Graham
Member
I was wondering; is there any advantage to using simple telekinesis verses heavy object telekinesis?
For example, I have a 1@10 SAL in Heavy Object TK, but something lower in Simple Object TK. Is there a situation in which I would decide that using Simple Object TK is better than Heavy TK (assuming that Heavy TK is not curved out of the bias)?
JohnA1nut
Member
To my knowledge, they all work pretty much the same. In my first world, I was trying to pick something up with 1@1 heavy object TK, and repeatedly failed. I then tried multiple object TK (which I was much better at) to pick it up. (the thing was composed of 7 pieces, all taped together.) MJ said that it worked fine. I was picking the 7 pieces up together, but separately.
As your character stands, no, there's no reason for you to use simple TK over heavy if both are available to you. I imagine you probably view heavy TK as something of an "upgrade," and since you're better at it, you'll generally get better results with it. Wander wasn't too terribly focused on the philosophy of telekinetics use, so you've been free to develop your own opinions on simple TK's relative utility.
It may be, however, that differences emerge either at higher skill levels or for specialized applications. I would be much more accepting, for example, of a telekinetic weapon skill incorporated into a martial arts style (functioning as an extension of your body) if that skill were based on simple TK rather than heavy, on the principle that simple TK is more closely analogous to the way you would expect to manipulate an object with your hands.
johnosevens
Member
A1Nut +1. I'm like 1@3 on TK Pulse and still it's been serving me respectably. Sort of.
Although I really do like telekinetic weapon styles, so I'll be picking up Simple TK as soon as I'm in a world that's not curved out. If MJ ever does Verse me out, that is. Two years and still going strong! :)
Actually, I think a lot of John's skill comes from highly risky new uses of his TK pulse. Just practicing more than the required number of hours doesn't actually help to accelerate your learning unless you're already working on level 2. Also, he had a bit of a head start in that the Architect was teaching him for the first little while, when he was still in Columbus, which accelerated his learning during that period by a factor of four.
The primary advantage of simple TK is that it works in more worlds because it is one point lower on the bias curve. That mostly makes it a stepping stone skill to move up to the heavy TK version, but it also means that sometimes you're going to fall back on it.
Some of my characters use the simple TK as the default skill for all the "little things"--bringing the pen or tool to them from the table, lifting the cup to their waiting hand, the absent-minded sort of telekinesis you see done. I would dare say that heavy TK might be a slightly higher concentration skill--Yoda can throw things around with incredible ease, but he closes his eyes when he wants to lift Luke's ship from the bog. I make the distinction in play that if you're doing a high concentration skill and you try to do something else at the same time, you take a penalty on the second skill, but if you're using a low-concentration skill you don't.
As far as a weapon skill, it's typical to use simple TK for that because you can--but for some weapons you might need heavy (two-handed sword?), high-speed (arrows and bullets), or delicate (chopsticks?) functions to use them the way they need to be used. Also, the use of the weapon as a TK skill wouldn't be distinguished until professional level--a 1@10 TK could be used to weild a sword as an amateur, and when you'd practiced it enough you would move to a 2@1 Telekinetic Sword Use. That, anyway, is probably would I would do.
--M. J. Young
Brock
Member
Is there a multiple object heavy TK? A high speed Heavy TK? A multiple high speed heavy? I'm sure a bunch of other variations I've not thought of....I'm assuming most kinds of TK can be combined with another, right?
(Michael Jackson just had a heart attack! it's on the news)
JohnA1nut
Member
Brock, you don't want to ask what's possible. If you have something you want to try, try it. I found this out the hard way. Asking, you actually limit yourself. It's hard to explain why, but you do. Don't ever ask if a skill is possible, just try it and find out.
(Michael Jackson just had a heart attack! it's on the news)
And in exactly what way does this impact my life? Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahahon are dead too. Whoop dee doo.
Brock
Member
It might impact someone. I know George Carlin's death really impacted me. One of the best comedians ever, gone....
I have noticed you refer to Chris Rock a lot, I really liked his video on how not to get your butt kicked by the cops.
Also, since I have asked about the skills, that means the idea was already in my head, so it's a sure shot I would have tried them in play anyway. Plus, seeing as I have utilized those ideas (high speed, multiple object, combos of the two) in the TK rules for other games before I ever got here, I'm pretty sure my character would too (Shadowrun, D and D) :).
I'd have answered Brock's question, but he's asked that I not do so, so I won't unless someone else is confused about it. It's a specific thing in telekinetics that causes those things to work as they do, but he'll find it soon enough.
--M. J. Young
Actually, O'Sevens, the description for P4@1 TK Pulse does not restrict the target object. That's either a descriptive oversight or a license to pulse whatever sort of TK you like - with the possible exception of forms of TK which affect multiple targets, as the skill description only makes reference to a singular target.
Edit: cross-posted with John II. Leaving my response because he wouldn't have asked if he didn't want an answer, especially given the context in this thread.
As usual, Scott's on the money: you get one nudge of one object, but the object is not very limited. I would put these limits on it, though:
Oh--I don't want to make it appear that a multiple object TK pulse is impossible. The problem is that it would be classed as a multiple object TK, and thus have the higher bias. Thus you can do it, you just can't do it in a flatlined world.
--M. J. Young
johnosevens
Member
That's why I specified "at the same bias level as TK Pulse." I want a flatline-friendly high-speed multi-object TK Pulse that is a nanosecond burst of high-speed multi-object TK. It sounds to me like Wodium would allow that, and I myself would have no problem with it, but MJ would say that is right out.
I would draw the line at multi-object, actually. My instinct is to be conservative about what @1 skills can do, and since the description makes no mention of multiplicity of targets, I take that as an implication that the "target" it does mention must be singular.
I admit to weasel-wording my earlier post a bit ("possible exception") in the expectation that MJ would come along and clear it all up.
Were you to design a high-speed multi-object TK pulse, I would make it P4@7 (the bias for multi-object TK) and award a positive sit-mod for limiting its use to a single pulse.
Were you to design a single-target high-speed TK pulse - well, I would have to ask you to be specific about how a high-speed pulse differs from an ordinary pulse. I would proceed to be highly uncomfortable until I figured out a rational-sounding reason to forbid you from replicating 2nd edition AD&D's Ballistic Attack with P4@1 TK Pulse instead of the vastly more appropriate P4@4 High-Velocity TK.
Edit: and upon presenting you with my excuse, I would allow your character to attempt to learn the skill as a P4@4 High-Velocity TK Pulse, with the same positive sit-mod as the other skill.
johnosevens
Member
So, basically, your answer boils down to the same as MJ's... great...
This makes me wish even more that my first Verse wasn't one where only the Bod bias is high and everything I'd like to experiment with doesn't work... and when I get to a world where they might, I won't be allowed to use them because I thought of everything out-of-game first, while I was in a world where nothing works.
and when I get to a world where they might, I won't be allowed to use them because I thought of everything out-of-game first, while I was in a world where nothing works.
I sympathize with your frustration, but I don't see how this part follows at all.
That's a big "if," though. MJ's even more forgiving than I am about that. It helps that it's your ideas and not what MJ said in answer to a question.
JohnA1nut
Member
What Scott just said is part of how you limit yourself by asking. When you get to a high psionic world, try everything you're thinking of. Who is to say that your character didn't think of it whilst you were in the flatline world? Who is to say that your character didn't have a dream about whilst he was sleeping? Seriously. Just don't ask questions.
I wouldn't say "don't ask questions." It might make your job as a roleplayer slightly more difficult (because you have to decide how your character's actions would differ from your inclinations, given that the character only knows the question and not the answer), but it will make your job as a referee vastly easier. The reason I can answer so many questions now is that for a year or two I thought about the rules on my own and asked questions on the board. Lots of questions.
Harry, I'm not sure why something you thought of while your character was in a world in which it was impossible shouldn't be permitted when your character reaches a world where it is possible. I would assume that many of these ideas come to you because you are in play, and your character would be able to use such things where he is--if only they worked. So he tries them, and they fail (and remember, there is no possibility of botch on a skill that is curved out--you can hurt yourself if you're relying on something to work that won't, but you can't do any harm by the skill itself going wrong). You've many times had things fail, only to try them again later and have them succeed. So if you find yourself in a world where the psionic or magic things you can do are all easier, wouldn't it make sense for you to try all the things you couldn't do before, to see if they are easier now?
I would object if, for example, you went out to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and then said you were going to teach yourself to disapparate the way they do it in the movie (assuming you've never read the book and that my memory is correct that this is the first one to present the idea of disapparation), because at that point you are trying to use an example your character never knew. I would not, however, object to you trying to teleport based on the fact that it's found in Dungeons & Dragons, or even that you think it ought to be possible to do it so you're going to try it, even if you have seen the Harry Potter film, as long as there is good in-game reason for you to attempt such a thing and we're not using as an example a movie you never saw.
I would also raise an eyebrow if you suddenly decided to try something that John Cross did in one of his threads, but as long as there was a valid in-game basis for your character to want to learn such a thing, there's not much good reason to say that he would not have thought of it. After all, I've known of a thousand different teleport skills, magical and psionic, in games, in movies, in fiction, even in the Bible, but when I was in trouble and I needed to get out of there fast, and so started singing "Homeward Bound" as my magical incantation to get me back to my home base in that world, absolutely nothing in my "out of character" knowledge or experience should have prevented me from coming up with that idea at that moment.
--M. J. Young
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