Vampiric Psychokinesis; how to add it?

[Dreaminggod]

I'm a big fan of the Legacy of Kain, and in them the vampires seem to naturally possess small degrees of telekinesis, while others seem to posses a strong degree of it. I know some months ago it was discussed what powers the Kindred are missing, and PenDragon wrote up one for Flight, which was pretty cool, but was explicitly called out as NOT psychokinesis. So, I'm here, looking at my personal WoD and I want my vampires to be able to be psychokinetic. And here I am, wondering how one would do psychokinesis as a Discipline.

A quick google search doesn't seem to turn up anything.

Before someone points out the Coil or letting Vampires buy the Telekinesis merit, a) I want it to be something all vampires can access, and b) I don't think a merit fits, when all the other powers a Kindred possess are disciplines. Ergo, I am here thinking of a 1 - 5 Telekinesis Discipline. Or, should it even be like that? Perhaps it's like a physical Discipline, and the dots just increase a basic Telekinesis ability?

Any thoughts?

[nofather]

The VII book has the Psychogenics discipline, which includes a psychokinetic ability at the second dot. A flat out Telekinesis Discipline you could just grab the Translation Guide's conversion of the Masquerade thaumaturgical discipline 'Movement of the Mind.'

You can see brief descriptions of both here.

[SoulGambit]

The thing is, all 5 dots of the telekinesis merit is really about worth a single dot in a discipline, not a whole tree. It's hard to make an entire tree dedicated to telekinesis and make it feel worth it without being a stim. One approach might be to adapt Vigor, only usable when you spend 1 vitae but it lets you take an action at a distance based on your dots in the discipline and add your dots in the discipline to the relevant Dex and/or Str for purposes of the roll and lifting capacity. Thematically it'd be unleashing or manifesting the beast to perform actions directly.

If you do this, then you should not allow it to stack with actual Vigor.

[Xenorath]

Maybe a Subvolo+Vigor Devotion? I guess Sobvolo would have to be pretty commonly known if you wanted it widely available, but that isn't a problem if you decide it's okay.

[Dreaminggod]

I thought about turning Subvolo into a Psychokinesis tree, but honestly, it feels like disrespecting the author's work, in the fact he called out he was making something that was not psychokinesis.

Ah, yes. I remember the one from VII, but it was a whole 'Psychic' tree. Which, I'd prefer to keep each psychihc discipline as, well, different disciplines. Auspex is good for emotion/psychic readings. Telekinesis, however, deserves it's own discipline. Movement of the Mind is one way, but it's Tremere blood sorcery. It has a different feel, and it's only partly Telekinesis. I'm thinking of Kain pulling a god's honest Force Choke-like application. Or using it to drain blood out of a target.

[amechra]

The thing is, all 5 dots of the telekinesis merit is really about worth a single dot in a discipline, not a whole tree.

THIS IS QUITTER TALK! I FEEL CHALLENGED!

Psychokinesis

A Vampire's mind begins to bleed past their dead husk of a body; it is so pathetically human to believe that you need tools to enact your will on the world. The Beast reaches out, claws snatching and fangs snarling, to tear at flesh and bone.

Cost: None or One Vitae
Dice Pool: None
Action: None (For persistent effects) or Reflexive (For active effects)
Duration: Permanent (For persistent effects) or Instant (For active effects)

Like other "physical" Disciplines, Psychokinesis has two kinds of effects: persistent and active. Persistent effects are always on, and have no cost. Active effects are Reflexive, and cost one Vitae per effect.

Persistent: The Kindred possesses a number of phantasmal limbs that sprout directly from their mind, referred to as vectors; vectors have a Force equal to their Intelligence + Psychokinesis, a Precision equal to their Wits + Psychokinesis, and a reach of 10 yards. The vampire may use their vectors to take any actions they could normally take with their hands, other than attacks; if they would take any action that would use their Strength or Dexterity, they use their vector's Force or Precision instead, and they may substitute their Occult for Athletics when using their phantom limbs. They are even capable of grappling another character with these phantom limbs, using Force + Occult - Defence, and controlling the grapple with Force + Occult vs. Strength + Brawl. Grappling in this manner prevents either party from using any Move other than Break Free; however, either party may choose to forego any Moves they would be allowed to make.

Active: By spending Vitae, the Kindred may flood their brains with blood, giving them a surge of mental force that could be the difference between death and undeath. For every Vitae spent, chose one effect from the following list. A vampire may spend additional Vitae to invoke multiple effects simultaneously, but no effect of Psychokinesis may be used more than once per turn.

• Use Moves other than Break Free on a successful roll to control a grapple; they may use any Move they could use normally, including Feed or any moves granted by Merits - if the Moves reference the Kindred's Strength or Dexterity, use their Force or Precision, respectively, instead. If they use the Drop Prone Move, they only throw their opponent to the ground. Instead of taking a Move, they may move their grappled opponent a number of yards up to their Psychokinesis; if this moves the opponent outside of the reach of their vectors, the grapple is broken.
• Allow the Kindred to make direct attacks with their Psychokinesis, treating it as a +0L weapon that uses Force + Occult for the attack. Alternatively, they may throw objects with their telekinesis to strike characters outside the reach of their vectors; doing so is an attack using Precision + Occult - Defence.
• Add their dots in Psychokinesis to any roll that requires physical precision; this obviates the need for tools.
• Add their dots in Psychokinesis to their Defence for a turn; if they have dots of Celerity, they may apply this bonus against Firearm attacks.

[Afro Luigi]

THIS IS QUITTER TALK! I FEEL CHALLENGED!

Damn it Amechra, I have yet to see you do something I don't want to use in my games!

And that is not a challenge!

[amechra]

Damn it Amechra, I have yet to see you do something I don't want to use in my games!

And that is not a challenge!

Thanks!

I try my best ;p.

[Dreaminggod]

Damn it, amechra, you delivered on every count. In my game, I think I will be using a vampire antagonist. He'll have this, to see how well it works. Very good job.

[amechra]

Damn it, amechra, you delivered on every count. In my game, I think I will be using a vampire antagonist. He'll have this, to see how well it works. Very good job.

Thanks!

For reference:

Dumahim: Obfuscate, Resilience, Vigor
Melcahim: Animalism, Cattiveria, Protean
Rahabim: Nicor, Resilience, Vigor
Razelim*: Auspex, Celerity, Majesty
Turilim: Auspex, Psychokinesis, Vigor
Zephonim: Celerity, Nightmare, Protean

* Yes, I know they are actually the Razielim; I've just always thought that Razelim flowed better.

All of this is before the Clans were entirely mutated by Nupraptor's curse; I based their Disciplines both on their classes in Nosgoth and on the LoK games themselves. Except for the Rahabim; I kinda pulled their Disciplines (other than Nicor) out of a hat. As for the Razelim, I decided to go with before Raziel grew his wings; if you want them after that mutation, replace Majesty with Subvolo.

[PenDragon]

I thought about turning Subvolo into a Psychokinesis tree, but honestly, it feels like disrespecting the author's work, in the fact he called out he was making something that was not psychokinesis.

Not inherently, but a Subvolo + Vigor Devotion would be a reasonable route to classic Telekinesis. Or you could always just repurpose the Supernatural Merit from GMC, beef up the dice pool with Blood Potency and make the cost in Vitae..

And now that you got my mind working, I've added another devotion to the Subvolo doc. You'd probably want to tweak the prereqs lower for your purposes.

Edit: Or I could read amechra's contribution, which is pretty great.

[Dreaminggod]

Thanks!

For reference:

Dumahim: Obfuscate, Resilience, Vigor
Melcahim: Animalism, Cattiveria, Protean
Rahabim: Nicor, Resilience, Vigor
Razelim*: Auspex, Celerity, Majesty
Turilim: Auspex, Psychokinesis, Vigor
Zephonim: Celerity, Nightmare, Protean

* Yes, I know they are actually the Razielim; I've just always thought that Razelim flowed better.

All of this is before the Clans were entirely mutated by Nupraptor's curse; I based their Disciplines both on their classes in Nosgoth and on the LoK games themselves. Except for the Rahabim; I kinda pulled their Disciplines (other than Nicor) out of a hat. As for the Razelim, I decided to go with before Raziel grew his wings; if you want them after that mutation, replace Majesty with Subvolo.

Well, damn. That's more than I asked for, and also going to be saved. Also, Razelim rolls off the tongue quite a bit better than Razielim. (probably the double i's making it so unwieldy.) Speaking of, I have a LoK-esque hack document for VtR. Can I add these to it? I haven't gone back through it in a while, but when working on Telekinesis for my Star Wars d10, my thoughts drifted to vampiric psychokinesis. Hence this thread.

Not inherently, but a Subvolo + Vigor Devotion would be a reasonable route to classic Telekinesis. Or you could always just repurpose the Supernatural Merit from GMC, beef up the dice pool with Blood Potency and make the cost in Vitae..

And now that you got my mind working, I've added another devotion to the Subvolo doc. You'd probably want to tweak the prereqs lower for your purposes.

Edit: Or I could read amechra's contribution, which is pretty great.

Oh no, I have a plethora of options! Whatever shall I do? :P But awesome, glad that the option is there also. Very awesome, PenDragon.

[amechra]

Go right ahead! I toss stuff up here so it can be used.

I would like you to give credit, but otherwise... use and abuse it!

[Dreaminggod]

Go right ahead! I toss stuff up here so it can be used.

I would like you to give credit, but otherwise... use and abuse it!

Awesome. Credit's at the bottom, after the document, for the time being, much like a citation page. Here's what I've got so far. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...h.a7gosoyjapvb

[Rani Neferet]

I've always been a fan of Dominate+Vigor for TK... Commanding things, even things that don't have minds, to move.