advantage.  If we were reverse engineering mental powers, they would be 1.43 point per die before applying the built in advantages.  

 

 

[unclevlad]

13 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

So why bother with classes of minds? Why have this added complexity if it's largely irrelevant? Are the rules not sufficiently bloated yet?

 

If bloat and complexity are concerns, this is far from a top 10 example of such, IMO.

 

Are you saying that if I have Telepathy, say, I should be able to read all minds, of any type...cyber, animal, alien?  In any source material...sci fi, fantasy, comics, supers lit, urban fantasy...this is *rarely* the case.  Hacker types read computer minds.  Animal controller types are the only ones that generally ever get reading animal minds.  Aliens might be a mixed bag, tho.  It actually clarifies the power a great deal, iMO, which leads to an overall *simplification*.  

 

11 hours ago, Grailknight said:

The problem with the Classes of Minds isn't the base cost, it's that Adders are subject to all the other Advantages on a power. It's not a huge difference but it does factor in.

 

This is true, but as LW points out, it feels more theoretical than actual.  What adders are you intending to use *on mental powers*?  Teleport, clairsentience?  Oh, heck yeah.  If you want MegaScale, any adders get expensive in a hurry.

 

But another option?  If it's really gonna add that many points because you do have so many adders, make it a multipower.  You only need the adder if you want to use the mental power on 2 classes of mind at the same time.