Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon
Eh, not really. Let's call the reduced analytical ability as being worth -10%*. What you're looking at, then, is Detect (Spirits; Long Ranged +50%) [30] + Detect (Minds and Spirits; Reduced Analysis -10%) [9], for a total of [39]. Again, Detect (Minds and Spirits) functionally has a cost of [10] because you've already paid [20] for Detect (Spirits), and Detect (Minds and Spirits) costs [30]. The resulting combined trait would be one where, if the target is a spirit, it uses long-range modifiers and has normal analysis, but if it's a mind, it uses normal range modifiers and has some sort of reduced analytical ability. As they are functionally just levels of the same ability, no Link is necessary for them to work together.
You could run into a problem if you give different Enhancement and Limitations to each (rather than Enhancements to one and Limitations to the other); in that case, I'd suggest building it as Detect (Spirits) + Detect (Minds and Spirits), and then building it as Detect (Minds) + Detect (Minds and Spirits), and using whichever is more expensive.
*Alternatively, have Minds use normal analysis, but spirits are much easier to analyze, having the Analyzing Enhancement (which makes basic analysis automatic, and allows for a roll for more in-depth analysis). That would make the above Detect (Spirits; Analyzing +100%; Long-Ranged +50%) [50] + Detect (Minds and Spirits) [10], for a total of [60]. That may be a bit out of budget, however...
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Hmmm... much to ponder.
What is certain is that the combination of Detect (Minds) with an effective range and resolutipn somewhere between the human senses of smell and hearing, possibly ranging up to sight at best + Detect (Spirits) with a range and resolution way better than natural senses should cost
significantly less than Detect (Consciousness), which would be Very Common, with the Long-Range enhancement. Having the Detect ability be much less effective for the vast majority of foes that might actually kill you should be good for a significant cost reduction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman
A suggestion for Detect (Minds), that may get you closer to what you want.
Take basic Detect (Minds), with normal range penalties, which mean it's pretty local.
Then take an Alternate Ability to it, of Detect (Minds) Long-Range +50%, "Only in Unpopulated Areas", -50%.
The latter custom modifier is one RogerBW came up with. The idea is that human minds (and to a lesser extent animal minds) generate some "static", so that in a heavily-populated area, you can tell there are lots of minds about, but that's all, you can't focus on a particular one. But on a prairie, or out at sea, with very few minds about, the Long-Range works fine.
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I agree that the normal range modifiers seem better suited than -1/yard, which seems pretty useless as a sense. I could get behind a slight extra penalty over and above normal range penalties (maybe based on Mana, but it seems that -8 to -10 on average and No Mana for much of modern cities during the day would make the Magical -10% limitation an insufficient limitation to be fair for that kind of penalty). But I don't think I want a mind 25 yards away to be utterly undetectable, even for the greatest spiritualist who ever lived.
That being said, I don't think I can use Only in Unpopulated Areas, as it has been narratively established (without me writing up the Power, because at the time, no PC had it) that some particularly coherent, powerful and aware spirits can detect various spiritual phenomena such as mass congregations of mindless qlippoth spirits for miles around, even within a town like Galveston.