[Powers] How would you model these spooky abilities?

[Mailanka]

So I'm digging through cabal, trying to translate some of the concepts to 4e, liberally using Kenneth Hite's other masterpiece, Horror, and my own imagination, as well as discussing the Dresden Files with a friend, and a few funny things have popped out.

There's a few neat powers that I have no proper idea how to model. I'm curious what the hive mind thinks.

Soul Gaze

In the Dresden Files, it seems everyone who meets the gaze of a sorcerer has his soul bared to him. This is simple enough: I'd just call it Empathy + Detect (Supernatural Beings) with some limitation reflecting the fact that you have to actually meet someone's gaze to make it work.

BUT! It also lets the other person see YOUR soul. How would you model THAT? Just a nuisance effect?

Dream Travel

In GURPS Cabal AND GURPS Spirit, spirits are noted with the innate ability to travel into your dreams. That is, a spirit might come to you in a dream and talk to you. A demon might watch your dreams to understand your desires. Or a demon might inflict a horrific nightmare on you. Seems reasonable enough.

Entering the dream (that is, seeing it) is simple: Mind Reading (Only on sleeping targets). But how do you model changing the dream? It's not telesend. Illusions? On the other hand, Horror seems to suggest Jumper (Dreamworld), and that your powers might be "cosmic," but only in a dream. So, in this model, the spirit hops into your dream, and uses godlike powers to control it: It's not a thing in your head, but a WORLD. But the ability to rewrite a world is hugely expensive.

Probability Manipulation

Also in Cabal and Spirits, spirits can make small adjustments to probability. That is, they can malign you or they can bless you. The presence of a wicked spirit will haunt you with bad luck, while a good spirit will make you fortunate and happy. Makes sense. It also functions via modifiers, similar to the Bless spell from Magic, but with slightly different costs. This allows you to have weak spirits who can barely bless you, and powerful spirits who are practically rewriting your world for you.

But there's no way to create this blanket bonus. It seems unwieldy. Can anyone think of an easy way to do that? Otherwise I'll dump the idea of "levels of probability manipulation," and just let them Afflict people with Lucky or Unlucky.

[Anaraxes]

Soul Gaze: Add Affects Others. (Or you could Afflict the Soul Gaze advantage on them; in this case, it's all one "use" of the power.) You might also base the ability on Psychometry.

Dream Travel: I wouldn't use Jumper unless the dream world is an important place in the setting, with significant inhabitants and activities independent of the "real" world. You could always go with Control (Dreams). I'm not sure Telesend is inappropriate -- external sounds and events certainly influence dreams -- but if "influence" isn't strong enough, there's Mind Control, particular the bits about implanting suggestions. Instead of altering memories, you could alter dreams.

Probability Manipulation: Luck / Serendipity is probably the easy way out. There's also the "buying successes" variant of spending hero/destiny/whatever points. Perhaps the spirits give you points in your pool for this purpose -- or give points to the GM to be used against you for curses.

You could build a blanket bonus to most things for 60 points/level, pricing it as +1 to all stats (and thus skills, attacks, etc). Plus or minus modifers, of course.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Probability Manipulation:(snip) There's also the "buying successes" variant of spending hero/destiny/whatever points. Perhaps the spirits give you points in your pool for this purpose -- or give points to the GM to be used against you for curses.

That's a very clever one!

[whswhs]

I'm not sure you need a power for the dream modification. I would probably say if you have the mind access, you just buy the skill Dreaming, and then buy the ability to modify someone else's dreams up from a base -4 or so as a Hard technique.

You might also throw in a familiarity penalty for visiting new dreamers' minds, if you assume each dreamer has a different dream world. If it's all one realm, I'd apply penalties based on familiarity with objective parts of the realm.

Bill Stoddard

[Jerander]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Probability Manipulation

Check out Visualization with Blessing and/or Cursing. Give it Reduced Time and other modifiers to suit. Buy multiple copies for more powerful spirits. I built a version n my Spirit Templates thread a couple years back. If you can't find it with a search let me know and I'll see if I can dig it up.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

But how do you model changing the dream? It's not telesend. Illusions? On the other hand, Horror seems to suggest Jumper (Dreamworld), and that your powers might be "cosmic," but only in a dream. So, in this model, the spirit hops into your dream, and uses godlike powers to control it: It's not a thing in your head, but a WORLD. But the ability to rewrite a world is hugely expensive.

I'd use jumper if changing the dream has real world effects (you kill them in the dream and they die in the real world), but WHS's dreaming skill suggestion if you just get to decide what they dream about.

[Gnomasz]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Soul Gaze
BUT! It also lets the other person see YOUR soul. How would you model THAT? Just a nuisance effect?

Temporary Disadvantage: Easy to Read?

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Soul Gaze

In the Dresden Files, it seems everyone who meets the gaze of a sorcerer has his soul bared to him. This is simple enough: I'd just call it Empathy + Detect (Supernatural Beings) with some limitation reflecting the fact that you have to actually meet someone's gaze to make it work.

BUT! It also lets the other person see YOUR soul. How would you model THAT? Just a nuisance effect?

Nuisance Effect (Obvious), -5%

Its' very, very obvious to the person when it's' done to them; they know exactly who did it and all kinds of 'interesting' things about them.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Dream Travel

In GURPS Cabal AND GURPS Spirit, spirits are noted with the innate ability to travel into your dreams. That is, a spirit might come to you in a dream and talk to you. A demon might watch your dreams to understand your desires. Or a demon might inflict a horrific nightmare on you. Seems reasonable enough.

Entering the dream (that is, seeing it) is simple: Mind Reading (Only on sleeping targets). But how do you model changing the dream? It's not telesend. Illusions? On the other hand, Horror seems to suggest Jumper (Dreamworld), and that your powers might be "cosmic," but only in a dream. So, in this model, the spirit hops into your dream, and uses godlike powers to control it: It's not a thing in your head, but a WORLD. But the ability to rewrite a world is hugely expensive.

Dreaming, presuming they already have access to the dreamworld via another advantage or via a setting feature.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Probability Manipulation

Also in Cabal and Spirits, spirits can make small adjustments to probability. That is, they can malign you or they can bless you. The presence of a wicked spirit will haunt you with bad luck, while a good spirit will make you fortunate and happy. Makes sense. It also functions via modifiers, similar to the Bless spell from Magic, but with slightly different costs. This allows you to have weak spirits who can barely bless you, and powerful spirits who are practically rewriting your world for you.

But there's no way to create this blanket bonus. It seems unwieldy. Can anyone think of an easy way to do that? Otherwise I'll dump the idea of "levels of probability manipulation," and just let them Afflict people with Lucky or Unlucky.

Visualization (Cursing, +100%; Fixed Margin, +0%; Reduced Time 6, +120%) [32]
Visualization (Blessing (Only Others), +0%; Fixed Margin, +0%; Reduced Time 6, +120%) [22]

... takes one second, succeed at roll, target gains a +3/-3 for non-combat tasks and a +1/-1 for combat tasks. ("Fixed Margin" being "Fixed Duration" by another name.) Toss in Link, Reflexive, Area Effect, Aura, Melee Attack (Reach C), Selective Area, Selective Effect and upgrade Blessing (Others) to Blessing (Self and Others) for kicks and giggles.

It isn't unreasonable to allow Reliable to be purchased to modify the margin of success rather than the chance of success.

[Walrus]

For dreaming you can use Illusion (Mental) with Accessebility: only on sleeping targets.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Walrus

For dreaming you can use Illusion (Mental) with Accessebility: only on sleeping targets.

That was what I originally came up with, but it's rather expensive for what feels like a largely cosmetic effect. The dreaming skill might be a better option.