Detect all sources in range

[Anders]

Back with my Detect questions. Now I want to make it so that you automatically detect all sources within range. To accomplish that, I add Cosmic: No Die Roll Required for +100%. This makes the advantage ranged since you automatically detect something as long as your adjusted roll is 3 or more. Detect is only modified for range according to the Size/Range Table on p.B550. So the maximum range is simply the range at which your modified roll becomes 3. For Perception 10, that is -7 which gives a range of 30 yards.

Then I add two Cosmic modifiers. The first one is "ignores countermeasures" for +50%, because otherwise you would have to recalculate range each time someone with Obscure turns up, which is a bother. The second +50% modifier makes it so that you detect all sources within range, although I'm open to making that a +100% modifier.

What do you think?

[Nereidalbel]

Throw in Reflexive (+40%) so you don't even have to think about it.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anders

The second +50% modifier makes it so that you detect all sources within range, although I'm open to making that a +100% modifier.

Again, this isn't needed - Detect already works for all sources in range, provided you roll well enough (or, with No Roll Required, have effective skill 3+) to detect it.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Again, this isn't needed - Detect already works for all sources in range, provided you roll well enough (or, with No Roll Required, have effective skill 3+) to detect it.

That's not what the rules say:

On a success, the GM tells you the nearest significant source of the substance, and give you a clue as to the quantity present.

Bolding mine. And shouldn't it be "gives you a clue"? Is this a rare pink elephant - i.e., a grammar mistake in a SJGames book?

[whswhs]

My take is that if you have Sense you can do it. Instead of a single PING that spots the nearest source, you have a continuous sweep that can take in multiple sources.

[Jasonft]

I always wondered about this too. Strict reading of the Detect seems to say you only get the nearest target.

If I wanted to detect all targets in range I put a Cosmic +50 on it because I wasn't sure what else to do. If there is an official ruling on this somewhere I would love to hear it.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Jasonft

I always wondered about this too. Strict reading of the Detect seems to say you only get the nearest target.

If I wanted to detect all targets in range I put a Cosmic +50 on it because I wasn't sure what else to do. If there is an official ruling on this somewhere I would love to hear it.

See this uFAQ entry.

[Anders]

Let's take an example - I have Detect (Zombies) with Cosmic: No Die Roll Required. There are twenty zombies within range, but their stealthily hidden (as stealthily as a zombie can hide, anyways). Let's assume I don't know where any of them are. I activate the ability. Do I detect all zombies or just the closest one?

My take is that I detect the closest one, and then I can activate the ability again, excluding the zombie I have detected to detect the next one, etc. Adding a Cosmic modifier to skip the lather-rinse-repeat steps seems reasonable.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anders

Let's take an example - I have Detect (Zombies) with Cosmic: No Die Roll Required. There are twenty zombies within range, but their stealthily hidden (as stealthily as a zombie can hide, anyways). Let's assume I don't know where any of them are. I activate the ability. Do I detect all zombies or just the closest one?

My take is that I detect the closest one, and then I can activate the ability again, excluding the zombie I have detected to detect the next one, etc. Adding a Cosmic modifier to skip the lather-rinse-repeat steps seems reasonable.

You detect all of them (assuming they don't have Obscure or whatever that interferes with your detection ability).

Let's take another example - I have Detect (Organics), which is going to cost a lot more than Detect (Zombies) and include that ability as part of it. Otherwise, the situation is the same. If it's only the closest target, then my first use... detects a bacterium on my skin. I exclude that and activate again, and detect another bacterium. I repeat this for several millenia (around 1 trillion bacteria on a typical person's skin, so if I do nothing but use Detect once per second it will take a bit under 32,000 years to get through all of them), then am able to detect my clothing (one article at a time), then need to make my way through the bacteria in the air - and the worms in the earth, the shed detritus on the ground, and so forth - before I can find a single zombie. I might get through all of them before the Sun becomes a red giant and consumes the Earth, but I wouldn't bet on it. So, my more-expensive ability is useless.

[Anaraxes]

Depends on whether you're going with RAW or the Kromm interpretation (which is more generous). See the uFAQ entry previously linked for the Kromm version, especially the "Detect Humans" example.

Recall that Detect calls for a second IQ roll to "analyze" your results, which is not the same thing as having the Analyzing Enhancement on your Detect. RAW-style, Detect detects the closest thing (per Basic), and Selective Effect lets you screen out sources (per PU4). Kromm-style, Detect detects everything in range, and a successful (basic) analysis roll lets you filter out the subjects you already know about.

The Kromm/uFAQ version is also either assuming the presence of or giving away Reflexive on the Detect. (See the quote where he writes, "I don't see how Selective Effect really fits . . . That's for active area-effect abilities, while Detect is really no more such an ability than is hearing or smell.") That's of course exactly what adding Reflexive to Detect turns it into, per Powers 109. But the base Detect in RAW is only an active ability, not a passive sense. So there's either some different assumptions here, or some missing context in that post of PMs that made it into the uFAQ.