Mental and Social Armour

[Tedronai]

Magnneto's helmet should be an IoP.

Possibly simply an 'enchanted item'.

[Judanas]

Possibly simply an 'enchanted item'.

The fact they overlap so little is a little irksome. On the topic of mental armour, would it be acceptable to have an IoP give refinement, the refinement being the item itself? Likely trading 'Not swappable' with 'Works on something besides lore' for the enchanted item effect? Otherwise, IoPs can't really give mental armour, while Enchanted Can.

[Sanctaphrax]

The fact they overlap so little is a little irksome.

Why? I've never had a problem with it...

On the topic of mental armour, would it be acceptable to have an IoP give refinement, the refinement being the item itself?

Maybe. It opens the door to some rather munchkinny stuff, but it can work.

Likely trading 'Not swappable' with 'Works on something besides lore' for the enchanted item effect?

I'm sorry, I don't understand this.

Otherwise, IoPs can't really give mental armour, while Enchanted Can.

IoPs can give mental armour if you allow mental Toughness powers. Enchanted Items can give mental armour if you allow mental armour spells. Not so different, really. (Are mental armour spells canon? I'm not sure.)

[ways and means]

Enchanted Items can do anything Thaumaturgy can, as Thaumaturgy can cause mental stress through psychomancy it makes sense it can also defend against such intrusions (you could look at dreamless sleep as a mental block) so I assume mental blocks are canon and with magic any block can also be Armour.

[zenten]

Enchanted Items can do anything Thaumaturgy can, as Thaumaturgy can cause mental stress through psychomancy it makes sense it can also defend against such intrusions (you could look at dreamless sleep as a mental block) so I assume mental blocks are canon and with magic any block can also be Armour.

I'd say they're less canon than "a reasonable extrapolation of the rules".

Really, you can't use Thaumaturgy properly if you just look at what's "canon".

[Becq]

I don't see any terrible imbalance in cut-n-pasting the Toughness powers, changing 'physical' to 'mental' wherever it appears, then calling the result 'Mental Toughness'.  On the whole, it would be weaker than physical Toughness (because mental attacks are less common than physical ones), but when you needed it, it would be nice to have.  Note that I would rule that neither the armor nor the extra stress boxes granted could be used to aid in spellcasting, as doing so would be imbalancing (YMMV, but note the sidebar on YS250).

As an alternative to this you could just have a stunt/power that granted +X to Discipline when used to resist a mental attack, which is a bit better than having the same amount of armor.

[KOFFEYKID]

Incite Emotion is an excellent weapon, but I don't think it lets you enslave people after taking them out. That's what Domination is for.

Incite Emotion can only do that if you use it repeatedly over a long period of time, I think.

PS: @alisbin: That sounds horrifically unbalanced. Does that mean that the guy with Superb Resources and a stunt can get physical armour 7 or mental/social armour 6? Because physical armour 7 is roughly comparable to Mythic Toughness.

Id say that with proper application of consequences you can indeed enslave somebody, at least to an extent, though Addictive Saliva is better at it.

[ways and means]

I would Imagine that if you had something on the lines of incite obedience or loyalty then free mook would be a reasonable taken out consequence and you could certainly use the consequences to compel the target to do what you want.

[Sanctaphrax]

Mental Toughness would probably be greatly underpowered, I think. Mental attacks are rare things. So I see no reason not to allow it.

As for Incite Emotion: you can't actually control what consequences your target takes. If their player decides to have them go crazy due to psychic strain instead of taking the consequences you want them to, you're out of luck.

The question is what you can do with a taken out result. In my view, a take-out with Incite Emotion is mostly a short-term thing. In order to make it into long-term enslavement, you need to use it over and over again.

[ways and means]

Well unless we are dealing with non consequence mooks to take someone out you must already of caused permanent harm on par with a dismemberment (extreme) this means permanent mental trauma or conditioning. When looking at taken out result considering death is a reasonable taken out result in physical combat, the death of personality or becoming a drone seems like appropriate taken out results of mental conflict.

[Sanctaphrax]

What?

No.

Being taken out does not necessarily require you to inflict an extreme consequence first. If it did, every single fistfight would involve the loser getting maimed.

Sometimes people allow themselves to be taken out because it's not worth taking consequences.

What's appropriate in a take-out result depends on how the take-out is inflicted. You can't decapitate a guy barehanded unless you have a Strength power. Same principle here.

If Incite Emotion can enslave, then what's the point of Domination?

[wyvern]

And keep in mind, the one book example of someone "using incite emotion to enslave a target" is papa Raith - who is certainly old and powerful enough to have purchased the Domination power as an upgrade to his incite emotion.

[ways and means]

If Incite Emotion can enslave, then what's the point of Domination?

To create Renfields who have different from normal thralls, Lord Raith according to Our World dosen't have domination neither do any of  Fae in the books and yet they all make there own thralls.

[wyvern]

OW isn't a good reference for that sort of fine detail.  It's great to get an idea of "how might I stat X", but it's certainly not canon; consider, for example, the number of NPCs that are missing lawbreaker powers that they ought to have.  Or the widely-accepted understanding that the senior council members are understatted.  Etc.

However, see also OW83, the section on Fine Thralls.  Which quite nicely supports Sanctaphrax's position, here.

[ways and means]

Ah your right, which only goes to prove how awesome psychomancy is.