Aberrant RPG - Psychic Link and Vulnerabilities

[BlueNinja]

I wanted to bounce my opinion on this and see just how far off the court of public opinion I am.

Ok. In the description of Psychic Link, it says that if a power like Domination is used on one member of a Link, it affects all members of the Link. (I'm reading this to mean every power Psychic Shield protects against, except Mental Blast. I'm assuming it also means that if Nova A has a Psy-Link to Nova B, who has his own Psy-Link to Nova C, hitting any one of them hits them all.)

So, let's take two people sharing a Psychic Link. Nova A also has Psychic Shield 2, Nova B has Psychic Shield 1. Nova A get Dominated, and loses by 3 successes. My interpretation of Psychic Link tells me that Nova A is under a three-success Dominate, and Nova B is also under a three-success Dominate, thanks to the Psychic Link. They can both choose to pay a temp-Willpower to drop it (individually, not cumulative).

Agree? Disagree?

[Warren Verona]

Slow yer roll there Blue. You forgot the math that includes where each person under the link is permitted a Willpower roll to resist the powers effects.

Nova A might have lost by three, but Nova B might have resisted and shook off the Dominate. The description means that if you peg one target with a mental attack, that all are susceptible to that same attack, still permitting each nova to resist the power in question separately. Just because the Nova who activated it has Willpower of 3 and fails doesn't mean the guy with Willpower of 9 is automatically stuck with no chance to resist.

That's just my opinion, and how it's run on my game.

[BlueNinja]

Originally Posted By: Revenant

Slow yer roll there Blue. You forgot the math that includes where each person under the link is permitted a Willpower roll to resist the powers effects.

But that's just the thing. It doesn't say that each person in the Link gets their own resistance roll. It just says that the added difficulty applies no matter which member of the Link you target.

[Warren Verona]

Well, no, why would it say it under the 'Psychic Link' description? Try reading the Dominate power and lemme know what you find.

Psychic Link is just the link, it does not change the qulities of the power used through it.

[BlueNinja]

Originally Posted By: Domination

To use Domination, the nova must spend the quantum points and roll Manipulation+Domination in a resisted roll against the target's Willpower. If the nova scores more successes, he succeeds in achieving control

Originally Posted By: PsychicLink

It also exposes the characters to mental attacks - if a power like Domination is used on one member of the Link, it affects all members of the Link.

The Dominating nova makes his roll against Nova A. If he wins, he takes control. Psychic Link says that if that happens, Nova B is also subject to the Domination - and it doesn't say he gets a resistance roll. Otherwise, you run the case where Nova A is targetted, and makes his resistance roll, but because of the Psychic Link, Nova B should also be targetted, and could fail, when he wasn't even the target of the original attack.

[Warren Verona]

You're reading, but not understanding.

Quote:

It also exposes the characters to mental attacks - if a power like Domination is used on one member of the Link, it affects all members of the Link.

At this point, go to the Dominate power, have each character follow the guidlines under Dominate, and go from there. There is no 'host' for Psychic Link that controls everyone else's willpower scores. It merely connects the minds, making them more vulnerable to mental attacks.

How is this hard?

[Blue Thunder]

It's just the wording that makes it confusing.

[Josh Brickman]

Originally Posted By: PsychicLink

It also exposes the characters to mental attacks - if a power like Domination is used on one member of the Link, it affects all members of the Link.

Originally Posted By: BlueNinja

The Dominating nova makes his roll against Nova A. If he wins, he takes control. Psychic Link says that if that happens, Nova B is also subject to the Domination - and it doesn't say he gets a resistance roll. Otherwise, you run the case where Nova A is targetted, and makes his resistance roll, but because of the Psychic Link, Nova B should also be targetted, and could fail, when he wasn't even the target of the original attack.

And those effects can range from nothing to total domination. Ironskin Andy (3 dots of INV:Mental) is linked to a baseline and to a telepath. All three are in different cities. Mentally attack one, you get to affect all three, albet at that +2 diff.

After that you need to process what the effects are of that affect. More than likely, the baseline gets hosed (or mindstunned or whatever), Ironskin ignores it, and the Telepath had better hope he has Psychic Shield.

The fact you get to attack all three at the same time already takes care of ...if a power like Domination is used on one member of the Link, it affects all members of the Link.... Keep in mind that normally Domination only works on *one* person, so being able to attack all three is a pretty significant weakness right there.

But all three apply their willpowers seperately, and their mental defenses seperately, and can thus be effected (as opposed to affected) seperately. Otherwise we'd have rules for which person's willpower gets used to defend the group, who gets to apply their psychic shield, and so forth.

I can't think of anything in Abby that even reduces Willpower. Dropping Ironskin's or Totentanz's (or Mal's) to that of a baseline is a pretty significant leap to make without specific text on how to enter into the effect and how to drop it.

[metaphysician]

Whiles the writeup may not necessarily say so, I'd suggest that either you have to choose to target everyone, or the penalty only apply to those people effected via the Psychic Link. Otherwise, the "ability to effect everyone within the link" becomes a major penalty, instead, as even hitting one person would eat a not insignificant penalty.

[The White Rat]

What about giving all members of the link the same defensive bonus of the person with the highest defense. If three people are in the link: person one has Invul: mental w/ three dots, person two, only has 6 willpower, and the third has psychic shield 2, everyone in the link would get the same defensive bonus as the Nova with the Invulnerability. While they are all subject to attack, they can also share their defenses. Sort of like telling your party members that they are seeing an illusion...they get to make a saving throw.

Just my three cents.

[Josh Brickman]

OK, yet another problem.

If we say the effect is standard across the link, then we also have the issue of other people joining the link and being effected.

This is actually worse in a lot of ways, telepathy with Channelling doesn't allow mental combat across the link.

What should happen is new people can join the link and if the Mind Controller wants to attack them, then that's what he has to do, make another attack roll and go after them. Allowing people to be effected by mental powers without giving them their own willpower roll is just wrong.