Telepathy save DCs too high?

[R Arceneaux]

I could go back and look but the time line is wrong for your statement to be valid. IF Capt S had part of the first vorlon in him at the time the incieent with Lyta took place then perhaps.

BUT remembr that they kicked out the 2nd vorlon. And in the process of doing so the 2nd vorlon drew out the little bits and parts of the first vorlon from Capt S.

Remember how in doing so ol Cap S had to have his first one bud renew his life force afterwards. This took place just before the final confrontation of the vollon forces and the shadow forces.

The Lyta gun tothe head episode took place in the last few episodes at the very end of the series, way way after the shadow war ended. So Cap S did not have any of the vorlon in him at th time that he manages to sneak up on her. And I do not think that an X presense of a vorlon would have stopped Lyta after all the sheet the 2nd vorlon deliberately put her thru. You have to remember that the Chareacter of Lyta at the end was completely disenchanted and pretty well much disgusted with both the Vorlons and the Humans at the time said incident took place.

It is interesting to note that she could have killed Captain S or just about anyone if she wanted to. In addition to breaking the light bulb. Remember just as she was about to board the ship to leave she broke the manacles allegedly holding her with a mere thought. Remember as the guard went to open the lock on the manacles, she broke them and said (paraphrase) I left them on so you (the guards) would feel more comfortable escorting me here.

Thus my statement which I posted previously. Telepaths by their very nature are naturally superior in many aspects when compared to non telepaths. They do have weaknesses, to be sure. Non telepaths can use the weakness to balance out a siguation a little bit IF IF IF they are smart enough to be savy on strategy and preparation. Non telepaths CAN WIN when posed against even a P 12 but you have to play 'Smart' and not crazy brave.

Think of it in terms of the other RPG game . A first level character charging any kind of a dragon openly is going to flat out DIE a painful death. But if he does his homework and acquires a company of others to help him he just might live to brag about how THEY killed the dragon.

LOL sometimes crazy brave will get you crazy dead.

May your PPG always have a full charge


DE

 

[Chernobyl]

yes be he literally says "you're not the only one who's been touched by a vorlon" :?

Chern

 

[James McMurray]

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm all about telepaths being powerful in the series. MJS did it just right. But for the game itself, my group doesn't like to have one PC so noticeably more powerful than the rest. If there weren't a PC teep we may change nothing and loved it.

That's just how we play though, and not intended as a "everyone should play this way" statement. The game is tonight, and we'll be going through part one and perhaps some of part two of The Ragged Edge.

 

[James McMurray]

There was practically zero telepathic activity in the game last night. The teep is Centauri and the first part of Ragged Edge involves a lot of negotiations and encounters with Narns, so he stayed in his room most of the time. So we'll wait until after section 2 to decide if we'll make any changes.

For anyone interested (spoiler alert) they went a completely unexpected route with the raider problem: they dealt with Tu'Shek and traded him current information on Centauri shipping routes in exchange for not stealing the catalysts. It said he could be bribed with 10,000 credits, and he stood to make a lot more than that from a couple of well placed raids.

 

[lastbesthope]

Groan...

Though that could be another one for the hits from Babylon 5. A few years back (7 or 8...) the Edinburgh Alliance did a CD of song covers with a B5 theme...

Most memorable was...

I have that, picked it up at an SF con charity auction. I noticed it's title "Songs from Down Below Vol. 5"

I asked him, perfectly reasonably (I had been up for 36 hours straight), "Why is it Vol. 5?"

He replied, perfectly straight faced

"Vols 1-3 were destroyed before completion, Vol 4 went missing just after we finished it"

I thanked him and left, a couple of years later while watching the pilot with some friends, Sinclair said the same thing to Lyta, my response and the look on my face was classic as I realised what that guy had pulled on me back at the con :lol:

LBH

 

[Perturbatio]

These are the House Rules we used when I ran the first edition of B5, it might help you in some way. I haven't taken a look at the Second Edition situation for teeps yet (since I'm not running it just now).

Telepathy:

New skill use: Concentration

Resisting Telepathy.

Characters with 5 ranks of Knowledge Telepathy may use concentration to resist Telepathic abilities as a move equivalent action. Characters with 8 ranks of Concentration may do so as a free action, characters with 8 ranks of Knowledge Telepathy gain a +2 bonus to Concentration for this purpose as does the Iron Will feat.

A character doing so makes a DC 22 Concentration check and adds the amount they succeed by to their relevant Will save (or to the relevant telepathic DC) up to a ceiling of half the number of ranks of Concentration the character has.


Detect Mind (free level 1 telepath ability)

P-Rating: 1
Prerequisite: Telepath Level 1
Range: Long
Telepathy Check: DC12*
Concentration: Yes
Multiple Subjects: Yes

The detect mind ability does not cause subdual damage to the Telepath using it. However if it is maintained it costs 1 point of subdual damage per minute of use.

This ability allows the telepath to detect the nearest mind he/she is not already aware of, it only reveals direction and distance but no other information whatsoever.

To use any other Telepathic ability without line of sight a telepath must first use Detect Mind to locate a viable target.

Situational Modifiers.

Target is experiencing strong emotions (fear, anger, lust)
-2 to DC
Target is unconscious (not sleeping)
+2 to DC
Target is sleeping
+1 to DC
[Per 40ft from Telepath
+1 to DC}
Target at Short Range
+0 to DC
Target at Medium Range
+2 to DC
Target at Long Range
+4 to DC
Per 2 sentient minds Telepath is already aware of
+1 to DC
Per 2 highly emotional minds already detected
+1 to DC

Telepathy Save DC:

The DC to save against a teep's powers is equal to 10+(PSI Rating/2 (round up))+Wis bonus.
The option has also been put in place to allow them to modify the DC by 1 per 2 points they increase the DC of their telepathy check by.


Telepathy Stat:

The stat that the telepathy skill is based on has been changed to wisdom since this reflects their willpower and mental discipline whilst charisma reflects personality, attractiveness, etc. (Bester is extremely competent at telepathy but is most definitely not the most likeable telepath in the show).

 

[James McMurray]

Thanks, looks good!

Re Bester: Charima isn't prettiness and likability, its force of will and the ability to get others to do what you tell them. Sometimes that manifests as looking nice and people liking you, sometimes as people being so scared out of their gourd that they'll do anything you say just to get you to leave. IMO Bester was incredibly charismatic.

Also, we only saw one aspect of his personality on B5. He managed to get someone to fall in love with him (and vice versa) so he can't be 100% prick all the time. There were also several teeps shown that were hardcore members of the corps that liked him and even admired him as a person.

 

[frobisher]

Wisdom as a stat makes very little sense to me outside a fantasy setting, but it scurries on in with the d20 rules Unfortunately, it's too bound up in the skill descriptions to extract properly and replace with Willpower (it's certainly not Willpower as it's used for "intuitive" skills.

I can see why Charisma was used as the base stat for telepathy, but it doesn't sit well there either (Better than on Wisdom though).

 

[James McMurray]

What would you use?

 

[frobisher]

I'd introduce the new stat of Willpower pretty much (at a push I'd eliminate Wisdom...).

Obviously you'd need to add that stat in plus all its dependent skills, which is a lot of work for potentially little reward. At the moment, Charisma is the best fit there is within d20/OGL.

Intelligence might be a candidate, but I'd feel very iffy about using that.

Or, give the teeps only an extra stat - Psi or Psionic power. This would give you the possibilities of a "strong" P5 or a "weak" P12. Unlike P rating, this you could train up, and this would be the primary damage soak for psionic pushing and fatigue.

Though honestly, I'd use another rules system given a free choice - the Serenity rules mechanics are pretty damn good and would be my first choice at the moment, but the Unisystem as used in Buffy is also a very good match (the magic system just needs the serial numbers filed off and that's about it ) I've run B5 in the past under other systems - Mega Traveller being very sucessful - so it's no biggy to me.

 

[Vortex]

it's certainly not Willpower as it's used for "intuitive" skills

That's something that was very nice in the D&D 2nd Player's Options: Skills and Power additions. All ability scores were split into two subabilities. For wisdom, it was actually Intuition and Willpower. You could raise one and lower the other to get your character even closer to your view of what kind of person he was.

I still play 2nd Ed. and I think that's the feature I'll miss the most in the d20 system when I start my B5 campain.

 

[James McMurray]

We finished chapter 2 of Ragged Edge this weekend. the main bad guy (5 levels higher than the group) would have died in one turn if he hadn't rolled a 17. The rest of the time telepathy asn't too bad, although it did win one training scenario single-handedly.

So we're still running with canon rules, but also still looking out for the power level.

 

[R Arceneaux]

House rules are not required. If one reads the chapter on Telepaths you will see that there are modifiers for environment that cause the telepath to be distracted. This is particularly true at the lower levels. All ya have to do is apply the environmental negative adjustments to level the playing field.

At the higher levels these adjustments become less decisive, but then again at the higher levels its all a power game anyway.

 

[Yrtalien]

We finished chapter 2 of Ragged Edge this weekend. the main bad guy (5 levels higher than the group) would have died in one turn if he hadn't rolled a 17. The rest of the time telepathy asn't too bad, although it did win one training scenario single-handedly.

So we're still running with canon rules, but also still looking out for the power level.

I'm glad to hear things are working out for you and yours. My friend and I are playing through the Ragged edge right now too. He's playing a rogue Telepath and I'm playing a TechnoMage. At first I was worried our intrinsic power would unbalance the game (I usually run stories so this is always in my head) especially since this is the first game our DM has ever run but so far it hasn't been too bad.

For my part I agree with many of the other posters. The limitations on TechnoMages and Telepaths come more from the outside than the inside. For my part while we played through Cold Equations and the first part of Ragged Edge (my TM was 1st through 3rd lvl). I used my Technomagic once and ONCE only. Yes I can lauch a 3d6 fireball (now a 4d6 fireball) but by god I lived in terror of attracting so much attention to myself. I had visions of being pulled in for questioning and in a routine search my chrysalis being found and removed. Even now that I'm 4th and the tech is implanted I worry about who will come after me when word begins to spread of what I can do. Too much attn and the Mages who left won't ignore me. Too much attn and the races who wonder about Technomagery may say "Hmm didnt most of them leave for the rim.... doesn't that mean he has no one to help him should we decide to disect him?"

The telepath is in the same boat. He's a rogue and ill-considered use of his power can bring a butt-load of pain down on him (and me). As is I think he's about to get slapped for something that happened in our first game. While chasing after the thief in Cold Equation we wound up in a bar. The barkeep was hesitant about talking to us so my companion flashed a Psi-Corp badge he keeps on hand (for when he wants to pretend he is registered) in effect implying if you don't tell us I'll just take it from you. The bartender told us what we wanted and we left. Im sure my friends thinking was these ppl were never going to chk on his active status so it made little difference.

Since then we've kind of made a base of ops in down below when were on station. I've begun to establish myself as someone who was rejected by the Technomages though he recieved some training. I make my way in down below by performing magic acts only slightly augmented by my tech (my way of spreading some wonder in an otherwise crappy place). People think I'm basically a skilled technician with a drinking problem and are growing to like me ... meanwhile I've learned that word of my friends status as a telepath has spread through down below and that though they never called to chk on his status with the Corp ... neither do they care. They don't trust him and I see a lynching about to take place.

All this to say he made one mistake many games ago and it's gonna bite him in the ass. It won't take other telepaths to do it either... it's just gonna take a bunch of ppl from down below with baseball bats or whatever is handy and hard.

Your player sounds reasonable. Not like he's running about scanning every living thing and i that you have a boon but if your worried there are precautions you can take (keep in mind I havent read through Ragged Edge (Ive avoided it so I can play)). If people know theyre dealing with a telepath have them bring their own along to jamm him or actively defend their minds during meetings. Introduce a feat that implies training in defending against scans ( I can't remember if one already exists if it doesnt write it up +2 is good) and outfit a few people with it. People have memories (usually)... if someone survives an assault from your PC have him inform others (I certainly would). If someone dies to pain have the local Dr. get a ping from the Corp when they hear about the strangely healthy young man who stroked out for no discernable reason. It doesn't matter that your PC is a Centauri if the crime is against a human or if a human feels threatened the Corp will get involved.

The Centauri Guild of Telepaths don't want bad press any more than the Corp does. Yes, they may not have rules about scheduled scanning to ensure aherence to the rules (and loyalty) but I guarantee you they're also not limited by as many humantiarian rules in dealing with Telepaths. As a matter of fact I would make my player fear attention from his guild. What I mean by this is Humans distrust the Corp. The Corp is monitiored and many people probably keep in contact with their telepathic children. If a human disappears to the Corp lies have to be told to cover it up. Among the Centauri I imagine it's quite different... The Guild has been around longer... it is trusted, it's empowered. If they have to deal with an unruly Teep they probably have little issue with killing him, forcing him to take drugs, lobotomizing him, or experimenting on him and whats more the people of the Republic probably expect such behavior from the Guild so it goes unquestioned. I'm not saying make them into another evil telepathic monolith like the Corp but make them a force to be reckoned with. Take some time to think about what you want your Universe's Telepath Guild to be like.

Even if your player is reserved in using his abilities, even if he only attacks when provoked eventually word that he is a telepath will get out and begin to precede him. People may refuse to be in the same area as he is or to conduct business face to face (not because he has violated anyone mind but because he MIGHT). People may refuse to touch him and other may crawl up from his past and beat him over the head in fear of what he MAY have taken from them when they did meet once. In most combats make him the first person people lay out. Have tactics that revolve around distance and quick snipes. These are the limitations of the Telepath class.

I played with someone who played a P14 Mibarri Kira-Zhe (sp?) telepath once (yes such is possible). He was a true terror to behold. He could Pain or Daze rooms full of people and it only got worse as we lvl'd up. It didn't matter that mostly he was a pacifist, just about everyone was afraid of him and he got treated like a monster more often than not (even by the other PCs). It didn't matter that 95% of the time he used Daze or quietly read minds... it only took the one time using Pain for everyones opinion of him to dramtically shift.

Have you ever noticed in B5 that no matter how much Lyta helps the crew she is almost always treated like crap. That's because everytime you call attention to your differences you drive a small wedge between yourself and others. Its bad enough when youre just a P5 but a P10 is terrible the wedge is even bigger. That wedge is the Universe's weapon againt the telepathic PC.

Consider a game in which some of the other PCs are pitted aginst the telepath. How do they react knowing that he can scan them at any time. You mention training scenarios (hmm we just got told at the end of our game that we were being sent to training camp... why a shipping company has a training camp....??? dont tell me!). Divide your group : ) Leave them with memories of what it was like constantly wondering if he was in their minds. Have him around them picking up stray thoughts and seeing the looks. The uneasiness might fade after a short time (it usually does) but the Teep willl remember and it blooms oh-so-qucikly if the situation arises again.

 

[R Arceneaux]

RE Yrtalien


If you watch the entire series of B5 you will note that when it comes to a telepath, registered Psi Corps telepath, the only people who was completely comfortable around them was another telepath. It did not make any difference what their power level was. I guess its their required uniforms. The black gloves and the ominous design of the uniform is kind of eliteist.

RA