Breaking free of Mind Control (pulp vs psi)

[TorgHacker]

Personally, if the victim is an unimportant nameless combatant, I'd probably ignore the resistance rolls unless the psi is doing something tricky or complex, and consider them effectively defeated.

One of the things that we stress is that you don't have to roll for everything.

Rolling is conditional on: "If there’s a chance the action might fail or succeed in an interesting way". Making repeated rolls for some unimportant nameless person isn't interesting.

[pkitty]

Personally, if the victim is an unimportant nameless combatant, I'd probably ignore the resistance rolls unless the psi is doing something tricky or complex, and consider them effectively defeated.

One of the things that we stress is that you don't have to roll for everything.

Rolling is conditional on: "If there’s a chance the action might fail or succeed in an interesting way". Making repeated rolls for some unimportant nameless person isn't interesting.

And that's basically what I really meant by "the GM will decide what that means" -- as GM, I'm going to roll as often as feels right for the situation, not necessarily strictly every 10 seconds.

(Though to be honest I think I'm actually going to just have "breaking free" follow the pulp power rule for both. That feels more right, is more fair for a psi power with "scene" duration, and helps offset how the Nile Empire is the power-gamer cosm.)

[pkitty]

It's only 1/3 of a perk if you take it in your initial allotment, after that it's a full perk.

True. I'll edit the summary to be more accurate.

EDIT: Actually, I just removed it from the summary. It's obvious how you buy them, but the players wanted to know what the difference would be in play.

[pkitty]

Psi requires concentration. Pulp does not. So LoS+Concentration rules can dispel Psi MC but not Pulp.

if going back into the building breaks line-of-sight and concentration hold.

I don't believe this is accurate. Psi powers only require concentration if their duration is explicitly Concentration, and as covered by the summary I posted that isn't the case with Mind Control. So there's no need to maintain LOS, because while there have been a few rulings about LOS here, I don't recall it being that you have to have LOS every time the subject makes a resistance roll. (If I'm wrong, link me please so I can update my notes.

[vaminion]

Psi powers only require concentration if their duration is explicitly Concentration, and as covered by the summary I posted that isn't the case with Mind Control.

Psi Mind Control's duration is listed as Concentration in the PDF I have.

I don't recall it being that you have to have LOS every time the subject makes a resistance roll.

As written no, you don't need to maintain LoS for that. There's an argument that it should probably work that way but that's not what I was talking about. If a psi loses LoS to their mind control target and is forced to make a concentration check for any reason Mind Control automatically ends. This is not the case with pulp Mind Control.

[Atama]

Psi powers only require concentration if their duration is explicitly Concentration, and as covered by the summary I posted that isn't the case with Mind Control.

Psi Mind Control's duration is listed as Concentration in the PDF I have.

It also states during the description of the power, “To break free, the target tests willpower or Mind against the psionicist’s telepathy skill. If successful, the psi’s Concentration is broken and the power ends.” So that’s not a one-time typo.

[vaminion]

It also states during the description of the power, “To break free, the target tests willpower or Mind against the psionicist’s telepathy skill. If successful, the psi’s Concentration is broken and the power ends.” So that’s not a one-time typo.

Guh. I'm sure the intent is "The Psi's concentration on just this power ends" but that sucker reads like it breaks concentration on everything the Psi is maintaining at the time.

[TorgHacker]

It also states during the description of the power, “To break free, the target tests willpower or Mind against the psionicist’s telepathy skill. If successful, the psi’s Concentration is broken and the power ends.” So that’s not a one-time typo.

Guh. I'm sure the intent is "The Psi's concentration on just this power ends" but that sucker reads like it breaks concentration on everything the Psi is maintaining at the time.

Yeah, it's just that one.

[pkitty]

Huh, I have no idea what I was looking at when I wrote One Scene instead of Concentration. Man . . . that does suck for it. At least the whole "free resistance checks" things don't interact badly with that, just Concentration checks.

[Staffan]

And that's basically what I really meant by "the GM will decide what that means" -- as GM, I'm going to roll as often as feels right for the situation, not necessarily strictly every 10 seconds.

As a streamlining option, you might consider rolling every minute with a +4 bonus. One minute is six rounds, and you could make a case that that's similar to six people trying to break free using the Combined Actions Chart.