existing Mental Powers rules.
WIllInG TARGETS
For various reasons, sometimes a character will want to be affected by a Mental Power. Mental Powers are not automatically more effective on a willing target (the mentalist still has to make his MCV Attack Roll and Effect Roll, and so on), but typically the willing target of a Mental Power can lower his MCV (by any amount, even all the way to 0) and/or his Mental Defense (if any) so the mentalist has an easier time “hitting” him.
A character who voluntarily lowers his MCV (and/or Mental Defense) may choose to do so for one particular power used by one particular person. Other powers used by that person, and any power used by another person, work against the character’s full DMCV — unless he chooses to lower it for them, too.
When a character voluntarily lowers his MCV (and/or Mental Defense) to allow another char- acter easy access to his mind, he cannot thereafter “reactivate” his MCV or his Mental Defense as to that character and that power unless his attacker does something to change the nature/use of the Mental Power (e.g., trying to alter the level of effect or feeding the power END to keep the Breakout Roll from improving). Having chosen to expose himself to the attack, the character has to live with the consequences of his actions. The GM may choose to alter this rule in the interest of common sense, dramatic sense, and consider- ations of game balance.
With the GM’s permission, a character can lower his EGO (to 0 or otherwise) to make it easier for a mentalist to achieve a successful Effect Roll against him. This works just like lowering MCV, as described above.
With the GM’s permission, a character could in some cases use less than his full EGO to make a Breakout Roll, much in the same way he can use less than his full STR to try to break out of an Entangle if he wants to. This isn’t appropriate for all situations (such as when the character’s trying to weasel out of an enemy’s Mind Control with the help of a friendly mentalist), but works well in others. However, doing so lowers the character’s EGO for all purposes and power as to all attackers — in short, it leaves him vulnerable to other mental attacks for as long as he keeps it lowered. Unless the GM permits him to, a character cannot choose not to make his Breakout Rolls.
lInE OF SIGHT
A mentalist can establish LOS with any Targeting Sense, though it’s almost always established by Sight. With the GM’s permis- sion, a mentalist can buy a Targeting Sense
Only For Establishing LOS (-½), but this is not
recommended.
A mentalist can establish LOS on any part of the body — he doesn’t have to perceive the whole target, or even a majority of the target’s physical form. If a target hides behind a corner and only his left foot is visible, the mentalist can make an attack based on LOS, because part of the char- acter is within his LOS (alternately, the GM could use the rules for lack of LOS, discussed above). However, a mentalist should remember that it can be risky to use an attack on someone he can’t positively identify — that left foot may belong to someone he’d rather not attack.
Situations may occur in which the mentalist can see parts of two bodies, but believes they both belong to the same body. In this case, the GM should roll dice to randomly determine which body part forms the primary basis of the mental- ist’s LOS, and apply the mental attack to that person; the other person is unaffected.
There may also be cases in which a mentalist has LOS on what he thinks is part of a person, but which is not (for example, a shoe with no foot in it). In this case, the mentalist can make a mental attack as normal, but it’s a complete waste of time, and the mentalist realizes after making the attack that no mind exists for him to attack.
Generally, a target cannot “fool” LOS with a disguise or an illusion which makes him look like someone else. The target still has a mind, and a mentalist can affect that mind even if the target’s outward appearance changes. But of course, the disguise/illusion may convince the mentalist that that person isn’t someone he wants to attack.
A character must establish LOS with his “naked eye” — with his Targeting Senses unaided by any outside enhancements. Thus, he could use his innate Telescopic Sight to establish LOS, but not binoculars. Characters cannot establish LOS through Clairsentience, television, or similar methods. However, there’s no restriction on the Range of a Mental Power targeted by a character’s innate Targeting Senses. For example, if Lancer has purchased enough Telescopic Vision to view people on the surface of the Moon, she can use her Mind Control 8d6 on those targets; she isn’t limited to a maximum range of 400m (40 Base Points x 10m). (Alternately, the GM could use the rules for lack of LOS on 6E1 149 when characters try to establish LOS with artificial aids — in other words, using artificial aids might make estab- lishing LOS more difficult, but not impossible.)
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BreaKing Line oF sight
Whether and how the target of a Mental Power can break a mentalist’s Line Of Sight is up to the GM, but usually the circumstances and location make it obvious. Typically all the victim has to do is move to a position where there’s an obstacle (a wall, a large tree, or the like) between himself and the mentalist to prevent the mentalist from seeing him. Moving to another dimension, or through time, breaks LOS for the purposes of maintaining Mental Powers unless the GM rules otherwise.
Breaking Line Of Sight doesn’t entirely break the “mental contact” between a target and a character using a continuing-effect Mental Power. Even though he now lacks LOS, the mentalist can continue to feed END to the power to keep the victim’s Breakout Rolls from improving (see below) or attempt to change the level of effect.
BREAKOuT ROllS
If (for whatever reason) a character’s Breakout Roll for a Mental Power is reduced to 2 or less, he still succeeds with a Breakout Roll if he rolls a 3. However, any penalties to the roll still apply for purposes of counteracting bonuses for the passage of time or other factors — 3 is not a “floor” below which nothing can sink, it’s the minimum roll a character can have after all bonuses and penalties are applied.
BreaKout roLLs as reduCing eFFeCt
Rather than making a Breakout Roll an all-or- nothing function, GMs interested in representing Mental attacks as a sort of “duel” between charac- ters can have the Breakout Roll work differently. If a Breakout Roll succeeds, the character doesn’t break free of the attack automatically, he just lowers it by 10 points of effect. (Alternately, the GM can relate the reduction directly to the degree of success, such as “-3 points of effect per point the roll succeeds by.”) Typically that’s enough to reduce the effect by one level (for example, from EGO +20 to EGO +10), but depending on the results of the Effect Roll it may just reduce/ eliminate a Breakout Roll penalty or remove some other effect. Once a character succeeds with enough Breakout Rolls to reduce the effect to less than “Greater than EGO,” he breaks free of the Mental Power entirely.
When the target of a Mental Power reduces the Effect Roll using this rule, if necessary the character who used the Mental Power on him can immediately redefine the effect to fit the “new” Effect Roll. In doing so he typically cannot radi- cally change what he initially created, just alter it to a lesser similar effect he could have achieved with the lesser roll. For example, if he established an EGO +20 Mental Illusion, if it’s reduced to
EGO +10 he redefines it as a less complex form of the same illusion; if an EGO +30 Mind Control is reduced to EGO +20, he reduces the command from, say, “Attack your friends” to “Don’t attack me or my allies” (but not to “run away,” which is a different sort of order).
To re-establish the effect at its former, higher, level, the attacking character has to use an Attack Action and succeed with another MCV Attack Roll. If he does so, the results of the last successful Breakout Roll are erased, restoring the Mental Power’s effect to what it was before that roll succeeded. (The mentalist doesn’t have to make another Effect Roll.) Alternately, he can engage the target in an EGO Roll Versus EGO Roll Contest as a Zero Phase Action. If the attacker wins the Contest, the results of the last successful Breakout Roll are erased, restoring the Mental Power’s effect to what it was before that roll succeeded. But if the target wins the Contest, that counts as another successful Breakout Roll, reducing the effect by 10 points more.
Since under these rules the victim of a Mental Power doesn’t get as much effect from a Breakout Roll, at the GM’s option the victim gets to make a Breakout Roll every Phase, rather than over increasing time periods as in the standard rules. This can more dynamically simulate a back-and- forth “duel for control” between the mentalist and his target.
If the GM doesn’t want to use “reductive Breakout Rolls” as a default rule for the campaign, a character buying a continuing-effect Mental Power could take a +½ Advantage, Contestable, for his Mental Power to have it work according to these rules.
BreaKout roLLs using oMCv
Instead of using an EGO Roll for the Breakout Roll, the GM can treat the process sort of like a Block in HTH Combat and let the target pit his OMCV against the attacker’s OMCV to deter- mine if he breaks free. Since most characters with Mental Powers are likely to have high OMCVs, this may make it even less likely that the victim of a Mental Power can break out.
deCreasing the enduranCe Cost to Maintain a MentaL poWer
At the GM’s option, if a character wants to reduce the END required to keep a Mental Power from deteriorating, he must buy Reduced Endur-
ance as a naked Advantage for the power with the
Limitation Only Applies To Endurance Spent To
Maintain Effect (-¼). This is separate from any
Reduced Endurance bought to reduce the END for using the power in the first place, and requires GM’s permission.
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ClASSES OF mInDS
Here are some additional rules about classes of minds:
Changing CLass oF Minds
Generally a character cannot change the class(es) of minds he belongs to, but there are some possible ways to do this.
The preferred method is Multiform. Typi- cally if a character changes to an alternate form that would belong to another class of minds, this does not change his class of mind. For example, consider a Human who changes form into a wolf. Ordinary wolves belongs to the Animal class of minds, not Human. But if in wolf form the character retains his Human intellect and the like, he’s still got a Human mind. If not (if he becomes completely wolf-like mentally [to the point where his INT and EGO drop to wolf levels, and so forth], or loses his personality to the effects of the Personality Loss Limitation), then he belongs to the Animal class of minds (at least tempo- rarily). However, a character can buy a Multiform
specifically to change his class of mind and nothing
else. The alternate form is exactly the same as he is, it just has a different class of mind (which he chooses when he buys the power and cannot change thereafter).
Second, in some cases the GM may allow a character who has Shape Shift (Mental Group) and the Deep Mental Shift Adder (APG 15) to change his class of minds. However, that could be extremely unbalancing in some campaigns. A better approach to simulate this sort of “defensive class of mind changing” is to buy Mental Defense with the Limitation Costs Endurance.
If a character is subject to Mental Powers affecting either of two (or more) classes of minds (for example, he’s an android sophisticated enough to be treated as a Human mind, but still vulnerable to powers that affect Machine minds), he can take a Physical Complication to reflect that fact.
deFining the CLasses oF Minds
In most cases, the class of mind a target belongs to is obvious, but here are a few notes on distinctions between the classes:
Human: The “Human” category includes the character’s own sentient species (typically humans, since most characters are sentient beings from Earth). If the character is a Dwarf, then his “Human” is other Dwarves; to him, Elves, Humans, and Halflings belong to the Alien class of minds. (See below for more information on defining “Alien.”)
In some campaigns the GM may want to expand the definition of “Human” slightly. For example, if your campaign features an Atlantis where the inhabitants were once Human, but have since somehow evolved into a distinct species, they might count as Alien. Or you might rule that because they come from Human stock, they
still count as Human for the purposes of Mental Powers. In a campaign with a lot of sentient humanoid races (such as most High Fantasy or Space Opera games), it may be easier and more consistent to assume that all sentient humanoids are part of the “Human” class of minds.
Animal: This category includes nonsentient creatures such as dogs, fish, birds, horses, insects, and wolves. Characters with mental powers that work against animals are sometimes known as
theriopaths.
machine: This category includes computers and other electronic and mechanical equipment that’s subject to mental manipulation. Hydraulics and engines, for example, generally are not susceptible to psionic manipulation (though they can be tele- kinetically manipulated). Characters with mental powers which work against machines are known as cyberkinetics or cyberpaths.
When using Mental Powers on machines that have INT but not EGO, substitute INT for EGO as appropriate. If a machine has neither INT nor EGO, usually Mental Powers won’t work on it, but the GM might assign a device an “EGO” just for cyberkinetic purposes. (See Cyberkinesis, APG 70, for more discussion and rules about this subject.)
Alien: “Alien” refers to any sentient species other than the character’s own. Thus, to a Perseid psionic, other Perseids are in the “Human” class of minds; Humans, Toractans, Mon’dabi, and other sentient species all have “Alien” class minds.
But that’s not necessarily the end of the issue. Because of the prevalence of Alien minds in many campaigns (such as Space Opera games or High Fantasy settings), the GM needs to decide how characters buy the ability to affect the Alien class of minds. One extreme is that each sentient species requires its own Multiple Classes Adder. Just as Humans can only affect Humans by default, if a Human in, say, a Fantasy campaign buys the ability to affect an Alien class of minds, he must define exactly which species he can affect: Dwarves, Elves, or Orcs. If he chooses Elves, his Mental Powers can affect them, but not Orcs or Dwarves. If he wants to affect Dwarves, he must buy another Multiple Classes Adder. This could get very expensive very quickly.
The middle ground, which is appropriate for most campaigns, is for the GM to establish multiple “Alien” class of minds categories based on some criteria (such as species stock, region of the Galaxy the species come from, or the like). For example, maybe all sentient races descended from a specific category of animals (reptilian, mammalian, and so forth) have minds so similar that Mental Powers work normally within that category. Thus, characters would have to cope with a framework including Mammalian Alien, Reptilian Alien, Ichthyoid Alien, and so forth. The Human class of minds would become the
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Alien classification appropriate to the character. A Human psionic, for example, would belong to the Mammalian Alien class of minds, and could affect other mammalian sentients normally with his Mental Powers. He could not, however, affect any other types of aliens unless he paid for the standard Multiple Classes Adder.
At the other extreme, buying the Alien class of minds may give a character the ability to affect all sentient species other than his own. This option works well for highly cinematic campaigns.
Additional Classes: In some campaigns the GM might want to add additional classes of minds to the standard four described above. Usually this reflects something about the nature of the campaign setting, the beings who live in it, or the way psionic powers work in the game. Some possibilities include: n Draconic n Elemental n Energy Beings n Spirit n Undead
other CLass oF Minds options
For some campaigns, the classes of minds rules work best if slightly tweaked or adjusted. Some possibilities include:
no Classes: In cinematic games, the GM may want to ignore the classes of minds rule, allowing any character with Mental Powers to affect any other character normally, regardless of class of minds or species. This may or may not apply to Animals and Machines; some GMs may want to let characters affect them normally, while others may prefer to maintain the classes of minds distinctions regarding them.
Reduced Effect: Instead of having no effect on other classes of minds, a character’s Mental Powers may have a reduced effect. The rules on 6E1 149 suggest one possible option — -3 to MCV Attack Rolls and -10 to Effect Rolls — but the GM can alter those numbers or establish other rules if he wants to. In a psionics campaign, the GM may even vary the effectiveness of Mental Powers from class to class. A Mammalian Alien character might affect other mammalian minds normally, Reptilian Alien and Avian Alien minds at -3 MCV/-10 Effect Roll, other flesh-and-blood alien classes at -5 MCV/-20 Effect Roll, and mineral- or energy- based aliens at -8 MCV/-30 Effect Roll. Applying a Multiple Classes Adder to increase the number of classes a character can effect would negate any penalties for that class.
Reduced Cost Adder: A GM who wants to use the normal classes of minds rules, but also wants to encourage characters to create psionic powers that can affect other classes of minds, could reduce the cost for the Multiple Classes Adder. Instead of +5 points, it might cost +3 points, or even as little as +1 point.
Effect Roll modifier: Rather than requiring character to buy a Multiple Classes Adder, the GM can allow them to affect additional classes of minds with a modifier to the Effect Roll. For some