Mind Block, possession and multiple personalities

[RainbowDevil]

Hey folks,

So, I have a question for you all, wondering about the interplay with the following abilities.

My character is a Medium (well, has the Medium's ability to commune with spirits by being a channel anyway). He also has multiple personalities and mind block auto-defence. In normal situations, he'd need to lower his mind block in order to use other sensing powers. That is fine with me. However, what would happen if he tried to become a channel for spirits to communicate through? Would the mind block activate? Okay, he can always lower it (or keep it down) when going into channel mode. What about his multiple personalities, though? They give him +4 to save vs possession and immediately come to the surface when he's possessed. The default for the "primary personality" is he doesn't know about the other personalities, so I guess he couldn't tell them that everything is okay...

What sort of rulings/house rules would you folks make in such a situation?

The idea behind my character is he's gone through a lot of really awful supernatural stuff so, while he's a channel, he also has a lot of psychosis and psychological damage. Mind you, he is a character in After the Bomb, so psychological damage is kinda par for the course in that world!

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
RD

[Holister]

Wow, that is one complicated character, but my question is why give him the auto-defense mind block and make him a medium in the first place? I would just drop the auto-defense mind block and make it normal mind block and drop the bonuses provided by the multiple-personalities because again, its seems contradictory to have those bonuses if playing a medium because one seems to directly counter the effects of the other. Or you can just not play a medium, but in the end its entirely your call.

[mrloucifer]

I agree with Holister. The auto defense doesn't make sense in a Medium. For the sake of argument however, the auto defense ability as I understand it would cut off his Mediumship abilities all together; this would include the psychic link to his spirit guide -the source of his abilities- being severed.

[eliakon]

How I would rule this
1) you can always lower MBAD so that is not an issue. You just willingly lower it to activate your ability
2) when you voluntarily allow possession [/i]you are possessed[/i]. Period. Dot. End of story. Not just part of you is possessed. The entire person is possessed, and all personalities are suppressed. After all they are all just facets of the same person not actually separate people.

So, medium lowers shield, and allows self to be possessed. Blamo he is possessed, the other personalities don't come into play because while they will come to the surface they don't help much. Its one soul there. He will come out of the trance in another personality, but the other personality doesn't evict anything.

That is how I interpret the material.

[Holister]

I agree with Holister. The auto defense doesn't make sense in a Medium. For the sake of argument however, the auto defense ability as I understand it would cut off his Mediumship abilities all together.

Thanks. That's what I thought when I read it. The character seems to contradict itself so maybe he just selects more appropriate abilities and leaves the mind block out of it.

I also agree with eliakon about the whole multiple personality thing. It really would not have any effect on being possessed. Way I see it if you are possessed, you are possessed, being crazy shouldn't even be a factor. Once some entity or demon has you, it has you, end of story.

[RainbowDevil]

I agree with Holister. The auto defense doesn't make sense in a Medium. For the sake of argument however, the auto defense ability as I understand it would cut off his Mediumship abilities all together; this would include the psychic link to his spirit guide -the source of his abilities- being severed.

I'd have to disagree with this part, since the Mind Block isn't automatically up. It only shoots up if there is some sort of attack, so technically he could have all his other sensing abilities and mediumship *most of the time*. However, yes, the moment the mind block activates he'd lose all his sensing/communication abilities.

[RainbowDevil]

Just to clarify with my character - he's not actually a medium, but a Bubblemaker. So, he has a mediumship ability, however that's not the sole focus of the character like it is with Mediums. Regarding why I'd have both a medium and mind block auto despite the two seeming to counter the other - well, that's the character's developments recently! Basically he was a Bubblemaker, but was captured by demons and spent many years being tortured mentally in a dreamland. As such his mind has fractured, and the mind block is now an instinctive thing to prevent further harm. Kinda like when someone in the real world suffers from major trauma and unconsciously blocks out things later on that would be harmful to them. It may not be effective as far as stats go, but for me it's always been more important having characters for the RP side of things, even if it is sometimes a disadvantage.

[RainbowDevil]

How I would rule this
1) you can always lower MBAD so that is not an issue. You just willingly lower it to activate your ability
2) when you voluntarily allow possession [/i]you are possessed[/i]. Period. Dot. End of story. Not just part of you is possessed. The entire person is possessed, and all personalities are suppressed. After all they are all just facets of the same person not actually separate people.

So, medium lowers shield, and allows self to be possessed. Blamo he is possessed, the other personalities don't come into play because while they will come to the surface they don't help much. Its one soul there. He will come out of the trance in another personality, but the other personality doesn't evict anything.

That is how I interpret the material.

Yes, I'd definitely agree with you on this. Initially I misremembered the Rifts ruling for possession and multiple personalities. I thought that if possession was attempted, then he'd immediately have a new personality surface. But that's with Mind Wipe, not possession. Reading it again, I think you're spot-on.

[eliakon]

How I would rule this
1) you can always lower MBAD so that is not an issue. You just willingly lower it to activate your ability
2) when you voluntarily allow possession [/i]you are possessed[/i]. Period. Dot. End of story. Not just part of you is possessed. The entire person is possessed, and all personalities are suppressed. After all they are all just facets of the same person not actually separate people.

So, medium lowers shield, and allows self to be possessed. Blamo he is possessed, the other personalities don't come into play because while they will come to the surface they don't help much. Its one soul there. He will come out of the trance in another personality, but the other personality doesn't evict anything.

That is how I interpret the material.

Yes, I'd definitely agree with you on this. Initially I misremembered the Rifts ruling for possession and multiple personalities. I thought that if possession was attempted, then he'd immediately have a new personality surface. But that's with Mind Wipe, not possession. Reading it again, I think you're spot-on.

Woot, glad I could help *smokes cigar of satisfaction*