Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 7107645" data-attributes="member: 63">So the starting idea is that there are different ways to resist mental effects - stubbornness, insight, being quick-witted, being crazy, luring the attacker into a mental trap of your own, etc.I feel like to fully do this justice, I'd want a) some quality grappling rules for real-world combat, and b) a mental variant of grappling, but both would need to be fast to resolve. You'd want to be able to make your mindscape as mechanically complex as your character's physical capabilities, and have the rules reward being flexible and having a variety of tools for different situations. (I've never been the fan of "Sure, you have a longsword and never need to switch to anything else." But I also want to avoid, "Oh, you don't have that one weapon you put all your feats into? Well, you suck and will never hit now.")A normal person who's never been exposed to mental/spiritual magical effects basically has no mental image of themselves; they're just an amorphous sphere in a mindscape, easy to influence. Once you've had some exposure, though, you become aware that you exist on a metaphysical plane as well, and you can start to craft your self-image there. Most people just have a self-image that's the same as their real body (e.g., The Matrix's "residual mind image"), but if you devote some character resources you mighta) have a different form (or several different forms available)b) have unique tools therec) be able to influence others there ("I know you're not real, so I'm just going to fling you like a ragdoll")d) have minions in the mind (like the bodyguards in Cillian Murphy's dreams in Inception)e) make an entire mindscape landscape of your own that you can force people intoMaybe there'd be some mechanic for where you focus your defenses for a turn; it defaults to melee AC, but maybe if you think about it you could trade your DEX bonus to AC for an INT bonus to some sort of mental defense stat.If someone tries to charm you, that might play out as you making your initial Wisdom save, and success or failure determines whether you're affected right away, but each round thereafter the victim can try to do stuff in his mind to weasel free, and the attacker might keep concentrating on the spell to try to take control. Maybe there'd be a threshold like in wrestling -- if you have the upper hand for three rounds, that resolves that spell. Either you are fully charmed for the duration, or you break free and they need to cast a new spell to try to get you again. The mental wrestling would need to be resolved fast, though, so it doesn't get in the way of the physical stakes.WAAAAY back in 2003, Monte Cook's Malhavoc Press released a book called Mindscapes, that had the relatively simple idea that when two psychic characters met, you'd roll a d6 to determine what sort of 'mental terrain' would manifest in their shared mindscape, and each type of terrain would favor a different ability score (and each ability score was keyed to different psionic powers). I might go for something like that, but with a teensy bit more crunch. I don't need a battle map for something that is literally Theater of the Mind, but maybe escaping a charm spell requires you to navigate a labyrinth within 3 rounds, or avoiding having your soul sucked out is a metaphysical brawl with black tentacles trying to drag you toward a pit.So yeah, the whole thing would basically be a ground-up reworking of the magic system. Hell, maybe the whole game system, though I do mostly like the ease of resolving things in 5e, the limited modifiers to d20 rolls, and how stuff like hit dice healing works.</blockquote>

Verification