Topic: SM2 - Psions and attacking the unconscious mind

[JimiSue]

My telepath player has just raised this point - she was wanting her character to use the Touch of Unconsciousness psion before casting the important one (a memory altering one), in the not unreasonable belief that being unconscious would give her a bonus to the psion attack roll.

Being unconscious does not have a modifier listed on the PAR table, but I'm wondering if maybe it should, when using psions that attack the mind - like if a target was a sleepy guard, I might give a +20 modifier for his state of mind.

The more I think about it, the more I think there should be some kind of modifier here - do any of your fine folk have opinions on this at all?

[arakish]

Depends upon the part of the mind the psionicist is going after.  I have always divided the mind into three parts: Conscious, the Subconscious, and the Id.  I know this is Freud, but it has worked for me.

Even unconscious, I have ruled that a person's mind still may have natural defenses.  Also, you might run into a person who has been trained to defend their mind automatically.

Watch the movie Inception.  It actually does a very good job of showing how difficult it can be to get into a person's mind who has had their subconscious and id trained to defend themselves.  Such person's could have phenomenal bonuses against such attacks, even if unconscious whether from an skull thump, drugs, etc.

And then, what would a person's subconscious and id be like if they are passed out drunk?  Now you are really messing with a nasty can of worms.  This is something I have only thought of, never dwelled on.

If the person has no such training, even then I ruled their conscious mind still received a +15 bonus to resist.  The subconscious gets a +25 bonus, and the id gets a +50 bonus.  No matter what anyone would think, it would be very difficult to fool a person's id.  Not as hard for the subconscious and conscious minds.  Heck, if you really think about, sometimes, even when conscious, your conscious mind can be easily fooled.  Just look at the many optical illusions.

Natural things such as fatigue, sleepiness, etc. would probably give a bonus to the psionicist which would, and probably could, negate any natural bonus the conscious mind may have.  However, as said, the subconscious mind and the id mind would be more difficult.

Hope this helps, but it probably will cause more confusion than answering any questions.  A suggestion would be to google about psychiatry and do some research.  I minored in psychology when I was getting my double major in Geography/Geology on my first degree.  But I will admit I am not the smartest when it comes to the mind.

rmfr

[Usdrothek]

The mind will always resist, even if unconscious. No bonus should be given to make it easier to fail RR's

[GrumpyOldFart]

I'd think in some ways the subconscious mind would be harder to fool than the consciousness. Of course, the downside of that is that, once fooled, the subconscious would be harder to bring back to reality as well. So far as I can tell the primary function of the subconscious mind is to ignore what the consciousness tells it and make its own valuations, presumably as a form of control/error checking. This is why post-hypnotic suggestion works, because the subconscious will continue to ignore that consciousness long after the consciousness knows and can prove that it's more closely connected to reality.

All that said, I've never taken any kind of education in psych, not even the basics, the above is just opinions formed through observation.

[markc]

The mind will always resist, even if unconscious. No bonus should be given to make it easier to fail RR's

+1

 Note: not in SM2 rules (IIRC)
Now, There might be powers that I give a bonus to if the person is sleeping such as dream impalement and from there memory augmentation. ie first the subject believes it/see it in a dream and from there you place it into memory as a Deja Vu (sp).
MDC