Telepathy, Empathy and Detect (Minds)

[g3taso]

In another thread I put up the following jedi/sith kind of reading thoughts

9 I Can Feel Your Anger Swelling In You Now:  Detect Surface Thoughts & Feelings 12- (Unusual Group), Discriminatory, Ranged (+1/2), No Range Modifier (+1/2) (20 Active Points); 2 clips of 1 Continuing Charge lasting 1 Minute (-3/4), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2)

 

 

It got me thinking. As I read this power, it's a Detect [Thoughts and Feelings] of passive type, discriminating so I can tell what those thoughts and feelings are, and I can understand them anywhere in radius instead of having range modifiers. So all passive, one way.

 

1. What makes this different from Telepathy, Mind Scan or Mind Link? I know I'm not linked like the others, but I was wondering if someone would be interested in comparing and contrasting the bennies and disadvantages of these other approaches. Is there a better way?

[eepjr24]

I would not allow the power to work the way you describe.

 

First problem: Passive detects only work on things that broadcast somehow. If you want to go that route, in my opinion, you'd need to detect very small amounts of electrical activity in the brain, which would mean buying some kind of microscopic adder?

 

Second problem: Detecting thoughts and feelings would simply tell you if someone has thoughts and feelings. Discriminatory would allow you to tell if they were human, animal, alien, etc. Analyze (if you went there) would let you tell how strong the feelings were, how frequently they were changing, that their mind is more or less active than others you have experienced, etc.

 

Third problem: How do you sense inside their heads? You'd likely need to add at least Partially Penetrative to it.

 

Fourth problem: This is not a sense, so you'd have to roll for each mind you wanted to look at, taking a half phase action for eash.

 

Fifth problem: Senses (if you bought that modifier for it to get past problem 4) do not automatically gather all the input in your surroundings, it's not like an Area Effect. To get something like that, you'd probably need to add Increased Arc of Perception (360) and Rapid at some level to be able to process the information.

 

The advantages of this power over Telepathy is that it would not be blocked or detected by Mental Awareness. I would probably define it as ranged electroencephalography, by using the Force to "read" their brainwaves. 

 

Telepathy does not get around a lot of the above without additional modifiers either.

 

- E

[NuSoardGraphite]

I would not allow the power to work the way you describe.

I would with some adjustments.

 

First problem: Passive detects only work on things that broadcast somehow. If you want to go that route, in my opinion, you'd need to detect very small amounts of electrical activity in the brain, which would mean buying some kind of microscopic adder?

True about passive detects. However, your assessment about needing to detect the electrical signals in the brain somehow isnt necessarily true. This completely depends on the SFX of how mental and emotional "energies" are handled in the specific setting in question. For example in my Space Opera game, mental and emotional energies are broadcast via a living creatures Aura which can be read by both passive and active mental senses. In that case the topic creators Emotional Sense as written will work just fine.

 

Alternately, if one made contact with a targets mind with a Targeting Mental Sense like Telepathy or Mind Scan, a successful contact with those powers should allow a character to use any passive mental senses they may possess to detect whats going on inside that mind specifically. However I would require that the sense be less effective than achieving an appropriate level of Telepathy.

 

Second problem: Detecting thoughts and feelings would simply tell you if someone has thoughts and feelings. Discriminatory would allow you to tell if they were human, animal, alien, etc. Analyze (if you went there) would let you tell how strong the feelings were, how frequently they were changing, that their mind is more or less active than others you have experienced, etc.

I disagree partially here as well. Discriminatory is necessary to differentiate between emotions. It would do more than detect if the person was animal or human or alien. It woudld differentiate between love and hate and anger and jealousy and joy, but the emotional sense would give zero context for the emotion itself , just tell the character what emotion they are currently feeling. Analyze would give an indication on how in love the target is, or how angry the target is, but again gives no context behind the emotion. To gain more information than this requires Telepathy of a deep enough level to obtain the information.

 

Third problem: How do you sense inside their heads? You'd likely need to add at least Partially Penetrative to it.

Irrelevant. Unless the character has mental defenses that must be bypassed, in which case the Mental Combat resolution determines if the character penetrates the targets defenses or not.

 

Fourth problem: This is not a sense, so you'd have to roll for each mind you wanted to look at, taking a half phase action for eash.

Easily remedied.

 

Fifth problem: Senses (if you bought that modifier for it to get past problem 4) do not automatically gather all the input in your surroundings, it's not like an Area Effect. To get something like that, you'd probably need to add Increased Arc of Perception (360) and Rapid at some level to be able to process the information.

True enough. Although if one uses mental senses like Telepathy or Mind Scan to enter multiple minds, this shouldnt be necessary if they assess one mind at a time. However if one places 360 degree sensing onto the detect/sense, then they can assess multiple minds simultaneously.

 

The advantages of this power over Telepathy is that it would not be blocked or detected by Mental Awareness. I would probably define it as ranged electroencephalography, by using the Force to "read" their brainwaves.

In Star Wars, the SFX is that people broadcast their thoughts and emotions through The Force. No other explanation is needed. Any Force Sensitive who bothers to train their senses should be able to pick up these mental and emotional energies. Obi-Wan detects the fear of the collective population of Aldaran as it is destroyed from several light years away. Vader is able to sense Luke's surface thoughts and emotions without even doing a mind scan during their battle on Bespin. In Star Wars, emotion flows from Force Users in particular if they dont gain a handle on them. Or if they purposefully want to broadcast that emotion such as the Sith who broadcast hate or anger to intimidate their Jedi opponents during a battle.

 

Telepathy does not get around a lot of the above without additional modifiers either.

 

- E

Unless Telepathy has been significantly changed in 6th, it should easily handle most of that without modification outside Area of Effect as long as it is powerful enough to achieve the desired level of effect.