Mental Powers: Roll for Effect First

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Mental Powers: Roll for Effect First

 

If you're going to bring Math into the discussion you can't measure the overall effect and compare the power based on what you think a command will/should be.

 

It's a simply fact that at 10 EGO, the initial breakout is 11- for an average Roll on 12D6. Nevermind the chances of even getting EGO+10 Effect on less dice, like 6D6. And it almost puts the idea of even trying to declare EGO+20 or EGO+30, which makes higher levels of Telepathy (just as an example) really hard to work into all but the high powered campaigns.

 

The problem, in my view, is that mental powers scale poorly. A 6d6 Blast in a game where defenses of 5 - 8 and STUN of 25-40 is the norm will take three or four shots to take down a typical target. Bump that game up to 12d6, 20 - 25 defenses and STUN of 40-60, and we get a similar result.

 

But a 6d6 mental attack will get a +10 effect on the typical 10 EGO target, with an 11- breakout roll. Move into the higher end, and Egos don't tend to rise all that much. That 42 point roll can reliably achieve +20 or even +30 levels of effect in the higher powered game.

 

I have a Heroic character with a 9D6 Telepathy' date=' I usually lose 5 Dice (sometimes 6) to trying to make the attempt Invisible, leaving 3-4 Dice to try anything out at all, half the time I'm lucky to get EGO, it's a virtually useless ability against anyone with Psionics.[/quote']

 

Especially at lower power levels, I find Cumulative is extremely valuable on mental powers. 5d6 TP, Cumulative, Double Maximum would allow a +20 EGO with Undetectable (+20 effect) to be built up on someone with up to 20 EGO, albeit requiring four attack actions. The problem then becomes the target's ability to detect they are being attacked. So maybe we go with 3 1/2d6, Cumulative, 4x Max (+1), +1/4 IPE; 1/4 IPE (+1/2) while building up. That provides a maximum total effect of 84. It takes a few phases to build up the required effect level, but if you have time to make it "unremembered", you should have time for that as well.

 

Which is one of the reasons the group has decided you Roll Effect and the results say how deep you go' date=' how much of the command will be obeyed (almost never fully, Mind Control in our campaigns usually end up with a significant amount of RPing behind them to get the full effect. It's never "worked/didn't work" anymore.[/quote']

 

I think this would also create a dynamic closer to the source material "I can't fully control him - he's fighting me every step of the way".

 

One thing I've noticed about Mental Powers based on the discussions I see - they seem to be hard to balance. Either they come out too powerful and people complain that they're combat-enders, or they come out too weak and the complaint is that they seem to do little or nothing.

 

So I think suggestions like this are useful additions to the toolbox - one more way to tweak the way Mental Powers work to try to hit that sweet spot where players are saying "Hey that's cool" but not "Hey! The psionic gets all the fun!"

 

This is definitely part of the problem. If the mentalist's targets pretty much always break out, the mentalist's player feels ripped off. If mental powers are highly effective, the players are unhappy when their PC's are targeted by mental powers.

 

A discussion of alternative mental power rules seems like a good APG type topic.