Mental Combat Maneuvers

[unclevlad]

6 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Seduction was renamed Charm to reduce the sexual overtones (d20's Persuasion would have been a much better choice, IMO).

 

Why do we have to have Charm/Seduction and Persuasion as separate skills in the first place????  

 

6 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Where does it say that mental blast does not follow the normal double stun rule?  I think you are correct on mDCV, although I'm not sure if there is a cite for that either.

 

Because that'd make a mentalist just obscene.  The mentalist just has too great of an ambush advantage as it is.  The mentalist has to pay for his AVAD...but if you give him double damage, at the very least, he can stun almost *any* character...who buys mental damage reduction?  Or you'd be forcing everyone to buy Mental Def to avoid the problem.  And given that only the target can typically tell a mental attack has taken place, why should anyone be alert to it until someone else can recover enough to tell them about it?  Mental Blast gets AVAD, LOS, and mostly IPE for free...if you're gonna let it do double stun, that's FAR too much.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 8/28/2024 at 5:53 PM, unclevlad said:

Because that'd make a mentalist just obscene.  The mentalist just has too great of an ambush advantage as it is.  The mentalist has to pay for his AVAD...but if you give him double damage, at the very least, he can stun almost *any* character...who buys mental damage reduction?  Or you'd be forcing everyone to buy Mental Def to avoid the problem.  And given that only the target can typically tell a mental attack has taken place, why should anyone be alert to it until someone else can recover enough to tell them about it?  Mental Blast gets AVAD, LOS, and mostly IPE for free...if you're gonna let it do double stun, that's FAR too much.

 

I'm looking for a rules cite to see what the rule is before we start in to any opinions as to what the rule should be.

 

The reality in most games is that mentalists are not actually afforded the benefits of IPE, which is pretty reasonable given that their abilities are not priced appropriately to include IPE over and above their line of sight range, AVAD and AVACV benefits. Making mental powers visible by dafault (at their current pricing) is a change I would definitely support (and one I suggested, IIRC, back in the SETAC days).  I don't find many gaming groups are tolerant of the "invulnerable sniper" model, and IPE with LOS screams "I plan on sniping from afar".

[LoneWolf]

Under the section of Perceivability of Mental Powers (6E1 page 151) it states “Mental Powers are Invisible to characters who do not have Mental Awareness. However, the target of a mental attack can sense the Source of the attack and knows what Mental Power he’s been attacked with.”

 

The x2 Stun is part of the surprised modifier.  That means that they only time the target takes x2 STUN is when they are surprised.  When the target can sense the source of the attack and recognizes what the attack is does that qualify as surprise, especially when they suffer no penalty to MDCV?  

 

Looking over the rules on mental combat I found I had made a mistake in my earlier post.  An unconscious or sleeping target is at 0 MDCV, but they still get their full MDCV at other times.

[Steve]

16 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

Looking over the rules on mental combat I found I had made a mistake in my earlier post.  An unconscious or sleeping target is at 0 MDCV, but they still get their full MDCV at other times.

Freddy Krueger types of monsters and villains become a little cheaper to build with this, I suppose.

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Under the section of Perceivability of Mental Powers (6E1 page 151) it states “Mental Powers are Invisible to characters who do not have Mental Awareness. However, the target of a mental attack can sense the Source of the attack and knows what Mental Power he’s been attacked with.”

 

The x2 Stun is part of the surprised modifier.  That means that they only time the target takes x2 STUN is when they are surprised.  When the target can sense the source of the attack and recognizes what the attack is does that qualify as surprise, especially when they suffer no penalty to MDCV?  

 

Looking over the rules on mental combat I found I had made a mistake in my earlier post.  An unconscious or sleeping target is at 0 MDCV, but they still get their full MDCV at other times.

 

I'm pretty sure a character hit by an electric bolt knows he has been attacked and has a pretty decent idea where it came from, so he also can sense the source of the attack and knows what he has been attacked with.  By your definition, no one could ever be surprised.

 

Note the use of past tense - "has been attacked with".

[LoneWolf]

Why would someone attacked by a fully invisible electrical attack be able to sense the source of the attack?  They may know that they have been attacked, but why can they sense the source of the attack.  If the attack is visible that is one thing, but that is not normally the case with mental blast. 

 

The book states that applying invisible power affects conceals the activity, source, path, target, special effects, and intensity of a power (6E1 page 338).  As I pointed out in the previous post mental powers are invisible to characters without mental awareness, but the target is able to sense the source of the attack even without mental awareness.  This makes it clear that the target of a fully invisible electrical attack cannot in fact determine the source of the attack.  
 

The past tense is referring to determining the attacking power, not to determining the source.  

[Doc Democracy]

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I'm pretty sure a character hit by an electric bolt knows he has been attacked and has a pretty decent idea where it came from, so he also can sense the source of the attack and knows what he has been attacked with.  By your definition, no one could ever be surprised.

 

The problem is that, if we accept targets of mental powers are completely unaware, then the first hit of any mental power is overwhelmingly a surprise attack.

 

I could make a case for second, third and more also being surprised attacks.  But those would be a bit more nuanced.

 

Doc

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Why do we have to have Charm/Seduction and Persuasion as separate skills in the first place???? 

 

 

I can see a distinction between the two skills but not enough to justify a separate skill, I agree.

[Hugh Neilson]

5 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

The problem is that, if we accept targets of mental powers are completely unaware, then the first hit of any mental power is overwhelmingly a surprise attack.

 

I could make a case for second, third and more also being surprised attacks.  But those would be a bit more nuanced.

 

2x STUN requires surprise out of combat, doesn't it?  First attack before combat starts? Sure. That's what an ambush is.

Part of the issue with mental powers is that they get LoS and IPE (at a bargain price), which are "ambush advantages", then we frown on anyone using them to ambush (fair in part as they didn't actually pay enough to justify LoS and IPE). A player handing you a character with IPE on a range of blasts and KAs would raise suspicion, but just a typical mentalist?  Not so obvious the player is expecting to run a sniper.

Edited September 4 by Hugh Neilson

[LoneWolf]

To be out of combat a character has to be completely unware of the attack and not expecting to be attacked.  When that happens their DCV is reduced as well as taking x2 STUN.  A character maintains his full MDCV when he is not aware of the attack and not expecting to be attacked.  To me that suggest that vs a mental attack you are never out of combat, so do not take x2 STUN.   

 

If the character attacked by a mental attack was at half MDCV I could see allowing the x2 STUN.  But doing so is going to make mental attacks even more powerful than they are.  
 

[Grailknight]

But Mental Attacks aren't that powerful without that surprise benefit.

 

Leaving aside Mental Blast, Mental Powers are much weaker in the game than they are in genre. Even the most run of the mill mentalists play their victims like violins in comics and movies. But a 12d6 Mind Control or Mental Illusion has a very small 4 or less chance of failing against a normal even it's to do something they'd normally do rising to a 50 percent chance of doing nothing at the +30 level against an 8 EGO. A competent NPC or a PC who completely neglects EGO shrugs off that +20 attack 1/3rd of the time and a +30 attack 5/8ths of the time and it just gets worse from here. from the Mentalist's standpoint.

 

So, I don't mind giving that surprise benefit on occasion. I'll allow a sniper mentalist a first shot at an event that doesn't have heightened security. But if a PC is there as a guard, is located by a Mind Scan or other hostilities have broken out even as a distraction, they get their full defenses.

[Hugh Neilson]

5 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

To be out of combat a character has to be completely unware of the attack and not expecting to be attacked.  When that happens their DCV is reduced as well as taking x2 STUN.  A character maintains his full MDCV when he is not aware of the attack and not expecting to be attacked.  To me that suggest that vs a mental attack you are never out of combat, so do not take x2 STUN.   

 

If the character attacked by a mental attack was at half MDCV I could see allowing the x2 STUN.  But doing so is going to make mental attacks even more powerful than they are.  
 

 

I think it means that their mDCV is not halved when unaware of attacks. No less, and no more. It is different from a non-mental attack, and non-mental DCV, so the book explains the differences.

 

People have their brains in their heads, but mental attacks don't have to make called shots to hit the head nor do they get the hit location benefits of a head shot.

[Jason Reid]

5e Ultimate Mentalist had this to say on the topic of surprise:
 

Quote

Generally, being Surprised does not affect ECV. The GM might allow it anyway in situations where a mental attack is a real surprise. This would reduce the target to 1/2 DECV and make him take 2x STUN or +10 Effect from the power, as appropriate. However, since in many cases mental attacks (which are invisible and can be targeted from a long way away) will come as a "surprise," constantly applying Surprised bonuses may give mentalist characters an unfair advantage. The GM should only grant the bonus if the mentalist does something especially surprising or unusual with his powers.

 

Take from that what you will!

[unclevlad]

Based on just this thread's content......

 

Does anyone still care to say that HERO isn't complicated?

[LoneWolf]

I have seen a lot worse in the forums for other games.  Some of them get to completely absurd positions.  When someone posts that by the rules there is nothing preventing a dead person from taking an action you know the poster is beyond reason.    

[Jason Reid]

9 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Based on just this thread's content......

 

Does anyone still care to say that HERO isn't complicated?

The thing is that most of the edge cases and clarifications are just those....and are mostly ignorable if you want to run the game your own way on your own instincts. No one gets hung up too hard on RAW, really.

[Hugh Neilson]

14 hours ago, Jason Reid said:

5e Ultimate Mentalist had this to say on the topic of surprise:
 

 

Take from that what you will!

 

What I take from that is the author's expectation that mentalists will commonly attack, undetected, from a huge distance, so they should not get surprise modifiers every time they do so.  Would this apply differently to a character with an IPE laser beam and an "LOS" scope, or one with massive PSLs to offset range penalties?  Both have attacks that are hard to detect targeting an unsuspecting target who is not in combat.  Is there an in-game or balance reason that one should get superior bonuses for the same tactical advantage.

Using an attack unusually sounds a lot more like a Surprise Move in 6e than an attack from surprise.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

I have seen a lot worse in the forums for other games.  Some of them get to completely absurd positions.  When someone posts that by the rules there is nothing preventing a dead person from taking an action you know the poster is beyond reason.    

 

"It doesn't say that Magic Missile can't target eyeballs." Now it does.

 

"It doesn't say I can't Create Water in his lungs." Now it does.

[Grailknight]

58 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

What I take from that is the author's expectation that mentalists will commonly attack, undetected, from a huge distance, so they should not get surprise modifiers every time they do so.  Would this apply differently to a character with an IPE laser beam and an "LOS" scope, or one with massive PSLs to offset range penalties?  Both have attacks that are hard to detect targeting an unsuspecting target who is not in combat.  Is there an in-game or balance reason that one should get superior bonuses for the same tactical advantage.

Using an attack unusually sounds a lot more like a Surprise Move in 6e than an attack from surprise.

 

You answered that yourself just a few posts ago.

 

On 9/4/2024 at 6:51 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

2x STUN requires surprise out of combat, doesn't it?  First attack before combat starts? Sure. That's what an ambush is.

Part of the issue with mental powers is that they get LoS and IPE (at a bargain price), which are "ambush advantages", then we frown on anyone using them to ambush (fair in part as they didn't actually pay enough to justify LoS and IPE). A player handing you a character with IPE on a range of blasts and KAs would raise suspicion, but just a typical mentalist?  Not so obvious the player is expecting to run a sniper.

 

I do agree with the reasoning from this post, just wondering why you'd turn around and ask the question a few posts later.

[Gauntlet]

On 9/4/2024 at 10:58 AM, Grailknight said:

But Mental Attacks aren't that powerful without that surprise benefit.

 

Leaving aside Mental Blast, Mental Powers are much weaker in the game than they are in genre. Even the most run of the mill mentalists play their victims like violins in comics and movies. But a 12d6 Mind Control or Mental Illusion has a very small 4 or less chance of failing against a normal even it's to do something they'd normally do rising to a 50 percent chance of doing nothing at the +30 level against an 8 EGO. A competent NPC or a PC who completely neglects EGO shrugs off that +20 attack 1/3rd of the time and a +30 attack 5/8ths of the time and it just gets worse from here. from the Mentalist's standpoint.

 

So, I don't mind giving that surprise benefit on occasion. I'll allow a sniper mentalist a first shot at an event that doesn't have heightened security. But if a PC is there as a guard, is located by a Mind Scan or other hostilities have broken out even as a distraction, they get their full defenses.

 

I don't agree with you here. I have found the biggest problem is that most players, and GMs, have no idea how to utilize mental attacks. They assume that the have to overwhelmingly change everything, like mental commanding that the character is your ally and not the ones he normally would be an ally to. I have found that if you pay attention to what your opponents are doing, or have an idea of some or all of their psychological complications, you can still hit them hard without needing the +to their EGO. Changing opponents can be a great one that many times you only need their EGO, or changing the attack type they are using (such as: you are worried about END so only use low END powers). Or make that incredibly powerful attack go on the defensive, or that character who has a lot of skill levels, make them go completely no the offensive and not use them to increase their DCV. Are mental attacks expensive, definitely, but if you use your intelligence and creativity to decide what to do with it you can be extremely nasty, even with having an 8d6 mind control rather than the 20d6 one.

 

And the above is just for Mind Control. By using Mental Illusions you can easily make members of your team hard to hit, give the enemy extra targets (and they don't even need to have the option to do damage and only take up one hex). You also could make the sounds of sirens to perhaps get the opponents to try to run away.

 

And as for Telepathy, now you get to know in advance everything they are going to do, and many times get to know what they are scared of and what disadvantages they have, and may times to get this information while in combat you only need to be over their EGO and nothing more.

Edited September 5 by Gauntlet

[Grailknight]

17 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

 

I don't agree with you here. I have found the biggest problem is that most players, and GMs, have no idea how to utilize mental attacks. They assume that the have to overwhelmingly change everything, like mental commanding that the character is your ally and not the ones he normally would be an ally to. I have found that if you pay attention to what your opponents are doing, or have an idea of some or all of their psychological complications, you can still hit them hard without needing the +to their EGO. Changing opponents can be a great one that many times you only need their EGO, or changing the attack type they are using (such as: you are worried about END so only use low END powers). Or make that incredibly powerful attack go on the defensive, or that character who has a lot of skill levels, make them go completely no the offensive and not use them to increase their DCV. Are mental attacks expensive, definitely, but if you use your intelligence and creativity to decide what to do with it you can be extremely nasty, even with having an 8d6 mind control rather than the 20d6 one.

 

And here we get to campaign variability of Mental Attacks. Some of your suggestions are +10 commands and most of them are +20. You're doing your target a disservice by making them less tactically competent than the mentalist. If you know these commands are going to cause the target to lose the fight, why doesn't the target? Rephrase the command as " Put yourself a great disadvantage in this fight" and it naturally becomes a +20. Admittedly changing targets probably doesn't rise to this level and conserve END usually won't but the other's amount to, "Fight to less than your best ability".

Edited September 5 by Grailknight

[Gauntlet]

1 minute ago, Grailknight said:

 

And here we get to campaign variability of Mental Attacks. Some of your suggestions are +10 commands and most of them are +20. You're doing your target a disservice by making them less tactically competent than the mentalist. If you know these commands are going to cause the target to lose the fight, why doesn't the target? Rephrase the command as " Put yourself a great disadvantage in this fight" and it naturally becomes a +20. Admittedly changing targets probably doesn't rise to this level and conserve END usually won't but the other's amount to, "Fight to lees than your ability".

 

I never said fight less than your ability, I said fight in a different way. You are still using all your powers and all your skill levels, just not selecting them in the same way. No way in hell that would be a +20, with the exception of the target having some type of Psychological Complication. And I also said that the mentalist needs to pay attention to who his targets are. Yes, switching that fire-based energy blaster to change his target to your team member who is made of fire would be rather difficult, but not just changing him to another similar opponent. Also, the mentalist needs to take the advantage of all his attacks, not just one. Use your telepathy to get an idea who you are fighting with. If he knows about his vulnerabilities, he/she will be thinking about his/her vulnerabilities, especially if one of your teammates has that type of attack. Now, if you want to say that being a mentalist is more complicated and required thinking about and planning what you are doing, hell yes. A mentalist is in many respects a much harder character type than a brick or energy blaster or even a martial artist. Those character types many times go straight for it while a mentalist has to have a real plan and be able to change it on a moment's notice.

[Grailknight]

2 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

 

I never said fight less than your ability, I said fight in a different way. You are still using all your powers and all your skill levels, just not selecting them in the same way. No way in hell that would be a +20, with the exception of the target having some type of Psychological Complication. And I also said that the mentalist needs to pay attention to who his targets are. Yes, switching that fire-based energy blaster to change his target to your team member who is made of fire would be rather difficult, but not just changing him to another similar opponent. Also, the mentalist needs to take the advantage of all his attacks, not just one. Use your telepathy to get an idea who you are fighting with. If he knows about his vulnerabilities, he/she will be thinking about his/her vulnerabilities, especially if one of your teammates has that type of attack. Now, if you want to say that being a mentalist is more complicated and required thinking about and planning what you are doing, hell yes. A mentalist is in many respects a much harder character type than a brick or energy blaster or even a martial artist. Those character types many times go straight for it while a mentalist has to have a real plan and be able to change it on a moment's notice.

 

If a character is using their Powers and Skills to the best of their ability, then commanding them to fight in a different way is telling them to be less than their best. Put it another way, "How often will following your commands be to their advantage?

[Gauntlet]

Just now, Grailknight said:

 

If a character is using their Powers and Skills to the best of their ability, then commanding them to fight in a different way is telling them to be less than their best. Put it another way, "How often will following your commands be to their advantage?

 

Because if you word it right then you can make it sound like it is to the best of their advantage. Now I will admit that having that martial artist to not use skill levels for defense and only offense definitely is a hard sell (bad comment on my part) but having him/her perhaps go a little less on the DCV skill levels. Or perhaps have that Brick go for your Brick who is insulting him rather than you, wouldn't be that hard. Also, the mentalist should use all his/her powers, not just Mind Control. With a little Telepathy, he/she can get a good idea who they are fighting and make him/her make better choices when making Mind Control attacks or even Mental Illusions.

 

One thing to say which is why I believe we are not agreeing. The mentalist needs to know his opponent, either via research or telepathy. Without knowing his opponent he/she will be at a rather large disadvantage. I am saying that if the mentalist is taking the time (and it doesn't have to be that long or even as part of the combat at times) to know his opponent(s) then he/she has an overwhelmingly easier time in combat. This many times is not that much a factor for other character types.

[Grailknight]

1 minute ago, Gauntlet said:

 

Because if you word it right then you can make it sound like it is to the best of their advantage. Now I will admit that having that martial artist to not use skill levels for defense and only offense definitely is a hard sell (bad comment on my part) but having him/her perhaps go a little less on the DCV skill levels. Or perhaps have that Brick go for your Brick who is insulting him rather than you, wouldn't be that hard. Also, the mentalist should use all his/her powers, not just Mind Control. With a little Telepathy, he/she can get a good idea who they are fighting and make him/her make better choices when making Mind Control attacks or even Mental Illusions.

 

One thing to say which is why I believe we are not agreeing. The mentalist needs to know his opponent, either via research or telepathy. Without knowing his opponent he/she will be at a rather large disadvantage. I am saying that if the mentalist is taking the time (and it doesn't have to be that long or even as part of the combat at times) to know his opponent(s) then he/she has an overwhelmingly easier time in combat. This many times is not that much a factor for other character types.

 

And here we're closer to agreeing.

 

Doing before combat research and using Telepathy will definitely help the mentalist be more effective in combat. It will especially prevent a command that has no chance of being obeyed.

 

But a well worded command is already accounted for in the rules and so is one that fits the mood of the scene. Both of these give +5 effect, but they don't lower the level requirement of the base command.

[Gauntlet]

5 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

And here we're closer to agreeing.

 

Doing before combat research and using Telepathy will definitely help the mentalist be more effective in combat. It will especially prevent a command that has no chance of being obeyed.

 

But a well worded command is already accounted for in the rules and so is one that fits the mood of the scene. Both of these give +5 effect, but they don't lower the level requirement of the base command.

 

My big thing is that I don't believe that mental powers are too expensive, but if you are a player who doesn't have the skill, want, or need to pay direct attention to what he/she and everyone around them are doing, why they are doing it, and what they are like, then you probably should select a different character type.

14 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Based on just this thread's content......

 

Does anyone still care to say that HERO isn't complicated?

 

One of things that I love about hero is that they continue to support all versions and it's not that hard to convert. So, use the one that best works for you. If you like the complexity, use versions 5 or 6. If you like it to be easier for you and your players, use earlier versions. I have found that 3rd and 4th editions do work rather well on both fronts.