New Telepathic Skill : Mind Wall (c) Copyright 1996 Stephane Theriault This psionic skill came to me after reading Richard Matheson's "Hell House" one of the best haunted house novel ever written. I wanted to represent Fisher's ability to completely block his mind from outside psionic influences. This is the second printing of this skill and is the one that will go on the ftp site. So it goes like this: Mind Wall (M/VH) *n/a Prerequisites: Mind Shield at 14+ This skill represents the ability to shut oneself almost completely from outside mental influence. Contrary to Mind Shield, you must concentrate a certain amount of time (from 1 to 6 seconds) to bring your wall up, and it costs 1 point of Fatigue every time you bring it up or pull it down. Buying one level of Reduced Fatigue Cost eliminates the Fatigue cost of bringing your wall up or pulling it down (player's choice, but he must decide at character's creation, and he cannot change it after). Buying two levels of Reduced Fatigue Cost eliminates all Fatigue costs. When the wall is up, it acts like a Mind Shield, but with double the Power (i.e. someone with Telepathic Power 10 will have a Mind Wall Power of 20). Furthermore, if someone tries to use brute force, he must first win a Quick Contest between his Power and your Mind Wall Power. IF he succeeds, then he can try to use brute force. Like a Mindshield, once the wall is up, it will stay up until you bring it down. If you sleep, the wall will stay in the state it was when you fell asleep. Contrary to Mindshield, you can never change its state when you are asleep or unconscious. If someone successfully penetrate your wall and wants to avoid notice, he must then win a Quick Contest of his Telereceive skill vs (your Mind Wall skill + 1/5 of your Mind Wall Power). Contrary to Mind Shield, the skill cannot discriminate friendly and hostile contact. Bringing your wall up takes from 1 to 6 seconds (or 0 to 5 with the Instan- taneous enhancement). The roll must be made after the first turn of concen- tration (or immediately if you have said enhancement). If the skill roll is failed, the psionic can take other actions, or try again as the Repeated At- tempt rule. If he succeed, the remaining time for the operation is 5 seconds minus one second for each two points by which he made his roll. Note that the psionic must still take the Concentrate manoeuver for all the remaining seconds. As always if he is distracted, hurt, etc, during his concentration, a Will-3 roll is necessary to maintain it. Putting your wall down takes one second of concentration. The Instanta- neous enhancement can be bought separately for this manoeuver. (Note: Instantaneous for the bringing up of the wall and Instantaneous for the putting down of the wall are two separate enhancements, with a 20% increa- se in cost each.) All is well and it seems a powerful ability, even if it's a Mental/Very Hard one. HOWEVER (here comes the downside of it all), YOU CANNOT USE ANY PSIONIC POWERS AS LONG AS YOUR WALL IS UP! Not even passive abilities like Precog or Psi Sense are working. This wall is a COMPLETE shut up from all external psionic stimuli. One advantage is that by default, the wall does not leave any signature, and Psi Sense will not detect its presence. The wall will protect against Psychic Vampirism, all Telepathy skills except for the physical damage of Mindsword (which should be restricted to high cine- matic adventures anyway), and Combat Sense. Sense Aura works, but it does not give any information about the emotional state of one with his wall up. Note: to be faithful with the novel, someone who is drunk have the following modifiers: (s)he has +2 to Mind Wall Power ('cause alcohol makes him/her less sensible about the psychic environment), but if someone successfully breach the wall, (s)he is at -4 for the QC to detect that someone has entered his/her mind.