Clouding the Mind

[nexus]

A Pulpish adventuress in an upcoming game as the ability to cloud the minds of people with weak wills so that the unconsciously forget she's there, mentally editing her out of their awareness. It's not a mental power per se but a cinematic hypnosis trick and she had to momentarily make eye contact to do pull it off. (an instant will do). She can't make sudden movements or attack while without breaking the effect nor does it effect machines, photographs or anyone she can't see.

 

Possible builds I was considering:

 

Mental Illusions: Only to cloak her presence

Mind Control: Forget I'm here

Very Limited Invisibility vs all senses.

 

Some combination of all of one or more of the above.

[Comic]

Re: Clouding the Mind

 

I'd recommend Mental Illusions, but I could see Change Environment to reduce PER rolls (in this case, memory), combined with Stealth and/or Concealment.

 

Invisibility also has versions that cover this sort of effect.

[Beast]

Re: Clouding the Mind

 

could use transform

I'm thinking of the witch that had the hero's mother captive in Stardust

the spell was cast by Michelle Pfifer's character so the other witch could never see her

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Clouding the Mind

 

If not having a 'weak mind' is the defense to being affected by this ability then a Mind Control build would be the most direct approach.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Clouding the Mind

 

This is a pulp game so I am assuming that you do not have a lot of points to spend on powers.

 

Getting rid of existing memories is a problem of permanency. If the power works only when she first meets the person i.e. before they have formed memories of her being there, then a straightforward invisibility would do nicely, with appropriate limitations: only against a weak minded person she has made eye contact with.

 

That would also work after they KNOW she is there, but would not get rid of existing memories of her presence - they would just think she had been there and then disappeared.

 

Mind control can suppress memories but you will need a lot of points to ensure that the subject does not simply break out and remember. A mental transform is probably the only way to go for true memory editing, and even that has to be reversible, and if you wanted an invisibility effect while she was present I'd require that as a separate (invisibility) power rather than allowing it to be done with just transform.

 

Also transform is going to take more than a while for most targets unless their minds are VERY weak.

 

Finally, being a pulp game, you might be able to persuade the GM to allow some sort of Stealth super skill.

[OddHat]

Re: Clouding the Mind

 

I like Invisibility, Requires a Skill Roll, Resisted Skill Roll for this. Every person who sees her engages in an Ego versus Skill contest; if she wins, she's invisible. If they win, she's not.

 

Technically, if even one person in a group beats her skill roll, she should appear to all of them. You can add in decent Stealth and Concealment skills if you want her to have more of a chance to avoid notice from larger groups of people, or reduce the value of the limit by 1/4 and allow her to conduct each contest separately and only appear to those that beat her.

[Doc Samson]

Re: Clouding the Mind

 

I once played a Mr. Mystery/ Mystery Man (independent comic) homage and wracked my brain for weeks on how to create this effect. I tried Transform, Mind Control, ect. and finally came up with this. It's effective and even better it's cheap.

 

***Caution, lots of rules quoting ahead***

 

I recommend Change Environment with the No Range and Self Only Limitations (this does not mean the user is affected by the Power, please see 5ER, pg. 128, under Self Only).

 

At the 4 point level Change Environment can give a penalty to a "Characteristic Roll and all Skill Rolls based on same Characteristic" (5ER pg. 136). Make the CE against INT. As PER rolls are based on INT, a PER roll would be necessary to first spot the character ("If applicable, the combat effect includes forcing an affected character to make at least one Characteristic, Skill, or PER Roll.", 5ER pg. 136) and to remember the character thereafter (memory rolls are also INT based, see 5ER pg. 37 under INT Rolls).

 

The power would look like this...

1" Change Environment, Characteristic Roll and all Skill Rolls based on same Characteristic (INT), No Range (-1/2), Self Only (-1/2); 2 pts./ -1 to Rolls.

 

[EDIT] As with many other uses of CE, make sure the GM limits how many levels you can buy or this power will quickly overshadow other powers for a relatively low cost.