Aramanthus
Mongoose
Hmmmm........ I'd say they should get a spot check to spot someone poking around in their minds. Unlesss the person who does it is a P12. Then maybe not.
Kizarvexis
Mongoose
Aramanthus said:
How about a spot check, but subtract the teeps Psi level?
For example, a P12 would put a -12 on the subjects spot check.
Kizarvexis
Aramanthus
Mongoose
That could work. But remember that the lower the P rating usually mean lower over all strength. Although depending on the level it could have more finese that a lower level higher Prating.
Aramanthus
Mongoose
P- rating. Is what the last word should have been.
Aramanthus
Mongoose
Yeah, that is the way it is said in the book. 
lastbesthope
Mongoose
Aramanthus said:Yeah, that is the way it is said in the book.
I'm guessing the Psi Corps book?
LBH
Nope. The main book.
(Ahh! Choices ,choices. Do we take the easy way and leave "fingerprints" for bloodhounds to trace, or take the extra +2 to DC and not leave any distinct traces. Hmmm... Why make it easy for them and the more practice I get the better I'll be. )
What I said that out loud? No. No. Just going over my lines for a play. Do I look Like a Blip to you? Why yes, there's a public phone just over there.
Person running at full speed in opposite direction. Which way to the spaceport.
(Ahh! Choices ,choices. Do we take the easy way and leave "fingerprints" for bloodhounds to trace, or take the extra +2 to DC and not leave any distinct traces. Hmmm... Why make it easy for them and the more practice I get the better I'll be. )
What I said that out loud? No. No. Just going over my lines for a play. Do I look Like a Blip to you? Why yes, there's a public phone just over there.
Person running at full speed in opposite direction. Which way to the spaceport.
Aramanthus
Mongoose
Opps. I am human. I do make mistakes!
omegar
Mongoose
i was thinking on this. a surface scan is about what a person is thinking at a given time right? So why would they get a save, unless they are trying not to think about something, and well it's hard to NOT think about something....
so for surface scan a save isn't overly neccasary or possible. If you are really trying to not think about something, well then you can make a save, and if you fail, you do think about it.
Each of the psi "Skills" needs to be considered as to wheter you get a save.
of course that is up to each GM as the case may be.
so for surface scan a save isn't overly neccasary or possible. If you are really trying to not think about something, well then you can make a save, and if you fail, you do think about it.
Each of the psi "Skills" needs to be considered as to wheter you get a save.
of course that is up to each GM as the case may be.
OK to clear up some of this.
Main Book pg 101. "There are rarely any outward signs of a telepath using an ability and, unless otherwise stated in the ability's description, mundanes will never know it is being used.Any other telepath of the same P-rating or higher witnessing another using an ability, will know instantly which ability is being attempted."
Latent Telepath. pg 54." While you cannot actively use any telepathic abilities, you will know instantly when someone is attempting to use an ability on you."
Surface Scan pg 107. "By lightly scanning the surface thoughts of a subject, the telepath will cause no pain or discomfort and yet will be able to read whatever the subject is currently thinking and actually feel the emotions they are currently sensitive to."
Omegar wrote"actually most of the people who resist, do so because they are trained to do so, hence the following Feat:
Psi Block Training:
You can add your Will bonus to your attempt to resist a psi attack. "
Pg 57: "Resist Scan - While not a telepath yourself, you have spent many hours practising to resist their scans and mental intrusions. By running continuous rhymes through your head and performing complex mathematical calculations, you can effectively create a mental barrier that many telepaths will have difficulty breaking through
Benefit: AS a full round action, you may concentrate to resist a scan. You receive a +2 competence bonus to all will saves to resist accidental,surface and deep scans, as well as the use of the daze and reality fabrication telepathic abilities. This bonus stacks with feats such as Iron Will."
So no need to add another to do the same thing.
Omegar again: you know what if we kept the same system, but when people made a will save, they can't actually use any bonus ubless they have being trained (I.e some feat) to block mental attacks. Most "pskers" would have this feat (Psi core getting it for free)
Mind Sheild.pg106.
That one too.
Savings throws: pg 102. "Any living creature that is subjected to a telepathic ability, be they telepath themselves or mundane, may make a Will saving throw to resist its effect. A subject may always choose to forgo its Will save, willingly allowing the telepathic ability to take effect."
"Mundanes will soon come to realise that defending against telepathic abilities is extraordinarily difficult and only the most resilient of individuals are likely to succeed. "
This is only true if their ordinary save is there straight will is used. Those strong willed(high Will save) or stubborn(Iron will) will be able to resist.
The actual dice roll indicates ACTIVE resistance, (along with Resist Scan), it's variable shows how effective, whatever method they are using to actively resist, is.
-----
To Omegar, sorry if that sounds bitchy, it's been an awful week.
Main Book pg 101. "There are rarely any outward signs of a telepath using an ability and, unless otherwise stated in the ability's description, mundanes will never know it is being used.Any other telepath of the same P-rating or higher witnessing another using an ability, will know instantly which ability is being attempted."
Latent Telepath. pg 54." While you cannot actively use any telepathic abilities, you will know instantly when someone is attempting to use an ability on you."
Surface Scan pg 107. "By lightly scanning the surface thoughts of a subject, the telepath will cause no pain or discomfort and yet will be able to read whatever the subject is currently thinking and actually feel the emotions they are currently sensitive to."
Omegar wrote"actually most of the people who resist, do so because they are trained to do so, hence the following Feat:
Psi Block Training:
You can add your Will bonus to your attempt to resist a psi attack. "
Pg 57: "Resist Scan - While not a telepath yourself, you have spent many hours practising to resist their scans and mental intrusions. By running continuous rhymes through your head and performing complex mathematical calculations, you can effectively create a mental barrier that many telepaths will have difficulty breaking through
Benefit: AS a full round action, you may concentrate to resist a scan. You receive a +2 competence bonus to all will saves to resist accidental,surface and deep scans, as well as the use of the daze and reality fabrication telepathic abilities. This bonus stacks with feats such as Iron Will."
So no need to add another to do the same thing.
Omegar again: you know what if we kept the same system, but when people made a will save, they can't actually use any bonus ubless they have being trained (I.e some feat) to block mental attacks. Most "pskers" would have this feat (Psi core getting it for free)
Mind Sheild.pg106.
That one too.
Savings throws: pg 102. "Any living creature that is subjected to a telepathic ability, be they telepath themselves or mundane, may make a Will saving throw to resist its effect. A subject may always choose to forgo its Will save, willingly allowing the telepathic ability to take effect."
"Mundanes will soon come to realise that defending against telepathic abilities is extraordinarily difficult and only the most resilient of individuals are likely to succeed. "
This is only true if their ordinary save is there straight will is used. Those strong willed(high Will save) or stubborn(Iron will) will be able to resist.
The actual dice roll indicates ACTIVE resistance, (along with Resist Scan), it's variable shows how effective, whatever method they are using to actively resist, is.
-----
To Omegar, sorry if that sounds bitchy, it's been an awful week.
Aramanthus
Mongoose
ok
omegar
Mongoose
Ok,
heres the thing, the point of this thread is that some people feel it is too easy to block a psi scan. that is where my points came from. Yes the feat i mentioned is similar to one already, however if you check the normal mentioned you will see that it is very different to what it is at the moment.
But thanks for laying out how it is in the book, and remininding me that i need to reread that section
heres the thing, the point of this thread is that some people feel it is too easy to block a psi scan. that is where my points came from. Yes the feat i mentioned is similar to one already, however if you check the normal mentioned you will see that it is very different to what it is at the moment.
But thanks for laying out how it is in the book, and remininding me that i need to reread that section
I have proposed several things in the past relating to this:
1. The roll is an opposed roll - the Telepath's P-level + Telepathy Skill + Attribute Modifier + Feats (i.e. Ability Focus - Surface Scan, Commercial Telepath, etc.) + Situation Modifiers (i.e. Touch on a LOS ability +4, etc.) vs. Will roll + Wisdom Modifier + Feats (i.e. Iron Will, Resist Scan, etc.)
2. The Psi-Level x3 + any Feats and Attribute Modifiers would dictate the Telepathy Skill limit i.e. a P2 can have a Telepathy Skill of 6, a P5 can have a Telepathy Skill of 15, a P12 can have a Telepathy Skill of 36.
3. Telepathic Feats that adjust the Skill level need the Prerequisit - Training.
4. A Telepath has access to all of the Telepathic Abilities that are restricted by their P-Level upon awakening (1st Level) i.e. a P5 can attempt a Deep Scan. Maybe reduce the number of Feats that a Telepath receives so that they are not unbalanced by the Telepathic Feats.
This would give as close an ability level of what you see in the show as D20 is capable of providing. Psi Cops would be fearsome (but not unbeatable), and a P5 would have a really good chance of being able to do their job. This falls in line with what JMS states as well.
The other real issue is Range...we will save that for another discussion :wink:
1. The roll is an opposed roll - the Telepath's P-level + Telepathy Skill + Attribute Modifier + Feats (i.e. Ability Focus - Surface Scan, Commercial Telepath, etc.) + Situation Modifiers (i.e. Touch on a LOS ability +4, etc.) vs. Will roll + Wisdom Modifier + Feats (i.e. Iron Will, Resist Scan, etc.)
2. The Psi-Level x3 + any Feats and Attribute Modifiers would dictate the Telepathy Skill limit i.e. a P2 can have a Telepathy Skill of 6, a P5 can have a Telepathy Skill of 15, a P12 can have a Telepathy Skill of 36.
3. Telepathic Feats that adjust the Skill level need the Prerequisit - Training.
4. A Telepath has access to all of the Telepathic Abilities that are restricted by their P-Level upon awakening (1st Level) i.e. a P5 can attempt a Deep Scan. Maybe reduce the number of Feats that a Telepath receives so that they are not unbalanced by the Telepathic Feats.
This would give as close an ability level of what you see in the show as D20 is capable of providing. Psi Cops would be fearsome (but not unbeatable), and a P5 would have a really good chance of being able to do their job. This falls in line with what JMS states as well.
The other real issue is Range...we will save that for another discussion :wink:
No. 1 is what we have now.
No. 2 runs into the slight problem that the higher the P-rating the less skill points. With an Int mod of +2, your P2 has 10pts/lvl, P5 has 8, P12 has 4. (add one for humans)Yes he can have a higher collective skill but unless he spends all his points on Telepathy he's not going to make it. Level 1 he could put all 20 pts into it but he's useless for anything else.
No.3 makes sense.
No.4 In the Psi corp book under Blips it states that they may learn things in the "wrong" order and one example is being able to Deep Scan but not Surface Scan. As for the feats, if you read the descriptions and the descriptions of the training at Psi Corp. A lot of them do require training to acquire.
How to give a Bloodhound ulcers. One "heard" my character when it had accidental scan go off just outside customs at B5. He finally works out who I'm with and spots two Rangers but no telepath.
His day goes downhill, as he questions them and doesn't get any help from them, they know about her, just refuse to say anything, despite them continually failing to resist his scans. They did offer to pass his message on. He did at least report her to Security. Now I just need the money for a fake ID.
In answer to the obvious question, we got away in a cloud of styrofoam.
Literally. The Technomage(we all think he's a travelling spaceship salesman. Oh great! and I've got the farmer's daughter.) had his ship stored in a cargo pod full of styrofoam, in orbit around the station.
No. 2 runs into the slight problem that the higher the P-rating the less skill points. With an Int mod of +2, your P2 has 10pts/lvl, P5 has 8, P12 has 4. (add one for humans)Yes he can have a higher collective skill but unless he spends all his points on Telepathy he's not going to make it. Level 1 he could put all 20 pts into it but he's useless for anything else.
No.3 makes sense.
No.4 In the Psi corp book under Blips it states that they may learn things in the "wrong" order and one example is being able to Deep Scan but not Surface Scan. As for the feats, if you read the descriptions and the descriptions of the training at Psi Corp. A lot of them do require training to acquire.
How to give a Bloodhound ulcers. One "heard" my character when it had accidental scan go off just outside customs at B5. He finally works out who I'm with and spots two Rangers but no telepath.
His day goes downhill, as he questions them and doesn't get any help from them, they know about her, just refuse to say anything, despite them continually failing to resist his scans. They did offer to pass his message on. He did at least report her to Security. Now I just need the money for a fake ID.
In answer to the obvious question, we got away in a cloud of styrofoam.
Literally. The Technomage(we all think he's a travelling spaceship salesman. Oh great! and I've got the farmer's daughter.) had his ship stored in a cargo pod full of styrofoam, in orbit around the station.
Aramanthus
Mongoose
hmmmm interesting ideas.
Barbara said:
Um, how big is a "cargo pod"??
The book I have lists it as 50,000 lbs cargo cap (aka, what I understand to be 25 tons), but 25 tons is also 1,050 cubic feet, or about 10' x10'x10.5'
I am still trying to figure out why that makes it "Huge" rather than just "Large" ... unless it is 8'x8'x16.4', which does not look like the ships in the pictures ...
The oddest thing is that these are actually smaller than modern standard shipping containers (8x8x20, aka about 30.5 tons). I personally think the containers should be much larger, be a standard loaded into larger containers, and/or the prices be drastically cut (Modern cost about 1,450 British pounds each).
In any case that is not much room to put a ship in ....
scottmage said:
You wouldn't need to do that because, whilst they have access to them, they are untrained in them
So you could use them, but with the normal untrained skill penalty. To rid themselves of the penalty, simply select the Ability when the opportunity arises. Also any Abilities that have others as a prerequisite aren't available for use (or would take a double (or more!) penalty depending upon how many prerequisite abilities haven't been taken).
A few, key abilities I'd not allow to be used untrained though - Mindshredder for instance, given how rare that's meant to be (Bester did not have this ability judging by his comments...)
That I could easily live with. Personally, I'd prefer a more free form system (basically something not unlike the Buffy RPG magic system (basically it's pretty much a straight substitution of Sorcery levels for P levels (though B5 goes to 12+ rather than getting really scary at 7...), the effect "costs" are built in as standard, plus the DC's for spells and abilities are pretty much locked down in a non-abusable way), which was one of the reasons I was originally going to run B5 with that before Mongoose announced their intentions...
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