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Countering Flash with Mental Illusions?


monsewer

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Hello! First of all, HERO is my favorite system and my gaming group is just now getting back into it with a round of Champions. Folks are intimidated, but myself an the GM are working to make things run smoothly.

 

Unfortunately, my wife got flashed in the first phase of combat and is now out for the entire turn, which, because we're getting back into the system, will last a while. She's frustrated with the complexity and now frustrated because her OCV is essentially zero and she'll be rather ineffective.

 

My character is a mentalist... would it be viable  to use Mental Illusions to provide her character a layout of the battlefield so she doesn't feel useless?  Maybe a compromise with minuses to her OCV and I'd have to keep it active as the battlefield changes?

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated. 

 

Thanks!

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Welcome back to HERO! I hope the campaign's going well and everyone's having fun.

 

First, remember that a character who can't use his Targeting Senses (typically Sight) can make a PER Roll with a Nontargeting Sense (such as Hearing or Touch) so that he can attack at 1/2 OCV, -1 DCV -- see 6E2 7 for the full rules. So your wife's character doesn't have to just sit there doing nothing, she can try to overcome the handicap she's currently suffering from and fight back as best she can.

 

Second, your idea of using Mental Illusions to compensate for her lost Senses is a creative one, and certainly within the realm of possibility for things that Mental Illusions can do. Your character would have to use a Phase to "attack" her to set up the Illusion, of course. If I were your GM, I would rule that your character has to keep paying END to maintain the Mental Illusion (6E1 150) so that you can "feed" it information about how the combat's progressing. Other GMs might not require that, or might require you to spend a Half Phase Action each Phase to keep the illusion accurate, or whatever else they consider appropriate.

 

Herodom Assembled --- what do you think? How would you handle this as a GM? What other ideas do you have for monsewer to help his wife out of this situation?

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Could instead be penalty skill levels, only used to offset flash penalties.  

 

I would allow the mentalist to do this using mental illusions as long as the illusionist was able to maintain concentration and obviously the beneficiary would only see things that the illusionist was able to perceive.  This would mean rolls from the illusionist every phase and possibly with limited results.

 

With practice the whole thing would become easier to use (this would be buying penalty skill levels).

 

Doc

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Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but normally a Mental Illusion is set up once and then the illusion is assumed to be persistent (until broken out of or the caster stops paying END), as all-encompassing as the illusion's description dictates (it can be an entire psychodrama if desired, complete with secondary characters and so forth), and completely accurate in its details without any further effort (apart from END expenditure) on the part of the illusionist.

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I think Steve is right about using mental illusions, but I would require both characters to make perception rolls.  You need to make a perception roll to be able to feed her accurate information.  She needs to make a perception roll to be able to compensate for the fact that your point of perception not going to be exactly the same as hers.

 

What type of character is your wife playing?  Does she have any area of effect attacks?  Those go against the DCV of the hex to target so are usually a lot easier to make with a reduced OCV.  If she makes a non-targeting perception roll and has an area of effect attack she can still probably hit.

 

If you want to purchase a way to do this permanently consider combat sense UBO.  Put Cost END, UBO, Grantor Pays the END, Grantor can only grant power to others and it will only cost 7 pts.  Or she could buy some sight Flash DEF through a focus.

 

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At EGO+20 you can completely alter the setting including, I would argue, re-presenting the current real setting in their minds. The tricky part comes with the fact that the illusionist must constantly "update" the details of the illusion (in real-time no less) to represent reality, rather than allow the target's own sense of what should happen to play out in their minds. Technically any change to the illusion requires a new attack roll and re-rolling for the effect. Instead, I might rule that as long as the target is a willing participant in the effect and as long as the illusionist pays END on every segment, not just on his Phases, then he is allowed to keep the illusion "up to date" with whatever he himself can see, hear, etc. Obviously the illusionist can't represent things in the illusion that he himself isn't even aware of in the real environment.

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Like most, I'd allow this with the Mentalist paying END to continue updating the illusion each phase.  The mentalist's PER rolls become important as the details he perceives will be the mindscape details, but he can highlight anything he wants the target to perceive, so her PER rolls become less important.

 

The usual "fire & forget" aspect of the illusions is overridden by the need to keep it current, but I'd allow the mentalist to maintain the illusion with ongoing updates by spending END each phase - it would not be a photo frame updated only on his phases.

 

Given Mental Illusions can make friends appear to be enemies and vice versa (without CV issues), I see no reason the same level of effect cannot effectively restore the battlefield in the other character's mind.

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I see no problem with using mental illusions to show someone what is going on around them while blind.  However, as others have noticed, you personally may not be aware of all that is taking place, so you may not accurately depict the conditions.  As a GM I'd require a perception roll to spot things not immediately obvious or the way you are facing; if the roll fails, you just left it out of the images.

 

Mental Illusions isn't necessarily an offensive power; its simply a power that puts images into the target's mind.  Since this is something she'd benefit from and appreciate, then I imagine her DMCV would be 0 to you and any level of success at all should be sufficient.  After all, it doesn't need to be convincing, it just needs to be accurate.

 

The GM might want to have her make an ego roll to trust and react appropriately to the illusions until she's used to it.  And probably he'll want flash boy to attack you next.  Flashing the mentalist is always a good choice.

 

Oh and

 

Quote

 Can Healing be applied to flashes?

 

Yes if the GM okays it.  HSR book 1, page 235

 

Quote

At the GM’s option, a character may buy a form of Simplified Healing that uses the Standard Effect Rule to restore Senses temporarily lost due to Flash. Each “Normal Damage BODY” rolled
on the Flash Healing dice removes 1 Segment of Flash effect...

 

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I would initially say "yes, they can choose to never break out" but I wouldn't say you can lower your Ego to 0 any more than you can any other stat.

 

However it is not unreasonable to say that someone could have a moment where they go "that can't be right!" or "that's just ridiculous" and break out of the illusion without meaning to.

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The breakout roll is a good question.  Even if the character believes an illusion to be completely real, or is Mind Controlled to the extent they will remember what they did as being of their own volition, breakout rolls keep happening.  Can you choose not to have your subconscious working in the background to break out? 

 

That "recognition as friendly so no breakout" addition might be the difference between using Mental Illusions and buying a more specialized "senses UBO" ability.

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The GM should at least give her a pretty substantial bonus to not break out (a penalty to her breakout roll, in other words) because she's trying not to.  But subconsciously she might have a moment of "this is all just an ilusion" and then the power breaks.  But I think there's a solid argument for no breakout rolls just like being able to reduce your MDCV to 0 to accept mental abilities.  Since they go off your willpower, if your will is for them to continue, it should.  At least until something truly ridiculous or unbelievable happens and you start to question how accurate the illusion is.

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13 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I would initially say "yes, they can choose to never break out" but I wouldn't say you can lower your Ego to 0 any more than you can any other stat.

 

You can voluntarily lower your SPD. So there is precedence for such a thing.

 

However, in terms of the breakout roll, I was asking what the RAW says about voluntarily declining the roll. I don't ever recall it being addressed, which would put it into the realm of house rules.

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Quote

You can voluntarily lower your SPD. So there is precedence for such a thing

 

Eh, kind of.  Lowering your speed is choosing to act less often, and its one of the few stats that makes sense with.  The only stats in the book that are allowed to be reduced voluntarily are CV types and Speed, because they're expressions, not innate physical abilities.  That is, if you had a "lift" stat you could lower that, because its an expression of strength, but your strength remains what it is no matter how hard you try.  You can't voluntarily be weaker, you can only choose not to exert as much strength.  You can't voluntarily become less conscious (unless I guess that's how you define sleep). 

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Not sure I follow that reasoning Christopher.

 

I choose not to act as often as I might

I choose not to act as forcefully as I might

I choose not to act as quickly as I might

I choose not to think as hard on a problem as I might

I choose not to look to closely as I might

I choose not to avoid your attack as much as I might

 

As far as accepting an illusion, it would all come down to the trust between the individuals.  Does the flashed PC trust the mentalist enough to accept his view of the world enough to take action based on it.  It is like the falling down test - do you trust your colleague to catch you?  If you trust enough, then you will not seek to break out of it.  I would make some kind of a roll if the flashed person is hit by someone or falls over something they cannot see (the illusion is deficient) to maintain that trust.

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Quote

Not sure I follow that reasoning Christopher.

 

But your stat hasn't changed, only your use of it.  Speed actually goes down when you lower it: you act less (useful for drowning for instance) and you defend less when your CV goes down.  Its not a reduction in the exertion or use of that power, it actually goes down. 

 

As I noted: they're expressions, not innate physical abilities; if you had a "lift" stat you could lower that, because its an expression of strength, but in Hero, the stat STR remains what it is no matter how much or little you use it at.  You still have 20 STR when you lift a pen, you're just not using the full amount.

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