Occultation, how to model it.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

How do you want physical contact or collision to be handled? Does the Occulted subject's location appear to be empty air, or is there an illusion of prevailing material in it's place (i.e. instead of a mysterious clearing in the woods with bare, untracked earth and a lack of pollen or insects, does there appear to be just one more patch of woods like the rest) ?

Now that's a poser. If you can't perceive something, you can't avoid it. Occultation would have to prevent conscious perception to fit the folklore/traditions.

I suppose that Occultation, to work like the folklore/tradition would have to function as a "Somebody Else's Problem"(SEP) device out of Douglas Adams' books. People wouldn't even notice they hadn't looked in a certain spot or gone out of their way to avoid it. Occultation must therefor be a focused form of mind control.

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Now that's a poser. If you can't perceive something, you can't avoid it. Occultation would have to prevent conscious perception to fit the folklore/traditions.

I suppose that Occultation, to work like the folklore/tradition would have to function as a "Somebody Else's Problem"(SEP) device out of Douglas Adams' books. People wouldn't even notice they hadn't looked in a certain spot or gone out of their way to avoid it. Occultation must therefor be a focused form of mind control.

Still sounds like Invisibility, Extended (assume that if you knock out sonar that includes all sound, smellovision, all smell, vibrosight all touch, etc.), with Glamour to represent that it's a SEP rather than actual physical transparency to all these things.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Langy

How many points would you call 'undetectable by smell' or 'undetectable by sound'? Note that sonar is a canonically appropriate use of 'extended', and should probably apply to normal sound as well (for the same reason stock invisibility also includes radar).

AAMOF, I suggested a trait a few years ago that was supposed to be an auditory equivalent to Invisibility, Soundless. Looking back at it now, my comparisons missed a few things:

• For Obscure, you would probably also want Stealthy, at +100%
• You could use Rev's value of -50% for Self Only (equivalent to No AE)
• Those changes to Obscure would result in a net +75% enhancement, for a cost of 35 points.
• The change to Auditory Illusion results in a net -30% limitation, for a cost of 18 points.

I suppose we could also compare to the silence granted by Insubstantiality, but more guesswork is involved. If we were to call "For Silence Only" a -80% limiter on Insub., the cost would be 16 points. The cost proposed for Soundless back then still looks like a reasonable ballpark figure, but a good playtest should reveal shortcomings that are sure to pop up :/

Shooting from the hip, I think Sanitized Metabolism might be a good model for an Odorless trait. If you treated it as a leveled Perk, that suggests a cost of 10 points to be undetectable by scent.

[munin]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Those changes to Obscure would result in a net +75% enhancement, for a cost of 35 points...

I'm not sure about the Temporary Disadvantage, Mute bit. If you are surrounded by a field that blocks all sound, the fact that you can't speak doesn't seem like a valid limitation. Nobody could hear you even if you could speak, right?

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by munin

I'm not sure about the Temporary Disadvantage, Mute bit. If you are surrounded by a field that blocks all sound, the fact that you can't speak doesn't seem like a valid limitation. Nobody could hear you even if you could speak, right?

Hmm... maybe. My thinking at the time was that Defensive would allow you to both hear and be heard if you wished to.

[munin]

I think Defensive would only allow you to hear things through the field (or in it), but wouldn't allow you to selectively allow sounds to escape the field. Maybe Selective Effect, +20% to choose which sounds can exit the field?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Now that's a poser. If you can't perceive something, you can't avoid it. Occultation would have to prevent conscious perception to fit the folklore/traditions.

I suppose that Occultation, to work like the folklore/tradition would have to function as a "Somebody Else's Problem"(SEP) device out of Douglas Adams' books. People wouldn't even notice they hadn't looked in a certain spot or gone out of their way to avoid it. Occultation must therefor be a focused form of mind control.

That's the kind of thing that Cosmic is good for.

Immunity to Perception (Very Common; Cosmic, +100%) [60] might be a way to define it. That would include "not subject to the usual built-in restrictions" (+50%) to get around the nuisance factors, and perhaps applicability to extraordinary forms of perception such as psionics for another (+50%).

Bill Stoddard

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by munin

I think Defensive would only allow you to hear things through the field (or in it), but wouldn't allow you to selectively allow sounds to escape the field.

<scratches head> I guess we would have to check with Kromm to be sure, but I suspect you are probably right. It occurs to me that, even if the Temp Disad was legal, it technically would only be a limit on Defensive, rather than on the Obscure. Disallowing it entirely would bump up the (already extravagant, IMO) cost of the Obscure build to 40 points.

[munin]

vitruvian is correct about Extended. By PM to Kromm:

Originally Posted by Kromm

Yes. In that regard, it's no different from Obscure. If you can give a sense -1 to -10 with Obscure, then you can completely blank that sense with Invisibility. Indeed, Obscure was priced so that Obscure 10 (Always On, -50%; Defensive, +50%; Stealthy, +100%) would cost 40 points, like Invisibility. Obscure affects an area to begin with, while Invisibility affects a broader set of senses to begin with, but that's a tradeoff. And note that many of the examples in Powers are non-visual: magnetic detection, scanners, etc.

I think that means you can also simply say Inaudible: Invisibility to Hearing [40], which would cover all forms/ranges of hearing*, but wouldn't affect vision at all.

* except machines, and wouldn't quiet your gear...

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's the kind of thing that Cosmic is good for.

Immunity to Perception (Very Common; Cosmic, +100%) [60] might be a way to define it. That would include "not subject to the usual built-in restrictions" (+50%) to get around the nuisance factors, and perhaps applicability to extraordinary forms of perception such as psionics for another (+50%).

Bill Stoddard

I'm just not sure Immunity is quite right for it, considering that there are usually no resistance rolls involved with perception. What would the +3 and +8 versions of Resistance look like - converted to a flat penalty to perceive you, or turn it into a Quick Contest - and if so using what stat or attribute for the person not wanting to be perceived?