Building a Power to find someone at a distance

[Tywyll]

On 2/6/2020 at 12:03 AM, Duke Bushido said:

Thank you.

 

All that being the case, then even though you stated it won't work, I'm inclined to think you would want to build your power on the base of Clairsentience.  I mean, given the things you've put forward thus far: being able to see the Viper men's room (and anyone in there), etc-- this is much more than just knowing where someone is-- wait.  Scratch that.  It's not exactly _more_, so much as it is _different_.

 

But reviewing what you're wanting:

 

You want to be able to see through mirrors from up to fifteen miles away.  I understand that the hope is to find a particular target, but you also admit that you may not find him if he is not in view of the mirror.  (Weird fact about a mirror: no matter how big or small the mirror or the room, you can see the entire room from within the mirror.  It's like somehow _more_ than a window....  Kinda creeped me out when I was a kid  ).   That suggests that what you want to be able to do is put your sensory point of view at a location that allows you to perceive things up to fifteen miles away with the _hopes_ of seeing the target, not so much as actually locating the target every time.

 

Seeing through mirrors is, in this case, a handicap, as you have explained that you can still perceive what's in front of the mirror, it just may not be what you had wanted to see (that being the target).

 

So Mind Scan is out because 1) you don't want the target to know he's being scanned (For what it's worth, I've always allowed "Invisible Power Effects" bought for the purpose of masking the detect from the target- that is, a _separate_ Invisible Power Effects from the one you might buy to make your power undetectable to anyone observing you.  May or may not be an answer to your problem).

 

Detect is also out, as with a Detect, you are only going to be able to see the target.  Appropriate modifiers would allow you to get his location, etc, but based on what you put up, even if he sees the target, he won't know where the target is, so you won't need any stretching of Discriminatory, etc.  _However_, with detect, much like Mind Scan, you will _only_ see the target (provided he is in front of a mirror).  You won't see the men's room or Viper goons, etc.  So that may not be the way to go.

 

The only power that lets you see an environment other than the one you're in is Clairsentience.  (well, I suppose you could put "Extradimensional" on your Sight or something, but honestly: Clairsentience is a thing that already exists, and is tailor-made for the job you want done.)

 

 

So, before wading in and tossing out other things, what is is about Clairsentience that has you thinking it won't work?  The fact that you have to know where to put it?  That brings us to a combined power or sorts:  A Detect (with modifiers to give you a location) combined with Clairsentience; a Mind Scan (with modifiers to make you invisible to the person you are scanning) combined with Clairsentience.   

 

Or-- and you'll have to suss this out for yourself, unless you're not the GM, in which case you can slop it around with him a bit:  find an appropriate modifier or set of modifiers (probably custom) to make Clairsentience do just what you want.  Frankly, just tossing this out without too much research, I like "Uncontrolled" at the moment, and "Extra Time."  Combined, they can represent the user having to thumb through numerous mirrors within his range, and the time that would take.  But again, that's just a knee-jerk reaction.  I'm sure you can come up with something more appropriate.

 

However, as long as we're all playing nicely, let's here, if you don't mind, why you don't think Clairsentience is the tool for the job.

 

 

 

Mostly because Clairsentience has no ability to target an unknown location. I suppose combining a detect with it might work. It's just frustrating that it becomes such a high AP construct for a power that is so situationally unusable. 

 

I'm the GM. I'm always the GM with my group. No one else in my group knows or loves HERO like I do, sadly. 

[Chris Goodwin]

6 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Mostly because Clairsentience has no ability to target an unknown location. I suppose combining a detect with it might work. It's just frustrating that it becomes such a high AP construct for a power that is so situationally unusable.

 

I'm not sure that with a general Clairsentience power I'd let you target e.g. "Joe's apartment" if you weren't within line of sight, but I would let you pop a Clairsentience point "120 meters that way".  You can reorient from there, get closer, then re-pop or move your point to a new spot.  Focus in on Joe's apartment that way.  

 

I've sometimes done a GPS bug as something like Detect Lat/Long, with a Clairsentience with that Detect.  Make it Mobile with a Limitation that it's based on their movement (as GM I handwave away the "max velocity" portions of the Mobile part if the user of the Power has no control over where it goes).  

 

I think the question is: if you're using Clairsentience with the Limitation "Only through mirror", do you have to know the mirror is there and be able to target it?  I would probably say no you don't, but the Clairsentience points are fixed and you're at their mercy.  In the Joe's apartment scenario above, if you're outside of Joe's apartment building, you could certainly cycle through the mirrors in the various apartments, but given that they're fixed in place you're getting a lot of bathroom views.  If you knew approximately where to target it (e.g. third floor, building B ) you'd have a better chance, but you're still cycling through bathrooms.  

[Doc Democracy]

6 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Mostly because Clairsentience has no ability to target an unknown location

 

You are not targeting an unknown location.  You are searching for a fixed floating location (your target-and how you change that is a matter for another discussion) but your perception of him is limited to what the mirror nearest him can see.

[PhilFleischmann]

And the thing is - well *a* thing is - that there is already a power to find someone at a distance - Mind Scan.  It's just that in this case, we want a power that's not based on EGO and Mental contact, but on Visual contact through Clairsentience.  If you're looking for Joe with this Clairsentience-based power, you might find someone who is disguised as Joe instead.  Or you might see Joe, but not realize it's him because he's disguised as Frank.  Of course, the the appropriate adders, you can penetrate those disguises.

 

The difficulty, without using Mind Scan, is how do you focus in on the one person you're looking for?  Clairsentience doesn't really allow you to do this, and neither does Detect People.  Detect Joe works for Joe, but it doesn't work for Frank.