How to apply Long-Range (Powers:108)

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Hello all,

I'm building a custom version of the Telepathy power, and I want to adjust all its abilities to lack long-distance modifiers of any kind. My current approach is to apply Long-Range to each ability, so that all of them use the Long-Distance Modifiers (B:241) and then include Long-Range 1 (+50%) in the power modifier to upgrade them all to "no penalties".

My questions are...

1. Is this a legal way to remove all distance modifiers?
2. If yes, then what category of distance modifiers (as codified under Long-Range) do each of the following abilities have?


Clairsentience (range = 10 yards)
Illusion (Ranged) (range = 1/2D 10, Max 100)
Medium (range = “in your presence”)
Mind Probe (Ranged) (range = 1/2D 10, Max 100)
Mind Reading (Ranged) (rage = 1/2D 10, Max 100)
Terror (Active) (range = “anyone who sees or hears you (choose one”)


Looking more at the effects, it seems like Illusion (Ranged), Mind Probe (Ranged), and Mind Reading (Ranged) have penalties not as harsh as "regular spell". But I'm really uncertain.

[Kelly Pedersen]

So, the important thing to remember about Long-Range is that it affects range penalties, but not simply fixed range limits. The latter is better handled with Increased Range (p. B106).

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

My current approach is to apply Long-Range to each ability, so that all of them use the Long-Distance Modifiers (B:241) and then include Long-Range 1 (+50%) in the power modifier to upgrade them all to "no penalties".

1. Is this a legal way to remove all distance modifiers?

It's legal in the sense that mechanically, that combination of modifiers will product abilities with no penalties for range. However, I wouldn't put the Long-Range modifier in the power modifier, because not all the abilities will need it - some don't take range penalties at all. I'd just apply multiple levels of Long-Range to those abilities that do need it, to put them up to the "no range penalties" level.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Mind Probe (Ranged) (range = 1/2D 10, Max 100)
Clairsentience (range = 10 yards)
Illusion (Ranged) (range = 1/2D 10, Max 100)
Medium (range = “in your presence”)
Mind Reading (Ranged) (rage = 1/2D 10, Max 100)
Terror (Active) (range = “anyone who sees or hears you (choose one”)

Actually, with the exception of Mind Reading and Mind Probe, I don't think any of these take range penalties. Illusion doesn't require a roll to create an illusion, and I don't think Ranged would add one. Clairsentience requires a roll, but it's not penalized by range, you just need sufficient Increased Range on it to extend its range out to a very long way. Terror and Medium don't take range penalties at all, they just need an enhancement to extend their range out beyond "in your presence"/"in sight". Mind Reading does take range penalties, but note that you don't need the Ranged enhancement for it, it's ranged by default.

For Clairsentience, Illusion, Medium, and Terror, I'm going to suggest using a new enhancement, based off of Increased Range, Line of Sight from Psionic Powers (p. 20). That enhancement is a special version of Increased Range that lets you use your ability on anything you can see, regardless of its actual range from you. Call the new one Increased Range, Familiarity - it lets you use your ability on anything you're familiar with, no matter the exact range, with -1 for family, lovers, or close friends; -3 for casual friends and acquaintances; and -5 for someone you met only briefly. It would be worth +150%, and I'd generally require you to stack it with Increased Range, Line of Sight.

So, Clairsentience and Illusion would require both Increased Range, Line of Sight (worth +70% for Clairsentience, since its base range is only 10 yards, and +40% for Illusion, since its base range, with Ranged, is 100 yards), and Increased Range, Familiarity, +150%. The Medium and Terror would only require Increased Range, Familiarity, since they're effectively already "line of sight".

Mind Reading, by default, can only be used on a target if you can see them, or (at -5) if you know their exact location. I'd allow Increased Range, Familiarity to apply to it as well. Mind Probe would need Ranged, Increased Range, Line of Sight, and Increased Range, Familiarity to gain the same capacity.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Looking more at the effects, it seems like Illusion (Ranged), Mind Probe (Ranged), and Mind Reading (Ranged) have penalties not as harsh as "regular spell". But I'm really uncertain.

A regular spell has penalties of -1/yard, so yes, all of those (when they have range penalties at all) would have less harsh penalties, since they'd use the regular speed/range table.

[Plane]

Clairsentience doesn't mention any rang-based penalties (only a -5 for destinations you can't see) so I think it begins at th highest tier, and maybe you could take the Short Range limitation to get them.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

For Clairsentience, Illusion, Medium, and Terror, I'm going to suggest using a new enhancement, based off of Increased Range, Line of Sight from Psionic Powers (p. 20).

This is also in Power Ups 4: Enhancements, on pg 15.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Thank you very much for your detailed replies. You’re also helping me catch where I misread stuff!

Oof, this is so much more complicated and difficult that I had hoped.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

So, the important thing to remember about Long-Range is that it affects range penalties, but not simply fixed range limits. The latter is better handled with Increased Range (p. B106).

Oops... I misunderstood. If distance penalties and range limits are separate things, then the power I’m trying to build is supposed to have neither of those. In theory, all but one of its abilities have infinite range, just as Special Rapport apparently does (IIRC). I know infinite may be impossible with RAW, but my goal is for it to at least work at interplanetary distances: about as far as the largest possible distance between Earth and Venus, or even Earth and Mars (when on opposite sides of the Sun). I don’t know how far that is, but it’s even better than line-of-sight (it goes right through solid objects). I could cut that down to Earth-Moon distance for most PCs, just to save points, but some users will need the larger range.


You’re absolutely right that not all the abilities need that much range, though. The abilities in the power seem to fall into 4 categories:

1. Speak With Animals: Since Telesend (Universal) already allows communication with animals, SWA is more of a subtly-telepathy-assisted verbal communication (for folks without Telesend). So, it’ll only work at verbal range.

2. Empathy, Animal Empathy, Plant Empathy, & Spirit Empathy: They work when you “meet” someone. My hope is that they don’t need much (or any?) modification to work when meeting or observing somebody remotely (with Clairsentience, Mind Reading, or receiving Telesend). If they can “piggy-back,” they’ll have the same range as those abilities.

3. Illusion (without Mental): This is intended to work at line-of-sight. I’m not sure whether Illusion already does that. Does the 2 yards just restrict the location and size of the illusionary thing, or is it only visible to people within a 2-yard radius? If so, IIRC it needs Area Effect rather than Ranged... Is there a Line-of-Sight-radius version of AE? And it should be able to anchor Independent illusions to objects and people, preferrably even if they leave the illusionist’s side: like Mobile or Drifting, but for non-attacks. As for skill rolls, the modifiable roll would only be the Quick Contest to actually fool people.

4. Abilities that are supposed to have interplanetary range: Affliction (Malediction), Clairsentience, Detect (intelligent minds), Illusion (Mental), Medium, Mind Probe, Mind Reading, Mindlink, Special Rapport, Telesend, and Terror (Active)


Clairsentience, Medium, & Terror (Active): I really like Increased Range (familiarity) in principle, because the power is indeed affected by familiarity of the targets. But that happens even at very short range, and affects all the abilities except Clairsentience and those that don't need rolls. Is it reasonable, instead, to have Increased Range (based on health)? Giving -1 at <1/4 of FP, -3 at 0 FP or less, additional -2 if 0 HP or less. Would that be fair, or if not what HP and FP penalties would make it fair? ... But that’s still fiddly and complicated, because then I still have to add separate injury- and fatigue-based modifiers to all the other abilities...

The power will be much easier to use if the exact same roll modifiers apply equally to all abilities (except SWA and Clairsentience), and that’s how I wanted to build it. That’s why I was hoping for stand-alone enhancement(s) that would remove ability-specific range limits without substituting some other modifier. HP and FP would be pretty irrelevant for Speak With Animals (if you can talk, you can use it, and it requires no roll), but would matter for every other ability.

The only other alternative that’s coming to mind is to cut them each down to touch range, and then give the power modifier Long Distance (Line-of-sight + Familiarity). ... I’m going to try to work more math... (Edit: yes, I can give the power's rolls penalties for unfamiliar people, and still have it work as intended. But how to make the same exact unfamiliarity penalties to apply to every ability?)

Illusion (Mental, Ranged Skill-Based) The low-power psis are limited to line-of-sight as normal, or to hearing range if it has Hearing-Based –20% and Only While Singing –10%. But the high-power psis should be able to cast upon any mind in the inner solar system. So it would get the above Increased Range (condition) ?

Mind Reading, IIRC, has line-of-sight as max range. So it needs the Increased Range (condition) to upgrade to interplanetary, plus Long-Range 2. Is that right? Can Mind Probe “piggy-back” on the distance enhancers on Mind Reading? Since it works on anyone you successfully mind-read.


Affliction (Malediction) IIRC, this has no max distance, and needs Long-Range 3?
Detect has no max distance, needs Long-Range 2?
Mindlink is apparently fine out to 0.1 lightyear, so that’s good enough for me
Special Rapport appears to have no range limit at all

Telesend has no max distance, needs Long-Range 1? And, arg, unless every other ability has Increased Range (Familiarity) I also need an enhancement to switch off the built-in familiarity penalties. (Or a way to add them as a stand-alone limitation, for abilities that wouldn't otherwise get them.)

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Oof, this is so much more complicated and difficult that I had hoped.

Yes, I think you've set yourself up with a fairly tricky set of builds.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

The only other alternative that’s coming to mind is to cut them each down to touch range, and then give the power modifier Long Distance (Line-of-sight + Familiarity). ...

I don't think this approach actually saves you any effort - the different abilities have different base ranges and penalties, so you'd still have to figure out which modifiers to put on all of them, and then you're just adding an extra step by applying the limitations, and then applying enhancements to bring them all back up. It's simpler to just figure out what range each has, and apply the appropriate levels of Increased Range and Long Range individually.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

I know infinite may be impossible with RAW, but my goal is for it to at least work at interplanetary distances: about as far as the largest possible distance between Earth and Venus, or even Earth and Mars (when on opposite sides of the Sun). I don’t know how far that is, but it’s even better than line-of-sight (it goes right through solid objects).

Enough levels of Long-Range to reduce the penalties to none for distance should cover that. Technically, the communication ones at least will have to deal with lightspeed delay (there's a separate enhancement, FTL, to make Telecommunication move at faster than light speeds), though personally, for Telesend, I think it's reasonable to say that within a given solar system, it's effectively instantaneous, and you only have to worry about things like the speed of light if you're trying to communicate over interstellar distances.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

2. Empathy, Animal Empathy, Plant Empathy, & Spirit Empathy: They work when you “meet” someone. My hope is that they don’t need much (or any?) modification to work when meeting or observing somebody remotely

I believe this is correct, yes. Psionic Powers, in its Empathy build, puts Short-Range 2 on it to put it down to normal range penalties, and removes Short-Ranged entirely to give it no range penalties at all.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

3. Illusion (without Mental): This is intended to work at line-of-sight. I’m not sure whether Illusion already does that. Does the 2 yards just restrict the location and size of the illusionary thing, or is it only visible to people within a 2-yard radius?

It's the former - everyone can see the illusion, but you can only place it in the 2-yard-radius area around you. Adding Area Effect would increase the area the illusion could appear in, but the area would be centered on you. Adding Ranged lets you place the illusion somewhere else, but it still has to conform to that 2-yard-radius area (barring adding more levels of Area Effect as well).

Is there any reason you don't want to use the Mental enhancement, by the way? It seems like it already does a lot of the work of turning Illusion into something you want: it makes it a purely mental ability, removes the range limit, and has no penalties for range. Pretty much the only thing you'd have to add is Increased Range, Familiarity, really.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

I really like Increased Range (familiarity) in principle, because the power is indeed affected by familiarity of the targets. But that happens even at very short range, and affects all the abilities except Clairsentience and those that don't need rolls.

So, you're saying that, even if someone was standing right next to their target, looking right at them, they'd still take the familiarity penalties? Like, if I was trying to use Terror (Active) on an opponent I had just met, I'd be at -5? In that case, I'd suggest that you could add Increased Range, Familiarity without stacking it on top of Increased Range, Line of Sight, and in the cases of advantages that already had Line of Sight built in, you could apply a limitation to them. I'd price that at -50%.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Is it reasonable, instead, to have Increased Range (based on health)?

Who's health, the target or the user? Also, what's the logic here - why is it easier for a telepath to contact someone who's tired or hurt?

In any case, I'd be very cautious about replacing familiarity modifiers with health-based ones, or really any other modifier that doesn't effectively limit your target pool. If you don't have familiarity modifiers on Clairsentience, for example, what's stopping a player saying "I use my Clairsentience on someone planning to attack me. No, I don't know anyone like that. But if there's someone out there who is, I want to see." The existing Increased Range options make sure that there's still some effective limits on the target pool (either "can you see them" for Line of Sight, or "do you know them" for Familiarity), and removing those restrictions gets into dangerous territory, in my opinion. At the very least, I'd price that at something like +300%, a Cosmic variant.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

(Edit: yes, I can give the power's rolls penalties for unfamiliar people, and still have it work as intended. But how to make the same exact unfamiliarity penalties to apply to every ability?)

Make sure to apply Increased Range, Familiarity to all the abilities that don't have it already applied by default, basically (I think Telesend is the only one that does).

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Mind Reading, IIRC, has line-of-sight as max range. So it needs the Increased Range (condition) to upgrade to interplanetary, plus Long-Range 2. Is that right? Can Mind Probe “piggy-back” on the distance enhancers on Mind Reading? Since it works on anyone you successfully mind-read.

That's correct, yes. Mind Reading uses normal range penalties by default, so Long-Range 2 bumps that up to "no penalties for distance", and Increased Range, Familiarity would remove the need to see the target.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Affliction (Malediction) IIRC, this has no max distance, and needs Long-Range 3?

Long-Range 3 is correct, but Malediction has a built in line-of-sight limitation ("any victim you can see or otherwise clearly perceive"), so you'll need Increased Range, Familiarity to get around that.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Detect has no max distance, needs Long-Range 2?

Telesend has no max distance, needs Long-Range 1?

Both correct.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

And, arg, unless every other ability has Increased Range (Familiarity) I also need an enhancement to switch off the built-in familiarity penalties.

This is one reason I recommend against doing the "limit everything down to no range, max penalties, then use power modifier to bring them back up" approach. You're just going to have to keep doing this, finding special cases where you'll need to apply limitations to remove abilities you're just going to be adding back in again. Just figure out which advantages need which enhancements to meet your needs, and apply them directly.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Yes, I think you've set yourself up with a fairly tricky set of builds.

As usual with me, I'm trying to represent a piece of fiction that wasn't designed for gaming. So it is what it is -- that's the challenge! But I am trying to design something elegant enough to actually be useable.

It looks like -- IIRC -- that you're saying I can
1. add Increased Range (Familiarity) to every ability, even those that already have unlimited distance in RAW (I think Affliction, Detect, and by proxy the Empathy series)
2. then remove range penalties with Long-Range
3. and that combination will give everything interplanetary range and identical familiarity penalties

Let's see... other than Clairsentience, the ones that lack familiarity penalties (because they lack rolls altogether) already have the range I want them at. If the above procedure works, this may be less difficult than it had begun to look!

There's no need for FTL, though.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Is there any reason you don't want to use the Mental enhancement, by the way?

The power has both Mental and non-Mental Illusion as options.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

So, you're saying that, even if someone was standing right next to their target, looking right at them, they'd still take the familiarity penalties? Like, if I was trying to use Terror (Active) on an opponent I had just met, I'd be at -5?

Yes indeed... you also have worse rolls for being injured or tired, for Low Empathy, for not being insubstantial, for trying to contact somebody who's substantial, and for not making eye contact. I figure those should, more-or-less, balance out the lack of distance limits and penalties. Actually, for people who don't have either Insubstantiality or lots of Talent (that is, most PCs), it's supposed to be quite difficult to use reliably. But there are some situational options to get bonuses on the roll. (my goal is that all of these modifiers apply regardless of distance)

But bear in mind that some of these, like Terror and Affliction, are only available to gods and dragon NPCs who probably have plenty of Talent.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Who's health, the target or the user?

It's the user's health and fatigue, not the target. The logic is that it's harder to use when you're dying or exhausted. I could probably replace the FP limit with Costs FP. I may dry to use this instead. Really, severe injury and exhaustion should just limit all IQ, DX, and self-control rolls automatically, but in RAW they don't.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

In any case, I'd be very cautious about replacing familiarity modifiers with health-based ones, or really any other modifier that doesn't effectively limit your target pool. If you don't have familiarity modifiers on Clairsentience, for example, what's stopping a player saying "I use my Clairsentience on someone planning to attack me. No, I don't know anyone like that. But if there's someone out there who is, I want to see." The existing Increased Range options make sure that there's still some effective limits on the target pool (either "can you see them" for Line of Sight, or "do you know them" for Familiarity), and removing those restrictions gets into dangerous territory, in my opinion. At the very least, I'd price that at something like +300%, a Cosmic variant.

Hm... that does make me think. My intention wasn't to make it work like a search engine, really. It's more like a surveillance drone that I can remote-control. I can decide the direction and speed it moves, and control the zoom (within limits). But it just sees or hears whatever is in the place I send it to. Perhaps it is limited to ... aspected places, or something. It's only used by gods, and they're each the god of X, so maybe they're limited to scrying in places that contain X. That would make a lot of sense, actually. Well, except for the goddess of light who can scry in places of total darkness. But none of them are omniscient, and it may also be limited to, say, 600 miles. I don't mind if gods need really expensive enhancements, they wouldn't be built on points anyway.

Detect does get familiarity modifiers, because it's easier to locate familiar minds. Even using Detect and Mind Reading at the same time, a googling the universe still seems implausible.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

It looks like -- IIRC -- that you're saying I can
1. add Increased Range (Familiarity) to every ability, even those that already have unlimited distance in RAW (I think Affliction, Detect, and by proxy the Empathy series)

No, that's the opposite of what I'm saying, really. What I'm saying is that you need to look at each advantage, determine if it has an inherent range limit aside from range penalties, and add Increased Range, Familiarity, to those that do have such a limitation.

Affliction, by the way, does have such a limitation - if you don't modify it with Malediction, it has the usual Innate Attack cap of 100 yards, and putting Malediction on anything includes an inherent limitation of targeting only something "you can see or otherwise clearly perceive".

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

It's the user's health and fatigue, not the target.

I'd probably class "takes a -1 to rolls to use the ability at 1/3rd FP or HP" as a -10% Nuisance Effect limitation, adding -5% for each additional -1 you suffer, and another -10% if you start suffering the penalties at 1/2 FP or HP.

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

My intention wasn't to make it work like a search engine, really. It's more like a surveillance drone that I can remote-control.

I think if that's the case, I'd still use a variant of Increased Range, Familiarity, but it would be based on your familiarity with the location, and couldn't be used to randomly target individuals. I'd reword the familiarity categories to be "-1 for a location you're intimately familiar with, like a place you've lived in for a year or more; -3 for a location you've visited several times, or have extremely precise coordinates for; -5 for a location you've visited once or have typical coordinates for."

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

No, that's the opposite of what I'm saying, really. What I'm saying is that you need to look at each advantage, determine if it has an inherent range limit aside from range penalties, and add Increased Range, Familiarity, to those that do have such a limitation.

In that case, how do I add Familiarity penalties to abilities that have unlimited range in RAW? I think that's just Detect, and the Empathy-type advantages. (and those that don't have rolls anyway)
Edit: It looks like unmodified Empathy is limited to direct presence, per Powers p. 48. Remote should let it link with/follow-up on Mind Reading or Detect Clairsentience, I think.

And with the additional -50% limitation you mentioned, "familiarity penalties apply at close range": Would that limitation allow me to put Increased Range (Familiarity) on Detect?

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

-5 for a location you've visited once or have typical coordinates for."

-5 seems fair, then for "a place you last visited >100 years ago that's aspected towards your gody domain".

I think Clairsentience won't be part of the power since it operates so differently from the power's other abilities, but everything else about how it works will stay the same as above so it still needs the range mods.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

So, ignoring the power modifier(s) for now, here's my 2nd draft/attempt to get the range and familiarity penalties. Please let me know if I got them right? :


Clairsentience (no mod) 10 yrds
Clairsentience (Increased Range: Line-of-Sight +70%; Increased Range: Familiarity of location +150%) familiarity penalties don’t apply when displacing your sense to a location you can sense from where your body is

X Empathy (no mod) in your direct presence, to judge from the wording of Remote (Powers p. 48)
X Empathy (Remote +50%; Increased Range: Familiarity +150%; modifiers apply at short range –50%)

Affliction (Malediction +200%, Based on Will +20%) line-of-sight/¿psionic contact?, long-range modifiers
Affliction (Malediction +200%, Based on Will +20%; Long-Range 1 +50%; Increased Range: Familiarity +150%; modifiers apply at short range –50%)

Detect (no mod) size and speed/range table
Detect (Long-Range 2 +100%; Increased Range: Familiarity +150%; modifiers apply at short range –50%)
or?
Detect (Long-Range 2 +100%; Familiarity and other modifiers apply at short range –50%)

Illusion (Mental +100%) line-of-sight
Illusion (Mental +100%; Increased Range: Familiarity +150%; modifiers apply at short range –50%)

Illusion (non-Mental) 2 yards, visible at line-of-sight
Illusion (Independence +50%, Mobile +40%) as without mods, but can be attached to an object or target 2 yards away and then move with it (IIRC Powers p. 104); it moves at the rate the object/target moves but not under the illusionist’s direction

Medium (Skill-Based) "in your presence"
Medium (Skill-Based; Increased Range: Familiarity +150%; modifiers apply at short range –50%)
If I read correctly and Medium doesn't even require Ranged?

Mind Probe (no mod) touch/mind reading
Mind Probe (Increased Range: Familiarity +150%)

Mind Reading (no mod) line-of-sight, size and speed/range table
Mind Reading (Long-Range 2 +100%; Increased Range: Familiarity +150%; modifiers apply at short range –50%)

Telesend (no mod) long-distance modifiers, line-of-sight (or) familarity modifiers
Telesend (Long-Range 1 +50%; modifiers apply at short range –50%)

Terror (Active +0%) 10 yards
Terror (Active +0%; Increased Range: Line-of-Sight +70%; Increased Range: Familiarity +150%; modifiers apply at short range –50%)

Mindlink (no mod) 0.1 lightyear, no roll
Special Rapport (no mod) unlimited distance, no roll
Speak With Animals (no mod) animal within your perception range/in animal’s hearing range, no roll



I begin to wonder if injury and fatigue penalties should be –0% limitations. Because if The Last Gasp and/or Conditional Injury are being used, some or all of those penalties would be superceded with universal penalties that affect everything.