Willing Targets of Mental Powers

[Dust Raven]

Re: Willing Targets of Mental Powers

 

Personally' date=' I don't care if the book doesn't allow it. If it makes sense to me, and is appropriate to the story, I'm gonna do it. There are all kinds of examples of voluntarily lowering stats in the game. You can lower your speed so you don't drown, you don't have to punch someone at full strength, etc. And yes, if someone had some kind of body control abilities, or has been role-played as having great bodily control, (Beatrix Kiddo, for example, or a martial arts ancient master) than I would allow them to turn off their body, slowly, and kill themselves. I might require some kind of training, or an ego roll, or something, so this sort of thing to work, but I'd generally let it happen...[/quote']

 

Such examples aren't examples of lowering a Characteristics, but examples of using less than max of a characteristic. The Characteristic itself doesn't change. For example, if you chose to lower your SPD frm 6 to 2 to avoid drowning (or just to keep the END cost of a FW low), and are then Drain 20 points of SPD, you would now have a SPD of 4 that you are only using 2 of. You would not have a SPD of 0 that you could never raise to 4 again because you can't take an action.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Willing Targets of Mental Powers

 

Nor do I see how a friendly Mind Control to protect a Brick is an unreasonable thing. Mentalist dueling for control of an individual makes sense to me. We always had a house rule that one mental power could be used to block or jam another in a “body†v. “body†roll' date=' letting the mentalist help his buddies.[/quote']

This was a part of the standard system as of 5th ed. Read the description of "Mental Powers" at the beginning of the Powers section (not sure how this changed in Revised). You didn't count Body vs. Body, though. The friendly mentalist had to exceed the enemy's Effect Roll. Or, optionally, the friendly mentalist could apply the penalty (s)he would normally produce on your Ego Roll due to extra Effect on the roll as a bonus to your Breakout Roll. Of course, I guess it is only described as a retroactive thing, but I don't see any reason you can't use the same mechanics in reverse time-order.

 

It isn't unreasonable: what's unreasonable is giving one party a huge bonus by allowing the 'friendly' mentalist to operate against a substantially lower total: 0 EGO instead of 11 or 14 or 20 or whatever.

 

Bear in mind that such tactics will be used against the players as well as by them: your team mentalist will be virtually useless if the enemy mentalist can armour his team's minds at a level that can not reasonably be overcome. That's no fun.

It all balances out if you 1.) consider that the level your ally reaches really isn't important; they have to beat the other mentalist's Effect Roll, and 2.) use my suggestion of re-calculating the Effect Roll when a character chooses to change their effective Ego.

 

Example 1 - If Virrack the Super Weasel decides to drop his Ego to 0 so a friend She Mind can affect him, and she rolls a 15, and then later Virrack decides to raise his Ego back to his starting value of 7, then She Mind's effect drops from an Ego+15 level to a Ego+5 level (BTW, he is also a slave to his Psychological Limitations, and any orders people decide to voice if they don't conflict with the other things affecting him).

 

Example 2 - If Virrack were affected by an enemy mentalist, Ego Schmack, at his full Ego of 7, and Schmack's Effect Roll was 11, and then later Virrack decides to lower his effective Ego to 0 so She Mind can help him, Schmack's Power instantly raises to the Ego+10 level of effect (or if Ego+10 wouldn't be any more severe given the instruction, illusion, etc., Virrack would gain an instant penalty to his Breakout Rolls--the same, incidentally, as the extra bonus She Mind would be able to add to his Breakout Roll due to the reduced Ego, so she had better roll well!).

 

Effectively it means there is absolutely no benefit to lowering your Ego when conflicting Mental Powers (and Psychological Limitations) exist. In fact, it is pretty risky and stupid.

[zornwil]

Re: Willing Targets of Mental Powers

 

Mental Defense, as a Power, can be turned off at will like any other Power (unless bought Always On, which would only be a -0 because it doesn't really limit the Power).

 

ECV can be reduced to 0, just as you can reduce DCV to 0 by just standing there. ECV is also reduced to 0 when unconscious.

 

Breakout rolls are always occuring in the subconscious mind and cannot be consciously or unconsciously "turned off".

 

EGO, however, it EGO. You can't make it go up or down. Conscious or no.

 

Let's imagine if we could though, just to point out why we can't. I have an EGO of 30, a master of my own self will. Wanting some hyptonic reinforcement to avoid the affects of one of my psych limits for a short while, I ask the team's mentalist to Mind Control me to act contrary to my Claustraphobia (because we are going into a cave). I reduce my EGO to 0 to give the mentalist an extra 30 effect. Wow, what an effect. I'm not bothered at all by the closing in of the walls of the cave. Unfortunately, I now have an EGO of 0, and can't do anyting at all unless I make an EGO roll. That includes raising my EGO back up to 30. What's more, if my EGO goes back up, I get an automatic breakout roll made at the new EGO because of the sudden change in my psychy.

Great point, and I don't disagree with it in and of itself but...

 

...really, a strong-willed person is exactly the kind of person who does, in real life as well as any fiction, convince themselves they can prevail against reality, even their own preconceived notions.

 

Still, they are already getting a bonus for allowing the "to hit" to work so well. And thinking in terms of analogies, there's no real precedent to drop BODY, PD, or ED (not the inherent, native forms), but there has always been a precedent of being able to drop your CV.

 

This whole level of nuance may be why we don't have inherent Mental Defense, only MD that can be bought and is never really inherent per the core rules (it is in my game and many others, but that's another matter).

 

I would tend to agree that you could not drop EGO, in the end, Dust Raven. I think also though that in games where MD is inherent (automatic 1/5 EGO) that THIS portion of MD, anyway, should NOT be allowed to be dropped. It is how your mind works, just like PD or ED is how your body works. Where house rules have created inherent MD, they must live and die by that to be consistent.

 

However, all that being said, I'd probably allow, personally, a character to "encourage" the EGO effect by adding a couple dice or such. I don't think this has come up, ever, in my experience with PCs as targets.

 

EDIT/PS - no, actually, I think I'd allow the target to drop the LEVEL of EFFECT by one to reflect their increased openness/willingness. I think that makes more sense. Should never apply, of course, where it contradicts a Psych Lim.