Mind Melters and their danger sense: how to foil it?

[SycophantNagaraja]

I don't need a huge list but what is the first thing that comes to mind that foils a Mind Melter's automatic danger sense thing?

I want to make sure I keep things a little scary for our resident psycher

[13eowulf]

If you mean Sixth Sense, the text refers to Life Threatening danger. In the past I have conquered this by using non-life-threatening attacks to start, such as a volley of flashbang and teargas mini missiles. Once I used custom order Itching Powder mini missiles, but I digress. Once flashed and/or tear gassed, since 6th sense bonuses if triggered only work for the first melee round, then move in to actual combat.
Or dont use surprise, if you are looking to torment the character have the attacker/ambusher radio them in advance to announce the attack, then immediately attack, Sixth Sense only triggers for unexpected attacks, if you tell them, it isnt unexpected.... because they will still be unprepared.
Sleeping gas, tazers, magic net, carpet of adhesion, lots of non-lethal ways to go at someone with sixth sense.

[guardiandashi]

I don't need a huge list but what is the first thing that comes to mind that foils a Mind Melter's automatic danger sense thing?

I want to make sure I keep things a little scary for our resident psycher

Another nasty trick is to Get / distract them with lots of "false positives" basically have the check see if the ability triggers,then wether it triggered or not have a random missile come crashing down and either just miss or the characters is just inside the edge of the blast radius roll d20 to take 1/2 or no damage.

The point is to keep the player guessing why you rolled some dice and got an evil grin (if playing in person)

[eliakon]

Unexpected

Life Threatening Danger

That is underway right now

Those three conditions.

If you are walking into an area where you know that there is danger for example, it is not 'unexpected' and your sixth sense will never go off.
If the danger is not likely to kill you then again, it will not go off.
And until the action is set into motion it will not trigger anything. THIS is important as well. If a player, by their action causes the danger to activate then they put it into motion, and the sixth sense will not go of.
Example. You walk into a bar, order drinks and then insult the grackletooths mother.
The GM is not obligated to rewind and say oh yeah, your sixth sense would have pinged a minute ago.
The danger was not in motion until just a second ago, no sixth sense for you.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Unexpected

Life Threatening Danger

That is underway right now

Those three conditions.
…snip

Since the 6th sense is set off 60 seconds before the the life threatening acting will happen it is a precognition psi ability. Also, it does mention of the possibility that the danger could pass by w/o happening.

So "underway right now" is a GM ruling, even if it is a good 'rule of thumb' for beginner GMs.

[eliakon]

Unexpected

Life Threatening Danger

That is underway right now

Those three conditions.
…snip

Since the 6th sense is set off 60 seconds before the the life threatening acting will happen it is a precognition psi ability. Also, it does mention of the possibility that the danger could pass by w/o happening.

So "underway right now" is a GM ruling, even if it is a good 'rule of thumb' for beginner GMs.

*sigh*
I am not a "beginner GM"
I am simply actually reading the book and paying attention to the words
RUE page 177
"The Sixth Sense is only triggered by an unexpected, life threatening event which is already set into motion and will happen any second."
note the highlighted portions.
It will not go off for just any danger that is about to happen. It is not full precognition. If the danger is not already set into motion then it will not go off.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Then the 1st part of the text and the 2nd part disagrees with each other. Which is the 'why' I said something.

The power needs to be rewritten so it is internally agreeing with itself.

[Axelmania]

get some flying Titan PA, ping them from 4000ft in the air with your lasers, listen to music for 2 minutes, repeat, they are down 30 ISP in 1 hour, more than they can regen, keep going until they run out

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

... how do i deal with it?

Simple:

Range: 90ft.

I shoot him from 900ft. It does him no good.

Thats how i deal with it.

[Axelmania]

The 90ft is for allies in the vicinity which it also protects. A space laser could be sniping you from 100 miles and it would still trigger 6th sense.

[Greepnak]

Then the 1st part of the text and the 2nd part disagrees with each other. Which is the 'why' I said something.

The power needs to be rewritten so it is internally agreeing with itself.

All of Rifts needs this, I sometimes think. Downside of 30 years of books and revisions.

[Killer Cyborg]

The 90ft is for allies in the vicinity which it also protects. A space laser could be sniping you from 100 miles and it would still trigger 6th sense.

That's how most people played the power pre-RUE.
However, RUE clarifies the power (177):
a trap or ambush is within 90'

[Axelmania]

Ambushes and Traps aren't guaranteed threats. You may not have been headed to step in the trap but you will sense it. Any threat in motion regardless of range is triggered.

A new way to harry mind melters has occurred to me: mouse traps!

[Freemage]

Ambushes and Traps aren't guaranteed threats. You may not have been headed to step in the trap but you will sense it. Any threat in motion regardless of range is triggered.

A new way to harry mind melters has occurred to me: mouse traps!

Life-threatening danger.

And I'm just gonna note... as a player, I'd probably be pissed as hell at most of the hardcore/sneaky stuff being posited here, at least as a commonplace thing. (A specific villain using tactics, because he knows the party has a MM and is attempting to counter that, is a different thing.)

My reaction, as a player, would probably be one of three things:

1: If this was the only time this had happened, I'd sit down with the GM and politely suggest we come up with a set of rulings for this power that don't force him to counter-escalate, so that it's reliable without being omnipotent.

2: If it was somewhat more common, I'd probably just say forget it, and abandon the character for one that doesn't provoke GM escalation.

3: If it were frequent, I'd find another game. If I was feeling particularly (and unusually) childish and petulant that day, I might be goaded to sabotage the game on my way out the door.

In particular, I'd be ticked off at the definition of "unexpected" being used here by several folks. Just because I know there are hostiles in the general area, does not mean I "expect" a specific attack, from a particular direction, at a given moment. Sure, if I'm facing a trio of bandits on the open road, then I wouldn't get any benefit from Sixth Sense there--unless they've also got a hidden sniper preparing to pull a Jayne on me.

[eliakon]

Ambushes and Traps aren't guaranteed threats. You may not have been headed to step in the trap but you will sense it. Any threat in motion regardless of range is triggered.

A new way to harry mind melters has occurred to me: mouse traps!

Life-threatening danger.

And I'm just gonna note... as a player, I'd probably be pissed as hell at most of the hardcore/sneaky stuff being posited here, at least as a commonplace thing. (A specific villain using tactics, because he knows the party has a MM and is attempting to counter that, is a different thing.)

My reaction, as a player, would probably be one of three things:

1: If this was the only time this had happened, I'd sit down with the GM and politely suggest we come up with a set of rulings for this power that don't force him to counter-escalate, so that it's reliable without being omnipotent.

2: If it was somewhat more common, I'd probably just say forget it, and abandon the character for one that doesn't provoke GM escalation.

3: If it were frequent, I'd find another game. If I was feeling particularly (and unusually) childish and petulant that day, I might be goaded to sabotage the game on my way out the door.

In particular, I'd be ticked off at the definition of "unexpected" being used here by several folks. Just because I know there are hostiles in the general area, does not mean I "expect" a specific attack, from a particular direction, at a given moment. Sure, if I'm facing a trio of bandits on the open road, then I wouldn't get any benefit from Sixth Sense there--unless they've also got a hidden sniper preparing to pull a Jayne on me.

That is what its SUPPOSED to be for though.
It detects a sniper that is lining you up.
Or a booby trap on the door your going to open up.
It wont detect the grumpy Larmac in the bar that isn't a danger unless you go insult it
It wont detect the CS police man on the corner of the burb. Why? Because you EXPECT to find CS police in the burbs, that's not unexpected. Now the stop and frisk raid that just took off to shake down everyone on the block for identity papers? THAT is not expected, now your danger sense is tingling.

The problem I find with the power is that far to many players take this power and then expect it to be an omnipotent and all knowing shield against all danger that gives them a four round heads up before anyone can ever do anything to their character.
That's not the power at all.
If you want THAT sort of power, you can go play HU and stack up several of the danger sense type powers.

What it is SUPPOSED to be is a power that provides a psychic with a precognitive "heads up" about danger as soon as that danger is set into motion (to prevent the whole 'false alarm' thing like someone targeting you, costing you ISP, and then not shooting) and that you have no reasonable way of knowing is there. Its sort of a way to prevent a psychic from getting killed by stuff that they couldn't otherwise know about.

The power doesn't need to be 'foiled'. No really, it doesn't. Asking that smacks of Red on Blue play not group play and that never ends well. Ever.
What the power needs is to be understood. The players need to not rely on the power as a crutch that will protect them from any and all danger whatsoever and expect that having this one minor psychic power will forever and ever and ever make them immune to any and all danger, surprise, shock, traps, tricks, deceptions, or the like. The GM needs to make sure that when the specific kind of scenarios that the power works on do come up that he DOES give the players advance warning, and that he does make sure that there are some situations where the power is useful since otherwise it is just a wasted slot. Otherwise it creates a whole meta-game issue of tailoring the game to coincidentally only use threats that the party can't defeat easily since unless that GM never uses such dangers at all ever then taking those dangers off the table only when there is a psychic with 6th sense in play is cheating. And if the GM never uses such dangers at all ever anyway then the GM has an obligation to tell the player that 6th sense is useless in this particular game and that therefore the player is advised not to take it.

The easiest way to tell that the power is meant to work only in certain, very narrow situations is to look at how it works!
The power gives you a warning several turns before the actual danger.
THINK ABOUT THIS PEOPLE.
No, seriously think about that.
If this power was meant to apply to all danger how would that play out in game?
Every time there was danger you would have to stop the game. Rewind time, set off the power and then expect everyone to play the last minute of game time with only the psychic knowing the difference. And expect that no one, would ever in any way use any of their future information to change things. And some how expect that this wont ruin your immersion?

Or we can assume that it only applies to danger that unless something changes WILL hit the psychic in four rounds. Danger that the psychic doesn't know about and that unless they get some warning about WILL hit them. When you hit that threshold you deduct 2 ISP and tell the psychic that their danger sense went off. They can then try to figure out what it means exactly. Does it mean a sniper? A flood? An earthquake? A booby-trap on the door that they were planning on going through? A mine on the road? Its not 100% clear but its a start.

I know which interpretation of the power seems to be consistent with the write up.

[Killer Cyborg]

Ambushes and Traps aren't guaranteed threats. You may not have been headed to step in the trap but you will sense it. Any threat in motion regardless of range is triggered.

A new way to harry mind melters has occurred to me: mouse traps!

A sniper from 100 miles away shooting at you is an ambush.
It is not an ambush that is within 90'.

[Freemage]

eliakon: There is not a single bit of your post I disagree with. Note my first option for this situation--working out with the GM where the lines should be. If the GM said, "Hey, this is how the power is meant to work," I'd look that over, say, "Hey, cool, I can reasonably not have to worry about hidden snipers and landmines! Excellent! Now I just have to not be an idiot who moons the CS troopers and I should be good."

[eliakon]

eliakon: There is not a single bit of your post I disagree with. Note my first option for this situation--working out with the GM where the lines should be. If the GM said, "Hey, this is how the power is meant to work," I'd look that over, say, "Hey, cool, I can reasonably not have to worry about hidden snipers and landmines! Excellent! Now I just have to not be an idiot who moons the CS troopers and I should be good."

I want you in my group
You have no idea how many times I say this stuff and I get huffy complaints that I am nerfing the power and taking away their protections because I am a killer GM

[13eowulf]

Ambushes and Traps aren't guaranteed threats. You may not have been headed to step in the trap but you will sense it. Any threat in motion regardless of range is triggered.

A new way to harry mind melters has occurred to me: mouse traps!

Life-threatening danger.

And I'm just gonna note... as a player, I'd probably be pissed as hell at most of the hardcore/sneaky stuff being posited here, at least as a commonplace thing. (A specific villain using tactics, because he knows the party has a MM and is attempting to counter that, is a different thing.)

My reaction, as a player, would probably be one of three things:

1: If this was the only time this had happened, I'd sit down with the GM and politely suggest we come up with a set of rulings for this power that don't force him to counter-escalate, so that it's reliable without being omnipotent.

2: If it was somewhat more common, I'd probably just say forget it, and abandon the character for one that doesn't provoke GM escalation.

3: If it were frequent, I'd find another game. If I was feeling particularly (and unusually) childish and petulant that day, I might be goaded to sabotage the game on my way out the door.

In particular, I'd be ticked off at the definition of "unexpected" being used here by several folks. Just because I know there are hostiles in the general area, does not mean I "expect" a specific attack, from a particular direction, at a given moment. Sure, if I'm facing a trio of bandits on the open road, then I wouldn't get any benefit from Sixth Sense there--unless they've also got a hidden sniper preparing to pull a Jayne on me.

Speaking for myself, my above suggestion was born out of being a player (albeit a newbie), not as GM, where another character (a Mystic Knight) was frequently using charm and other magical psionic effects on my character.
Multiple attempts in-character to get him back kept failing, due to some... overreactions that would trip 6th sense.
But after a long period of time (and relentless attempts that the other character laughed off) an itching powder trap worked. In-character (even if PVP) I learned the limits of 6th sense, and some of the other powers.
This culminated in a carefully constructed revenge strike involving custom made mini missiles, lengthy manual targeting (so as to not involve laser or other war-machine targeting systems), and a 3 stage strike.

[Shark_Force]

man, this is a whole lot of anguish over what is, ultimately, a relatively minor thing.

i mean, you know that something bad is going to happen. you don't know *what* is going to happen, and if there are people around that you care about, you don't know *who* it is going to happen to. you don't know where the danger will come from, or even really have a general idea of what sort of danger it might be, and you only know that it is going to come some time within the next minute or so.

when the danger arrives, you get a sizeable bonus to initiative (which is nice, but usually not game-breaking), a decent bonus to dodge and parry (about what a single physical skill could give) and you don't count as surprised (though everyone else could be). so, for a single attack in any given fight, you get to make a dodge or parry roll (if you choose to) when you otherwise wouldn't (but still need to pay any appropriate action costs), and for a bit longer you have some decent bonuses roughly equivalent to getting an extra physical skill... and that's it.

you don't need to work around it. so the mind melter isn't going to be surprised very often, who cares? this isn't the sort of thing you need to lose sleep over.

[dreicunan]

There would never be a need to rewind the game. It says within four melee rounds, not in exactly four melee rounds. It could be a single second's worth of warning. By the way, that means that it most definitely COULD trigger if you are insulting a Larmac in a bar and not expecting that he is going to respond with lethal intent. Heck, if were trying to goad a Larmac (or anyone else) into attacking you with lethal intent and he responded with an attack that you weren't anticipating, that could still count as something that would trigger the power. GMs have to make a ruling about how they will interpret the power.

[Axelmania]

I'm not sure if a sniper planning to shoot you in 60 seconds would work since he hasn't chosen to yet...

But a bomb he already set to go off in 60 sec or a fired missile that takes 60 seconds to reach you would fit.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm not sure if a sniper planning to shoot you in 60 seconds would work since he hasn't chosen to yet...

But a bomb he already set to go off in 60 sec or a fired missile that takes 60 seconds to reach you would fit.

If it takes 60 seconds to travel the 90' range of the power.

[HWalsh]

For what it's worth...

How I generally treat this is to ignore the 90 ft rule, as it is dumb. It really makes the power virtually useless. I justify the sniper part as follows:

At some point in the window of the power that sniper's bullet/blast/attack will be within 90 feet. So you're not surprised and you get the bonuses.

I also tend to ignore the 60 second rule. I tend to treat it as combat bonuses and lack of surprise penalties.

[Blue_Lion]

Slavers typically try to avoid killing their prey. So attacks from them may not trigger it.

Basically you can use attacks that are intended to capture not kill.
(I would say how ever you rule it stay consistent if your ruling does not work talk with your players and inform them the reason you are changing your judgment, ideally between campaigns.)
Reading the power it does seam constant all the way through that it has to be life threatening and all ready be set up. So a sniper drawing ir ambush a bead could meet the requirements as it is already in motion.

The range reads as the range you can detect threats to other. So I would rule it is not the threat is in the range.

[dreicunan]

I find it worth noting that in the parenthetical note in RUE ambush or trap is clearly specified to be within the 90 ft range but the flash flood rushing his way is not. That would give room to read the range of the power as not being absolute. Or in another sense, the power could be read to activate when you are within 90 ft of where the attack will impact you, not within 90' of where the attack originates. That interpretation would mean that a sniper taking aim could trigger the power regardless of distance to target.

[Axelmania]

I like that better. 90ft til location of ambush, not location of ambusher.

[SycophantNagaraja]

man, this is a whole lot of anguish over what is, ultimately, a relatively minor thing.

It was just a question and from my perspective I got several good answers. I wasn't looking for a debate on how a player should react because I happened to make it less omnipotent and slightly (emphasis on slightly as noted in my original response) practical.

And on a side note: my players are typically the heroes of the story, as in they do the big things, they help forge the world/city changing events in whatever game we happen to be playing, etc. Or as they say in Firefly: big damn heroes.

If said complaint led the assuming player I was counter-escalating (when all of my players know I love erring on the side of the players) or any of the other itemized things listed, that person likely wouldn't be in my game or invited to future ones. I love players as the heroes of the story. I do not love self entitled players and/or munchkins. You can't have a good story without In-Character drama and suspense. And if the player has to be unstoppable and/or 0 weaknesses they aren't good fits for my games.

[Shark_Force]

sixth sense leaves you with plenty of weaknesses. it isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. it just lets you know that *something* bad is going to happen, sometime very soon, from some unknown source, which is in some unknown location, for some unknown reason. that's a whole heck of a lot of unknown there.

it might mean that you can't be surprise attacked (as in, you'll get to make a dodge attempt against a sneak attack which you usually wouldn't), but it really doesn't make you immune to an ambush... you can still find yourself surrounded by dozens of enemies, all pointing their guns at you. the only difference is that you'll get one more dodge attempt against the attacks those enemies make.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

For what it's worth...

How I generally treat this is to ignore the 90 ft rule, as it is dumb. It really makes the power virtually useless.

How useful should an automagically applied power that costs almost no ISP that literally every character in the game can have be, exactly?

I think the 90ft rule endcaps the power nicely, considering its a minor psi power that anyone can have and use frequently given the paltry ISP cost.

And its still plenty useful.

Any time you're in a "dungeon" scenario (indoors), its great. Searching the 'Burb streets and alleys for a bad guy? Useful as all get out.

So it doesn't work against long-range attacks.

That hardly makes it useless.

[Killer Cyborg]

I find it worth noting that in the parenthetical note in RUE ambush or trap is clearly specified to be within the 90 ft range but the flash flood rushing his way is not. That would give room to read the range of the power as not being absolute. Or in another sense, the power could be read to activate when you are within 90 ft of where the attack will impact you, not within 90' of where the attack originates. That interpretation would mean that a sniper taking aim could trigger the power regardless of distance to target.

I like that better. 90ft til location of ambush, not location of ambusher.

I certainly prefer that interpretation, although I wouldn't bet that it's what the writers had in mind.

[Riftmaker]

If you want to be cheap a nega psychic can just stop the power from working.

[Glistam]

I find it worth noting that in the parenthetical note in RUE ambush or trap is clearly specified to be within the 90 ft range but the flash flood rushing his way is not. That would give room to read the range of the power as not being absolute. Or in another sense, the power could be read to activate when you are within 90 ft of where the attack will impact you, not within 90' of where the attack originates. That interpretation would mean that a sniper taking aim could trigger the power regardless of distance to target.

I like that better. 90ft til location of ambush, not location of ambusher.

I certainly prefer that interpretation, although I wouldn't bet that it's what the writers had in mind.

I really like that interpretation as well and I think I'll run the power that way in the future.

[Axelmania]

How does range of Enhanced Sixth Sense from Mindwerks work by comparison?

If you want to be cheap a nega psychic can just stop the power from working.

Not the Rifts kind. I'm not sure if a Psi-Nullifier can either, because timing would be an issue.

[dreicunan]

Advanced sixth sense normally has a range of touch, but not always and has no express limit given' and costs no ISP for the warning; instead you can spend 6 ISP to get the source of the danger and 12 ISP to actively sweep for threats in a short range The power is annoyingly vague about if the kinds of examples under sixth sense would normally trigger it as well, since most of the examples focus on traps and poison. However, it just says that you get a flash if "something" poses imminent danger. Would that include stepping through a door into an ambush? How about stepping through a door to your bedroom where your wife is waiting while you still have your girlfriend's lipstick on your shirt? A whole bunch if GM call on this one.

[HarleeKnight]

We've always used the 90 ft. rule for only the things it's listed under; someone near you in danger and traps/ambushes. For everything else, snipers/floods/orbital strikes/etc., if it's gonna endanger you in a minute or less, it goes off.