Mind Scan vs. The Detective

[Balabanto]

This problem has been evident in Champions for many years, and no one has ever bothered to fix it. There is no limit to the number of times you can mind scan for someone. By the time the Detective is still examining the first clue, the mentalist has already discovered where the villain is and the heroes are on the way to defeating him.

 

In my personal opinion, Mind Scan beyond the immediate area should take much longer to use. It's cool to have it work the way it does for the player, but it's a total plot derailer at only +20 to know exactly where the person is.

[Clonus]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

But then again Detectiving is more about figuring who your Mind Scanner should be looking for then where he happens to be. However, it doesn't matter how many mind scan rolls you make. At a -20 to the roll to, say find a typical baddy in a major metropolis none of them are going to succeed.

[Balabanto]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

A typical baddy still has an Ego of around 15. 10d6, +10 to the roll. Well within the range of a starting PC. The problem is that the scanner can roll again and again until they DO succeed. I try twice a turn, I take a recovery, that's 12 attempts a minute. That's 720 attempts in an hour. That means that within 20 minutes, assuming a minimum chance of 1 in 216, the bad guy is discovered.

[fbdaury]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

Uhm, unless you're assuming that Mind Scan can do things that it cannot, you would need to know WHO you're looking for before you can find them- you can't Mind Scan for "The Criminal what done this" unless you've already figured out who that is... Which means you still need the Detective to figure that out, or the use of retrocognition as well to have witnesed the crime in question to find out who the culprit was...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

You don't automatically know where the Target is located - just a general direction like "that way". You need EGO + 20 for that.

 

10D6 Mind Scan + 10 To OECV = 70 Points.

We'll assume the GM let you have that much in a Power, and let's this through. Some would automatically consider this abusive.

 

You're looking for "the murderer" in a Small Town. This is an Unfamiliar Mind (-3) and Small Town Area [10,000 Minds] (-8).

 

You have an ECV of 7 + 10 Mind Scan, OECV of 17 - 11 = Effect OECV of 6. 17- isn't bad, all things considered.

 

Your Target is EGO 15. You're Average Mind Scan Effect is 35. Good, you can locate the Target, BUT he knows where YOU are too. You need EGO + 40 to disguise your location. And the Target gets a Breakout Roll. And he knows you're gunning for him even if you Don't get the Effect Level you've declared.

 

Of course, if you find yourself in, say, NYC and are searching the whole city at once that's a -12 (for 8 million people). Your OECV Roll is now 13-.

 

So what are the chances of you getting that 3 (1 in 216) AND getting the desired Target Effect Roll at the same time? You could roll a 3 only to get a 22 on your Effect Roll after Declaring you wanted EGO+20 to Precisely Locate the guy.

 

 

The Detective, on the other hand, could likely locate him and gain the element of surprise. With a little more time and work.

 

 

It doesn't need to be "fixed" - just use some Common Sense.

 

After all the Mentalist going to "Meditate" for 20 minutes may just be a lot of repeated uses of Mind Scan to try and find the guy. . .

[fbdaury]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

G-A, I think you're also giving the power an ability it does not have- the ability to determine who the murderer is. Just because you can find anyone in range of the power does not mean you can magically sift every person to determine which one commited the crime.

"I search every mind in the city for the killer" as an action should receive a response from the GM of:

"And who is the killer?"

To which the character will respond: "Uh, I don't know..."

To which the GM responds: "Exactly..."

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

This is a good point.

 

Even before you get to all the stuff I posted you have to know WHO you're searching for.

 

Then you get into all the targeting, sifting through numbers of minds, effect levels...

 

It's not so simple as the OP suggested.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

There are things the GM could do to discourage the "I'll keep scanning continuously until I find him" mentality. I'd imagine the scanning would appear like a beacon to other mentalists within the scan area, as the Mind Scan would be sifting through *all* of those minds looking for the right one. Does the hero really want PSI or a Minuteman robot or some other Hunted to have a nice flashing "MENTALIST RIGHT OVER HERE!" sign to lead them in?

 

Also, the +20 effect of knowing the exact location doesn't give the character an address. It gives an exact direction and distance. "He's 4.37 miles NNE!" If he's on the move, that will be constantly changing. And the target then gets a chance to break the Scan lock-on, and perhaps quickly go somewhere else if he wants.

 

Lest we forget, the target instantly knows the mentalist is locked on as soon as the attack roll is made, so the bad guys will be pretty much expecting the coming heroes. And don't forget it's a two-way street. If the mentalist maintains the lock, the target knows the exact direction the mentalist is coming from, and how far away he is each step of the way. Can you say "Ambush"? I knew you could!

 

And finally, criminals will adapt to the heroes' actions. I can see an enterprising company creating and selling Neural Engram Masks (Mental Defense or ECV levels, only vs. Mind Scan) or better yet, Neural Engram Field Generators (Images vs. Mental).

 

"Our patented PsiCopy feature allows quick and easy duplication of your neural presence, and each generator comes with a selection of five-minute loops of mundane or misleading surface thoughts. Act now, and get four Engram Field Generators, allowing you to leave false trails all over the city!

 

Customer who purchased this product also bought our QuickKill Death Trap..."

 

Hmmm... Images vs. Mental Group, 1" radius, -2 to PER, OAF Bukly Fragile, 4 charges per day of 1 Day duration. A nice cheap 10 points, and at 28 Active Points it should fit into most any gadgeteer's VPP. Hide two of them in subway cars or busses, and the heroes will be chasing them half the day. Put one in a location sure to embarass the heroes when they come barging in (like the mayor's office, or the local TV station). And if the bad guy knows the location of some other mutual enemy (like a VIPER weapons warehouse), well, if I were him I'd sneak one in, then make sure I had a video camera set up and some popcorn handy to watch the fun. The mentalist gets a "successful" lock-on, and the GM rolls a d6 (re-roll on a 6) to see whether he locked onto a copy or the real deal.

 

Mind you, I would only start taking steps like these if the mentalist was getting abusive with this tactic. Though the two-way-street / ambush thing is pretty much a given regardless, since the target will know he's been locked onto.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

To be specific - the Target knows he's been locked on after the Effect Roll - not the ECV Attack Roll.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

To be specific - the Target knows he's been locked on after the Effect Roll - not the ECV Attack Roll.

 

Thank you, that was poor wording on my part. Since the Effect Roll follows immediately after a successful Attack Roll (except in the unlikely event that the Mind Scan is bought with Time Delay), there's no effective difference 99% of the time. Even if the Effect Roll fails to meet the desired level of effectiveness, the target still knows he's been locked onto, and who has locked onto him.

 

That does beg the question about target knowledge of the attack in the case of Cumulative Mental Powers. If I bought 5d6 Mind Scan with Cumulative (+1 for 2x = 60 maximum points), and wanted the EGO+20 effect for full lock-on along with the +20 effect so the target doesn't know he's been attacked, would the target *initially* know he's being scanned until I reach the full effect? My inclination is to say no, but I could see arguments in the other direction, especially if the first 5d6 roll wasn't 20 or more.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

This is a good point.

 

Even before you get to all the stuff I posted you have to know WHO you're searching for.

 

Then you get into all the targeting, sifting through numbers of minds, effect levels...

 

It's not so simple as the OP suggested.

 

BTW, I do think the OP is assuming that the heroes already know *who* is behind the crime, they just need to investigate to figure out *where* he is and/or *what* he's doing. But the OP was poorly worded in that regard.

 

I imagine that a lot of the time heroes are investigating something that they found out from the news (i.e. the Ultimates are stealing components for something, and the heroes need to figure out what they're after). Yes, a decent amount of time they may not (initially) know who is behind a crime, but also a fair amount of time they will know who they're dealing with even before they set foot on the crime scene.

[fbdaury]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

Bolo- I did enjoy your interpretation of locking on with Mind Scan- think of it as a game of Battle Ship: You know where the target is but not whose with him and he is in the same straits in regard to you, both of you trying to "sink the other guy's Battleship", so to speak.

[Stormraven]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

It's always such a bother coming into threads like this late. Everything I wanted to say is said already.

 

That said, I suddenly got a really fun idea. Build a detective without any skills at all. Just Post-Cognition, Telepathy and Mind Scan, all built with IPE, and with the TP and MS being cumulative. Put them on an Int roll if you like. You have a nearly infallible detective, as long as he has enough time.

[Clonus]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

BTW' date=' I do think the OP is assuming that the heroes already know *who* is behind the crime,.[/quote']

 

Well obviously a detective isn't going to be much use if you already know who dunnit.

[Lucius]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

Well obviously a detective isn't going to be much use if you already know who dunnit.

 

Knowing who and proving who are two different things.

 

Knowing who and FINDING them are two different things.

 

Both are things a detective can help with.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

But what use is a palindromedary?

[Clonus]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

Knowing who and proving who are two different things.

 

Knowing who and FINDING them are two different things.

 

Both are things a detective can help with.

 

Not very much. Assume for the sake of argument that when we say "detective" we mean someone with Criminology, Concealment, Deduction and Interrogation. So the ability to find clues, question people and draw conclusions from the clues and statements. He has used his skills to determine that the killer was the butler, but the butler has already made his escape. How much are the detective skills going to help find him without the GM putting his thumb on the scales by doing something like planting a matchbook from the butler's favourite pub?

[Trebuchet]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

We've always dealt with mentalists short-circuiting mysteries by a couple simple expedients: 1) Use mooks who don't know the scheme as cutouts; 2) Deliberately plant false info on said mooks.

 

It's not going to take long for smart evildoers to figure out how to protect their nefarious schemes once it becomes known the heroes have a mentalist.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

The Ultimate Mentalist & The Ultimate Skill source books both address these subjects. Dark Champions: Heroes of Vengeance also addresses the issue. It was also addressed in a couple of Digital Hero Issues, but I forget which ones.

 

 

Page Numbers forth coming.

 

 

QM

[Doc Samson]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

While we are on the subject of mental powers smashing detective skills, Telepathy is also often more effective at finding out "who" or "what" than skills are. If we expand the problem to other types of powers, then pre- and post- cognition are the Cadillac of detective skill killers. IMHO, the "issue" (though in my mind this is working as intended) is that powers are more effective than skills, as they should be. This is true for much more than detectives. Super-norms (like Batman and Captain America) often perform better in the comics than they do in game.

 

To make skill-based characters comparable with supers in our game, we encourage our skill-based heroes to buy their "primary" skills with powers so their schtick is not easily overshadowed by another character's secondary powers. For example, our last detective character (a Question and Rorschach homage) bought some of his detective skills as Telepathy (interrogation), Mind Scan (streetwise), Post-cognition (deduction), and pre-cognition (criminology) with appropriate advantages (mostly invisible) and limitations (to make them seem skill-based). He also seemed to always know just where to hit even tough badguys (and even an occasional hero!) to hurt them (Find Weakness) and had the uncanny ability to pop-up just about anywhere unseen (Teleportation with limitations). A combination of Danger Sense and Combat Luck kept him from being one-shotted in combat without feeling like he was superhumanly durable. The player said he had alot fun and he was definately not overshadowed by our mentalist out of combat.

 

Sorry for the tangent, this is just my 2 cents. I hope the above gives someone else some inspiration.

[Houston GM]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

While we are on the subject of mental powers smashing detective skills' date=' Telepathy is also often more effective at finding out "who" or "what" than skills are. If we expand the problem to other types of powers, then pre- and post- cognition are the Cadillac of detective skill killers.[/quote']

Within limits, it is possible to run mysteries when PCs have Telepathy, Precognition and Postcognition.

 

Did you see the tv show, "The Dead Zone"? The main character, Johnny Smith, had Precognition and Postcognition. Each episode was a mystery (primarily solving them in advance and preventing the crime/disaster). Johnny Smith's powers gave him enough clues to create the mystery.

 

In any mystery, you need to leave some way for the PCs to get from point A to point B. Mind Scan, Telepathy, Pre/Postcognition ... they're just potential paths. They're only shortcuts if the GM permits them to be.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

I think a lot of the problem - at least as I've run into - is that too many GMs think a mystery is done by withholding information.

 

the best mysteries are done by Giving information. Often more than is needed. And it always points in multiple directions.

[Kenn]

Re: Mind Scan vs. The Detective

 

I think a lot of the problem - at least as I've run into - is that too many GMs think a mystery is done by withholding information.

 

the best mysteries are done by Giving information. Often more than is needed. And it always points in multiple directions.

 

Amen!