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Old 02-21-2017, 04:25 PM   #1
Otaku
 
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Location: South Dakota, USA
Default [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#33): Danger Sense, Precognition, Psychometry

Last Week: Damage Resistance, Limited Defenses, Nictitating Membrane
Next Week: Destiny

Today we cover a trio of traits about sensing the future... or past. Danger Sense and Precognition are natural to cover together, but it was actually some text in Powers that made me realize Psychometry (originally schedule for a week on its own) was a solid fit here.

Basic

Danger Sense (p. B47) is a Mundane, Mental trait that costs 15 CP and is also found in GURPS Lite on page 9, where it reads
You can’t depend on it, but sometimes you get this prickly feeling right at the back of your neck, and you know something’s wrong . . . The GM rolls once against your Perception, secretly, in any situation involving an ambush, impending disaster, or similar hazard. On a success, you get enough of a warning that you can take action. A roll of 3 or 4 means you get a little detail as to the nature of the danger.
The entry in [Basic] doesn't add a lot more; besides categorizing the trait, it mentions that it is included in another trait, Precognition. Precognition (p. B77) is an Exotic, Mental trait which costs 25 points, and includes all the benefits of Danger Sense, but broadens the scope so that the character in question gets more than just a quick “heads-up” about incoming threats.

Through the appropriate means - the text cites “sudden knowledge”, visions, and voices as all be valid options - the character gets a glimpse of the future. This must be knowledge the character’s future self could have learned, and is usually about the near future. The more connected the character is to the event, the better, but the text doesn’t specify that remotely related revelations are impossible; as long as your character at least might catch a televised news report or the like, you could gain some information. The future seen is only Immutable if the GM specifically intends it to be; the GM should let the players know if premonitions are meant to be hard predictions, simply possible futures, or fall somewhere in between where something at least related to the premonition will always happen.

When the character with Precognition encounters a person or object, the GM rolls against IQ (secretly) to see if that character has a related premonition. The character may also attempt to force a precognitive flash by engaging in 10 minutes of concentration, spending 2 FP, and making an IQ roll at -8. The text states this only works for a premonition about yourself, or about another person whom you must be touching; I do not know if this was intended to prevent item or location based premonitions from being actively generated. Precognition includes some less general Limitations you may take for it. “Can’t See Own Death” removes the Danger Sense portion of the Advantage, worth -60%. “One Event” allows a narrower focus for Precognition, such as restricting it only to yourself, events related to death, events related to love, etc. This is worth -40%.

Psychometry (p. B78) is another Exotic, Mental trait. We are covering it today because it basically takes aspects of Precognition, but reverses the focus from the future to the past. Psychometry requires the character touch the subject (item or location, apparently not a person) for a second before making an IQ roll. IF something has - in the words of the text - "strong 'vibes'" you may be able to get a reading without concentrating, though at -4 Penalties may apply depending upon how far back one is trying to read: none for something that occurred the same day, -1 for up to -10 days ago, -2 for something up to 100 days ago, -3 for something up to three years ago, -4 for something up to thirty years ago, -5 for something up to 300 years ago, etc. Failure gives nothing and requires you wait at least 24 hours before trying again. A success gives the character a sense of events and emotions tied to the subject of the reading, so long as there are any. To get an actual vision requires a critical success. Psychometry is not for detecting things like magic or the like on an item.

All three traits may be taken with the "ESP" Limitation, worth -10%. This makes them part of the ESP psi power, which shifts Danger Sense from Mundane to Exotic. Both Precognition and Psychometry may require the user suffer a Fright Check if the emotions or vision is sufficiently disturbing.

Other Supplements


GURPS Powers helps clarify what Danger Sense, Precognition, and Psychometry may represent, for what Powers these abilities could be appropriate options and some good advice on GMing them. This book also includes some new Modifiers for Precognition and Psychometry and gives some worked examples of abilities created using these traits. It even gives some idea of Skills that could benefit from being used in conjunction with some of these traits. Where they showed up in my remaining supplements (Power-Ups 2: Perks, Power-Ups 3: Talents, Social Engineering) were minor clarifications or somewhat detail heavy alternate rules. If they become pertinent to the discussion, I'll add them in.

Useful Links

Hate to make this a habit, but if I wanted to get this posted today, I had to delay searching for these myself. I will add them later, especially if some are mentioned in the thread. It is easy for me to miss such things, so feel free to PM me if you think that has happened.
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My GURPS Fourth Edition library consists of Basic Set: Characters, Basic Set: Campaigns, Martial Arts, Powers, Powers: Enhanced Senses, Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, Power-Ups 2: Perks, Power-Ups 3: Talents, Power-Ups 4: Enhancements, Power-Ups 6: Quirks, Power-Ups 8: Limitations, Powers, Social Engineering, Supers, Template Toolkit 1: Characters, Template Toolkit 2: Races, one issue of Pyramid (3/83) a.k.a. Alternate GURPS IV, GURPS Classic Rogues, and GURPS Classic Warriors. Most of which was provided through the generosity of others. Thanks! :)

Last edited by Otaku; 02-28-2017 at 08:28 PM.
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advantage, advantage of the week, danger sense, precognition, psychometry, [basic]

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