5th Edition Revised Psychokinesis

[Cassandra]

Stretching doesn't have to be physical.  You can chose the special effects.  It covers everything from telekinesis to a magic lasso.

[Funk Thompson]

"Does not cross intervening space" is a legal option for stretching.

 

Again, TK is more or less STR with Ranged and "Does not cross intervening space", and stretching is just STR with Ranged modifier when you look under the hood.

[Cassandra]

34 minutes ago, Funk Thompson said:

"Does not cross intervening space" is a legal option for stretching.

 

Again, TK is more or less STR with Ranged and "Does not cross intervening space", and stretching is just STR with Ranged modifier when you look under the hood.

 

Stretching Indirect

[Funk Thompson]

Sure, but Indirect does not necessarily mean there isn't a physical manifestation "crossing intervening space."  Technically, you can use either/or - or both  - "Does not cross intervening space" does not confer any other advantages of indirect, and indirect doesn't automatically infer that there is no physical manifestation.

There is no "wrong way to do it" so long as the modifiers all equate out to it doing the intended effect.  And TK already has many of those assumptions "baked in."

 

Just my take, naturally.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, jyang298 said:

 

Nah, no malice between the two of us, it was all very cordial. Being the GM, he's just more concerned with a more liberal interpretation of rules wreaking havoc on game balance during combat encounters. So I guess he just went the other extreme and took to the rule as they're written with no room for flexibility. This led to a weird situation during our first session where my telekinetic mentalist character can't use his powers to unbend the metal bars that's holding his team-mates captive. We still managed to resolve the in-game situation but decided to get some outside opinion on the matter - hence why I posted here.

 

On a related note, is balance a big concern in this game? I got into RPGs quite recently and was taken with the impression that players should be encouraged to create whatever kind of character they feel like and should be allowed to feel great about their characters being awesome at what they do. The GM on the other hand should be more concerned about creating dramatic moments and finding ways to challenge characters. For example, a PC may be great at combat, then as a challenge, maybe separate him from the rest of the party and throw a really strong villain (or a whole bunch of them) at him. Or maybe throw him into social situations where he isn't very good at. The balance part of the game are already built into the system and, in this game especially, items that could potentially be too powerful are highlighted for review. What are your thoughts?

Balance in this (and most games) are an ideal but isn’ automatically there. You can build a legal character even avoiding GM permission powers and still be overly effective. My most abusive character had Desolid 0 END plus I bought LS need not breathe when he was Desolid. And I also bought Affects real world.  Anybody that has a decent EGo Attack in a game where nobody else has Mental Defense is also brutal. In Hero, the points don’t tell the whole story.

[Funk Thompson]

4 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Balance in this (and most games) are an ideal but isn’ automatically there. You can build a legal character even avoiding GM permission powers and still be overly effective. My most abusive character had Desolid 0 END plus I bought LS need not breathe when he was Desolid. And I also bought Affects real world.  Anybody that has a decent EGo Attack in a game where nobody else has Mental Defense is also brutal. In Hero, the points don’t tell the whole story.

 

Well, HERO's advantage there is that you - the GM - can set / fix that balance yourself.

Trying to re-balance classes in D20, for instance...  can be done if you like setting up your own house-rules, but the system itself doesn't support such modifications, and there is no internal consistency to the math of things like there is in HERO.

[Ninja-Bear]

1 hour ago, Funk Thompson said:

 

Well, HERO's advantage there is that you - the GM - can set / fix that balance yourself.

Trying to re-balance classes in D20, for instance...  can be done if you like setting up your own house-rules, but the system itself doesn't support such modifications, and there is no internal consistency to the math of things like there is in HERO.

Agreed and not arguing that point. It’s that I’ve been on the boards long enough and I’ve seen the assumption that since Hero is point based and I just plop down points viola! The game is instantly balanced!

[Ninja-Bear]

Cassandra one advantage that TK over STR has,  is TK can hold as many people the TK wants as long as the TK’er has the END and it does take multiple phases.

[Cantriped]

The full benefits of Telekinesis can almost be achieved using Strength, Stretching (in place of Range and Indirect), and Extra Limbs (to allow multiple grabs like TK)... If you don't look at the issue to closely.

 

But even in such cases TK has several unique advantages: For one thing, a TK Grab is a lot better than a STR Grab (and no amount of Stretching can make STR use the rules for TK Grabs instead), it is harder to block (because it is a Ranged Attack), and while TK Damage is more expensive, Martial Arts for TK aren't.

 

So in the end you are getting a lot more out of TK than you would from an STR "Punch" with Ranged (+1/2).

 

Plus there is the disadvantage that using Stretching STR still requires you and the enemy to be engaged in Hand-To-Hand Combat... even with Doesn't Cross Intervening Space, the basic effect of the power doesn't change: It grants you the ability for one part of your body to be up to Xm away from the rest of it (increased Reach is simply one of the more obvious benefits of that effect). Whatever part of your body you are Stretching "through a portal" (literally one of the 6e1 examples of Doesn't Cross Intervening Space) to grab them with is still within the target's reach, and thus can be attacked by them. The advantage of the Advantage in this case being that otherwise anybody could attack the outstretched limb... not just the target.