Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 08-18-2020, 12:24 AM   #1
Lameth
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Psionic Mind Clouding

In the Psionic powers book is the ability of Mind Clouding, but it does not fit what I am looking for and I see a flaw in the ability as well.

The mind clouding ability simply gives you a boost to stealth, what I am looking for is the professor x ability of "we are simply not here. You will not see us, you will not hear us, smell us, etc, and if we bump into you, you will rationalize it away and forget it happened. If we attack you, or cause you harm, it will break this ability though. "

So I thought about invisibility instead, with Psi on it, with area. But the flaw is hijacking someones senses as well if they are bumped into, and making them forget it happened or push the thought away. Also, the overall flaw is they will show up on recorded tech, but I cant see away around this that makes sense since I want it effected the mind, not the tech, so it is what it is. But if the person is watching it live, they will still be effected by the ability and will not see the person, its only late that they may be seen on recordings.

So any help in building this would be helpful thank you!
Lameth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 12:40 AM   #2
adam1234
 
Join Date: May 2020
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

I think the usual way of building such powers is to build them as multiple components that are potentially alternate-abilities of the most expensive.

Mind-Clouding is already "Chameleon" for not being seen, "Silence" for not being heard, and you might add some level of "Mind Control (contact agent)" for not being touched. You might also replace Chameleon with Invisibility too.

Since these are all active simultaneously, the use of AA is not appropriate as evidenced by how the Mind Clouding ability is built.
adam1234 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 01:55 AM   #3
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lameth View Post
what I am looking for is the professor x ability of "[B]we are simply not here. You will not see us, you will not hear us, smell us, etc, and if we bump into you, you will rationalize it away and forget it happened. If we attack you, or cause you harm, it will break this ability though.
First let's design a metatrait:
B124 Blindness -50
B129 Deafness -20
B146 No Sense of Smell/Taste -5
B146 Numb -20
Sum -95 or Disadvantage +95% enhancement on an Affliction

P105 "Selective Effect" options got expanded in PU4p16
"if it would make sense to restrict the effect to a single part of the subject." includes Detect as an example... to "narrow the range of what he’s looking for"

If you can do that, then it seems reasonable that you could also specify "these senses only malfunction in respect to the X-Men" or other stuff like "you are unable to taste blueberries" or "you can't hear me singing" or "you can't see stop signs".

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lameth View Post
the flaw is hijacking someones senses as well if they are bumped into, and making them forget it happened or push the thought away.
PU8p18 "Terminal Condition" covers a "simple act" ending abilities prematurely, the value is set by how well known this act is (arcane to common)

If you don't want it to be an instant off switch but rather "if this happens, I need to apply some finesse to reinstate it" then you'd probably want to define that as an Either-Or limitation to something like "Reduced Duration". I believe that would mean that if the condition happens, the duration would dramatically shorten (wear off quickly) requiring you to re-apply the power to reset the duration.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lameth View Post
Also, the overall flaw is they will show up on recorded tech, but I cant see away around this that makes sense since I want it effected the mind, not the tech, so it is what it is. But if the person is watching it live, they will still be effected by the ability and will not see the person, its only late that they may be seen on recordings.

So any help in building this would be helpful thank you!
You can instruct minds both "you're blind in respect to me AND photos of me AND videos of me" using Selective Effect, I would imagine.

You're going to need a big area effect to be in range of people who might be watching the video from miles away, but that's the type of psi Prof X was.

I don't know if there's a way to extend range/area ONLY when there is a connection via a view screen though.
Plane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 07:45 AM   #4
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

A senseless field can be resisted though, so there is no guarantee unless you have a lot of levels of Affliction. I think that Invisibility (with Glamour) is really the easiest choice.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 07:47 AM   #5
naloth
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

Quote:
Originally Posted by adam1234 View Post
I think the usual way of building such powers is to build them as multiple components that are potentially alternate-abilities of the most expensive.

Mind-Clouding is already "Chameleon" for not being seen, "Silence" for not being heard, and you might add some level of "Mind Control (contact agent)" for not being touched. You might also replace Chameleon with Invisibility too.

Since these are all active simultaneously, the use of AA is not appropriate as evidenced by how the Mind Clouding ability is built.
I've approached this in two different ways:

Chameleon 5 (Active +40%; Link +10%) + Silence 5 (Active +40%; Link +10%). I'd also add Encumbrance for both, Selective Effect if you can exclude your friends from being affected, and Glamour since you're projecting this into local minds. I'd throw on a range limit so that people over X yards aren't affected with the value based on X. The use of Active is good because what you're actually doing doesn't matter.

Illusion with Area Effect, Cosmic x2, Emanation, Independent, Mental, and a limitation if you can only "hide" things. Area with Emanation determines who's in your area of affect. Cosmic the first time is to break the "touch or see" limitation in favor of affecting anyone in your area. Cosmic the second time is to ignore the -1 penalty in favor of projecting the same illusion to everyone in the area. Independent means you don't need to keep of the effect (which works as long as the illusion doesn't interact with anyone). Mental makes it a contest, though I'd allow a "take 10" approach for affecting mass groups.
naloth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 07:48 AM   #6
naloth
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
A senseless field can be resisted though, so there is no guarantee unless you have a lot of levels of Affliction. I think that Invisibility (with Glamour) is really the easiest choice.
Invisibility doesn't cover sound, smell, or other senses. If you go this route, Obscure (Stealthy, Defensive, Mobile) makes more sense.
naloth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 08:09 AM   #7
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

Quote:
Originally Posted by naloth View Post
Illusion with Area Effect, Cosmic x2, Emanation, Independent, Mental, and a limitation if you can only "hide" things. Area with Emanation determines who's in your area of affect. Cosmic the first time is to break the "touch or see" limitation in favor of affecting anyone in your area. Cosmic the second time is to ignore the -1 penalty in favor of projecting the same illusion to everyone in the area. Independent means you don't need to keep of the effect (which works as long as the illusion doesn't interact with anyone). Mental makes it a contest, though I'd allow a "take 10" approach for affecting mass groups.
I do not believe that is a legal build. Mental replaces the Area Effect of Illusion, so they are mutually incompatible, and Illusion's area is already an Emanation. Cosmic also usually does not allow you to circumvent the standard operations of an advantage. So, you can use Cosmic on Healing to bypass Cosmic (Lingering Effects), but you could not use Cosmic (X) to ignore the multiple heals per day penalty or Cosmic (Y) to allow healing to do damage instead of healing.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 08:45 AM   #8
naloth
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
I do not believe that is a legal build. Mental replaces the Area Effect of Illusion, so they are mutually incompatible, and Illusion's area is already an Emanation.
Mental changes it from Area/Emanation to to Ranged single target. It works exactly the same way that Innate Attack is a Ranged on target ability that you can apply Area and Emanation to change it to an ability that affects and area radius around you.

Quote:
Cosmic also usually does not allow you to circumvent the standard operations of an advantage. So, you can use Cosmic on Healing to bypass Cosmic (Lingering Effects), but you could not use Cosmic (X) to ignore the multiple heals per day penalty or Cosmic (Y) to allow healing to do damage instead of healing.
That's not the description of Cosmic in my book. I have " "Your ability is not subject to
the usual built-in restrictions. " That would change how the "standard operation" works and there are plenty of examples in various supplements of it removing an internal restriction.

As for your first example, that may or may not be a valid use as heals/day is an internal limitation (GM option). The second would be allowing the ability to function in a way it never had before. Adding functionality (rather than removing restrictions) isn't something Cosmic can do.

As for these uses, it would be GM option but both are internal restrictions. "See or touch" could be bypassed by buying 360-degree vision for a similar cost, so Cosmic isn't unbalanced for that. Allowing area to supplant the one target is along the same lines as "Cosmic: May purchase Reduced Fatigue Cost" for Super-Effort, especially since the same effect is being pushed to everyone in the area. It's how area TK works, which is a canon example.
naloth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 09:15 AM   #9
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

All of the restrictions listed for the Cosmic (+50%) version (Basic, p. 101) are external restrictions, not internal restrictions, and I would suggest that circumventing internal restrictions are a +300% version of Cosmic (Super-Effort is its own special brand of cheese, as it is only allowing you to purchase a restricted modifier). You are then probably talking about the following:

Illusion (Accessibility, Only Hide Things, -30%; Area Effect, 2 yards, +50%; Cosmic (X), +300%; Cosmic (Y), +300%; Emanation, -20%; Independence, +40%; Mental, +100%) [210].

So you end up with an Illusion ability that can only hide things from people who are within two yards of its user. I would suggest an alternative:

Illusion (Affects Insubstantial, +20%; Area Effect, 1024 yards, +450%; Extended, Universal, +100%; Initiative, +100%; Reliable, +10, +50%; Selective Area, +20%) [210]

With the above ability, you are capable of creating a full sensory experience that includes everyone within 1024 yards of your position except for those you deliberately exclude. In effect, you are grabbing control of the perceptions of everyone within your area. If you are just feeling mean, you could put everyone in the area in complete and utter senselessness. If you are feeling subtle, you could create an illusion that includes everything real except that it hides specific objects.

Last edited by AlexanderHowl; 08-18-2020 at 09:31 AM.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-18-2020, 09:33 AM   #10
naloth
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Default Re: Psionic Mind Clouding

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
It does end up being a really expensive ability though, as each Cosmic would need to be (+300%) since you are changing the essential nature of the advantage.
No, each would be +50% since both fall under "Ability other than an attack or a
defense" as a first category of Cosmic. Both also are variations of other +50% examples. (Notably to allow an enhancement not otherwise normally allowed for that particular ability/enhancement.)

As for the cost, yes it can be a bit more expensive due to the area it affects. You'll want a much bigger radius that 2 yards since unlike normal illusion, you're projecting this onto those targets in that area rather than creating an illusion at the target area. It's also a bit more powerful within that area since you're affecting everyone in your radius rather than a subject.

If you drop the hide stuff, it actually fits pretty well with how Xavier has created a few illusions for mass effect.
naloth is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:51 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.