An interesting idea is to set the psychic powers as requiring little or no effort, but they have a secondary function that requires a lot of effort and shuts the power off for hours.
For example, Empathy might allow you to sense emotions around you, but you could also direct it towards someone to probe their mental state deeply. Doing so is exhausting and shuts off your Empathy power for a certain number of hours.
Channelling gives you voices that can sometimes offer useful advice or answer questions. You can include your Channelling dice with various Brains rolls if the subject matter is appropriate. You can also allow the spirit to act through you and include the dice with other actions, but after a spirit possesses you like this, you'll lose access to your Channelling power for hours or days.
Sixth Sense normally gives you warnings about danger and occasionally lets you sense subtle details in your environment, like the presence of electrical current in an exposed cable. If you concentrate, you can... what? Probe something deeply? Go on automatic in combat, including your Sixth Sense with every combat roll? Dunno, but again, afterwards you lose it for awhile.
Projection lets you send a mental projection to a well known person or place, but bringing something back will cost you access to your Projection power for a long while. Actually, just regular Projection can probably only be done once in awhile, while bringing stuff back is actively dangerous.
If you use an "uber" power, roll your power rating to determine how long it's disabled. Circumstances may give you a bonus or penalty to this roll.
13+: no effect, you can use your power again immediately.
11-12: 3 rounds.
9-10: 5 minutes.
7-8: 1 hour.
5-6: 8 hours.
3-4: 1 day
1-2: 3 days
0: 1 week
<0: go 1 week, then roll again at the same penalty.
Hm. How about a more standard progression? Roll an unopposed test.
The base Risk of using a given power will vary by power. Sixth Sense, which is often triggered by the environment, would probably be Risk 0. Projection, on the other hand, might be Risk 2 or even 3.
Posted by Kiz at June 3, 2004 08:53 PMCommentsPost a comment