Clairsentience

[JmOz]

Okay, I just asked Steve for a work around, but want to know:

 

1) Why is there a limit on targeting with Clairsentience? I would imagine Game Play Issues, however many F/X become more chalanging do to this limitation. A clasic bit of fantasy literature is when the wizard looks in his crystal ball and is a ble to cast spells through it...

 

2) What would be the ramifications to droping this limitation (HOWEVER, the power must still come from the individual, so it would not add Indirect to the power)

[Bartman]

I had a PC back in 89-90 who did this as his primary power. And frankly I would be really leery of allowing it again. It was a campaign destroying combo, for one simple reason; there is no way for a target to defend themselves or strike back.

[JmOz]

Did the character have mental powers as well?

[Bartman]

Originally posted by JmOz

Did the character have mental powers as well?

No. But... well here is a quick remake as I remember the character

 

Cost Power

32 Elemental Control, 64-point powers

33 1) Clairsentience (Sight And Hearing Groups), x128 Range (65 Active Points)

43 2) Sight Group and Hearing Group Images, No Range Modifier (+1/2), Increased Maximum Range (40000"; +3/4), Indirect Any origin, any direction (+3/4), Invisible Power Effects, Hide effects of Power (Fully Invisible; +2) (75 Active Points)

118 3) Energy Blast 10d6 (vs. ED), No Range Modifier (+1/2), Increased Maximum Range (70000"; +3/4), Indirect Any origin, any direction (+3/4) (150 Active Points)

86 4) Telekinesis (13 STR), Fine Manipulation, No Range Modifier (+1/2), Increased Maximum Range (60000"; +3/4), Indirect Any origin, any direction (+3/4), Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1) (118 Active Points)

 

Basically the guy was a alternate play on the character Duce from Mind Games. He started out as a mental exercise between the GM and myself. He could seperate out a spirit form which could then go and adventure. The Clairsentience allowed the character to see through the 'eyes' of the created form. The Images formed the character as others saw it. The TK gave the character the ability to interact with the world and the EB was his attack. The character could cast this spirit form about 40km in any direction and then take any action it wanted. But this allowed the character to act against the villians without any fear of retaliation. I played him as a bit character off and on for over a year, before we decided the concept was fundamentally unworkable.

 

My conclusion was that allowing a character the ability to affect annother character without some sort of ability to strike back was fundamentally flawed.

[dugfromthearth]

I don't get the initial posters comment about indirect.

 

A guy looks into a crystal ball, sees his enemy halfway around the world and then fires an artillery round that flies from him halfway around the world to hit his opponent?

 

Or he looks into a crystal ball, sees his enemy halfway around the world, then fires a fireball into the crystal ball that appears by his opponent and then hits them?

 

for #2 it would be indirect.

 

for #1 by the crystal ball as telescopic sight N-ray vision, instead of clairsentience. Then by extra range on the attack and no range modifier.

[Dust Raven]

As a house rule, Clairsentience can be uses as a targeting sense if it's bought as one (+10 points). It does't grant any special abilities to any attacks you might make using it though, if you wanted to attack "through" a magic mirror, the attack would have to be bought Indirect.

 

Actually written into my house rules is a way to make Clairsentience targeting for Mental Powers. It involves buying it versus the Mental Group in adition to targeting, and anyone with Mental Awareness can sense the "perception point" and attack the mentalist with Mental Powers through it.

[dugfromthearth]

it might be interesting to buy a crystal ball as the naked power advantage "indirect" so that you could use any power through it.

[JmOz]

Originally posted by dugfromthearth

I don't get the initial posters comment about indirect.

 

A guy looks into a crystal ball, sees his enemy halfway around the world and then fires an artillery round that flies from him halfway around the world to hit his opponent?

 

Or he looks into a crystal ball, sees his enemy halfway around the world, then fires a fireball into the crystal ball that appears by his opponent and then hits them?

 

for #2 it would be indirect.

 

for #1 by the crystal ball as telescopic sight N-ray vision, instead of clairsentience. Then by extra range on the attack and no range modifier.

 

In many forms of Fantasy literature and some mythology a wizard (or god) will use a scrying device (Such as a crystal ball) and be able to cast a spell into it, these spells tend to be one of two kinds, what would in Hero be considered "Mental Powers" such as Mind Control, telepathy, Mental Illusion. Or powers that have Area Effects (Normaly Change Enviroment type stuff of summoning storms, rarely but occasionaly Images)

 

The Indirect is in regards to something like and EB, where you can shoot a fireball, the fireball should still come from the wizard, not the perception point...

 

The thing I am working on is a form of Astral Travel, that by rights should be able to use Mental Powers...

[Dust Raven]

For Astral Travel I almost always use Duplication (example in FREd pg. 101). I figure it works better than Clairsentience because it's easier to attack through, and it makes the character vulnerable to binding and such. It works better than Desolid because there are abilities you'll have in Astral Form that you don't have normally, and vice versa. The Astral Form woud of course have Inherant Desol though.

[zornwil]

You could use Clairsentience as a prerequisite for Mind Scan and/or Indirect, which leads to better targeting. But yes, that is more costly. If the effect is that the crystal ball is really a combined viewing and mind scanning device, though, that really would be the way to go.

 

However, if you just want to allow Clairsentience to enable "normal" targeting, as if the person were nearby, I think you can handle that well in a controlled enough campaign and just allow it, though I'd probably either call it a +(x) (to taste) Advantage or such. If you want to open it up so different players and many NPCs can do it, game play can get tough with many people doing this and it can quickly become anti-genre. Perhaps the easiest thing to do then, if you still want this power to target, is to make Clairsentience cost END (possibly lots of it) or limit the number of times you can use Clairsentience.