Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.super-heroes (More info?)
I don't have the Revised Edition yet (will buy the PDF in
1-2 months).
I'm making a Wolf Man Shaman, a guy who woke up after twelve
thousand years of hibernation (history as we know it is
wrong: Our stone age ancestors lived alongside Wolf People,
Cat People and Sauroid People, but they all went extinct at
some point).
One of his schticks is that he has very sharp Senses (Smell,
Hearing and Mental Awareness), and I want him to be able to
gauge the emotional state of others, with some kind of
Limitation to reflect that it is based on scent.
But the only Empathy ability I can find is under Telepathy,
which is a psionic ability, and the Wolf Man's ability works
radically different from that.
How do I proceed? Can I tweak the Telepathy/Empathy ability
sufficiently to work as I want it to?
(I don't want him to have the Detect Lies skill. He
deliberately has no manipulative skills beyond Oratory,
because they'd be out of character for him. Also, his
Empathy can do much more than just Detect wen people are lying).
Some thoughts:
It is a Scent-based ability, and thus has limited range.
An Activation Roll of 15- for Wolf Men (hypothetical, as he
is the last one) is reasonable, with a -1 penalty for each
Hex of distance (assuming average wind conditions). The 15-
represents some sort of skill roll (I like the idea of using
Activation Rolls to represent improvable abilities, instead
of using Requires A Skill Roll - does that make me a bad
person?).
There should be a further -2 penalty when the ability is
used against Humans (but not modern Canines or Felines),
although he will spend character points to gradually reduce
this penalty during the (hypothetical - this is just a test
character) campaign. And of course the Activation Roll can
be further modified, if the emotion in question is extreme
or subtle.
The ability is in no way supernatural/magical/psionic, and
therefore should be unaffected by Supress, Drain and
similar. Instead it should be messed up if his Sense of
Scent gets Flashed (and he has no Flash Defense for any of
his Senses), or if either character is wearing a sealed body
suit (space suit or hazmat suit or rad suit), or if they're
talking over the phone (his sense of hearing is damn good
too, but not quite good enough to be Empathic[1]).
He already has Discriminatory and Analyze for his Sense of
Scent.
Other characters' ability to resist this ability might be
based on PRE instead of EGO, although I'm not sure whether
that is actually appropriate.
Actually on second thought I'm not sure the ability *can* be
resisted, because in order to do so you must be able to
control your exocrine glands, and normal Humans flat out
*cannot* do that. We're not talking body language or
tone-of-voice here, we're talking something that is way
beyond conscious control (excluding, of course, Faqirs and
similar).
[1] Why isn't there an Empathic "Adder" that can be applied
to Senses? It seems like an obvious thing to do, to me. It
could require Discriminatory (but not Analyze) and have an
Activation Roll of 10- for 3 points, or 12 for 5 points, or
14- for 10 points, with a +1 bonus to the Activation Roll
(to 11- or 13- or 15-) if the Sense does have Analyze.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
I don't have the Revised Edition yet (will buy the PDF in
1-2 months).
I'm making a Wolf Man Shaman, a guy who woke up after twelve
thousand years of hibernation (history as we know it is
wrong: Our stone age ancestors lived alongside Wolf People,
Cat People and Sauroid People, but they all went extinct at
some point).
One of his schticks is that he has very sharp Senses (Smell,
Hearing and Mental Awareness), and I want him to be able to
gauge the emotional state of others, with some kind of
Limitation to reflect that it is based on scent.
But the only Empathy ability I can find is under Telepathy,
which is a psionic ability, and the Wolf Man's ability works
radically different from that.
How do I proceed? Can I tweak the Telepathy/Empathy ability
sufficiently to work as I want it to?
(I don't want him to have the Detect Lies skill. He
deliberately has no manipulative skills beyond Oratory,
because they'd be out of character for him. Also, his
Empathy can do much more than just Detect wen people are lying).
Some thoughts:
It is a Scent-based ability, and thus has limited range.
An Activation Roll of 15- for Wolf Men (hypothetical, as he
is the last one) is reasonable, with a -1 penalty for each
Hex of distance (assuming average wind conditions). The 15-
represents some sort of skill roll (I like the idea of using
Activation Rolls to represent improvable abilities, instead
of using Requires A Skill Roll - does that make me a bad
person?).
There should be a further -2 penalty when the ability is
used against Humans (but not modern Canines or Felines),
although he will spend character points to gradually reduce
this penalty during the (hypothetical - this is just a test
character) campaign. And of course the Activation Roll can
be further modified, if the emotion in question is extreme
or subtle.
The ability is in no way supernatural/magical/psionic, and
therefore should be unaffected by Supress, Drain and
similar. Instead it should be messed up if his Sense of
Scent gets Flashed (and he has no Flash Defense for any of
his Senses), or if either character is wearing a sealed body
suit (space suit or hazmat suit or rad suit), or if they're
talking over the phone (his sense of hearing is damn good
too, but not quite good enough to be Empathic[1]).
He already has Discriminatory and Analyze for his Sense of
Scent.
Other characters' ability to resist this ability might be
based on PRE instead of EGO, although I'm not sure whether
that is actually appropriate.
Actually on second thought I'm not sure the ability *can* be
resisted, because in order to do so you must be able to
control your exocrine glands, and normal Humans flat out
*cannot* do that. We're not talking body language or
tone-of-voice here, we're talking something that is way
beyond conscious control (excluding, of course, Faqirs and
similar).
[1] Why isn't there an Empathic "Adder" that can be applied
to Senses? It seems like an obvious thing to do, to me. It
could require Discriminatory (but not Analyze) and have an
Activation Roll of 10- for 3 points, or 12 for 5 points, or
14- for 10 points, with a +1 bonus to the Activation Roll
(to 11- or 13- or 15-) if the Sense does have Analyze.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
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