Mental Evocations solutions?

[Taran]

My group over on PbP are having a discussion around mental combat.  I've read all the different PoV where it's OP and stuff, but I want to find a solution to make it balanced.  Maybe people have their own solutions they can share. Here's some of things I've thought of and any comments criticism is welcome:

1.  You must have an aspect that revolves around using spirit as an attack form.
Like Molly, she all about subtle, mental stuff.  You'd have to invoke that aspect to initiate mental combat with someone.

2. Sponsored magic which gives you access to this form of evocations

3. Discover an opponents aspect to tag to initiate mental combat.  Kind of like what you do do initiate a grapple.

4. Have a separate conflict that runs paralell to a physical one.  The attacking caster would dodge all physical attacks at mediocre because (s)he's unaware of his physical surroundings

5.  You must open your Sight.
Evocation requires line of sight and you can't target someone mind without seeing it.  Opening the sight allows you to "see" the mind and initiate mental evocations.  The attacking caster would have to defend against the sight every exchange (which might be fairly easy against mortal - but makes mental conflicts with things like Outsiders and creatures of the Nevernever much more dangerous).  This also makes doing physical attacks harder because the power of the Sight acts as a block.

You can defend against mental combat (assuming you have the ability to do so) without opening the Sight, but if you want to fight back, you'd have to open the Sight.


I like #5 the best.  It seems a very elegant way of doing it and offers some risk to "evil" casters doing mental magic as well as risk for PC's who want to One-shot non-human creatures.

Your thoughts on any or all these?

[Haru]

I like 4 the best, though I would have that conflict resolve quicker than a physical one. At the speed of thought, if you will. Though I would couple that with 1, with 2 being a subset of that. And I would require you to initiate it like a grapple, that could be using a character aspect or a spell aspect you created for that effect.

The danger for the caster is there well and good, because if he finds himself fighting someone who is stronger, he will find himself drooling on the floor.

[Taran]

My only problem with 4 is that a mental combat lasting multiple exchanges, while in a physical combat, can slow down the overall conflict.  Everyone has to wait until the mental conflict resolves.  Probably, it is less of an issue in PbP.

My experience with casters using Mental combat, is to one-shot things like trolls who aren't going to be much of a challenge.  So the risk of being taken out mentally are very slim.  It's also another reason that I'd have the mental combat go simultaneously as the physical one.  Yes, you can obliterate that troll in a round or two, but he'll have at least at least a couple of shots of ripping you in half while you dodge at mediocre.

[Haru]

Well, you can always declare something like a troll immune to a mortal caster. Remember what Bob says about soulgazing a shide somewhere as a sidenote in Your Story. The same has to apply here, I imagine. While the troll might not be a genius, he will have a pretty good advantage, just because his brain is so alien to humans.

But I know what you mean with the extra conflict. But it's kind of the same, as if a thief sneaks in to open the doors for the rest, you'll have an extra scene here and there, so I'm not too worried about that.

I don't think you are going to do much physical fighting, once someone is inside your noggin. At least if Harry against Corpsetaker is any indication. A straight up grapple perhaps? With discipline instead of might, once you set up the initiating aspect? Or even presence? That I could see working in a physical conflict, though it is still pretty powerful. On the other hand, it increases the value of social characters in a fight. Someone with good mental capacities, a good self image and such will be less likely to be incapacitated and can therefore help the rest of the group out.

[Quantus]

Im not sure about the game balance of it, but with the exception of the Soulgaze battle at the end of GS, the Sight never seemed to be necessary for any of the mental combat we've seen. 

[Taran]

Well, you can always declare something like a troll immune to a mortal caster. Remember what Bob says about soulgazing a shide somewhere as a sidenote in Your Story. The same has to apply here, I imagine. While the troll might not be a genius, he will have a pretty good advantage, just because his brain is so alien to humans.

How do you model an alien brain?  How is it going to benefit the Troll, mechanically?  Is it simply an aspect he can tag, or is there something more...like a threshold to bypass?

This is why I like using the Sight.  It kind of goes along the lines of what Bob said.  Looking at a creature like that with the Sight is gonna hurt, psychically.  It also makes physical combat more difficult.

I don't think you are going to do much physical fighting, once someone is inside your noggin. At least if Harry against Corpsetaker is any indication.

I think the fight with Harry and Corpstaker was it's own conflict.  There wasn't really any physical fighting going on at the same time.  I think Corpstaker attacked harry and harry put up a spirit block (his "mental wall").  Harry never tried attacking back...he just defended himself.  I don't think he's really capable of mental evocations - he lacks the training.  Corpstaker even says so.  There's some kind of "trick" or knowledge about Mental combat that he lacks.  Anyways, it doesn't really indicate either way that mental combat happens in a different time-frame.  There was lots of chatter...you could argue that it took longer than a physical fight.

A straight up grapple perhaps? With discipline instead of might, once you set up the initiating aspect? Or even presence? That I could see working in a physical conflict, though it is still pretty powerful. On the other hand, it increases the value of social characters in a fight. Someone with good mental capacities, a good self image and such will be less likely to be incapacitated and can therefore help the rest of the group out.

Yeah...that gets into a huge list of extra house-rules.  While I like the premise, it's more complicated than I'd like.  But while we're talking about it, you'd use evocation to set up the maneuver.  From then on it'd be a pure skill vs skill.  The grapple would act as a block against all actions, but only a successful counter (discipline or presense - whatever appropriate skill) would break the grapple.  The wizards options for damage would be the supplemental.  It doesn't really allow for big evocation attacks...just lots of maneuvers.  Which he could eventually tag for a final spirit attack, I suppose.  It also doesn't allow for the defender to become the attacker, since a grapple is always one-way.

It's good - but I don't know if I'd use it.

@Quantus:  not a soul-gaze.  I'm talking using the Sight.
All mental combat has been from Harry's perspective and he doesn't really have the training to do mental attacks...so it'd be hard to say that you don't need the Sight.

[Quantus]

@Quantus:  not a soul-gaze.  I'm talking using the Sight.
All mental combat has been from Harry's perspective and he doesn't really have the training to do mental attacks...so it'd be hard to say that you don't need the Sight.

Then I am a little confused by how this would work. How do you define the difference between "defending yourself" and "fighting back."  Molly used a Sougaze (which to my mind is just another expression of the Sight) to pull CT into that prolonged mental combat on her home turf, but Harry did not need to use Sight when she was probing his mind back in DB.   And as near as I can tell Molly never used her sight in all her various mental invasions, in fact she probably hadnt developed it until a ways into her apprenticeship.     

If I had a strong Link and wanted to initiate Mental Combat via Thaumaturgy, would I need to open my Sight since Line of Sight to the Mind would no longer be an issue?

There is also the question of how it would work from the POV of a character capable of mental attacks that is not a wizard.

[Taran]

We're not talking Thaumaturgy.  You need a link for that already.

We're talking evocation. 

Defending yourself is not actively trying to cause stress.  It's putting up blocks and using discipline to "dodge" damage.  Attacking is trying to cause stress etc...  Seems pretty straight forward, although, it may not be.

Harry didn't need to use the sight because he wasn't the one probing.  Molly would be the one on the "offensive" so to speak.

Your're right that The Sight doesn't work for sorcerers and such who don't get that power.  Mechanically, I feel it's the smoothest.  It offers enough draw-backs but allows full-on evocations.

As far as creature and such like WCV's etc.. they can just target a person.  People are food.  I'm talking mortals with magic.  Strictly evocation.

[Dr.FunLove]

Evocations work on line-of-sight whether it's a fireball or a mental drill boring into someone's psyche. Line-of-sight requirement should be enough there, right?

[Taran]

well, that's what the rules say, but it leads to wizards going,

"oh look at the Mighty beast with Physical immunity!  I psychic blast it and kill it dead."

There's No challenge.  You can pretty much bypass any physical challenge this way.  I'm looking for an alternative to make it more balanced.  Getting into a mental conflict with an Outsider should be a very scary thing to do.  Likewise with a BCV or other nasty, alien creature.  As it stands you can just blast them.

[Dr.FunLove]

Up the challenge or come at the wizard from a different angle? Wizards are tough and flexible but they're not unstoppable.

[Taran]

Up the challenge or come at the wizard from a different angle? Wizards are tough and flexible but they're not unstoppable.

I understand what you're saying, but it's not the question I'm asking.  There are people on this board - Sanctaphrax being one of them...and myself, actually - who are adamantly against evocation-style mental attacks.  Starting a discussion about whether or not it's balanced is going to, very quickly, derail this whole thread.

I'm looking for alternate ways of doing mental evocation that tone down the power a wizard can dish out or put the wizard at some disadvantage that makes them have to consider carefully before they try this kind of attack.  Or at least make it less automatic.  The invoking of aspects would do that, for instance.

[Haru]

Hmm, one thing that hasn't been mentioned is the... I think it's the 4th law of magic.

Since the laws of magic are about keeping a wizards power over his fellow human beings in check, breaking the rules would logically be somewhat more powerful. I know that doesn't matter with non-humans, but it might be a good way to look at it as a whole.
If you go that route, you are kind of instantly one level above everything, so they don't really concern you as opponents anymore. Now you should be concerned with people and things trying to take you down for what you did and/or are doing.
[This is not meant to start a law debate, I just wanted to point out that in a case like this, the laws should be considered, however you play them out in your game]

How do you model an alien brain?  How is it going to benefit the Troll, mechanically?  Is it simply an aspect he can tag, or is there something more...like a threshold to bypass?

I think a threshold would be a good way to model it. Like an automatic armor:X or something like it. Or giving him very high skills, if the mental battle takes place in his mind. It should feel a bit like doing brain surgery on a nuclear rocket, on a boat, in a storm, with your eyes tied behind your back, while trying to smell the color 9. Most times, I would not even let you do it, you don't even have an idea of where to apply your mental force. Even on a tiny and insignificant fae like Toot.
Characters like Molly might be an exception, since she is not only very good at that, but she had training from a shide as well.

[Sanctaphrax]

My personal rule would be that you can only do mental attacks with thaumaturgy. People who do them fast are using evothaum.

If you don't like that, I suggest reducing the weapon rating of all mental evocations to 0. Drag mental evocation down to the level of mental evothaum.

People will still one-shot Sue, but that's unavoidable given Sue's stats as they stand.

If you want to use something from your list, I think #5 sounds the most interesting.

Hmm, one thing that hasn't been mentioned is the... I think it's the 4th law of magic.

Using the Laws to fix balance issues is and has always been a terrible idea.

I think a threshold would be a good way to model it. Like an automatic armor:X or something like it.

You can't do that. You can't get mechanical bonuses from your concept.

If you want the effects of Powers, you have to buy Powers.

Up the challenge or come at the wizard from a different angle? Wizards are tough and flexible but they're not unstoppable.

This is a profoundly unhelpful post.

It doesn't address the topic of the thread at all, it denies the existence of a real issue, and it demonstrates a very poor understanding of the mechanics behind the problem.

So please stop with this line of discussion.

[Haru]

Using the Laws to fix balance issues is and has always been a terrible idea.

Was not meant to fix the balance issue. Just thought it would generally be something worth thinking about when doing this sort of thing.

You can't do that. You can't get mechanical bonuses from your concept.

I look at it less as a mechanical benefit than a home turf advantage. If you want to get into a fist fight with a shark, you better not do it in the middle of the ocean.