Mind-based mutagen

[Dishonored_Archer]

Hi there, one thing i like of the game is the variety of mutations available but i noted there’s no a mutagen branch would enhance-cripple mainly your brain, just some which give you a bit of intelligence but for me that’s not enough, i have many mutation ideas for a brain-based mutagen that i would like to share, what are you thoughts?

[Coolthulhu]

Mind powers like telekinesis and telepathy are generally out, but some more mundane mind powers could be OK.

Things like berserk, morale alterations, calculation of projectile path etc. - those would probably be fine.

[Rivet]

A lot of the Medical mutagen path’s mutations affect your mind, though it’s mostly in negative ways.

[Cat09]

(please pardon my spelling)
many of the genetic defects from RL could be considered for a cdda “mutation”. many syndromes we see irl can be either genetic or environmentally induced, or both. A few random mental afflictions: down syndrome, alzheimers, schizophrenia, depression, kleptomania(force auto-pickup?), phobias, dyslexia, ADD, hyperactivity, autism… there are probably hundreds or thousands to list, but implementation could be a syndrome effect that may be engaged in multiple ways, one being mutations.

[Dishonored_Archer]

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:2, topic:9584”]Mind powers like telekinesis and telepathy are generally out, but some more mundane mind powers could be OK.

Things like berserk, morale alterations, calculation of projectile path etc. - those would probably be fine.[/quote]

IMO telekinesis would be the only “magical” mutation i would accept but not necessary for combat situations, maybe to get a far away item that is between a danger zone (lava, traps) like that CBM which name i can’t remember that lets you pull metallic items, and yeah those powers you mentioned may be possible, these are my my ideas:

[glow=yellow,2,300]Neutral[/glow]

Irregular Head - Your head has grown slightly, this doesn’t give any effect, you can still wear headgear though.
This is the first stage for later mutations.

Strange Thoughts - You sometimes think unusual things unexpectedly, this doesn’t affect you in any way.

[glow=green,2,300]Positive.[/glow]

Fast Learner
Good Memory
Psychopath
Self-Aware
Optimist
Fast Reader

Suppress Pain (Active) - You steadily focus to lessen the pain you are suffering. You need to be undisturbed to this mutation to take effect.
Basically this allow to reduce gradually a quantity of pain but only if you are out of combat and has fairly long cooldown.

Lucid Dreams (Passive) - You will usually have total control of your dreams when sleeping, resulting in high morale bonuses.
Everytime you sleep, there a chance you will wake up with a morale boost, this could be 70-100 (This can change) slowly decreasing.

Calculation (Passive) - Quickly studying your prey’s movement patterns and reactions times, you can determine the trajectory of ranged weapons and a chance to make pinpoint shoots, resulting in better accuracy and critical chances.
Maybe this looks overpowered, it could be split in two separates mutations

Neuro-Regeneration (Passive) Your head regenerates better than the rest of your body when you sleep, resulting in more HP gain. Stacks with Fast Healer.
Self-Explanatory

Dim Suggestion (Passive) You subtly charm a NPC when you talk to them, resulting in better affinity; bargains, lying, etc.
Yeah, i don’t have a good description for this one :P, simply you get more chance to get equipment, better deals, intimidate with NPCs.

Frenzy (Active) You enter into a state of rage, increasing melee damage and speed as well, when the effect ends you will get a penalty.
A good one for melee users, the debuff would be something like reducing certains stats, pain or maybe losing some HP.

[glow=red,2,300]Negative[/glow]

Slow Reader
Slow Learner
Glass Jaw
Insomniac
Schizophrenia (This one could be removed of the branch)

Migraine (Passive) - You rarely experiment unpleasant headaches, resulting in reduced Intelligence, a bit of pain and small accuracy penalty.
The frequency could change, a tough enemy for book lovers.

Dreadful Thoughts (Passive) - You may experience nasty visions or hear abhorrent phrases in your mind, resulting in morale penalties.
This can occur randomly, the severity of the morale penalty may vary, from 20 to 85, of course this value can change, as a added bonus the messages can appear on the message box, like mi-go’s saying their curious catchphrases.

Dizziness (Passive) - Randomly you suffer a light disequilibrium, making you slightly move to any direction.
Watch out lurking in missiles silos with this trait, you could fall to your death without your consent. The moves could be 1 or 2 times and the player could be alerted before to prevent cheap deaths.

Reality Crack (Passive) - Sometimes you averagely lose the grip of the real world, causing you to suffer a moderate penalty to Perception and minor hallucinations.
The small and temporal version of Schizophrenia.

Post-Threshold

Hydrocephalus (Passive) - Your head has grown and it is slightly misshapen, this makes you unable to wear any headgear except for the mouth.
Apart of deprive you of any protection for your head, this is a phase to another mutation.

Dense Cranium (Passive) - Your skull has calcified a lot, giving you more HP and slight resistance to blunt and slashing attacks, this only applies to your head.

Rapture (Active) - You manipulate the synaptic activity of lesser creatures like wildlife animals, making them friendly and follow you.
This would be limited to one creature and not effective to nether inhabitants, trying to charm another critter will release the last one, so no moose army for you

Insanity (Active) - You alter violently the brain chemistry of a target, causing it to attack anyone nearby for a short time.
This may be kind of magical so i could be debatable if its fits the game’s theme, it could affect zombies (affecting the blob maybe?) some nether inhabitants and of course, NPCs.

These are some examples of a mind-based mutagen branch could be.

[troll_from_behind]

It would be intresting to see, how well the current system would adapt to a more “supernarural” world with magic.
After all the lore would make implementing the magic quite easy by simply assuming there have been rifts to Nether always instead of beign the oozing wounds like now more like scratches not letting anything bigger through with the exception of some small blobs taking over some suitable hosts.
So the “Gift of Magic” would in fact be a blob working with a willing host to enhance the host.
Yea, it has some loopholes still.

[Valpo]

The cataclysm. Where beeing a psychopath is considered to be a positive thing.

[jokermatt999]

The cataclysm. Where beeing a psychopath is considered to be a positive thing.

Well, that is a staple on apocalyptic fiction: the characters are overcome their emotions to make difficult choices. Typically they either later express remorse in a detached sense or either character expresses their horror at it, but it’s frequently portrayed as a good thing. There’s also the standard “overly emotional and can’t cope” character (a negative inverse of the psycho) and generally a totally amoral brutal psychopath who is more along the lines of how psychopaths are seen in typical settings. All imo of course, and largely affected by binge watching seasons 2/3/4 of Walking Dead the past week or so.

On topic, since most psychic powers are out, I’m having trouble thinking of what good post threshold mutations would be like. Clairvoyance is in via artifacts so I think that’d be acceptable. Maybe a definite chance to learn recipes when reading or a super buffed fast reader? Reading is generally only constrained by food/water though, so at the time of mutations, not that useful. Maybe some “uncanny dodge” type ability where you can predict attacks?

[Hazerithious]

Perhaps an Eidetic Memory mutation? You know to help with reading?

[Dishonored_Archer]

Perhaps an Eidetic Memory mutation? You know to help with reading?

Sounds good, an upgrade for Fast Reader for high-level books which enables you to read it really fast and maybe without the morale penalties they give.

[Azrad]

I’ve been thinking that a morale reduction nerf would be trait-like. Bibliophile, or somesuch. Books that increase morale give a bigger increase, books that decrease morale give a lesser decrease.

[Hazerithious]

I was also thinking that the Eidetic Memory mutation would increase the rate of recipe learning because, you know. [glow=blue,2,300]Eidetic memory.[/glow]

[Zireael]

I’d like an upgrade to Fast Reader removing morale loss from high-level books.

[Zero]

Could go fast reader -> no morale loss -> morale bonus because you enjoy working your mind.

Ignore pain and increased stamina could be good mutations for mind in a mind-over-body thing.

Less sleep -> sleepless.

Lightweight < normal > drug addicted (increased morale benefits from drugs) > drug dependent (longer penalties in withdrawal but keeping the morale benefit) > drug inured, where you go to a state where you don’t get negatives from drugs at all.

Mixing multiple martial arts might be a cool feature for brainiacs. Or gun-fu or something could be awesome.

[Valpo]

[quote=“Valpo, post:7, topic:9584”]The cataclysm. Where beeing a psychopath is considered to be a positive thing.

Well, that is a staple on apocalyptic fiction: the characters are overcome their emotions to make difficult choices. Typically they either later express remorse in a detached sense or either character expresses their horror at it, but it’s frequently portrayed as a good thing. There’s also the standard “overly emotional and can’t cope” character (a negative inverse of the psycho) and generally a totally amoral brutal psychopath who is more along the lines of how psychopaths are seen in typical settings. All imo of course, and largely affected by binge watching seasons 2/3/4 of Walking Dead the past week or so.

On topic, since most psychic powers are out, I’m having trouble thinking of what good post threshold mutations would be like. Clairvoyance is in via artifacts so I think that’d be acceptable. Maybe a definite chance to learn recipes when reading or a super buffed fast reader? Reading is generally only constrained by food/water though, so at the time of mutations, not that useful. Maybe some “uncanny dodge” type ability where you can predict attacks?[/quote]

I wouldn t define psychopath that way. because then id be one.

Well for brain power mutation line:

Theres quite a few traits already present at chargen that could be in there.

Like fast reading/learning , optimist and good memory for instance.

Perhaps just improved versions of those things as treshhold mutations would suffice + int increase.

[Cat09]

"Impulsive"
your character just can’t resist that doughnut in your inventory, randomly eats it;
I wonder if I could hit that crow with this rock… !SMASH! oops, that broken window may attract attention…;
why did I throw that book in the fire?

would be a super challenging trait to pick.

[Hazerithious]

And probably super hard to code.

[Wally-kun]

The closest to proper psychic powers I could see coming out would be the amplification of the natural electric impulses in the brain to such an extent that one is able to project them outwards and affect other living creatures, or at the very least be able to detect them. From what little I know and have heard from empaths and the scientific responses, it’s mostly based on an ambient static field that almost every human being is more or less able to detect. The feeling of a presence in the room with you, the sensation of being watched, and just sort of knowing when someone enters a room are all examples. A similar effect is observed when one’s intent is of a malevolent or malicious nature, where you get a ‘bad vibe’ off of someone. This is all something that we are able to feel; empaths are simply much, much more sensitive to the ambient static fields naturally generated by the brain than most other people.

And I could certainly see mutations coming off of this trait. Maybe you gain a general awareness of living things in a given area, from small (on the other side of a wall at LEAST) to extreme range. This would, of course, lead to a detriment to one’s other senses due to an increased reliance on electrical impulse detection; sight would begin to wither as other senses increase. The end result is something that has poor other senses, but an acute awareness of the world around them on an electrical level; post-threshold pushes this into affecting the perception of other creatures in some small but critical ways. Detecting the electric ‘aura’ of other living things (with brain activity), amplified post-threshold to detect any sort of electricity in general, perhaps be able to alter or project your own aura so as to sooth (or possibly agitate) wildlife, perhaps even zombies (I’m not talking making them berserk, but perhaps plucking one’s aggro from beyond their normal range to draw them in, or to temporarily placate one because they don’t feel like you are a threat, or maybe even trick them into feeling like you are in fact a zombie, or dead entirely). Perception of others and how you are perceived, rather than actually altering the world around you. Encourage certain feelings in NPC’s, maybe, without ever really getting towards mind control or other crazy shit.

Negative things might be physical degradation (increased awareness traded for less efficient abilities to respond to what you detect), hypersensitivity in other specific senses (could lead to migraines, decreased pain tolerance, sensory overload, mental illness, chemical imbalance), and extremely adverse reactions to electrical attacks to your already electrically-sensitive brain. Physical deformities of the cranium aren’t completely unreasonable; I wouldn’t say enough to destroy what you’re wearing but it might increase encumbrance, still limiting what you might be able to wear…or something. I’m not sure how head coverage works so much.

However, at the end of it you’d have someone that can see most anything that generates a static field from a pretty considerable distance away, at the expense of a more sensitive body and a lesser ability to react to the things you can see much clearer that you otherwise couldn’t. Thus the plight of the fortune teller: powerful enough to see the world around them, and even predict the future, but reacting to these visions and senses is the true challenge. They are able to plan very far ahead, and it is fully necessary because of the handicaps their abilities have left them with.

So this would be more of an empath line, rather than a proper psychic line, but it’s as close to psychic as you’ll get without entering the realm of magic, and it has actual science to it to boot. I think it would be pretty interesting.