Forgot to post this one, despite its relevance to 2e DS
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When Teeps vs. Teeps have a psionic combat in your system, because Tangents are exchanged on successful hits, doesn’t PSP exhaustion typically happen before 3 tangents are achieved? If someone has ToIW (+6 MAC) and a starting MAC of ~7, you have a MAC of 1. So at an MTHAC0 of 16 (let’s say 2 5th level Psionicists) attacking each other, they each only have a 30% to hit and achieve a tangent, but they are also random walking it back and forth against each other. My sense is even before putting that in a sim that you end up with PSP at 0 for one of them far before you end up with three tangents.
Which is why you don’t psychically fight other Telepaths. Telepaths are at their best against non-Telepaths, whereas other Telepaths have ways to defeat them.
Consider the X-men. All of them have been trained in psychic defense, but if Professor X goes up against The Shadow King? Two extremely powerful Telepaths going against each other? It’s always presented as being tiring to even hold one’s own against it.
In a way, it’s not terribly different than two warriors fighting. PSPs are their HP. Once they win, they control their opponent (to death, in the case of warriors), but the fight is still going to cost both of them HP.
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Got it. But this also means that telepaths mostly shouldn’t expect to dominate / use contact powers on any other psionicists (since those psions can at least have a defense up while acting with other powers, if I understand your system correctly). You don’t have the random walk issue since the other psionicist isn’t themselves earning tangents if they are, say hitting your telepath with a telekinetic rock, but the telepath still needs to achieve three tangents, and again at 30% a tangent (MTHAC0 16, MAC 1), we’re talking 5 rounds in expected terms versus your Telekinetics psion. Now they do do ~40 PSP damage over those 5 rounds to the Telekineticist, but that other gal presumably (hopefully?) is throwing enough rocks their way that your Professor X is going to have to leave the field.
I’m not sure I grok the comparison to two fighters hammering away at each other. This would be more like one fighter spamming shield bash on another.
But maybe that’s the just the desired outcome - telepaths are really scary for non-psions; for psions they’re kind of annoying. I get that works for worlds where everyone isn’t psionic by default. And probably for most Dark Sun campaigns as actually run, where even WTs aren’t running around with a psychic defense.
So, let’s say we have two fighters. 5th level, armed and armored. For the most part, they’re going to roll their ThAC0 against their opponent’s AC, whittling down HP until the other one is at their mercy… probably dead, but, still, unable to defend themselves against what their opponent can bring to bear.
If that same 5th level fighter is facing a 5th level thief? Well, the thief won’t be able to do much to the fighter (bad ThAC0), while the fighter will be able to strike from his better AC and Better ThAC0 to whittle down the thief… unless the thief uses his own special abilities to put the game in his territory. If the thief can backstab the fighter a few times, the fight starts going a different way. But if it stays in the fighter’s comfort zone, he’s going to win.
If you put the fighter against “random dude”, who doesn’t have decent armor or much of a weapon, well, the fighter can mop up on him, because his AC means the other guy will seldom touch him, and his ThAC0 means he can hit him easily.
Teep v. Teep? That’s fighter v. fighter. It’s gonna be a battle to get through the other guys HP. Teep v. Psionicist? That’s fighter v. thief… if the teep can keep the fight on the mental plane, he’ll win. If the non-Teep can put it on his terms (i.e. hit the guy in the face with a rock), then he’s got a much better chance of fighting the teep. And the fighter v. the random guy? That’s the Teep v. the undefended mind… the Teep can do what he wants, because the other guy can’t stop him.
A thought came to me:
If you call it “psychic combat” or “psionic combat”, you’re doing it a disservice. Once you call it “telepathic combat”, and realize its the domain of telepaths, it makes a lot more sense.
That makes sense. I think this may come down to what feel / vibe you want in your campaign. I’d like to solve for a campaign where psionics are widespread and telepaths (and all sorts of psionicists) can have combats that have more divergent paths than classic Professor X / Shadow King mental pressure until one folds.
So I think my system is more psychic combat / yours more telepathic combat. It’s a useful distinction you’re making.