Exile Game Studio

[Wolverine]

In the Skills chapter it states that you can substitute your Willpower rating with your Focus rating - makes perfect sense to me
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[gfrantsen]

I tend to agree but the only reason I asked was because it says that Focus can be used instead of Willpower "rolls".
Since "defending" against psychic powers isn't a roll, it wasn't a perfect fit.
I will probably still use it based on the descriptions of the specializations.
Thanks.
Greg.

[AlexK]

Attempting to nail down the limits of Psychic Powers a bit...
"These thoughts may appear as a jumble of words, images or emotions..."
1) So presumably a telepath might not be able to read the thoughts of someone thinking in an unknown language, but should still be able to read their emotions and see what they are looking at or visualizing. (Though presumably a telepathic robot with no emotions might not be able to understand emotions that it reads.)

2) Is telepathy limited to those of the same race, or is any intelligence capable of being read by a telepath? Should hard limits or gradually increasing penalties be imposed at points such as different biological classification? Ex. Penalties for Human telepath to read Neanderthal? Apemen? wild Animal? Gillmen? Dinosaur? Giant Crab? Insect? Animated statue w Breath/Spark of Life? Robot?
[I note that Dinosaurs often have a Will of 4.]

3) What limits and penalties exist for subtle uses of Telepathy/Mind Control? Examples: Inserting into target's mind that something threatening is moving just out of view OR feeling of friendliness (or fear) OR summoning up memory of authority figure saying "BAD!!" or equivalent.

4) With a good enough success would a telepath be able to make a target believe in a hallucinatory figure or terrain, perhaps resulting in the target walking over a cliff while believing it a solid surface? How good a success needed?

"Telepathy Modifiers...Your character suffers a -2 penalty if he does not have direct line of sight."
5) Does this imply that a telepath has (or can have) a mental radar that operates at -2 (if not in line of sight) plus range penalties to tell when intelligences are in range? (Could be quite an asset in games of hide and seek!) Would concentration be required? Could one 'tune' it to different intelligences (insect, animal, human only, etc.)? Presumably telepathy could give an indication of how complex (though perhaps not how efficient) an intelligence is.

6) What, besides range, modifies the chance to appear or not appear on a telepath's 'radar'? Int? Will? Cha? Sleeping? Dreaming? Awake? Thinking particular thoughts? Other telepath? Psychic Resistance? Amount of time spent concentrating on mental 'radar' by the telepath? Penalties for different species?
Perhaps handled by Will roll w modifiers for Psychic Resistance, range and possibly the -2 for no line of sight? [Presumably mostly handled w Taking the Average.]

[AlexK]

GM: Do you realize that "Mind Control" is a Talent? it just requires that you have the talent Psychic Ability (Telepathy) as a prerequisite.

Me: No, actually I thought that SotSW lumps the (known) psychic powers into "Telepathy, Telekinesis, Extrasensory Perception (ESP) or Cloaking." My deduction was that Telepathy includes Mind Control, Telekinesis includes Telekinetic Shield, ESP includes Precognition and Cloaking includes Enshroud.

My reading of Psychic Ability was that with enough xp one could get two of the other powers if you started with one psychic power.

So if one started with Telepathy and in play got 15 xp to spend, would Mind Control, Telekinesis, Extrasensory Perception (ESP), Cloaking or a bonus to Telepathy be the choices for psychic talent advancement? Or is Mind Control already included in Telepathy?

Of course the GM can run it however the GM chooses. But thought it might be educational for discussion.

[AlexK]