Robot brain disruptor thingie...

[methidakter]

Okay, gonna need some input on this idea. If anyone follows the Ultimate X-men stuff you may remember the little crossover thing they did with the Ultimates when Magneto ran amuk. During this arc, SHIELD made use of some sort of Psychic disrupting field. At least I think they did. I may have hallucinated the whole thing. Anyhow, I wanted to create a robot-type character that was basically a walking neural-disruptor sumthinerother. Said robot would have an action that allows you to mess with other character's mental actions. For instance, Mr. Roboto puts 3 stones into his crazy mind bender beam and fires it at Captain Psychicbrain. The psychic then has to overcome an additional 3 stones to accomplish whatever telepathic/telekinetic task they are currently attempting. Kinda like mental defense, but a more active version that requires energy to use. Also thought you could potentially project a psychic dampening field over a given area.
Any thoughts on how many stones this bugger is worth, advantages, disadvantages, etc. It could use some tweaking...

[mako]

Hi, me again.

Still don't have the sourcebooks I ordered, but given how much I hear of Psi-this and Psychic-that on characters and discussions, I take it Psychic actions are really powerful. This WOULD make me think a psychic dampening effect would be a bit cheaper than expected since it'd balance the psychics, but some characters only HAVE Psychic abilities as their strong point.

I guess the cost should differ depending on if it's a robot or a person/PA who has it.

Maybe like this.

Psionics Disruption Weapon: AN+1
Area Effect: +1
Disrupt Telekinetics: 2w
Disrupt Entire Psychic Spectrum: 8w (There's a LOT of psychic stuff.)
Character has Psychic Immunity/Shielding: +1 (Counting Robots)

..Rides a bit expensive, but generally one isn't going to have this without the intent of messing up psychics anyway. The last part was thrown in because if the character is immune to the psychic anyway, they're going to own anyone who relies purely on being psychic. Even Xavier would likely fail at psychic attempts with this baby functioning on a psychic resistant person. If you buy the Psychic Spectrum effect, you don't need to buy the Telekinetics one separate to effect them, explaining it's high cost. It'd also wreck anything related to Psychic power like Psi-Weapons.

[sch12m]

Another Thought:

Force Blast: AN+7
-Area Effect or 2X Damage (+4)
-Disables if Damage Occurs: Increase Resistance of all Psionic Actions by Stones of Damage, effect lasts until next panel (+5)
-No actual damage--stun or otherwise--done (-2)

You can change the duration of the effect or whatever if you were looking for something slightly different.

[sgingell]

I'd suggest Mental Defense with an "Others benefit from power" Advantage. Basically what the field does is give everyone on your side an effective mental defense at the action/modifier number. Given that it also interferes with things that wouldn't get a mental defense (TK, Psi-Weapon, etc...) I'd give another +2 or +3. Throw in a -3 for Modifier to Action, and I'd sell you the power for AN+2 or 3.

-Stephen

[sch12m]

From what I have read of methidakter's question, I gathered that he wanted a power that he could use against a single person, so he would need a specific advantage to provide that.

[methidakter]

I guess I imagined this as more of an offensive type of power rather than a defensive type of power. Sorta...The idea was that it would be harder for the psychic to do something in the first place, rather than making the ream or single player more resistant to psychic type attacks.
Let's say Dr. Evil Psychic Man is trying to rip a monorail track apart with telekinesis in the hopes of derailing the train traveling on it. "Others benefit from power" isn't going to help that track resist being torn asunder. I'm aiming for a power that makes it hard for the psychic to use his telekewhatsis action inthe first place.
sgingell, while I think your version makes for a very cool and reasonably priced new type of defense, it wasn't quite what I was looking for with this power.

[Andrew]

How about Suppress Mutant Powers from the X-Men Guide? It's pretty expensive (MN+9), but you could easily reduce it with Disadvantages.

For a start, you're limiting it from all powers to just 'psychic' powers... probably -2 levels? Then you want to have to spend stones as an Action, rather than leave it as a Modifier... another -3 levels. And then you wanted to just impose Situational Modifiers instead of completely suppressing the power... that would probably depend on how much of a penalty you wanted to impose, and it might be worth leaving it as a complete suppression.

You might need to add the +3 advantage 'Friends not affected, you pick friends', although maybe not depending on what you had in mind.

So, all in all, about AN +4 or so?

[methidakter]

+4 seems pretty reasonable to me.
I intended the stones of effort put into this action to be the amount of stones the opponent needs to overcome.
Then again, it seems cheaper if the action suppresses psychic powers completely and the amount of stones spent was the duration 1r=1 panel
Interesting

[sgingell]

"I intended the stones of effort put into this action to be the amount of stones the opponent needs to overcome."

That looks a lot like Drain Energy with a few limitations to me. If I hit a Telepath with Drain Energy: 5, the first five stones he put into Telepathy won't do anything.

Limitations might be, Only Effects Psychic Actions (unlike Drain Energy which effects all actions as well as reserves), and stones aren't refunded (Drain Energy is essentially free, even in it's unimproved form).

-Stephen

[methidakter]

Good point, I forget how much energy drain costs, but I thought it was less than +4, I forget, I could be wrong.

I guess I'm not sure which is better, covering a given area with a field that negates all psychic actions for a given time period, or something that is basically a toned down energy drain without the benefits.

Any thoughts anybody? I'm getting alot of great suggestions, so it's hard settling on which version seems the most useful.

[Kaimontfendo]

Well, the simple answer is that whatever achives the desired effect with the lowest cost is the "best" way to go about it. If you only need to prevent one character from using their powers, the area effect is wasted, and if you want to negate the powers of multipule characters, it makes no sense to split stones.

If you want to make powers harder to use without completely negating them, a modified Drain Energy would be the way to go. Or perhaps you could tweak Fear to make it suit your needs. And of course, if you feel like completely negating a character's Psycic powers, you could use Supress Superpower, one target only, etc.