The power didn't go untouched in the transition from RMB115 to RUE165, although in respect to how it interacts with other things, it could probably have used some more overview. For example this bit remains intact:
- An exorcism can only be used on living people and animals whose bodies are inhabited by a supernatural entity or other type of invasive spirit
Yet still under the Astral Projection power (RUE 171, paragraph at bottom of left column)
Remember, magic and psychic influences have full effect on the Astral Body.
This includes exorcism, which will force the Astral Traveler to leave the immediate area and not return for 24 hours.
One thing that did get updated, was actually present in RMB as a carryover from BTS:
- The chance of a successful exorcism on a nega-psychic is reduced by half
That might have new gamers who hadn't played BTS before the Rifts Conversion Book included conversion notes for them.
RUE capitalized this as "Nega-Psychic" and then included a parenthesis:
- See Rifts World Book 12: Psyscape for info on the Nega-Psychic
Of course, should a player actually do so (page 59) they will noticed:
- 8. R.C.C. Bonuses. Impervious to all forms of possession
Which begs the question: what is the purpose behind halving the effectiveness of a power healing someone who will NEVER need it?
This of course, dates back to BTS: nega-psychics were not immune to possession. Pg 60 actually gives them no inhereant/universal resistance to possession at ALL. They did have the option of buying a bonus (up to +6) by permanently expending PPE.
This wasn't particularly impressive compared to the other PCCs who all had basic bonuses like the Arcanist (+4, pg 52) or Latent Psychic (+1; pg 54) or Parapsychologist (+2; pg 63) or Physical Psychic (+5; pg 66) or Psi-Healer (+8; pg 70) or Psychic Sensitive (+3; pg 73). Only the Natural/Genius and Psi-Mechanic shared an inherent lack of bonus.
In fact, when you compare this to "Ordinary People" (pg 74) children have an inherent +1 and adults have an inherent +2... so with that in mind (we don't see these bonuses to resist possession for ordinary kids/adults in other games, AFAIK) in BTS if we consider the ordinary adults the baseline, then Parapsychologists were merely average and Latents were more susceptible (like kids) and Negas (unboosted) plus Geniuses/Mechanics were SUPER susceptible. Psychic Sentitives were only SLIGHTLY better than ordinary, with Arcanists/Physicals being better (though a boosted Nega could surpass these two) and Healers being the ultimate.
So the storyline was basically that they could be possessed (and inherently were more prone to it, though SOME might not be) but would resist being helped. Perhaps they couldn't believe they were possessed... accepted it as part of their own psyche?
Rifts Conversion Book gave the nega-psychic "impervious to possession" (pg 37) which is strange because the Psychic Healer DID NOT get that... even though they used to be the BEST. The only 2 glasses who got bonuses were the Parapsychologist and Physical, both +2, bringing them up to a total of +4 and +7, still inferior to the Healer's +8 though.
It sort of made PPE permanently spent to get a bonus vs possession wasted on the nega-psychic... it seems wrong. Meanwhile if that PPE was spent buying a bonus against psionics / magic / HF it would still be useful! I think it would've been a litlte more fair+balanced to just give nega-psychics another +2 at best like the other two!
Psyscape does have an answer to the dilemma it presents though... and pretty much the ONLY situation where 1/2 % exorcising a nega-psychic would actually come up: NXLA.
Pg 21 Soulless Xombies, left column
- Even Nega-Psychics, Psi-Nullifiers and other psychisc must roll to save without benefit of their normal bonuses or immunity to possession other than a special +3
This finally creates a situation where it would matter: you can exorcise the body of a Nega-Psychic possessed by Nxla, to get the essence out of him!
Of course... that's just gonna make it an empty husk and drop dead (the soul is imprisoned in another dimension) requiring the additional step of "Restoring Lost Souls" ritual process (1000 PPE sounds like Dimensional Portal is needed... it seems like Nxla can't send fragments through that, only the special 900 PPE ritual to open a perhaps-1-way portal from him... I wonder what level that is and how many Harvesters know it!) to get your buddy back... but it could still be useful even without that, like say if you lacked the MD weapons needed to kill a Xombie (1D4x10 MDC per melee round could burn through your e-clips if you lack a vibro-blade to do the job!) then tying it up (or maybe dropping it in a hole that it's climb 70% couldn't get it out of?) while you do an exorcism might be a better solution.
Psi-Nullifiers don't have a halved % for exorcism, but they might have a worse problem like automatically firing off ISP to negate psychic/magic exorcism... although I don't know if it would still be in effect as a Xombie. RULE OF COOL: of course it would!
- - -
Getting to the title though, and this has nothing at all to do with nega-psychics, is what follows the mention of "reduced by half" for them:
- The same is true of some of the more powerful supernatural beings capable of possession.
I think the question is: which ones? Who are the MPSBCOPs? Of them, who are the SOME? When should the % chance of effectiveness be halved (or quartered, in the case of a MPSBCOP possessing a nega-psychic) ?
BTS154 had most of the monsters being "LESSER SUPERNATURAL BEINGS" (including "Entity Possessing") and I think we can safely exclude them as being among the "more powerful".
It did have a list called "GREATER BEINGS Supernatural Intelligences" which included "Elementals, Goqua, Mindolar" though, and I think these might be considered the best guess as to who the MPSBCOPs are, if not the "some".
One spell that is helpful in understanding things (and easy to overlook, since it wasn't ported to Rifts or any other game) is the 14th level ritual "Summon Greater Being" on pg 126. Only it's younger 13th-level sibling on pg 125 "Summon Lesser Being" made to it to RMB189, where for a while (until RUE) it remained one of the Shifter's starter invocations.
SGB works fundamentally different than SLB: it can't bring their body forth (that requires a portal) instead it brings their divided essence through for possession (the mage is protected at +10 by being in a pentagram: others aren't so lucky)
Elementals in BTS (for the longest time I didn't even know they or vamps were in the book!) only have selections from common spell magic listed (no warlock stuff) so their versatility is somewhat limited. Pg 176 mentions:
- an elemental will almost always (90%) possess a lesser supernatural being, or human, or animal, or living tree, to anchor itself to our physical plane of existence.
If it does not assume a physical body, it will automatically return in 2D6 hours.
This is very interesting and different compared to our conception of elementals from other games like Palladium Fantasy / Rifts where Elementals generally AVOID possessing people and can simply form faux-bodies from stuff like earth/fire/water/air.
Pg 179-180 does not appear to list any possession ability for the Goqua ("other demigods and super intelligences" implies they are BOTH though...) and the same is true of the Mindolar (180-181).
However I do notice the Mindolar mentions "must use a human pawn to speak". It's not 100% clear that this refers to. We know their bites can emulate two 5th-level spells: "Domination" and "Trance". Both involve following verbal commands from the spell-caster (or biter, in this case) although I don't get the impression Trance allows speaking. Domination clearly does since "lie" and "reveal secrets" are examples.
To actually ISSUE commands however... what are a Mindolar's options? They have "all sensitive abilities", so Telepathy (BTS91) was probably an option... but sending messages that way was pretty limited... "John, I need you immediately. Hurry!" being the most complex example, a mere SIX words. Sending a message like "say X" already subtracts 1 (five left!) so it's hard to imagine them being able to speak complex ideas through humans that way...
Which begs the question... are both the Goqua and the Mindolar possibly (even though they don't note it, as Elementals do) intended to be capable of projecting their essence through portals (like that created by Summon Greater Being) to possess people too? Could THAT be what the "use a human pawn" under the Mindolar refers to? You would certainly have much greater complexity/duration of communication if you could possess a human instead of coaching them telepathically!
If not, then it seems like the only specific things in the book SGB was intended for were elementals and vampire intelligences and 185's "SUPERNATURAL INTELLIGENCES - The Source of Evil" who gave witch-like power endowment (no need for an OCC change though!) for their partners...perhaps Arcanists who summon them via SGB? No need to change OCC?)
This might well be the case of course, as 187 mentions under Demon Familiar:
Magic Knowledge:
(Available only when in a physical host body)
Knows summon greater being
(to access other self)
That's actually kind of terrifying... because as soon as one mage lets in one essence fragment via SGB, the familiar it creates can go on to perhaps summon an unlimited amount of them?
Demon Familiars are actually the scariest I've ever seen them in BTS compared to the pathetic versions in Palladium RPG / Rifts Conversion Book / Palladium Fantasy 2nd Edition. They can summon LESSER beings, create mummies, create Greater Circle of Protection... restoration... SCARY GUYS.
BTSp188 "The Alien Intelligence - The Source of Evil" doesn't actually mention possession under "natural abiltiies" for these guys, part of why the absence of it under Goqua/Mindolar doesn't seem like an actual condemnation of that potentiality. So I wonder if AIs basically have this by assumption if the Gs and Ms should too?