Just as the title says. Right now, the stat is basically useless, because putting points into DEX can achieve far greater and farther reaching effects. So, I would suggest some psychic powers that use the PER stat as a basis for learning, power, etc. etc. to make the stat a little more valuable.
I would propose a rare, special event inside churches (hidden cult basement?) that will let you “learn” the hidden skill psyonics.
Only way to raise psyonics is to use them, and they would have a “power” bar and cost similar to bionics.
To balance, you can only regain psyonics power by “meditating” (by waiting, and if you have psyonics instead of just waiting you meditate), very, very slowly over time.
But to further balance psyonics, and because they are kind of evil, I propose that the different “abilities” should damage the player. So a sort of risk-and-reward style. Like, a “blood boil” ability that damages living creatures but causes you to bleed. Or a mind-takeover ability that converts a creature to your team, at the cost of some pain and a “headache” stat (-1 int, -1 per?) etc. etc.
You would automatically learn new abilities over time (make it like a 0.01% * psy levl per turn or something)
Bionics and psyonics should be incompatible with eachother, due to the imbalances of the body and mind bionics induces.
Well, there’s precedent (kinda) for psionics: certain artifacts can induce schizophrenic effects whilst worn and/or provide protection from mind-affecting attacks.
Having psi–as currently proposed, available in only one way, extremely slow to develop, slow to charge, and damaging to use–completely incompatible with bionics seems like a good way to make them completely unpalatable, especially when bionics can be found on a fairly common mob–butcher a Shocker Zombie with 3+ Survival.
It’s an interesting idea, but IMO isn’t ready for prime time just yet.
An interesting idea, but I don’t really like the feeling of this. I could see people gaining psionic type abilities through the mutation system, but IMO it’s a little strange to have normal humans the ability to somehow gain supernatural abilities without having some sort of biological change happen first.
Yeah, that’s a valid point too. Insane IN (good luck getting that under the current system, incidentally) involves enough cerebral development to bulge out one’s skull, FWIW.
If someone was using an artifact to replace their biological systems then I could see them using psionic powers, clairvoyance artifacts are already in the game, for example.
Why not make it a profession? Before all hell broke out across the world you had your own personal hell inside of a science lab. Once things got out of control you fled and took refugee inside of an evac shelter. Of course you’d be deformed and people would react as such. And that is how you found out you’re very different and more importantly why beside yourself, the shelter is devoid of life.
Artifacts can be magical because they are dangerous and intentionally unknowable and meant to represent things the player cannot understand beyond the veil of our simple reality.
But players should not be magical. Player wizards do not fit the theme of the game.
If you want something, provide a goddamn method of action for it, it’s not that hard considering the game is sci-fi.
There’s nothing that could possibly be done with psionics that couldn’t be done equally as well, in a way that better reinforces the feel of the game, through another method.
And perception will probably be less useful for a while but when the stealth system hits I think that will change very quickly, since it will effect both your ability to notice other things and your ability to avoid detection.
[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:10, topic:2464”]<snipped, no disagreement–KA101>
And perception will probably be less useful for a while but when the stealth system hits I think that will change very quickly, since it will effect both your ability to notice other things and your ability to avoid detection.[/quote]
Being able to notice things (PE) may help you detect hostiles, but I’m not sure it ought to let you remain still and unnoticed. That feels more like DX territory. :-/
Aside from stealth, I think PER should influence how fast you gain skills and should also affect Skill Rust. If you are less perceptive, i.e. not paying attention, you are not going to learn as well, regardless of how intelligent you may be. On the flip side, someone who pays more attention should learn faster and retain those skills longer.
[quote=“xibalba”]Should perception affect dodge and critical hits somewhat? You can’t dodge what you can’t see coming. You can notice an pattern in your opponents attacks and use that to your advantage.
As I see it perception is literally how much a person pays attention to their surroundings, using all their senses. It’s their awareness, their self-awareness, and their awareness of others, their intentions, and their motivations. This can tie perception into everything involving interaction between actors, including things like traps and camouflage (a survival skill action?), and stealth.
I’d like perception to affect a lot of things, but subtly. You can survive without high perception, but with it you can get a little luckier, you have a little more slack.[/quote]
I think perception shouldn’t affect dodge because all you need to see an attack coming is a working eye that can follow objects.
Maybe when you have high perception you can see a bullet coming , but your body still fails you when your mucles just can’t move faster than light even if you see the bullet flying out of the gun few seconds before it’s in your head.
But critical hits should be for more perceptive/dextrous characters.
About stealth i think it’s purely dexterity skill , because i don’t see how perception can help you stay invisible.
Perception shouldn’t be one of the importnanat stats because you can literaly be half blind and still survive.
Just check out this guy’s awesome sneaky walk and try to say that doesn’t require catlink agility.
In all seriousness I think PER seems like the better choice, though perhaps high enough DEX could grant a bonus because you move so smoothly that you make less noise/are less noticeable than usual or something.
[quote=“xibalba”]Okay I’m the former homeless guy here, right? I’m the one who knows about dodging crackheads and hiding from the cops.
Your awareness of your surroundings and how other people see you is hugely important for stealth and to a lesser degree in evasion. It’s important for communicating with people, persuasion, intimidation (to a degree), and bartering.
When I was stuck in Salt Lake City I would walk around the homeless shelter a few times before lights out and talk to myself to intimidate the bums standing around smoking and drinking. That was based on my perception and intelligence.
When some random tweaker got pissed off at me in Coos Bay and started chasing me, I ducked into the wooded park where I lived, stepped off the path behind a tree, ducked down and pulled my hood over my head. I stayed still and he walked right past me. I waited for half an hour until I heard sirens at the other end of the park and then walked home, staying off the paved path.[/quote]
I don’t recall any previous mention of your having been homeless, but fair enough: I don’t memorize the entire forum. DX in this case would be the whole “Duck behind tree, get hood over head fast, then stay still” portion of the op. (I’ve got pretty poor DX IRL and don’t think I could manage that.) PE was useful for keeping track of your attacker: awareness of surroundings. I’m thinking “awareness of others see you” seems more like a CH issue, but Cata doesn’t have that so wev.
but eating artifacts should be possible.