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Post by takewithfood on Aug 1, 2008 0:16:30 GMT -5
Stark, you're assuming the target has high mental defense. Of course it should be hard to mentally control someone who has 7 mental defense. Someone with an Int of 2 or 3 and no telepathy or mental defense, however, is going to get rocked - and that's a lot of people. It wouldn't take many stones to shift a little Acrobatics out of defense and towards jumping off a roof or in front of a speeding car; splitting a few stones of ranged combat to have a victim shoot himself in the head (that has to be a point-blank sit mod), etc etc.. I still think it's pretty strong.
And currently I do just disallow it because its overpowered - but I'd prefer there be a version that's not too game-breaking, but which is also worth taking. It's a fun idea for a power, I think. ^__^
~TWF
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Post by Kaimontfendo on Aug 1, 2008 1:22:02 GMT -5
The best way to limit it that I've seen is it costs 1 + Mental Defense to maintain it every panel (not int, just Mental Defense). So if someone has an Int of 3 and Mental Defense 3, it'd cost 7 to break in, then 4 every panel to maintain. That is pretty limiting in itself, even with high Int. The main problem with that should be pretty obvious. Most people don't have Mental Defense, so it helps a few characters a bit, but 90% of characters are still just as easy to control. You could probably treat it like holding up an object for an extended period of time, increasing the Resistance every Panel. That sounds pretty good, but I'd be hesitant to do it that way, because increasing resistance every panel means you wouldn't be able to control someone for very long at all, even if you were an uber-telepath like Xavier. Is control other how you would implant a hypnotic suggestion? Because that should be allowed, as that is a pretty standard use of telepathy. That should also be an aspect of duration. Once control is established, you could implant a suggestion, and pay for the duration of the implant. Well, Hypnosis would be done with Psychiatry, not Telepathy. However, certain types of characters may have such a power through mystical means, and in many ways that would be better reflected by Telepathy/Mesmerism. At any rate, I'd say that would make for an interesting way of handling it. I'd maybe say that such a suggestion would remain in place for however many stones beat their Int+Mental Defense, except instead of being that many panels, it would be that many columns into the Duration row of the D&R chart. (I know that sounds uber, and I suppose it is, but that Duration Row has never gotten much use.) Anyway, I don't really like the "shift you target's stones" idea. It doesn't really feel like controlling someone else, so much as it's making them mess up. There's nothing wrong with a telepath being able to do that, but it isn't anywhere near the power of Control Others. And besides, one of the most fun ways to use telepathic control is making someone fight their friend/teammate/lover, which is always good for a creepiness factor, but shifting their stones around isn't exactly an energy-efficient way to kick some ass. You'd be better off fighting them yourself unless you stats are terrible, in which case I'd like to point out that there are better powers than this nerfed form of Telepathy.
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