Nightfactory wrote:I would never presume you were attacking, Prysus. You've a very fair and even-tempered person.
Greetings and Salutations. Cool, good to hear.
Even though we disagree on this matter, I appreciate your discourse on the matter. Note: I cut out parts in my responses, but only for brevity and because I feel they're overall addressed in other responses (if you feel I left out something important, feel free to let me know).
Nightfactory wrote:Ok, so the very first line in the description says this: "The Sixth Sense is a power that gives the psychic a precognitive flash of imminent danger to himself or somebody near him (within 90 feet/27.4m)." I think that it is significant that this is how the first line in the description is written because it essentially gives a summary of how the power operates. The second and third lines say, "The character will not know what the danger is or where it will come from, nor who it will be directed at within a group. All he knows is something life threatening will happen within the next 60 seconds (4 melees)!" Then it goes on in the next three lines to mention that the event must be "life threating" as you stated above.
Hmm ... I see what you're saying. I agree that the first line is a summary, and important. For me, a summary gives you the idea, but leaves out a lot of details. The reason it goes on is to fill in those details. Line 2 tells us what it can't do. Then 3, 4, and 5 all mention it must be life threatening. For me, the fact three different sentences discuss it (and really specified four times in those three sentences) is too deliberate to ignore.
For you, the first line gives you the spirit/heart of the power, and I can understand that. I may not agree with what you see as the spirit, but I can respect it and appreciate you clarifying your stance for me.
Nightfactory wrote:But, you say, you're not actually in danger because the gas is non-lethal. Maybe so, technically, but from a practical, pragmatic standpoint, it sure seems like an attack because it is being done out of the blue and it's purpose is to incapacitate everyone. To me, that is a very real and clear danger to the party, regardless of whether it 100% complies with the written definition of the ability.
I agree that non-lethal gas
is an attack. I think we also agree that it's non-lethal. Where we disagree is that you feel Sixth Sense activates on an attack, while I believe it needs to be a (potentially) lethal attack. (I'll continue to elaborate as I go on, for note.)
Nightfactory wrote:the party will probably survive it, but there's also a chance that it could kill them. In a situation where it could be life-threatening, I choose to opt on the side of caution and give players with Sixth Sense the chance to potentially do something to save their ass.
I agree, more or less. I'll address this more (lower down), where you give a few scenarios.
Nightfactory wrote:The problem I have with what you described above (ie. how you tell players it's only triggered by specifically lethal events) is that, to me, it takes some of the mystery and excitement out of role-playing.
This actually made me laugh a little (in the irony sort of way, and not in a bad way). On these boards I've often seen a G.M. complain about how they can never surprise their players because Sixth Sense always warns them of any attack, etc. Having Sixth Sense warn of any attack (especially when the G.M. gives a full minute warning every time) can ruin just as much mystery. At the very least, I don't find one way being more so than the other, but to each their own. I'm not saying your way is wrong, just that it's the opposite of what I tend to see. Usually the complaint about the way I rule Sixth Sense is that it's gimping the power, where you seem to be going almost the other way. Again, not criticizing, but I find the differences interesting. Always like seeing a new perspective.
Personally, I don't think knowing whether someone intends to kill me or not as the only aspect of a mystery or excitement. That still doesn't tell me why they're attacking, or how/if I can beat them. If I sense something it still doesn't tell me where/who it's coming from, and if I don't sense anything I could very well get caught with my pants down. The role-playing will come from figuring out the situation and/or how I respond to it, but that's my personal take on the matter.
Nightfactory wrote:Also, it locks the GM into a specific course of action ie. not killing the players.
Fairly accurate, but not entirely true either. As a G.M., I tend to know my NPC. So if a group of NPC are going to try and capture the players, then they're going to try and capture the players. They have a plan, and I'm only locked in as far as the NPC having motives. I'm not going to randomly flip to kill mode two seconds before the attack or one second after they start for no good reason, that's not fair to the NPC (or players). With that said, that doesn't meant things can't change after the fact. I'll go into the more later (with the examples again).
Nightfactory wrote:If I were one of your players, had Sixth Sense, it didn't trigger, and then suddenly someone leapt onto my back, I would know that they were not trying to kill me because my Sixth Sense didn't go off. As a result, I wouldn't take the attack as seriously as I would if I didn't know if the attack was an attempt on my life or an attempt to subdue me. Nor would it be as fun, challenging, or exciting.
I'll address this in two parts.
1: As an individual who likes tactics, knowing whether the enemy intends to kill me or not can be important. That doesn't mean I can take it easy on the opponent (they could very well be tougher than me and if I take it easy I'll lose), nor does it mean it won't be a challenger. However, it can decide on how to proceed. If an opponent is trying to kill me, I'm more likely to put him down first and try to figure things out later. If someone isn't trying to kill me, I might try avoiding confrontation and talking it out, or hesitate to kill the person since he wasn't trying to kill me and that can cause escalation (if I try to cut his head off, if he wasn't trying to kill me before he might now!), or if backed into a corner I might choose surrender rather than death. While it does provide insight into a situation, there's still a lot of variables.
2: Above, I gave details of how such knowledge could be applied, which I normally don't do. I'll say, to date, I don't believe a single player has ever put that type of knowledge to good use (most players don't really tend to figure it out, or they've forgotten). A normal situation goes more like ...
Me: *See player select Sixth Sense (for the first time) on his new character.* "Okay, just for the record, some G.M. run it differently so I want to make sure we're on the same page. 1: It needs to be life-threatening. If someone isn't trying to kill you, it won't go off. 2: It needs to be unexpected. So if you walk into an enemy's stronghold expecting a confrontation, don't expect it to warn you of any danger while there. 3: It has a range. If you have a sniper 100 yards out, it won't do you any good." Note: To date, I don't believe I've ever used #3 against a player character before.
Player: "Yeah, that's cool." ((Or someone will complain about how gimped and useless the power is now and select something different).
A few months later ...
Me: "It's a surprise attack."
Player: "I have Sixth Sense."
Me: "Yes you do."
Player: "So I get the bonuses, right?"
Me: "No, it didn't go off."
Player: "Why not?"
Me: "Good question." *Long glare.* "So what do you do?"
This can result in further debate in the matter (without me explaining why other than possibly: "You don't know why. You'll have to figure it out."), or the player stumbling around but still not knowing why his Sixth Sense didn't warn him. That's the simple truth, at least in my experience.
Nightfactory wrote:And, let's say that during the course of combat, my character somehow got killed by a freak dice roll: if that happened, I'd be pretty mad at you for letting me get killed, when I had a chance to detect the imminent attack in the first place but you chose not to tell me that my Sixth Sense had triggered.
Sure, random luck can do a lot of things. Though if I killed you from an attack an accident, then I (as a G.M.) did do something wrong. The NPC should've been Pulling Punches, or using non-lethal weapons (such as a Nueral Mace), or stopped after seeing you more seriously injured, or decided it was worth killing you a while back in which case things would've changed. If I killed you because I was stupid, then you deserve to be mad. On the other hand, players should take responsibility for their own actions. If a player is under attack and jumps off a building because he thinks he can make it to the other side, fails, and dies. Well, yes, the confrontation ended up lethal, but just as I should take responsibility as a G.M. so too should the player. However, I have yet to kill a player character on "accident." Every time a player character has died in my games (and there's been a few times), I've done so knowingly.
Nightfactory wrote:Another problem I have with the whole lethality issue is that it's completely relative.
Not really. If the player character(s) do nothing, will the person die? So if they're just walking down the street, pretend they continue walking down the street and will take 0 combat actions (not even trying to defend themselves or run away). Will they die? If yes, it goes off. If no, then it does not. Note: I apply reality to the situation over game mechanics. So a gunshot to the head is lethal, even though one could argue they have enough S.D.C. that it wouldn't kill them.
Nightfactory wrote:Say a party of four 6th level Mind Melters are out for a stroll in the woods and fail to notice that a 10th level Lanotaur Hunter stalking them. So now the question is: Is the Lanotaur Hunter a lethal threat to the Mind Melters? If they are more than a match for him, then he's not a lethal threat and their Sixth Sense wouldn't trigger. But if they're not a match for him, then their Sixth Sense would trigger. Do you see how problematic this could be?
I don't actually know what a Lanotaur Hunter is, so I can't really answer the question. But I'll give a few examples for simplicity.
Situation A: Mind Melter(s) with Sixth Sense are being stalked by a monster fully capable of killing them. In a direct fight, the player characters could (easily) kill the monster. However, the monster is going to surprise attack them. An initial surprise attack could kill someone (in theory, like that gunshot to the head I mentioned earlier). If the players roll Natural 1s and the monster rolls Natural 20s it could kill more. Sixth Sense would go off before it attacks.
Situation B: Naturally M.D.C. Mind Melter(s) with Sixth Sense are being stalked by a S.D.C. monster. The monster could gnaw on their heads for 8 hours while they slept and still not kill them, even though it intends to try. No Sixth Sense.
Situation C: Mind Melter(s) with Sixth Sense are being stalked by a monster fully capable of killing them. In a direct fight, the player characters could (easily) kill the monster. The monster isn't going to ambush them though, and walks up to them, challenging them to direct combat. No Sixth Sense (because it won't be "unexpected" as it was upfront about the battle).
Situation D: Mind Melter(s) with Sixth Sense are being stalked by a monster fully capable of killing them. In a direct fight, the player characters could (easily) kill the monster. The monster isn't going to ambush them though, and walks up to them, challenging them to direct combat claiming he won't kill them (though he's hoping they'll let their guard down and then kill them anyways, bwuhahahahaha!!!). Sixth Sense would go off (because it's still unexpected, and if the characters do not prevent him the monster will kill them, even though stopping him isn't necessarily a challenge). Note: Of course, Sixth Sense going off doesn't mean the monster is lying. It could be that second monster lurking in the bushes, or a C.S. ambush, or the sounds of the fight will start an avalanche that might kill them all, etc.
Situation E: Mind Melter(s) with Sixth Sense are being stalked by a group of monsters fully capable of killing them. The ambush starts and no Sixth Sense (non-lethal). Realizing it's not lethal, meaning the monsters probably want them alive (for whatever reason), the characters break from cover (not in mortal danger afterall) and perform some other actions which really pin (and endanger) the monsters. The monsters radio in and get the clear from their boss for the use of lethal force. Sixth Sense now goes off ... and they better get to cover fast because they only have one (or maybe two if they're lucky) actions before it gets lethal!
Situation F: Flash flood, avalanche, etc. These are random acts that are not guaranteed to kill. However, in such situations, I'd favor the player characters and say they're lethal. If they survive (even if just by chance), I'd gladly argue that their awareness of the threat tilted the odds in their favor of survival.
So the player characters can take actions that turn a non-lethal situation into a lethal one (and that's their fault, and I may or may not give them warning depending on the specific situation, such as the example I gave in Situation E or the example to Dog_O_War with explosives breaching the hull). As a G.M., all I can do is control the NPC and the rest of nature. However, since as G.M. those fall under my domain, I know if they're going to be potentially lethal or not. That's not really relative though. If the player characters don't stop X from killing them, then they will die. Whether or not X is easy or difficult to stop isn't important, only that X will kill them.
Anyways, that's all for now. I wanted to respond to your post, but had been busy. Actually, I'm up way later than I should be as it is. Take care and hope you have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys to all.
Riddle me this: If it's written in 'plain english', then why did you bother to post this thread in the first place? Hmmmm? 