Seeking advice on building a Warp-based ability

[CoyoteGestalt]

Hi, all! Trying to figure out how to stat out a magical teleportation ability.
At its base, teleportation is just the Warp advantage; that's easy. But in this instance it's meant to have some slightly different functionality. Namely, a sort of homing ability, and something like an advantageous Drift modifier.

1. The user can focus on on an individual person (someone they know or whose true name they have), and teleport to that person's location, without actually knowing where they are. If the person is out of range or unavailable (eg dead, in another dimension, magically concealed or warded, etc.), the teleportation fails.

2. If possible, the user does not go right to the person; rather, the spell drops them in a concealed location from which they can observe the person they homed in on. If there is no such location, they get dropped right next to or onto the individual instead.

(This is meant to be a spell that was developed by and for sorcerous spies and assassins, though the PC using it is a 20th century-ish scholar who found it in an old grimoire. If they ever encounter anyone who knew the original owners of the spell they're likely to get a bad initial reaction because of this, but that's not worth any points.)

How on Earth (or off it) do I build these modifiers? #2 is like an advantageous form of the Drift limitation, if it were under some sort of benevolent remote control, but I have no clue how to price that. #1 I suppose could possibly be built by linking the Warp to some sort of long-range Detect (or possibly a Modular Ability for making Detects), but that just seems too convoluted for what I'm trying to accomplish. (Especially since part of the point is that the user doesn't necessarily know where the location they're going to is, just "to Jim" or whatever, and a Detect that doesn't actually detect anything seems ridiculous.) I referred to it as "homing" above for the convenience of calling it something, but the Homing enhancement is clearly not relevant, that's for Innate Attacks that have their own shortrange sensors.

Can anyone offer any advice on what enhancements I should really be looking at here?

Thanks!

[Culture20]

Linked Detect is really the only way to do #1, and it will take a lot of points because it's incredibly powerful. The drift sounds more like an extra stealth roll immeditely after the teleport. You could do that for "free" with a body sense roll then stealth roll.

Edit: For the detect, I'm stealing the unofficial In Nomine Cherubim attunement power:
Detect (a Named/known sentient) 10 pts: linked to Warp +10% Increased range (a frillion miles) +300% Precise +100%... total 51 pts

[Refplace]

Detect or Mindlink seems the way to go for the targeting.
The so called Drift is really rather powerful.
So....
Invisibility Art with high enough skill to absorb the penalties.
Linked Invisibility or Defensive Obscure.
Or a Cosmic with enough points to cover, say +100%.

[CoyoteGestalt]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Linked Detect is really the only way to do #1, and it will take a lot of points because it's incredibly powerful. The drift sounds more like an extra stealth roll immeditely after the teleport. You could do that for "free" with a body sense roll then stealth roll.

Edit: For the detect, I'm stealing the unofficial In Nomine Cherubim attunement power:
Detect (a Named/known sentient) 10 pts: linked to Warp +10% Increased range (a frillion miles) +300% Precise +100%... total 51 pts

Thank you! And don't worry, I'm well aware this is going to be very expensive no matter what. (This isn't exactly a Monster Hunters game, but the point totals are probably going to be in that general range. One expensive ability is not a problem.)

Any thoughts on how to limit the detect so it doesn't provide information other than targeting for the Warp? (ie you find the target and go there, but you don't know the distance or direction of "there," which is part of what Detect usually does.) And do I need modifiers on Warp (besides the Link, obviously) to use it?

[CoyoteGestalt]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Detect or Mindlink seems the way to go for the targeting.
The so called Drift is really rather powerful.
So....
Invisibility Art with high enough skill to absorb the penalties.
Linked Invisibility or Defensive Obscure.
Or a Cosmic with enough points to cover, say +100%.

Oh, I know it's powerful, that's part of the problem - it's meant to be pretty much this character's only powerful ability, and is one that, to start with, they lack the skills to exploit effectively; it's going to take time for them to realize its value.

Because of that, I don't think Invisibility Art is viable, since meeting the prereqs for it would be out of character for this PC... perhaps some sort of odd Invisibility would work, though.

[Anaraxes]

If the teleport can only go to the true-named targets, you might use the "Special Portal" modifier. (Or "Anchored", but the examples there assume exactly one Anchor. Anchored better captures the sense of the anchor being the destination rather than the departure point, though.) You've defined how the modifier works, so the important point isn't the name, but the Limitation cost compared to existing examples.

Drift without the negative drawbacks (lack of control over location, plus possible danger like being overhead) would be a positive Enhancement rather than a Limitation. Probably not a large one, since one alternative to the "Stealth Drift" would be Clairvoyance to survey the area before you teleport, and Drift is less powerful than full Clairvoyance. So it can't really be more than +10-20%.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by CoyoteGestalt

Thank you! And don't worry, I'm well aware this is going to be very expensive no matter what. (This isn't exactly a Monster Hunters game, but the point totals are probably going to be in that general range. One expensive ability is not a problem.)

Any thoughts on how to limit the detect so it doesn't provide information other than targeting for the Warp? (ie you find the target and go there, but you don't know the distance or direction of "there," which is part of what Detect usually does.) And do I need modifiers on Warp (besides the Link, obviously) to use it?

The Link is 10%, so the Detect only works with Warp. If you don't want the warper to know that they've warped distance X in direction Y from their original position, then maybe throw a Temporary Disadvantage of Cannot Learn on the Detect? It's totally non-RAW, but if you can't "learn" while detecting, you can use the information as the detect is running, but immediately lose the information when the detection ends (once the warp completes).