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Versatility of TK

Started by genericfantasyname · July 22, 2009

24 surviving posts. Original order and wording are retained; deleted and spam-marked entries are excluded.

So, telekinesis enters the entire object and manipulates everything connected to it simultaneously, right? Then, would multiple object TK be isolating parts of the object while still being unable to cause the object to break or anything? If I have all that right, could you use multiple object TK to grab each of a person's limbs and hold them out straight, so as to make them unable to move? Would that entail an opposed will check, or what...?

I was thinking it would be neat to incapacitate a foe simply by stopping all of the movement in their limbs, and multiple object makes the most sense for that, out of what I know.

I think what you're looking for is called Marionette TK. Don't know much about it, but what else could a skill called "Marionette TK" possibly be?

(Doing Therapy)

Brock, if you wanted to immobilize ALL of someone's limbs, wouldn't any version of TK do that?

John's made the right call on Marionette. It manipulates multiple connected parts of a single object, or a single flexible object from multiple points, so it's the simplest psionic TK skill that allows you control a person like a puppet. Multiple object TK can also do that, but its primary purpose is the simultaneous manipulation of multiple, separate objects, as for example shuffling a deck of playing cards. (Which, by the way, Marionette cannot do.)

O'Sevens - I don't think so. Heavy object TK would allow you to move the entire person or to prevent him from changing location, but only as an entire person; that is, since you have no control over his shape, you can't stop him from swinging his sword, only from flying away or dropping to the floor or dodging behind the corner.

I can elaborate on any of this if necessary.

It's easier to move the moon than it is to lift a living organism.

(Doing Therapy)

Wodium - I follow. You can pin him in place, but he can still squirm, flail about, and so forth, just not leave that 'square', as it were.

Right--and he can pit his resistance against your hold and keep you from holding him (because you can do that against an opponent trying to hold you). It constitutes an attack, and he gets a defense.

--M. J. Young

This is why I like using TK Pulse. Because being flicked overboard by my mental flicking digits just adds insult to injury. Poke. Ow. Poke. Ow. POKE. splash. ... ... "OW!"

So if TK is like moving things by clicking and dragging, is the TK pulse just clicking?

/idle post

Yes if you have Parkinsons?

That was unnecessary....

--M. J. Young

I shouldn't laugh but god help me if it wasn't funny, MJ.

Hey, I'm just glad someone got it. It would have been worse if no one laughed.

--M. J. Young

heh. So, if I use Marionette TK to hold someone still, and succeed on all the opposed rolls and such, and continue succeeding at them, then that enemy is effectively out of the picture. However, is marionette TK a 'high concentration' skill, like Heavy object is compared to simple? Could you, say, hold them still and continue fighting their allies? or would you need some kind of concentration check (probably Willpower)?

Frankly, why worry about that at all? Just give everyone lead poisoning. Problem solved.

Sometimes, you really do only want them immobilized and not dead, John. Perhaps this one has information, but all his friends are expendable - or perhaps he's an ally, being mind controlled, and you don't have time to get him an exorcist while you're fighting off the attacking demons.

Point made Scott. I just know that my character is a lot more violent than he used to be, and far more violent than I probably ever will be.

It's like the difference between how captains Kirk and Picard would handle the same situation.

Picard: "Let's talk about this, and find a reasonable, rational solution."
Kirk: "Phasers on maximum."

I don't think I'd make it a high concentration skill; I do think that if you tried to use the same skill or another telekinetic skill against a second opponent I would penalize the second. It would not interfere with the use of other skills. That's a judgment call, though. For example, I usually let people raise force shields and use force weapons without penalty, but I consider the force weapon a high concentration skill if they try to do something else also.

--M. J. Young

I don't think I'd make it a high concentration skill; I do think that if you tried to use the same skill or another telekinetic skill against a second opponent I would penalize the second. It would not interfere with the use of other skills. That's a judgment call, though. For example, I usually let people raise force shields and use force weapons without penalty, but I consider the force weapon a high concentration skill if they try to do something else also.

--M. J. Young`

Thanks. I'll post more questions as they come to me; but I feel as though I have a good grasp of telekinesis now.

Force weapons? Do you mean a a physical manifestation of TK in the shape of a weapon, or...?

Well, yes and no.

Multiverser makes a distinction that force generatives are distinct from telekinesis, but are in the broader family of telekinetic skills. Thus technically creating a force wall or a force object is a telekinetic skill, but at the same time it is not in the category of "telekinetic" skills but in a more difficult category of "force generative" skills. It's at a higher bias level.

But yes, that would be the sort of force weapon to which I refer.

--M. J. Young

Let me add a brief corollary to what MJ just said, because this confused the living Hell out of me for months when I first started playing here.
MJ's definition of "force" generative is not the Physics 101 definition of "force" as in "energy being used to do work." Obviously ALL telekinesis generates that kind of force - if it didn't it wouldn't do anything.
What he's talking about is generating a condensed object-like manifestation of telekinetic energy, along the lines of a Bigby's Crushing Hand, the Invisible Woman's force-fields, Rand al'Thor's flame blade, that kind of thing.

This seems obvious in retrospect, and maybe other people won't be as confused as I was, but, just putting that out there.

Thanks O'sevens, but I already knew that. My question was whether he meant a force generative in the shape of a weapon, or picking up a weapon that was already there and fighting with it from a distance.

I figured you might.