[MH] Psionics and other questions
 

A couple questions for you all!

1. If a guy wants to use telekinesis to choke a normal person, does that person have any possible defense? It seems unfair that a guy can just sit back and choke you out in a diner with no defense and no indicator of who's doing it. It's essentially a free attack with No Defense and No Signature!

2. Is there any penalty to constantly mind-wiping a person? In one case, a player was mind-wiping a guard when they were spotted, then mind-wiping him again as soon as he was seen again (only a couple seconds later), and then continued doing this so that the guard was never remembering what had just happenned. Keep in mind, there is no FP cost to this.

3. Can mind-reading be used on animals? I'm currently ruling it as working at a penalty and then requiring an animal handling roll to interpret. Is this even close to the intent?

4. Another player is a Weretiger with Karate at DX+1. Does the bonus from Karate apply to his claws in animal form? While this doesn't make a ton of sense (he's not a character from Kung-fu Panda), the template doesn't offer any other skill to actually use his claws and I can reason that since his character is not a normal tiger, he uses his claws in ways unique from normal tigers (I might let another person familiar with big cats percieve the difference).

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

"I choke that guy at the other table to death with my TK."
"Roll Acting."
"Uh, 12."
"He smiles and starts walking over. You see fangs."

If you go around murdering random people you are, at best, squandering a significant amount of power and eventually people will start hunting you. Rogue psis are dangerous precisely because they do things like that.

A victim can also just move out of your range or have a friend shoot you.

Hunters are enormously powerful, normal humans have little to no defense against them. An Experiment could punch the guard so hard his head explodes.

You get animal thoughts, which are nothing like human thoughts.

"If you subject isn't sapient you only pick up feelings, images, and general intent." B69

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Yeah, pretty much. But if said guy keeps doing that other champions are going to declare him a rogue psi and hunt him.

By the basic rules? I don't think so, but I'd probably give a -1 penalty each time after the first if done within 24 hours. Memories get wibbly-woobly when screwed with too much.

Mind-reading would give you basic emotions and thoughts like "hunger" "shiny object", and so on. You could do it that way though, Mind-Reading might even give a bonus to Animal Handling allow Powers Enhancing Skills from Powers.

Martial Arts says GMs should allow characters with racial claws to use Karate normally (i.e., they get the bonus from the skill and karate). This is however, a optional rule. I personally use it in all my games, doesn't make sense otherwise.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

A _normal_ person? No.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Okay, this all makes sense in that the Hunters are supposed to be very powerful. I guess I'm having problems adjusting to the stage my game has come to. So a Psi could do it, but he should make sure it is justified...

I've been letting him continuously wipe people for a while, but I told him that I think it's too powerful as we're using it and that it would get more difficult to wipe someone again in a short period (I didn't tell him specifics, but the vague warning has changed his use of it for the better).

Regarding the reading of animal minds, it makes sense that it would not be understandable to him, but is there a skill that represents coming to understand it through practice?

As for the claws and karate: My player hasn't discovered that he may be entitled to a damage bonus (since he's only 9) and I discovered it after updating his character. I think he'll be quite pleased when his 5d cut claws become 5d+10 cut claws...

Thank you all!

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Keep in mind that keeping the secret is a good thing. So wiping mundane's memories is absolutely a "normal" thing to do in a MH game.

That's be Animal Handling I think. Or even let him buy Animal Empathy as a extension to Mind-Reading. He got so good at reading animal minds he developed a reactive use of his psi ability.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

I've always understood it that the issue isn't that you can't understand it, its that there's not that much useful information to read:

Vulture: "That looks... Alive. That looks... Alive. That looks... Alive. Oh, Birds are circling over there. Looks like food. That looks... tasty"

Cow: "Food.... Food.... Food.... Movement--Thats just a farmer. No threat. Food..."

If you search a squirrels mind for creatures passing by you may not get images or even types, just sizes and numbers. If you read a dog's mind you may be able to find out whether or not his master is home, and whether or not the master reads the paper, but not which paper he reads.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

I thought that any use of tk like a grapple allowed the target a chance to brake free . For example if you tried to lift him into the air he could take any of the actions in the "after being grappled" box. I'm pretty sure I read that in one of the rule books but I don't remember which one. I'd love to be wrong on this, by the way.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Just how strong is the tiger is his strength closer to 30 or 50? The reason I am asking is that I think his strength is probably close to 30 and you are allowing him to use his Swing damage for his claw attacks rather than his Thrust Damage. That unfortuantly is not how it works. Unarmed attacks are pretty much always based off your Thrust Damage rather than your Swing Damage.

Essentially to get Swing Damage you need to use a weapon which allows you better leverage on your swings beyond what you can do with your unarmed attacks.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Of course, 3d+6 is awfully close to 5d...

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

If the player turns into a tiger (rather than a humanoid tiger-like being) I would not let him use karate, but rather DX like most animals for attacking. Animal joints are built differently enough from human they I couldn't imagine human taught martial arts working in animal form.

And I certainly would not give him the damage bonus. If he wants more damage, he can buy striking ST.

YMMV.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

He's nine: I say let him use Karate to hit, drop the damage bonus, and play up the benefits of claws (x1.5 damage, effective against monsters) so he doesn't feel cheated.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Though I might allow a sufficiently dedicated weretiger to start developing "Karate (Tiger)", adapting principles and inventing new ones to suit the body and musculature of a tiger. It would be a separate skill from human-form Karate.

Wouldn't tigers really prefer Wrestling/Judo anyway? I'm under the impression they tend to leap on things, pin them, and then bite them. They don't maintain a distance and claw/claw/bite. Claws are for grabbing, not primarily wounding. The weight bonus also helps in a pin, along with the ST.

(Let me guess: Technical Grappling covers weretigers in detail along with everything else...)

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Isn't there an Enhancement, that enables most psionics to affect non-Human minds?

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Universal does that but also helps with other humans.

I'd call it a design switch to be able to read animal minds normally and have sentient minds be complex and confusing.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

A typical mook in a secret-powers game like MH will have no defense against a TK attack, no. But it's definitely possible to defend against it if you have a way to know it's coming. Intelligent foes who've done their homework and know that the PC is a teke can dodge when they see the psi suddenly stare intently at them. Anyone with some form of Detect that includes psychic abilities has a way to see it coming. Tech-savvy foes who suspect they'll be facing a psi could rig up an EWD to a HUD and suddenly the attack is 100% visible. Even something as mundane as Danger Sense could give a foe a dodge roll if they would reasonably suspect an incoming invisible grapple.

But those are all exceptions to the rule. In general, no, TK is invisible and it's a totally unfair way to attack someone. That's why it's expensive (50 points just to get typical strength) and restricted to certain characters and campaigns. If the psi can keep his abilities a secret, he's got a huge edge! This is a good thing, because it will motivate him to work twice as hard to keep everyone in the dark about the Truth. :)

Nope. Eventually, the person is likely to resist a roll, of course. And remember to use Anti-Psi (MH1, p. 46); one in six guards should have at least an extra +3 to resist psi.

Now, one genuine concern is that even if the subject resists, the psi can just Mindwipe him again, and if he fails, his earlier resistance didn't really mean anything. To prevent this, I've always ruled that successful resistance means that the period of time up until the resistance roll becomes protected -- even if the telepath immediately Mindwipes the person again, it only works back to the last successful resistance roll. It's much more fair that way, IMO.

Cool! That means less chance of having to engage in a full-blown cover-up. Smart psi. :)

Sort of. Mind Reading lacks the Universal enhancement, which means that you have no language in common with the animals. I didn't go into great detail about language problems on p. 47 because GURPS Monster Hunters tends to abstract languages, but for animals, it's an issue. At most, you'll get emotions and basic concepts.

Yes. The rule about Claws only stacking with Brawling was expanded upon in GURPS Martial Arts. The short version is that for an intelligent fighter, Claws can stack with Karate as well.

Exactly right! If he's using Karate attacks as a tiger, anyone with Animal Handling (Big Cats), Veterinary, or similar skills should get a roll to immediately realize that something is weird about that cat.

Re: [MH] Psionics and other questions
 

Wow!

Okay, thank you all!

I was misunderstanding the claw damage - his strength in tiger form is 26, giving a thrust of 2d+2 which I would become 2d+6 ---> 3d+2 cu after karate damage. I'll definately give him that since it'll feel like a consolation prize after letting him do 5d claw swipes (against 3 hp Evil Beetles) for their whole last mission... He doesn't use his bite attack since the idea of actually biting (and probably crushing) some of the monsters they've been fighting doesn't sound good to him.

As for the TK, the Rev. PK is (of course) correct. I think I've been just trying to make things difficult for them instead of letting them be the powerful heroes they're supposed to be (compared to norms, that is). So TK is pwoerful, but there are ways to mitigate it. He has now taken two levels of TK Bullet, so he'll probably using that a lot.