Empathic Mind Control
“How does that make you feel?”
Range: 120 feet
Hand Requirement: Two
| Subpower | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Empathy (affinity) | You gain a psionic ability to read the minds of others, as well as telepathy within range. You can telepathically speak with other creatures within range as if you were speaking to them in person. You can also read the surface thoughts of others as a channeled action as if you were reading a book; this does not need a check, though the SM may require a lengthy channel time, a check, and/or a lesser slot, at their discretion. As a rule of thumb, plumbing the depths of someone’s mind or something lengthy might require 30 minutes, trying to invade a mind actively resisting you or avoiding psionic mind blocks might require a check with consequences like shutout or injury on failure, and linking several minds into a telepathic chat room or something similarly unconventional might require a lesser slot. You can spend a lesser slot to heighten your sensitivity, allowing you to know and track the locations and moods of emotion-capable creatures within range for 30 minutes. At the SM’s discretion, you might also spend a lesser slot to automatically pass some check where this affinity came into play, or otherwise supercharge your affinity to attempt something extraordinary not covered in this writing. You can also channel for 1 minute with a person within range to form an Empathic Bond with them, a telepathic bond that allows the two of you to telepathically converse regardless of distance, perceive through each others’ senses, and tag the other person as an Empathic Bond, who also benefits from several EMC subpowers. This bond lasts for 24 hours or until you sever it as a free action. | |
| Scan Mind (at-will) | Major action: Make an attack against a target’s Will resistance. If you break resistance, you read the target’s surface thoughts, allowing you to impose disadvantage on their attacks against you for 1 round, and you have advantage on attacks against them until the end of your next turn. Your Empathic Bond also benefits from this. | |
| Scan Mind (greater) | Major action: Make an attack against a target’s Will resistance. If you break resistance, you fully Scrutinize the target, and the target must make a Sanity check, with your attack roll as the DC. If they pass, you replicate a mental construct of them in your mind; this gives you advantage on attacks against them for 1 minute. If they fail, you replicate a better mental construct that also imposes disadvantage on their attacks against you for 1 minute. Major action: You replicate the construct for your Empathic Bond, allowing them to benefit from this as well. | |
| Senseshare (at-will) | Channeled action: You begin perceiving through the senses of other emotion-capable creatures within range, though creatures will be aware of you when you do, and can reject the connection at will. You can reverse the direction and allow someone in range to perceive through your senses, instead. Your Empathic Bond can also perceive through them. | |
| Senseshare (lesser) | Channeled action: You begin perceiving through the senses of other emotion-capable creatures within range. This can only be channeled for 10 minutes, though the creature is not aware of your intrusion. You can do this with minds guarded against intrusion or actively fighting against intruders, but the SM may require an initial channel, a check, and/or another lesser slot, at their discretion. Your Empathic Bond can also perceive through them. | |
| Siren’s Song (at-will) | Major action: Make an attack against a target’s Will resistance. If you break resistance, the target is Incapacitated with a movement speed of 0 for 1 round or until damaged. | |
| Siren’s Song (lesser) | Major action: Project a personalized, synchronized memory trace from yourself that mesmerizes a target. Make an attack against a target’s Will resistance. If you break resistance, the target is Incapacitated with a movement speed of 0 for 1 round or until damaged. The trace lasts for 1 minute. You must channel in subsequent rounds and stay in range to maintain the trace’s hold. The effect also ends if the target is out of range or an adjacent creature uses a major action to shake the target free. Major action: If you fail to hold their attention the first time, or it ends prematurely, you can repeat the attack without a slot to re-fascinate them for the trace’s remaining duration. If you fail to break resistance, the trace disintegrates early. | |
| Siren’s Song (greater) | Major action: Create an improvised psychic engram at your location that mesmerizes all creatures of your choice within range. They are Incapacitated by the engram with a movement speed of 0 for 1 round or until damaged. At the SM’s discretion, psionically powerful creatures may notice and attempt to break free. The engram lasts 1 minute. If the creatures are hostile or otherwise suspicious of you, you must make an attack against Will resistance, targeting all creatures of your choice within range. For each target, if you break resistance in order to mesmerize them as above. For each target, if you fail to break resistance, they are Blinded, Crippled (half), and Deafened for 2 rounds. You must channel in subsequent rounds and stay in range to maintain the engram, but the engram remains in place, while you can move freely. The effect also ends for a target if an adjacent creature uses a major action to shake the target free. | |
| Sympathy (at-will) | Free action: You project an emotion from yourself, masking your actual feelings to anyone who does not both have reason to suspect you and the ability to psionically discern you. Where the validity of this emotion might be tested, you can use your psionic skill. Your Empathic Bond also benefits from this. | |
| Sympathy (at-will) | Major action: Create a thoughtform for a willing creature within range. Whenever the creature is hit by an attack that targets Will resistance, the thoughtform can intervene to shield them with +4 to Will against it, before dissipating. The thoughtform only lasts 1 hour, and only one can exist at a time. If you or your Empathic Bond have this, both of you can use it, though there is still only one thoughtform and one use. | |
| Sympathy (lesser) | Major action: Create a thoughtform for a willing creature within range. This thoughtform is a being that shares the same sense as its host, and will record its sensory observations for up to 24 hours. If the host is within range, you can retrieve the thoughtform and assimilate its memories as a major action, without a lesser slot. The thoughtform stops recording after 24 hours, though it persists in the creature’s psyche until extracted. | |
| Empath’s Memoir (lesser, variable) | Channeled action: Specify a code phrase, or an object in your hands, or your current location. You create a psychic engram that holds a memory that can last as many minutes as you channel, up to 15 minutes. The memory must be rooted in memories and emotions, yours or others’ that you have experienced; you can say or do or shape the engram to hold whatever you please, but they must be derived from those rooting memories and emotions in some way. If you specified a code phrase, the next time you speak it to your intended listener(s), it will root in their minds and be recallable whenever they think of your code phrase. Otherwise, if you picked an object in your hands, people who hold that object will be able to access the engram, and if you picked your current location, they can access the engram when they close their eyes while standing in that location. The engram will disintegrate after 24 hours. | |
| Empath’s Memoir (greater) | Major action: You fortify the engram such that you can add to it, up to 12 hours. Channeling to add to the engram in this way is done in the same manner as the lesser slot channeled version, but without needing to expend a lesser slot. It will last for the entirety of the session and beyond. Whether it lasts time spans measuring in the thousands or millions of years, or say, through a Scratch, or some other improbable event only made remotely possible by the vagaries of Paradox Space, and the exact method by which it might do so, is at the SM’s discretion. | |
| Notes: Empathic Mind Control may have situations with uncertain resolutions that are not provided for in the subpower. In this case, use a DC equal to your total psionic skill bonus plus 15, or your psionic attack bonus plus 15, whichever is higher, if a DC ever needs to be provided for you. |