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Old 02-06-2018, 10:15 AM   #11
Kromm
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?

Penetrating Vision isn't an automatic success on Vision-related rolls. Clairsentience gives "+2 to Diagnosis, Lockpicking, Surgery, and similar skills in situations where being able to see inside the subject would be useful" (GURPS Powers, p. 163). Penetrating Vision would do the same in this role. However, Clairsentience explicitly says, "Your vision ignores darkness penalties completely"; Penetrating Vision has no similar capacity, and in fact its description says it "works in conjunction with all your other vision advantages (Infravision, Ultravision, etc.)," which implies that those would serve some purpose.

The short version is that if you're looking in the right direction, if you can see through enough material in that direction, and if what's on the other side of that material isn't hidden by darkness, fog, or whatever, you get +2 to rolls to be aware of things there, whether that means hidden attackers or hidden objects. In general, this is about as useful as +2 to Perception (to notice outlines, hear attackers, etc.), which also costs 10 points.

The really important thing is that you don't get 360° Vision or Dark Vision as part of the deal. The GM is always free to say, "The bad guys were behind the wall to your left, and you were looking ahead," or, "The area behind the wall/inside the desk is completely dark, so you can't see anything." I agree that the 360° Vision [25] + Dark Vision [25] + Penetrating Vision 1 [10] combo is sick, but at 60 points it probably ought to be. (And if I were going for that, I'd add See Invisible [15], because none of those other advantages does a thing against invisibility.)
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