Object Reading a Dead Body

[Library Ogre]

Ok, so a psychic object reads a body who died violently.

What would you say would be the Horror Factor for reliving the death?

[ZorValachan]

Can Object Read even be done on a corpse?

The necromantic spell list has Object Read the Dead. Nothing stated in it about any HF check. It's written as not like watching a film. More like sensing. General cause of death, etc.

Would depend on if you played it out as general 'hunches' or like watching a film.

Maybe an equal HF to that given to those who saw the death happen.
So if Bal-Rog demon ripped his head off and his companions had to roll vs HF 13, make it a HF 13.
If he died slipping on a banana peel, maybe the Reader just winces.

[cornholioprime]

from reading the power description in BTS2, it seems to vaguely imply non-living, inanimate objects only. That's how I'd play the power anyways, as object reading the corpse wouldn't tell it anything about the last "owner", because there was no last owner. Object reading the jacket, wallet, shoes etc though would probably trigger the effects of impressions and images. The images especially could be very traumatic, and I'd probably instead of making a roll vs. horror factor, would require a roll vs. insanity, depending on the gruesomeness of the event.

That's just my take on it.

Expanding on what he said.....how many corpses out there are butt-naked, anyway??

Couldn't you just Object Read their tattered clothes/armor??

[Dr. Doom III]

If memory serves Dimensional Ghouls can object read the dead. But they’re ghouls so I don’t think there’d be much of a HF for them.

[Killer Cyborg]

Can Object Read even be done on a corpse?

No. As you point out, there's a specific spell for that.

[Library Ogre]

Can Object Read even be done on a corpse?

No. As you point out, there's a specific spell for that.

The existence of a necromancy spell to object read the dead does not preclude the psionic power from doing the same thing; that's like saying "Well, there's a Nature Magic spell which can cure a sore throat, so 'Cure Illness' obviously can't deal with sore throats." The spell can only handle the dead; the power is not limited in that fashion. While the language used implies that, it doesn't state it.

[Killer Cyborg]

Can Object Read even be done on a corpse?

No. As you point out, there's a specific spell for that.

The existence of a necromancy spell to object read the dead does not preclude the psionic power from doing the same thing; that's like saying "Well, there's a Nature Magic spell which can cure a sore throat, so 'Cure Illness' obviously can't deal with sore throats." The spell can only handle the dead; the power is not limited in that fashion. While the language used implies that, it doesn't state it.

My point.

No, it's not 100% certain, but it's the most likely scenario given the information we have.
It is implied.

Also, there's the fact that psychometry is a "real" power and I know of no cases where it has ever been used on a dead body, or any mention that it could/would be used that way.
Mystically speaking, there are very few situations in which a dead body is an "object." Whether or not there's anybody home, it's considered to be part of a person.

[Library Ogre]

To it being implied: It's far more heavily implied that Psychic Diagnosis is usable only on a living creature, but Dimensional Ghouls use it for forensics.

To the mystical aspects: There is that... but there's also the fact that Palladium's familiarity with real mysticism is passing, at best.

[Killer Cyborg]

To it being implied: It's far more heavily implied that Psychic Diagnosis is usable only on a living creature, but Dimensional Ghouls use it for forensics.

Agreed- I'd rule that it's a special case for them, not the norm for everybody with the power.

To the mystical aspects: There is that... but there's also the fact that Palladium's familiarity with real mysticism is passing, at best.

Not when it comes to psychic powers, which is why virtually all of the abilities in BtS were based off of real-world phenomena.
They did a good amount of homework there.

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. Well, I'll note that I am a believer in the use of "object" as inanimate object. Same as I wouldn't let Teleport Object work on a character's ferret familiar regardless if it is within the weight limit (it's never come up for me, but now I wonder how many people are going to try this if they didn't think of it before), and same as I've ruled Telekinesis can't work on people (though I'll admit Rifts has made notes in the powers write-up which shows this interpretation is wrong). With that said though, I'll ignore that fact and grant it can be used (I don't think it can be, but I can ignore personal opinions to address the topic). There is still another problem with this idea. As near as I can tell, the psychic has no control over which image is shown. If being used on a body in particular, the number of events that can be recalled are enormous. Getting married, birth of a child, achieving some dream like getting his book printed, getting beat by a parent as a kid, killing someone in self defense, etc. All of those could just as easily be the event/image triggered. Then it's just snippets, being mixed around, and parts possibly left out. It would probably be more confusing than horrific. If after all that was sorted out, it's watching the event, not reliving it. The psychic wouldn't feel the panic or the pain, so probably not much of a horror factor (unless as a previous poster mentioned its something like a demon or monster that has a HF, then it's the standard HF of the monster, but not because of death). Just some thoughts, hope they help. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys to all.

Note: I have given the power thought for the exact same purpose actually, so I've given this thought in the past. I instead opted for making a special ability for a psychic class that allowed this, but it was a special class ability and not Read Object. That's just my take on it, but that doesn't mean it's right.

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

I'd say yes, mostly cause it can be used as a valuable GM tool and it also fits the power. I like Prysus's idea of getting all the key events in the person's life though, which would make it like a puzzle to put together.

[Killer Cyborg]

As the power in question reads

Also known as Psychometry, this uncanny ability enables the psychic
sensitive to receive impressions and images from an object regarding
its use, history and last owner. This is done by holding the object
and concentrating on a specific line of thought or opening up to general
impression, (the latter is always more vague and random). Just as a psychic
must open himself to sense evil or magic, he must open himself to
the object. If successful, he will receive impressions and/or images revealing
bits of information.

and a corpse has long since ceased to be animated (hence the need for a spell "Animate Dead"), the corpse certainly qualifies as an object and not a person. As all PPE is expended from a body upon death that would most certainly indicate that the body is fresh out of any sort of animating energy.

Ergo, it should be as easy to read as a toothbrush someone left behind. A cadaver is just another piece of meat on a slab, there's nothing spiritual left in it to deter any kind of Object Read.

If you want to get technical, it never even says "inanimate."
So you could read a live person too.

But that's not the intent of the power.

[Dr. Doom III]

Once the body becomes an object you could read it I would suppose.
Bones in a medical lab or worn as a headdress or something like that. You would get info on it's "life as an object" if you will but nothing on it's actual life.

[ZorValachan]

Once the body becomes an object you could read it I would suppose.
Bones in a medical lab or worn as a headdress or something like that. You would get info on it's "life as an object" if you will but nothing on it's actual life.

Before I read your post, it was my line of thinking (also as my Anthropologist train of thought). Object (artifact/tool) being something made by a person (or sentient being). So bones, fruit, rocks. No. But take a rock and make it into a spear-tip, then yes. As you pointed out making bone into a weapon or headdress would then make it an object (artifact/tool) would get you the history, use, and owner as it's background.

But this is my personal subjective ruling.

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

Once the body becomes an object you could read it I would suppose.
Bones in a medical lab or worn as a headdress or something like that. You would get info on it's "life as an object" if you will but nothing on it's actual life.

Before I read your post, it was my line of thinking (also as my Anthropologist train of thought). Object (artifact/tool) being something made by a person (or sentient being). So bones, fruit, rocks. No. But take a rock and make it into a spear-tip, then yes. As you pointed out making bone into a weapon or headdress would then make it an object (artifact/tool) would get you the history, use, and owner as it's background.

But this is my personal subjective ruling.

so if I wore someone's head as a hat through 5 states, would that count?

[Dr. Doom III]

Once the body becomes an object you could read it I would suppose.
Bones in a medical lab or worn as a headdress or something like that. You would get info on it's "life as an object" if you will but nothing on it's actual life.

Before I read your post, it was my line of thinking (also as my Anthropologist train of thought). Object (artifact/tool) being something made by a person (or sentient being). So bones, fruit, rocks. No. But take a rock and make it into a spear-tip, then yes. As you pointed out making bone into a weapon or headdress would then make it an object (artifact/tool) would get you the history, use, and owner as it's background.

But this is my personal subjective ruling.

so if I wore someone's head as a hat through 5 states, would that count?

Yep.

[Overlord Rikonius]

Once the body becomes an object you could read it I would suppose.
Bones in a medical lab or worn as a headdress or something like that. You would get info on it's "life as an object" if you will but nothing on it's actual life.

Before I read your post, it was my line of thinking (also as my Anthropologist train of thought). Object (artifact/tool) being something made by a person (or sentient being). So bones, fruit, rocks. No. But take a rock and make it into a spear-tip, then yes. As you pointed out making bone into a weapon or headdress would then make it an object (artifact/tool) would get you the history, use, and owner as it's background.

But this is my personal subjective ruling.

so if I wore someone's head as a hat through 5 states, would that count?

That depends on whether it put the lotion on its skin

[cornholioprime]

Once the body becomes an object you could read it I would suppose.
Bones in a medical lab or worn as a headdress or something like that. You would get info on it's "life as an object" if you will but nothing on it's actual life.

To me, the fact that the Necromancer has a spell specifically called "Object Read the Dead," I'd say that normal Object Read wouldn't work in that manner.


Furthermore, there are canon writings here and there (wish that I could remember where right now), that implies that Objects can be Object Read because the person in question infused the other object with his or her psychic imprint through either creating the item or spending time using it; one cannot infuse one's self with Psychic Imprint in the same manner.


Of course, those writings don't adequately explain why, if someone gets lucky enough to touch a Shemarrian, one gets the image of the Living Being Hagan Lonovich, but NOT the image of the Living Being A.R.C.H.I.E. Three.....

[Overlord Rikonius]

Once the body becomes an object you could read it I would suppose.
Bones in a medical lab or worn as a headdress or something like that. You would get info on it's "life as an object" if you will but nothing on it's actual life.

To me, the fact that the Necromancer has a spell specifically called "Object Read the Dead," I'd say that normal Object Read wouldn't work in that manner.

Two points:
1) Object Read is a psionic, and necromancers use magic.
2) Does the ORtD spell let you object read things other than the dead? If not, then that could just be a spell that gives you a little extra magical info from dead things because you're a necromancer, much like if they made a magnetomage and he had a Object Read the Metallic spell. That wouldn't mean that your regular Object Read couldn't read a steel knife, just that the magnetomage could only read the knife because he's a magnetomage and it's metal.

Furthermore, there are canon writings here and there (wish that I could remember where right now), that implies that Objects can be Object Read because the person in question infused the other object with his or her psychic imprint through either creating the item or spending time using it; one cannot infuse one's self with Psychic Imprint in the same manner.

Again, why not? You spend your whole life in your body, all that time your psychic essense is permeating it.
Plus, according to Pally (as well as many parapsychologists), when you die there's a flash of psychic energy. Now, one could argue that that erases the psychometry data (like a magnetic pulse witting a tape), but one could also argue that (much like a traumatic death making a location of object store the impression of the victim's grisly end), the death pulse could "record" the death onto the body.

Of course, those writings don't adequately explain why, if someone gets lucky enough to touch a Shemarrian, one gets the image of the Living Being Hagan Lonovich, but NOT the image of the Living Being A.R.C.H.I.E. Three.....

Hagan's got robot fever

[Northern Ranger]

Hey Mark. Since your initial question seems to have been lost in the shuffle, let me put two cents in, if you're still interested.

I have always allowed a psychic object read to read a dead body in my game. The reason? A dead body fits the criteria. "A non-living, inanimate object." You don't get much more non-living or inanimate than that. As to a Horror Factor check, I'd base that on the type of psychic doing the reading. Someone who is not a "practiced" psychic doing the read isn't likely to experience the violent emotion and so forth that was present in the death. However, if a Mind Mage (or similar) is doing the read, then I'd say there is a good chance that they are going to re-live the death from the perspective of the person that died. Not only would I give that a HF, but I'd say a chance of death from heart attack themselves is not out of the question. (Perhaps 10%, we don't want to get too critical here.) But I agree that it is possible and in certain circumstances there should indeed be a HF check.

The Ranger has Spoken!

[dark brandon]

I'll go back to the original question...

As a GM, it depends on the reason for reading the dead. If it suits story, and fits more with "player being creative" than "player being abusive", I'd allow it, and not make a horror factor or any type of roll unless they are not use to death/war. I don't get you view the object when using OR in the 1st person, so it would be more as if someone is looking at it through a VR 3rd person experience...

If abuse is the reason...or they just are not being creative, then they will only see from the moment the person was dead completely, which means if they were in a coma before dieing, or bleed to death, they wouldn't see anything until after all his body was dead, which means they may not even see the killer.

[Killer Cyborg]

If memory serves Dimensional Ghouls can object read the dead. But they’re ghouls so I don’t think there’d be much of a HF for them.

I think CB1 says Dimensional Ghouls use Psychic Diagnosis not Object Read, but it amounts to roughly the same thing.

>

Not really.
You can't use Psychic Diagnosis on objects.
So if you're right, that indicates that dead bodies are more like people than objects.

[Killer Cyborg]

You _completely_ misunderstood my post.

>

Care to clarify?

[Killer Cyborg]

Yeah, I meant it as: a psychic trying to use a power to get information, that's available in one power but not specifically stated in the other.

The rules are there for a reason. Some stretching between powers is inevitable, but not in this case.

>

Somehow, didn't help.


Nevermind.

[sHaka]

I'd say, personally, that whilst you can make a pretty good case for defining a corpse as an object, it feels to me as that goes against the spirit of the author's intention for this power. Of course, object reading the corpse's affects is a no-brainer.

I think I'm right - away from book - when I say that there is a BTS2 psychic class that can object read the dead as a special ability.

I can't remember whether it's the Medium or the Diviner...