5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

So I'm thinking up some things that would be especially neat for a mystic character of mine to have way in the distant future, and I think, 'oh, hey, Invisibility to Precognition' -- not that she's inherently unpredictable, but that she's moved 'outside the weave of Fate'. (Though Darkness might actually be more interesting, and might be the way I go. Anyhow.)

 

And then I thought, "Well, what if she can not only not be seen by precog, but she can see precognition occurring 'around' her? And ooh, what if she could Ego Blast 'em to boot, and/or Dispel their precog?"

 

So ... how would you build this set of abilities? Or perhaps, what level would you select Trans-Dimensional at for the Ego Blast? (And would 'see precognition/clairsentience' be just a basic sort of Detect?)

[Fearghus]

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

 

Hmmmm?

 

Some sort of enhanced perception to detect when clairsentience is in use in the immediate area.

 

The Ego blast is exactly what you said... an ego attack probably with some custom limitation that they have to use clairsentience on her first and then she also has to detect it. Simply make the ability to sense the clairsentience targeting in the enhanced senses and give the ego attack enough range and your good to go.

 

As for dispelling clairsentience I would probably go with suppress rather than dispel. It would mean that they would not have the ability to simply try again then, but that is just me.

 

Granted I do not have 6th Ed yet so all this is from a 5ER point of view. Things might have changed slightly, but all of what you said seems pretty strait forward to me.

[Chimera 12]

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

 

I was thinking about this a bit back when, but didn't immediately reply because I can only look at it from a 6E perspective and wasn't sure how much that would help. That said, from said perspective...

 

Awareness should be reasonably easy: just buy a Detect Clairsentience/Precog Perception Point (uncommon object/phenomenon) with suitable modifiers. You'd probably want it to have Range, Sense, and 360-Degree Perception to make sure you don't simply miss such a point popping into existence behind you at a minimum; add Targeting, Discriminatory, and possibly Analyze to taste. Note that you could potentially take advantage of the Simulated Sense Rule to get some of those 'for free' by assigning your Detect to the right Sense Group.

 

Dispelling Clairsentience is technically tricky. It's a Constant Power, so strictly by-the-book you need to target the user with the Dispel...who, by the very nature of Clairsentience, may not actually be anywhere in sight. Pre- or retrocognition make it even worse since theoretically the character using the power may be long dead already or not even have been born yet! As such, while I can't currently come up with a relevant cite from the rules, I'd certainly allow Dispel to simply work on a perception point and shut that (but not necessarily any others the user may have going simultaneously) down if it hits and gets enough points on the effect dice.

 

However, trying to actively attack the precog runs into issues. The reasons why few sane GMs will allow attacks that can travel through time into their campaigns should be reasonably obvious. ("Can I Mind Control Dr. Felonious's past self to prevent him from attacking us five minutes ago?") Moreover, just because you've found the spot some precog is using to watch you you don't automatically have line of sight to that precog himself (and technically he doesn't have LOS to you, either; by default, Clairsentience can't establish that). I'm currently drawing a bit of a blank as to how that sort of thing could be made to logically work at all, let alone within the rules.

[Ice9]

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

 

With Indirect, Transdimensional (through time) and possibly Megascale (at least the entire planet), you would be able to hit them. Technically, you might need those same modifiers on a sense (maybe the Detect) to target them.

Or possibly you could do something with Mind Scan (Trandimensional would still be necessary to go through time). In either case, "Only via Precog Point" is a pretty big limitation.

 

Edit: New Idea!

Extra-Dimensional Movement can be used to travel through time, and like Teleport, it can form a portal. So potentially:

* Get Analyze on your Detect to be able to tell exactly where and when the clairvoyance came from.

* Use XDM with the relevant advantages to form a portal (only has to last a second).

* Launch your counterattack through said portal (might want Trigger so you don't have to keep the portal open long).

 

The only question here is whether XDM can form a portal to a point in the present, which isn't even necessary - you could always make the portal to the the time when they started watching you, which would be at least a phase in the past.

NOTE: Yes, this construction is pretty much a gigantic "stop sign" - it definitely wouldn't be a good idea to give anyone a freely usable version of this. Constrained to this specific purpose though, I don't think it's too crazy.

[Chimera 12]

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

 

Even in its constrained form, the ability to hit a target in the past from the future can quickly induce both GM and player headaches.

 

Consider the following scenario: Yesterday, a precog tried to see what you would be doing tomorrow. You don't know about that yet; the perception point will only pop into existence at the point in time the precog is interested in watching.

 

Today, you get attacked out of the blue. Why? Well, because the precog got a headache yesterday from a power you don't even yourself know yet you're going to use on him tomorrow and got ticked off enough by that to decide to teach you a lesson.

 

Perfectly plausible sequence of events so far. However, it's only today yet, and for the precog to have gotten his headache from your attack yesterday you will have to attack him tomorrow...whether you want to or not, and no matter what condition the attack on you and other events until then may leave you in. That's where the "GM and player headaches" element comes in, of course.

 

Time travel into the past is hard enough to handle well in fiction, where the author at least (hopefully) has the complete control over everything that happens. At the gaming table, where that isn't generally the case...it's at the very least going to take both a GM willing to do a fair bit of potentially heavy-handed railroading and players who honestly don't mind that.

[dmjalund]

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

 

Its just an extension of the problem Precognition itself causes

[Chimera 12]

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

 

Its just an extension of the problem Precognition itself causes

 

True. That's because 'true' precognition (as opposed to simply being very good at making guesses about the future based on present information) already is time travel: information about the future moves back in time to arrive in the past.

 

Which is why it's hard to pull off in a game where the players and GM aren't precogs themselves.

[Fearghus]

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

 

True. That's because 'true' precognition (as opposed to simply being very good at making guesses about the future based on present information) already is time travel: information about the future moves back in time to arrive in the past.

 

Which is why it's hard to pull off in a game where the players and GM aren't precogs themselves.

 

What this requires (as was stated before) is understanding players and a GM who is not afraid to force something to fit the prediction he told the players about. It can be done, but as a Game Master I hate doing precog.

[Zeropoint]

Re: 5e: Clairsentience/Precognition Awareness

 

So tomorrow, you notice someone using precog on you and you say to yourself, "hey, it's that bastard precog who attacked me yesterday! I'll teach him not to mess with me!" and then you ego blast him two days ago, which starts the whole thing rolling.

 

Nokiov Self-Consistency Principle for the win!