Item of Power conferring precog power

[Necronomitron]

I have a player who has chosen the Emissary of Power template.  The power being the Roman Emperor Aurelian who had ended the Crisis of the Third Century and was posthumously deified by the Imperial Cult.  He's a student of the Roman Empire, so I've deferred to his knowledge and done some additional research in hopes of getting a clearer picture of the man so that I get an idea of his agendas as a god.

The PC's trouble aspect is a reflection of one of Aurelian's (justified) flaws, paranoia.  Evidently those conspiracies to assassinate him were true after all.  To that end my player wants the item to be a kind of early warning system for danger, but he doesn't want it to be reliable.  Basically, he wants the Item to be just as paranoid as Aurelian was, jumping at shadows and sensing danger even when there isn't any.  I'm not certain how I should model this in game mechanics.  My first thought is to make the power 0 refresh and allow the PC to make predictions according to the prediction rules on page 324YS, but secretly only giving the prediction a certain percentage chance of being true.  Then revealing the truth of whether or not the prediction was real the first time the prediction aspect is invoked or compelled.

While I think it's a workable solution it just doesn't strike me as very Dresdeny.  Any thoughts on fixing my idea or any flat out better ideas?

[UmbraLux]

Here's a different version of Precognition: 

Precognition [-1]
Description: Some say time is a tree with many branches which grow in number exponentially as they get farther ahead in time but narrow to a single trunk where potential futures meet the present and become the past. You are one of the few who can see those branches, however blurred, as potential paths ahead.
Skills Affected: Alertness, Athletics, others.
Effects:
-    Danger Sense. You gain a +1 to Athletics when dodging.
-    Guiding Fate. You can spend a fate point to read the possible futures in front of you. This allows you to use Alertness in place of any skill for a single roll.

Probably not paranoid enough for what you're looking for.

Something a bit more paranoid might look like this:

Shadow Sense [-0]
Description:  Sense movement and intent in the shadows.
Skills Affected:  Alertness, Athletics, others.
Effects:
-    Always on Guard.  You gain +2 to Athletics when defending against surprise attacks.
-    Hair Trigger.  When you roll +1 or less on an Alertness check, you sense an attack and strike out at the nearest movement or shadow.  This costs your next action whether you hit enemy, ally, or empty shadow.

[wyvern]

Early warning system: That sounds like just a stunt that adds to alertness vs. ambushes, possibly combined with a variation on Cassandra's Tears that only detects enemies / bad things / etc.

For the unreliability, just use compels on the PCs trouble aspect when appropriate.

[zenten]

Give a -0 power that sometimes gives correct predictions, and sometimes gives false ones.  The PC is compelled to act on them, which can be bought off, but it has to be bought off before the player knows if it's true or not.

[Dravokian]

Here is the Item I'd use:

RING OF AURELIAN [-0]
Description: A Small Gold Ring worn by Aurelian Himself
Musts: You must have an aspect related to your possession of this item.
Skills Affected: Social Skills
Effects:
[-0] Purpose: This ring was crafted to inform its bearer of threats to his or her wellbeing. It will only work for a paranoid person.
[+1] One-Time Discount: A small ring like this one is easily concealed.
[-0] Cassandra’s Tears: The bearer of this ring has a limited ability to see the future and predict the shape of things to come.
[-1] Worse Case Senerio: The predictions of this ring are always of a life threatining situation in the bearers near future. True or Not it is always the worse possible outcome that could happen.

[Tedronai]

Discounts cannot reduce the total cost to 0.
Additionally, 'Worse Case Senario' definitely seems like a 0-cost modification, to me.

[Dravokian]

cant have a + outcome either and Cassandra’s Tears is a 0 refresh power... so even if you have the worse case as a 0 modify then your still looking at a 0 cost item... if you want to use a item of power you could add more till you get to a - refresh cost, play with it a a 0 cost or just take Cassandra’s Tears and set the aspect tied to it as something along the lines of seeing danger in the future.

[ARedthorn]

Sure you can, you just need to buff the ring up a bit. The -1 you have on it is weak tea anyway... modifying Cassandra's Tears so that it only predicts near-future life-threatening events that may or may not happen is a debuff of Cassandra's Tears, not an improvement.

I could see Aurelian granting his emissary a ring that actually provided some sort of protective abilities... the kind, you know, that he wished he'd had when he was alive. Instead of Cass's Tears, how about Solipsistic Well-being from Scion? Toughness with a catch such that the toughness only works against anything you DIDN'T see coming, and a side-note that only the most paranoid of individuals seek such protection- and so ultimately benefit from it far less than a gentler, more oblivious soul. "Ignorance is bliss, but paranoia is smarter."

[Necronomitron]

I appreciate all the help so far!  We aren't married to the -0 Refresh on the Item, btw.  I just came to that number by referencing Cassandra's Tears, seeing that it conferred a similar bonus and having it's own drawback.  It seemed similar enough in function that I made the assumption that a similar refresh cost was justified.

[ARedthorn]

The reason is that Cass's Tears is almost a non-power... and by that, I don't mean a Stunt. I mean, it's a player-owned, GM-controlled plot device, not a power.
If you want your player to have something like that, then great. [-0] is fair for that, and retool it however you feel... but it hardly needs to be part of an item at that point, and definitely not worth the debate I see coming... ("But it's a free power!" -> "But because you put it in an IoP, it costs more! RAWr!" -> "But if it's in an IoP, I can lose it, etc!" -> "Yes, and that loss of utility and function will cost you more... cause... cause it does!" -> "If anything, it should be worth less! Sort of!")

For what you're describing, I'd go with a Cass's Tears reflavor to the effect of replacing the "and no one ever believes me" clause with a "worse, I always seem to be right." Pessimistic, mystically self-fulfilling prophecies.

If you want anything past that- anything that affects stats, or game-play in the moment, rather than in the plot... you have some good recommendations for powers or stunts... just make sure that the grand total cost of your IoP is 1 or better... because at that point, it's actually useful and should be paid for, per IoP minimums... come up with at least [-2] worth of powers and/or stunts you like, tack them and the Cass's Tears reflavor onto your IoP (with +1 refund if it's discreet), and not only do you have a ring that makes you paranoid and tragically right... it also prepares you in some way for that worst-case-scenario you saw coming (or didn't).