How do you handle psi shilds?

[McPerth]

This is a "spin off" of a comment I made in the thread about the Zhodani

One thing that is not clear is the effectiveness of psi shield. Are they fail-proof?

I mean, should a character with PSR 12 try to read through the shiled of someone with PSR 3, would this shied be always effective?

As per RAW, I understand yes, it is, but I feel it somewhat odd...

 

[Grav_Moped]

I'd guess that a psion would notice if someone was trying to get in.
At worst, I assume a psionic assault can knock a target's shield down by knocking them unconscious.

 

[Timerover51]

The Zhodani do not exist in my universe, and psionics is severely limited. I do mean "severely". There is the odd "wild talent", like "age sensing" or "animal empathy", but no mind reading.

 

[infojunky]

There is a lot loaded into that poll.

Now good standard examples of how Psionics interact. Reading back the basics a mind shield either psi or electronic always win.

 

[whartung]

There is the odd "wild talent", like "age sensing" or "animal empathy", but no mind reading.

So, carnies.

 

[McPerth]

There is a lot loaded into that poll.

True

Reading back the basics a mind shield either psi or electronic always win.

So, you think it's absolute protection. But can then the protected psionic receive sent thought? Can (s)he fiter them?

To keep with the analgy with a cellular phone I gave in the Zhodani thread, is having the shiled as shuting it down or just as seeing who's calling before answering?

 

[Spinward Flow]

Basically ... the difference between a firewall and an airgap.

 

[McPerth]

Basically ... the difference between a firewall and an airgap

I'm afraid I don't catch what you mean here...

 

[Spinward Flow]

I'm afraid I don't catch what you mean here...

Firewall
Air Gap

 

[whartung]

I'm afraid I don't catch what you mean here...

Imagine a chasm. A firewall is a bridge over the chasm that lets folks cross. There can be gatekeepers on the bridge to deign who gets to come and go.

Now imagine no bridge whatsoever.

That's an air gap.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Imagine a chasm. A firewall is a bridge over the chasm that lets folks cross. There can be gatekeepers on the bridge to deign who gets to come and go.

Now imagine no bridge whatsoever.

That's an air gap.

Firewall = access can be gained but requires permission/authentication to access
Air Gap = there is no access, go away

 

[infojunky]

So, you think it's absolute protection. But can then the protected psionic receive sent thought? Can (s)he fiter them?

see that is my question as well. I probably need to run a Psionics game to see where hiccups like this occur.

 

[McPerth]

magine a chasm. A firewall is a bridge over the chasm that lets folks cross. There can be gatekeepers on the bridge to deign who gets to come and go.

Now imagine no bridge whatsoever.

That's an air gap.

Firewall = access can be gained but requires permission/authentication to access
Air Gap = there is no access, go away

Thanks to both of you. Nonehteless, I'd ad overcoming it to the firewall, and that's what I wonder if can be done in a psi shield.

If that can help, I'll tell you how I applied it (in MT):

• used the AHL table, counting "attacker" telepathy rating as Penetration power and defender PSR (or TL/2) as Armor.
• if result was none, no acces was achieved
• If it was light wound, very limited access was achieved (e.g. on read thoughts you could gain some clues)
• If heavy wound, partial access was achieved (e.g. o nread throughts, you will gain important info, but not all of it
• If death, all important info was achieved.

Of course, no shield meant 0 armor.

And if the "victim" was aware and willing to be scanned or to receive (in case of send thoughts), he counted as no shield.

Needless to say after this explanation, I voted "Graded confrontation"

 

[Quint]

I have a difference between artificial and natural psionic shields. Natural ones allow a "polite knock" which allows a variety of communication (through the door, through a grate, at an open door, or invite them in), while artificial ones have no such capability and basically have to be "kicked in". I have a high psionic setting, so I also, as flavor text, say that artificial psi-shields give people headaches, and the Imperial Army jokes about having to wear "tin foil hats" for theirs (treating the lower quality, semi-disposable ones like an additional, specially issued and expensive, part of MOPP gear for the grunts). I treat it like either armour or I guess what you would describe as a "confrontation task"

D.

 

[Enoki]

For me, psi shields work on a combination of things.

There is natural v. artificial. Even the non-psi have some ability along with intel. Think of this as the ability to resist hypnosis. Some people just cannot be hypnotized.
For artificial ones it's a matter of quality of the device you are using versus the person trying to do whatever to you. Add in your natural immunity or lack thereof.
So, if in a game psi is going to come up, all characters get a raw psi score even if they have no ability. I toss in intel as another measure (higher = better resistance for simplicity).
The result is those who have some degree of potential psi ability coupled with a stronger intellect makes for a better defense. Think of it as a parallel to the original Star Wars movie:

While not an exact comparison, it kind of works out the same way.

 

[aramis]

It's not sometheing that's actually happened in play often for me. Twice, I think.

 

[daryen]

As implied in the other thread, I make a natural psi shield work against casual scanning and such, but against an assault (whether an attack or a probe or forced communication) it would be more of an opposed check. A natural psi shield may always be lowered if so desired.

A further refinement that I have never really thought about is if there is an ability to "knock" (i.e. simply alert a shielded individual for the desire to communicate) or if shielding is "all or nothing". Can a psion with a shield keep it up against everyone but one individual? Don't know on that one, and it never came up.

For mechanical psi shields, I make those act like impermeable force fields. They can't be penetrated irrespective of psionic strength. If they are powered, they will have an on/off capability. If they are unpowered, they have to be physically removed. Of course, what is power or unpowered is an open question. Are psi shield helmets powered or unpowered? Is psi shielding integrated into a starship's hull powered or unpowered? Do both exist, or is everything either powered or unpowered?

The ability to integration psi shielding into ships and buildings brings up even more interesting questions. Take a ship with psi shielding. It obviously stops telepathy and life detection through the outer skin. Does it also stop teleportation? Does it stop telepathy within the ship? Is the shielding effect omnipresent within the area enclosed by the shell, or is it only inside the shell itself? If the latter, does it work only on the outer shell, or is it in the interior walls and bulkheads, too? Quite the rabbit hole if you want to explore it.

 

[Quint]

Stealing from the later Dune novels, I do have "No Rooms" and "No Ships" - which are essentially artificially psionic shielded rooms and ships, and much like a psychic can detect shields (natural or artificial, and can usually tell the difference as well) they can detect the presence of the rooms by it's "absence" in the natural psionic landscape of living creatures. (e.g. "there's a hole in the Force"). Such artificial rooms still cause headaches for most people though...

No rules suggest that telepathic shields would stop teleport, otherwise every damn ship on the Zhodani border would have said shielding to thwart commandos.

D.

 

[Enoki]

I would say it's impossible, or nearly so, to shield a whole ship. There's too many penetrations and potential places that would leave gaps in the protection. On the other hand, a single room or compartment could be shielded, sort of like say, a Faraday cage. That space would be specially built to meet the requirements of a psi resistive device / area. While I suppose it could be done to a whole ship, I'd make it a special order thing and exponentially, not to mention grossly, expensive to do. It might also get the attention of the authorities if you were ordering it in some places. The Zhodani government for example would be very interested in why you want to shield your ship from psi effects...

What such shielding protects against could be specified, with the cost of the equipment going up with more effects shielded against. Since Traveller is very much often a game of accounting, this prevents players from just slathering psi shielding on everything whilly nilly.

 

[McPerth]

See that probably you cannot use psionics on things outside this shielded rooms from inside it, for good or bad...