Ask a Dev

[malladin.ben]

Sorry, I have another rules query. How does Blink work?

... normally, if a character is attacked they roll Resolve, Stamina or Composure and successes generated are spent on stunts. One of which is dodge which adds successes spent to defence, which is the difficulty needed to hit them with the attack.

With Blink a teleporter adds a new defensive stunt, so do they buy this with their resolve/stamina/composure roll successes which then let's them make a Psi+Translation roll to determine the effect of the outcome? If so what is the cost of this stunt? 0?

Does the teleporter have to take an action to activate blink, and that action makes the defensive stunt available to them? If so, for how long and what is the stunt cost?

Or does the teleporter have to use their action to use blink that turn, a little like a total defence action but using psi+translocation instead?

Or something else entirely?

Thanks

[corbin_amsel]

So I ran into an odd situation with an aberrant game I'm running. I have two PC's, one with a Destructive Tag Quantum Attack, power scale 2, and another with Mega-Might 2, power scale 3. Just going to call them "Blast" and "Muscles" respectively in hopes this example doesn't get confusing. Blast's destructive tag lowers the NPC's defense of 3 to 1, and with a higher power scale can purchase "Inflict Injury" a second time. Inflict Injury normally costs the target's soft armor rating, but for NPC's that's just rolled into their defense. So defense 1, pays one success for the original Inflict, another 1 success for the second Inflict.

Muscles punches an NPC with the same stats. He's got nothing that inherently lowers the targets defense, so he buys his first Inflict Injury for 3 successes. He'd normally pay the Soft Armor rating for the second and third Inflicts, but with soft armor rolled into defense I just sort of assumed the cost of those would be 3 as well.

Questions,
1. Is this correct, or If the NPC has no separate soft armor rating should it be zero for the additional purchases of Inflict?

2. If it's zero, and NPC's don't have a separate soft armor rating, how do you make a challenging sort of BBEG that doesn't just get splatted unless you stat out his defense and soft armor?

[Bunyip]

Sorry, I have another rules query. How does Blink work?

Okay, it’s a Psi Power, so the first thing is you have to activate it. Ordinary Action, Psi + Mode Dots as your dice pool. Once activated, it persists Mode Dots x Duration unless you commit a Psi point to maintain it. (The duration got left out of the description, sorry.) Pay attention to your successes, you’ll need those for the defensive stunt. If you don’t activate it, the Teleporter can’t access the additional stunt.

When Blink is active the character has an additional defensive option available. Instead of Dodge, Dive to Cover, or Roll Away, they can choose Blink. Blink works like a combination of Dodge and Roll Away. When attacked and the character uses Blink, she adds the successes from the Psi Activation roll to to her Defense and also teleports up to one range band away from the attacker.

[johntfs]

Any chance of getting Official character sheets for Psiads and/or Superiors in the near future? I'd really like some for my group. Kit-bashing only goes so far.

[Anteros]

Do drawback penalties stack with each other? Like, would the -1 penalty to social interactions from the Mars Adaptation and the -2 penalty from the Photosynthetic Edge result in a -3 penalty for a character with those 2 Edges?

[Timecrafter]

1) Does Max Mercer have time manipulation powers? (if I remember correctly, he had them in 1st edition)
2) Can he travel to any "timepoint" he wants? If not, what are his limitations/how his powers work?
3) Can he travel to the "other Earths" that form the Trinity Continuum multiverse?
4) What else can he do (time-related or not)?
5) What are the "time travel laws" of Trinity Continuum? I mean, does the Continuum work like "Dark (TV series)" or "C°ntinuum: Roleplaying in the Yet" -- or is it more like Back to the Future or another fiction work? (please cite the one that more closely resemble your vision of time travel for Trinity Continuum)
6) Do you intend to use Time Travel as a mechanic for NPCs or PCs in any Trinity Continuum upcoming book?

Thank you!

[IanWatson]

1) Does Max Mercer have time manipulation powers? (if I remember correctly, he had them in 1st edition)

Mercer's capabilities are covered on Æon p. 257, and Aberrant p. 276, both in their respective Setting Secrets chapters.

Most of the rest of your questions do not yet have canonical answers, so you'll have to wait and see.

5) What are the "time travel laws" of Trinity Continuum? I mean, does the Continuum work like "Dark (TV series)" or "C°ntinuum: Roleplaying in the Yet" -- or is it more like Back to the Future or another fiction work? (please cite the one that more closely resemble your vision of time travel for Trinity Continuum)

Generally speaking, time travel works similarly to the way it's described in Avengers: Endgame.

6) Do you intend to use Time Travel as a mechanic for NPCs or PCs in any Trinity Continuum upcoming book?

Hopefully.

[SpectacularTentacular]

So....do you have broad plans for high-Quantum powers like in 1E? Or is it just the core game powers with lots of Tags?

[IanWatson]

So....do you have broad plans for high-Quantum powers like in 1E? Or is it just the core game powers with lots of Tags?

We have no plans for quantum powers beyond what's in Aberrant.

[Timecrafter]

Hello Devs

Some time ago I made some tests with a friend so we could understand better the Combat Systems in practice, before we tried to actually Storyguide a session. We runned through the systems, made characters, rolled some combats, and everything worked ok... but a couple days later, we discovered that the book uses "Unarmed" as a Weapon that gives +1 Enhancement! In our test, we simply used Unarmed as giving no Enhancement at all, and all seemed to work fine.

So, here's the question: is there any particular reason you chose to give +1 Enhancement to the "Unarmed" weapon, instead of none? We're kinda curious here, we probably missed something.

[Shalmaneser]

If Teleportation psi powers aren't capable of intergalactic travel. If a teleporter looked at, say, the Andromeda Galaxy and tried to make it there, how far do they go?

[Bunyip]

If Teleportation psi powers aren't capable of intergalactic travel. If a teleporter looked at, say, the Andromeda Galaxy and tried to make it there, how far do they go?

They don’t go anywhere. It’s beyond their range so the power just fails.

[pcontop]

Could not find this asked before, so here it is:

How does Dynamic Control work, in practice?

What I get is this:

You roll dynamically for it to be activated, then assign the uses for Mode electromagnetic broadcasts.

"Once activated, each laser or other beam functions on its own, but moving, altering, or redirecting more than one of these lasers per round requires a mixed action."

What about the next turns, if you do not reassign anything, how many successes does it get on the attack? Do you roll for each attack separately and reflexively (with a full pool)? Or do you roll reflexively psi + mode + enhancements and assign successes for each task (defend, attack, wall, rework data) in a mixed roll? Or is the mixed roll to define successes for attacking, defending, etc, not reflexive? Or is it only non-reflexive when you reassign operations?

Sorry, but I couldn't find an answer to this. Could you help me with the above question?

[Shalmaneser]

Psiads can combine multiple aptitudes, and Adaptability always tries to activate to protect a character from harm. Would a psiad with Adaptability be able to reflexively activate a defensive power from another aptitude if used as a combined effect? (Putting up a mind shield when about to be mind-controlled, or teleporting away, without prior activation of those powers, for example)

[Bunyip]

Could not find this asked before, so here it is:

How does Dynamic Control work, in practice?

What I get is this:

You roll dynamically for it to be activated, then assign the uses for Mode electromagnetic broadcasts.

"Once activated, each laser or other beam functions on its own, but moving, altering, or redirecting more than one of these lasers per round requires a mixed action."

What about the next turns, if you do not reassign anything, how many successes does it get on the attack? Do you roll for each attack separately and reflexively (with a full pool)? Or do you roll reflexively psi + mode + enhancements and assign successes for each task (defend, attack, wall, rework data) in a mixed roll? Or is the mixed roll to define successes for attacking, defending, etc, not reflexive? Or is it only non-reflexive when you reassign operations?

Sorry this took me so long to get back to, I’d forgotten I hadn’t answered it.

Okay, Dynamic Control. First of all, ignore the reflexive part in the first line of the System, this requires a standard Psi activation roll, and there’s no benefit to rolling a second time as you get a number of effects equal to Mode dots regardless of what your success is, and punishing failure after activation is undesirable.

Activate the power - ordinary action, 2 Psi points, Psi + Mode dots. On success the psion gains a number of focused photokinetic effects (“lasers”) equal to his Mode dots. These effects endure for one Scene and continue doing whatever the psion initially sets them to unless he changes them in a round.

The psion can achieve various subtle displays with the power, but generally each ‘laser’ can be set to one of the following tasks:
- Fire offensively as per Photonic Power
- Work defensively, adding to defense.
- Create a wall of light, providing an indirect damage barrier.

I’d say you can combine several ‘lasers’ to the same task as a single ordinary action, gaining +1 Enhancement for each additional laser so dedicated. Otherwise, you need to use mixed actions but each laser gets +1 Enhancement. So, if you had four lasers and had one set to defense and the other three firing at the same target, you’d have a Photonic Power shot with +3 Enhancement beyond the usual description. If you set each of the lasers against different targets you’ve have a three-action mixed action, each with +1 Enhancement.

Directing or changing the focus of each ‘laser’ in a round requires an ordinary action (or a mixed action if doing more than one).

Does that help?