Hold Your Horses!

[Killer Cyborg]

Flipping through the main book, I re-noticed that Horses (along with dogs and cats) get the following psychic powers:

See The Invisible
Sense Evil
Sense Magic
Sixth Sense
Empathy

All with a 600' range (Which makes them better at 6th Sense than a human psychic).

Also, according to the GMG, they have 5d6 PPE.

I suddenly find myself thinking of a horse as a really great form of transportation.
Sure, they're SDC creatures, but the 6th Sense can compensate for that quite a bit.
If the rider has psychic powers, horses are a lot more useful:
-Supress Fear can keep the horses from panicking when confronting supernatural creatures or crossing bridges, etc.
-Empathy would let the rider know when the horse's 6th Sense went off, or to help get general impressions from them reflecting their other powers.
-Telepathy may or may not help, depending on if your GM allows it to work with animals. If it does work, then you can know everything the horse knows; the location of invisible creatures, if something is evil, 6th sense warnings (no bonuses for the rider, though).
-Group Trance might be of limited use
-Mind Bond... I wish they'd elaborate more on using psychic powers with animals. This could rock when you use it with a horse, or it may just drive you insane.

Anyway, Horses are generally fragile SDC creatures, but they can be augmented:

- Bio-Wizardry, anyone? Got enough cash and a trusty bio-wizard, you can get your horse pumped up to 200 MDC. Heck, also give him some arms/tentacles, wings, chemical spray, dragons breath, MDC plating (up to 500 more MDC) and some Eyes of Eylor...

-Microbes: Transmortifiers would give the horse 110 MDC to start, and make them immune to heat and cold (including plasma).

-Parasites: Heart Worms wouldn't make the horse MDC, but they would add an extra 200 SDC and your horse would never fatigue (as well as getting other nifty bonuses)! If you don't like your horse, you could give it a Beastifier parasite to make it MDC and super strong for a while. A Brain Helmet would give the horse the Psionic Body Field power (60 MDC). Free Breather would let a horse run longer (and track by scent). Heaven's Wings would give your horse the ability to fly (another one you'll pass on if you like animals). If you have reliable means of removing the corpse once it dies, a Mind Blossom would up your horse's IQ. Muscle Boots have little downside, and they would give your horse MD kicks and double (or more) their leaping range and speed! A Para-Sym Transformer would make a good last-ditch booster for your horse, if it was going to die soon anyway. Temporal Link would let the horse sense dimentional anomalies (horses don't level up, so there would be no downside to this other than the cost).

-Symbiotes: Mindlink would give the horse limited telepathy and allow it to understand you better, as well as providing Mind-Block AD (which you may not want it to have if you're psychic). A Pathic Healer wouldn't hurt for a horse to have either; you wouldn't have to shoot it if it breaks a leg. Talo Mind worms may also be worth considering. Line Feeders would let the horses sense Ley Lines and Nexus points. Musical Nymphs would help keep horses from panicking. A Storm Breather or Storm Screamer would boost a horse's offensive abilities, and has no real downside for an animal. A Symbiotic Heart has no down-side and would let your horse run longer. A horse with a Titanizer would turn into an MDC god for while. A Zembahk Appendage would

-A Gene-Splicer could do wonders for a horse...

-I believe that there are stats for MDC barding in one of the books (Conversion Book 1?) that could be used alone or inconjunction with a force-field generator.

-A mage could use all sorts of spells to temporarily upgrade his horse

-A horse could probably get cybernetics and/or bionics to upgrade him a bit. I don't know what this would do to their psychic powers, though.

Anybody got any other ideas, things I missed, comments, questions, or haikus?

[Killer Cyborg]

Well as far as Cybernetics and such goes, you couldnt do it. It would be just like a human becoming a Cyborg, their ISP and PPE would deplete to 1d4 max and any Abilities would be lost.

Is that from the Bionics Handbook, or an earlier book?
Also, is that just for being a Full Conversion Borg, or does it apply to Partial Conversion Borgs as well?
In any case, there is always Cyber-Armor. One implant shouldn't negate psychic abilities.

[Dead Boy]

Ya know, CK, you have a really good idea there! I most assuredly will have to use this. Thank You!

[Killer Cyborg]

Well as far as Cybernetics and such goes, you couldnt do it. It would be just like a human becoming a Cyborg, their ISP and PPE would deplete to 1d4 max and any Abilities would be lost.

Is that from the Bionics Handbook, or an earlier book?
Also, is that just for being a Full Conversion Borg, or does it apply to Partial Conversion Borgs as well?
In any case, there is always Cyber-Armor. One implant shouldn't negate psychic abilities.

Cyber Armor would work. Partial Conversion would reduce the range, ISP, duration, etc. of all powers by half.

That might well be worth it, though.
The range on their powers is more than double the normal range for humans, and Horses don't have ISP.
The loss of duration would be worth the gain in MDC and power.

[Mack]

Well as far as Cybernetics and such goes, you couldnt do it. It would be just like a human becoming a Cyborg, their ISP and PPE would deplete to 1d4 max and any Abilities would be lost.

Is that from the Bionics Handbook, or an earlier book?
Also, is that just for being a Full Conversion Borg, or does it apply to Partial Conversion Borgs as well?
In any case, there is always Cyber-Armor. One implant shouldn't negate psychic abilities.

Cyber Armor would work. Partial Conversion would reduce the range, ISP, duration, etc. of all powers by half.

I believe that rule was changed in the Bionics Sourcebook (don't have it with me at the moment). A partial conversion now has the same effect as a full on psionics/ISP/powers/etc...

[Killer Cyborg]

Well, if you could get it done, you could transfer your horse's brain into a robot...
then he'd lose half his ISP (none) and all his psionics except for Physical and Sensitive (and all his powers are, I believe, Sensitive).

[Dr. Doom III]

You havn't seen my horse.

Bubba my War Dinosaur would kick his butt.

[Dr. Doom III]

Bring it.

Oh you don't want none o' this.

[Temporalmage]

Cool idea! I've never thought of upgrading a horse before. But why stop there? Upgrade the family dog. With some of the things you've mentioned you coudl have a dog with tons of MDC, supernatural strength, and totally obediant to boot. Use those skills that so few peaple use, such as breed dogs or even falconry and have tons of fun!!

[Mack]

I believe that rule was changed in the Bionics Sourcebook (don't have it with me at the moment). A partial conversion now has the same effect as a full on psionics/ISP/powers/etc...

Feh. I looked it up and you're correct, but I think I'll be ignoring that rule in my game. As far as I'm concerned a dude with two bionic arms should still have a little psionic potential. Also, there's a bunch of characters in Warlords of Russia that have managed to maintain psychic powers regardless of the level of conversion. Warlord Romanov was originally a major psychic and as a heavy machine now only has 2 powers and a small amount of ISP.

I wasn't enthused by the change either, mainly because it killed a character that was in the back of my mind but I'd never actually written down. A Cyber-Knight with a Partial Reconstruction. By the original rule, he would only lose half is ISP and keep his powers.

[Larsen]

Yea I had a horse a couple of times during roleplays because of the things they have. My GM however kept killing them so I gave up and got a automobile. He has yet to destroy or even attack my automobile. I think he has something against horses. He's a no good horse-hater!!!

[Dr. Doom III]

You're right. I should spare you the embarrassment.

Well horse tends to give Bubba gas but he doesn't embarrass easy.
And Doom's armor is fully environmental.

[Svartalf]

KC ... just a remark about augmenting horses through bio hazardry.

"trusty biowizard" is an oxymoron. also, bringing the horse to Atlantis for augmentation is going to be grat fun (ever tried convincing one to walk into a rift?)

[Killer Cyborg]

KC ... just a remark about augmenting horses through bio hazardry.

"trusty biowizard" is an oxymoron. also, bringing the horse to Atlantis for augmentation is going to be grat fun (ever tried convincing one to walk into a rift?)

Hey, I never said it would be easy...

But maybe Atlantis sells horses... they sell pretty much everything else.
Or maybe the party Hatchling Dragon could broker the deal with the Bio-Wizard... they like dragons over there.

Or maybe I've just armed GM's with a dozen ideas for the new Kittani Cavalry...

[Nekira Sudacne]

We have the pit duels for a reason guys. This'll actually give me a reason to come to the chatrooms again

Misfit, you can bring Miguel. Is he the one with the steed?

Doom, you can bring... whatever character you play.

Horse familiar TtGD rules. TtGD rules!

Bah, Between the Shadows is better.

Does it have rules for creating familiars with amazing abilities? No, it doesn't. Awesome for astral realms, I'll admit, but that's another topic entirely.

actually the one with the horse is Reese.


he Retired miguel last week.

[Josh Sinsapaugh]

You've just now realized this?

[Dr. Doom III]

Instead of going to cybernetic or bio-wizardry route, why not look into TW enhancement. The spell Phantom Mount normally creates a magical mount, but it's not inconcievable for it to be converted to a sort of mystic horse armor/protective setup.

The TW device could be in the form of a saddle or something like that. Just translate the powers of the Phantom Mount to the living horse. PS becomes supernatural, speed gets ramped up, gain a fair amount of temporary MDC, some nice bonuses & immunities, etc. The duration isn't bad, either, at 10 minutes per level.

Like the TW Glittermount?