Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I like the Brute Force Attacks option on PP65.

But it is restricted to only working on mental defenses that are advantages. It has no effect on high Will. How would the rule be modified to break through someone's Will?

Is there a balance issue with just saying that every point of Will above 10 is effectively 1 level of Mind Shield for the purposes of Brute Force Attacks?

Should it be made a technique?

The possibility to even reduce someone's effective Will below 10 could be fun too. If your telepathy skill is an 11 and the target's Will is a 10, you may want to use a bunch a FP to get his effective Will down to an 8 to be more likely to get through.

EDIT: Oops. I should have put "Psionic Powers" in brackets in the title.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

A mind shield is like a wall. You use a battering ram to break through it. Will is more like a shrubbery maze with someone in it who is running around hiding stuff from you. The higher your will, the trickier the maze.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

That's what bulldozers are for.

This may or may not be a valid extension of the analogy, depending on the local rules of psionics. The original analogy is subject to the same dependency, of course.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I thought of that, but figured that was closer to Affliction Lower Will.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Thanks for the responses.

Just to be clear, I'm not looking for reasons why Brute Force vs Will wasn't in the book nor am I looking for reasons why it shouldn't be possible. I'm putting it in my campaign and I'm looking for advice on reasonably balanced ways to do it.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Then I'd say that the best approach would not be to lower Will, but to increase skill in return for extra energy expenditure.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I considered that.

The two obstacles to this (which I welcome advice on overcoming) are:
1. The Rule of 16 limits the benefit of high skill (especially vs a high Will)
2. There are no EE-for-skill rules for Psionics (that I know of).

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

No, it's the other way around if I understand that rule right. Higher skill above 16 still works to neutralize defender resistance which is also above 16.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

As I understand it, if you have a 20 skill and you face a 16 Will, it's 16 vs 16. If you trade all your FP for a bunch more skill, it's still 16 vs 16.

EDIT: Higher skill lets you roll even odds against higher Will, sure. But who wants even odds? That's where the FP comes in.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Exactly right. Higher skill lets you do trickier stuff but you still need to lower your skill to 16 or the defenders Will. So if your target has a 16 or less Will your adjusted kill can't exceed 16, but if he has say a 17 will your skill would be adjusted to that. Says so on p. 349 of the Basic.

Ghostdancer

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I still don't see the reason for the rule of 16. Why can't an incredibly bad-ass supernatural threat simply crush weak-willed opposition like a t-rex would crush a squirrel?

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

They can! All for the low low price of +50%! But wait! there's more!

Seriously though, Cosmic, no rule of 16, is a +50% modifier found in GURPS Psionic Campaigns, your BAST just needs to slap that onto his power and he's good to roll.

Ghostdancer

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

The meta-reason that Kromm has referred to before is that, for RPGs, it's better to give defense the advantage over offense. Failing to affect someone with your attack power is annoying, but you can usually try again. Failing to defend, on the other hand, can quite often be character-ending, whether in the literal death sense, or in the sense that it makes the player not want to play the character any more.
Since it's usually easier to push an attack higher with fewer points than a defense, GURPS gives mental defense a shot in the arm by effectively saying that someone who has specialized in defense will never have less than a 50-50 chance of resisting an effect.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Im down with the cosmic enhancement, but if you want a more generic form, let's take a rule of 16 effect into place.

I say if your skill is sufficiently high that it is capped by the defender's will, (eg 16+) Brute Force can effectively lower the will for an FP expidenture maybe -1 will for 2-3FP?. It's not too much of a gain at that point, but makes it tactical enough to consider.

You could also model Brute Force as a "mental feint" if you want to forgive the comparison. Make a check as usual with the usual defenses, and for every point you beat the defense by, you give them a penalty on their next defense, perhaps you "lured" them out of the maze, causing them to cause a lapse in attention, or w/e. If feints exist in physical combat, with "ruses" (IQ-based feint), why shouldn't similar things exist in psi?

Or, you could just assign a house rule that says, -3FP for -1 will, or something similar. To be honest it's not THAT broken, and if there are too many targets, a severely exhausted psion is going to be eaten alive.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

How is failing a mental defense roll that different from failing a dodge roll v. a high ST grappler or HMG fire? A high ST grappler can easily twist your limbs off in a turn, and HMG fire (unless you're using blowthrough) will easily instantly force a death check on most people with a torso hit, which is where fire not specifically aimed at another body part automatically hits by RAW. Seems like it should be a cinematic campaign switch, to me. If a GM doesn't want his players to die messily, he shouldn't throw opponents that can cause them to die messily at them, or he should make clear the levels of defenses needed in his games.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Failing a dodge roll against a high ST grappler or an HMG doesn't automatically mean you've lost and now will be used as a tool against your side. You can still make your saving throw versus death.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

You get a quick contest to resist wrench limb or to break free. Quick constests aren't subject to crits, IIRC, so against a sufficiently strong wrestler you literally have no chance of resisting. Wither Limb doesn't turn you into an automatic tool for the other side, yet still falls under the rule of 16. Mind Control (the advantage) gives you an extra quick contest if you're forced to do something against your principles. The M2 Browning does 7dx2 pi+ per hit, which means an average damage roll v. an average person doesn't result in a death roll, just you falling to your knees with a giant hole where your spleen used to be.

If a GM thinks that having a PC turn against other PCs due to an opponent's special ability isn't fun, don't give the opponent Mind Control-10^27.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Well, there's a few things going on there. First, it's never possible for a defense to be impossible, if you get a chance to roll - a critical defense always succeeds, no matter the penalties. So that provides some level of defense priority.
Secondly, physical defenses usually have more ways of boosting them than mental defenses. Someone who's dodging can retreat, dodge and drop, find cover, all-out defend, etc, while parrying and blocking can also be raised very high by investing in the relevant skill, and most GMs are more willing to allow extremely high (20+) skill levels then they are to allow extremely high basic attributes. Also, physical defenses are more easily layered - you can buy armor that can save your ass even when your active defense fails. Most mental defensive gear simply add to your resistance roll, rather than providing a backup defense if your first fails.
Finally, people often react worse to mental "damage" than to the strictly physical. Players tend to like to think of their characters as perfect avatars of their will; taking that away can lead to more of a sense of violation and anger than simply losing hit points could ever inflict.

For all these reasons, I agree with GURPS' designers that a bit more primacy to mental defense than physical is a good idea.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I was under the impression that all resistance rolls are quick contests, and thus not subject to criticals. Active Defenses always work on a crit, but it seems to me it'd be better to simply make all defenses work the same.

True. I'd rather raise the cost of mental stuff to represent it's greater efficacy, though.

Aren't there skill that let you resist stuff better? Mental Strength and Mind Block?

Again, fair point. I still think that consolidating defensive rolls and increasing the price of abilities that are more effective is a better way to go about things than having different mechanics, though.

That's a good point.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

When the PCs have that kind of power, not giving it to their opponents on occasion is not an option.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

So any ideas on how to extend Brute Force Attacks to Will?

That's a good point, Ghostdancer, about the Cosmic Enhancement. There's no reason it can't be a -5 technique for any resistible Psionic ability.

But what if your skill isn't that high in the first place? If the PC has skill 11, I want him to still have a chance with the Will 14 guy but it should cost him. Maybe something like -1 Will per 2FP for one attack only? So let's say the PC knows the target has a high Will because he's failed with him before even though he got a good roll. So he uses 8FP to lower the target's Will by 4. Now it's 11 vs 10. It's not a sure thing, he really only gets one shot (it's not like he has another 8FP lying around), and it's still subject to the drawbacks of Brute Force but it could make the difference. It seems like just the sort of thing that happens in fiction.

I don't know. Am I making sense here?

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I get what you're saying but I wouldn't allow that, Reducing a mind shield is one thing, but Will? Uh-uh.

I questioned the rule of 16's use myself but after having a PC group consisting of a 50-pt orphan, a 10,000-pt Goddess, and a 250-pt Sword-master...well I am a believer.

If you want to reduce restrictiveness of the rule of 16, buy the Rule of 17 perk to whatever level you think will make you a happeh campa. If not, buy Cosmic, Ignores rule of 16; remember you could also slap it onto the Power Modifier itself so all of your supernatural abilities ignore the Rule of 16.

If none of these work for you, maybe a Unusual Background specific for a source should do it. Valued at around 50 or more points depending on the setting. So Unusual Background (Ignores the Rule of 16 for Psi powers) [50] could get what your looking for.

I rather like that too, so for 2 FP and -5 to skill ignore the rule of 16 for that one attack. But it might get overpowering if you also aren't using Uber Techniques (which I am fond of).

Ghostdancer

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I also wanted to comment on Kromm's post, 'specially on the lower part he has a real point here:

To get a attack based on the lower of the Targets ST, DX, IQ, HT, Will, or Per is only +120%. That is *insanely* useful, from the hulking ST low Will warrior to the feeble bodied high IQ wizard.

Just sayin'

Ghostdancer

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

True. But that has absolutely nothing to do with capping nifty powers v. those with less nifty defenses. I mean, say you're in a supers game. One of the key things Supers advises you to do is tell your players "design your PCs so that they can at least survive combat against someone armed with a gun." So, you have secret option number a, where you tell your players to have defenses v. certain threats they're likely to face. On the other hand, say you're in a gritty WWII game. Usually, your PCs should merely avoid charging machine gun nests, because they KNOW they will almost certainly die.

So in games where the potential for instant hamburger exists, in both cases the important part is to make clear what precisely can lead to instant hamburger, and what defenses they should be able to muster against such situations, be that avoidance, stealth, direct confrontation, negation, whatever. It doesn't mean that the status quo should be that one particular type of attack is incapable of leading to instant hamburger, at least in my opinion. I'd rather have it as a campaign toggle, an optional rule.

I mean, if someone, NPC or PC, has Terror-30, they should be able to scare the bezesus out of ordinary mortals, IMO. The defense against that should not be a Navy SEAL level Will score. The defense against that is to not get in range, or be a superhuman. And if you think that anyone has a small chance of shrugging of supernatural effects if they get lucky, just cap supernatural abilities to like 20 or so. We do that for all kinds of genres and abilities already.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Crakkerjakk, you're starting to sell me on the idea. But doesn't the existence of Cosmic, Ignores Rule of 16 +50% solve the issue? This way someone can have the unstoppable Terror-30. It's just a bit more expensive.

But really, this talk about the Rule of 16 is just a tangent. I'm looking for a technique to psionically blast through natural mental defenses that can be attempted at any level. The Rule of 16 only came up because David Johnston2 suggested trading fatigue for skill (for which there isn't a rule anyway).

I see what you're saying Ghostdancer. You've had some experiences that call for Will being sacred. Why do you see such a big difference between Mind Shield and Will? They are only off in cost by one point per level. One applies to a few skills and can be rolled on for extra effort and the other often has a power modifier associated with it and can alert you of mental attack. But they're really quite similar. What is the justification of making one invincible to Brute Force and the other not?

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

They can. Terror isn't a contest so the rule of 16 doesn't apply to it.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Sure there is, it's in Powers, p. 161. I would say what you are describing is just high skill vs. will with maybe Rule of 17.

I don't hold it sacred so much as Brute Force attacks are basically Armor Divisor on your attack with Cost Fatigue slapped on. Thats pretty much it I think...

Ghostdancer

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Great.

Thanks.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Yeah, I just think the baseline should be streamlined rules, not exceptions to the rules.

Yeah, sorry about that. Kind of hijacked your thread a bit.

I'd do the same as David Johnston2 suggests, using the rules from Thuamatology (THM39) for trading energy for speed and skill.

You know, Terror is also a Mind Control area spell resisted by Will. M134. Regardless of which Terror I was talking about, it doesn't obviate my point. Unified mechanics should be default unless there's a clear and pressing need for it to be otherwise. I don't think that's the case with the rule of 16.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

That's cool.

No worries.

I considered that. But since Psionic Powers don't have a base FP cost, adding x% as suggested in THM doesn't work. I'll go with P161 instead. The Psionic Powers are advantages not spells after all.

Now I wonder why the Rev didn't include the P161 option in Psionic Powers to begin with...

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I would make it a perk to use it, just like the Extra Option perk from GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks:


Psychic Proficiency†
You can with some effort put extra focus and concentration into a psi skill to get a one-time bonus to your success roll. This functions much like extra effort except there is no inherent risk of failure (GURPS Psionic Powers pp. 6-7) since you are making a attempt to gain better control rather than more power. It costs 1 FP per +1 to the attempted skill (to a maximum of +4 or your level of psi talent, whichever is greater). This can only be used for psi powers which have a psi skill (including optional ones). You must specialize by power, for example Psychic Proficiency (ESP) and Psychic Proficiency (Telepathy) are two different perks.

Ghostdancer

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Reducing their defense roll by 1 is close to adding 1 to your attack roll, so why not add Reliable with costs fatigue using the rules for variable fatigue costs from powers page 101:

Reliable +10 (Costs Fatigue 11 -55%) +22.5%; for every 2 fatigue you spend, add one level of reliable to your ability.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I think Edges is using the Psionic Powers framework, and if he is Reliable is basically not used on powers except for removing inherent penalties.

Neat idea though.

Ghostdancer

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

That's what I had settled up too.

Great minds... : )

Thanks for all the help.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Glad I could d00d ^_^

Ghostdancer

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Because it's completely inappropriate for classic psionic abilities.

It's important to remember that the stunts from Chapter 4 of GURPS Powers are not intended to be freely available for every power! The GM is supposed to pick and choose a balanced mix of positive and negative features which fit the concept of the source behind the power.

In other words, just because it's in GURPS Powers doesn't mean that every power can (or should be able to) use it!

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Really? Not to my mind. (EDIT: Maybe you're joking and I'm being dense.)

But oh well. I'm not bagging on your work. It's a masterpiece.

Yes of course. I never forgot that for a moment.

I think I'll include it for my game. There are things that higher skill can do that higher power level can't that in my mind are staples of classic psionic extra effort. I'm fine with modeling the "penalty for trying too hard" by the FP cost and the steeper critical failure consequences. And I'll limit who can use the option by requiring a perk.

Thanks for the help.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Yep.

Then by all means, add it to your game. I was merely answering your question as to why I didn't include it. :)

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

That's cool. I guess we just interpret things a little differently.

Tell me, how would you model a psi who can penetrate the mind of a high Will target by trying really hard?

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Affliction (Lower IQ, Permanent)

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Well, if you mean a truly high Will target (17+), the trouble is that the psi is only at 50/50 odds against him at best, no matter how high he goes. So adding more skill, whether via a FP stunt or just by simple training, won't address that.

But that's an intentional effect of the system. To get around it, you pretty much have to either take Drain IQ (the Psychic Vampirism ability) or let psis buy Cosmic (No rule of 16)* on their abilities. While the latter seems tricky at first, it's really simple if you treat it as an "add-on advantage" for any ability, that just happens to cost half the cost of the base advantage(s). E.g., buying Cosmic (Telesend) would cost 15 points and buying Cosmic (TK Grab) would cost (2.5 * level) points.

* From GURPS Psionic Campaigns.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Uh, I do appreciate the response, but you seem to have answered a different question. I wasn't asking "what advantages can someone get to overcome high will?"

I was asking, "How would you model a psi overcoming high Will with effort?" (Sorry for the ambiguity.)

Example:
Let's say a PC telepath has a skill of 10 and he's facing someone with Will 15. IIRC, he has something like a 10% chance of success. But if the player who's PC it was said he was willing to burn as many FP as he could because the fate of the mission depended on this mind read, I'd want to give him a better chance. What do you think would be a fair way to give him this better chance?

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Nt really. He has also answered your question, but in a non-direct way. Cosmic (No rule of 16) could be obtained via a psi technique (default: skill -5, Max: Skill). You can spend FP to negate the penalty for the technique, as usual with psi techniques, and so long as you have (modified) over skill 17, you will improve your chances

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

As you see, we've already gone over the Rule of 16 up-thread pretty much to death.

Requiring a skill of 17+ is a pretty limiting factor. It doesn't apply to my example, for instance, and it will likely not apply to most (if not all) of the conditions that will come up in the campaign. If only master psis can use extra effort to help overcome Will, it's not nearly as useful and it's not going to satisfy my players.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

If you want to allow Trading Fatigue For Skill, that'd certainly be the easiest way. Boosting his skill up to 14 would get him closer to about a 40% chance of success.

I'd never allow it in my game, because (as I've said), I think that that goes against what I see as the feel of psi. If my player asked me the question you just asked, my answer would be, "Buy more skill." :)

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Yeah. That's what I came to too.

Thanks for all the input. : )

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

I'd point out that he can try again and again every second until he gets in, each attempt costing him one fatigue.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Although the cumulative penalty for repeated attempts make success less and less likely.

Re: Psionic Powers: Brute Force vs Will
 

Exactly...