You want to learn more about how psychic powers work in Mind Strike. How do I know this? Because I READ YOUR MIND.
When I first started thinking about Mind Strike, I realized I didn’t want to handle “range” for psychic powers in the usual manner — you know, “‘You get 50 yards of range for every point of power” or something like that. Look at the comics, the movies, the books with psychics in them. It just doesn’t work that way.
In Mind Strike, the default range of any power is line of sight. If you’re trying to read a dude’s mind, it doesn’t matter if he’s across the room, driving down the street, or duct-taped to your left arm; it’s all the same so long as as you can see him.
Using a power on a target outside your line of sight is harder. As you’d expect, there’s a penalty for doing so. As you might not expect, that penalty is not based on the distance between you and your target.
Well, in a way it is, but it’s based on emotional distance rather than physical, spatial distance.
This means it’s a lot easier to strike up a telepathic conversation with your mom or a teammate — no matter where they are in the world — than a stranger you know only by the photo thrust into your hands. (It’s not impossible to link up with complete stranger, but it’s really hard. You’ll probably have to push yourself and run the risk of backlash.)
Of course, there are other risks when linking with those close to you. Once you start telepathically chatting with your mom, you run the risk that she’ll start leaving messages on your phone complaining that you never “think at her” any more.
Ah, well. Power has its price, right?
