Sense Removal Spell– Only negative PERCEPTION?, Clarification? Mistake? Other Senses? Options

[The Jopp]

Ok, I’ve got my mage throwing Sense Removal (Tactile) on a bunch of guards…and they get a limit on their PERCEPTION? (SM page 171)

Now, since touch/tactile is a very important sense (because it IS a sense regardless of what they might have meant by the spell) shouldn’t the modifiers be more severe? Like a negative dicepool on everything you do?

If I suddenly (in mid-lunge, throwing myself to the floor) lost my sense of touch I wouldn’t feel the clothes on my body, my hands touching the floor to lessen the impact or even the gun in my hand. For some reason I feel like the effect should be a tad bit more severe than loss of perception dice.

[Kev]

Um, then have your GM houserule it. It's probably not covered in the rulebook due to game balance issues.

I'd tend to agree, but the fact that you lose dice for EVERY action you do should bump up the drain on the spell, if only a point or two.

[The Jopp]

[Nikoli]

Losing your sense of touch would not make you incapable of standing, at least I don't think it would. It would mean however you wouldn't feel the bullet slam into your body until the little alarms went off in your head saying that limbs weren't reporting back properly.

[Garrowolf]

Why not add multisense to the spell and up the drain code a little?
Then have it remove ALL senses!
A sensory deprevation spell!

[BishopMcQ]

meh, that's what sustaining foci are for...

[The Jopp]

[Garrowolf]

I think of guards loosing sense of touch and sight together is more ammusing.

[Moon-Hawk]

[eidolon]

Given that the result is an effect on perception, I would conclude that it's a pretty limited spell, yes, but limited intentionally. In other words, the purpose of the spell probably wasn't "make guards unable to fire a weapon because they can't feel it" and more "numb that dude up a little so I can take something out of his pocket without him noticing".

I didn't write it, of course, so I can't be certain of the intent, but if a spell is called "Sense Removal" and the effect is "lose a few perception dice", I don't think it was ever meant to be a super useful combat spell. Out of curiosity, what is that spell lumped under (combat, detection, etc)?

[BishopMcQ]

IIRC, it's a negative Detection spell. Removing senses rather than adding to them.

[mintcar]

Loosing sense of touch wouldn't impact movement at all. That's sense of ballance you're thinking of. The only reason you know that you put your foot to the ground is not that you feel the ground, that's just silly. You feel a lot less through a pair of boots, does that impact your ability to walk? The information your brain is getting when you take a step is that your leg is halting it's stepping movement because your foot hit the ground. You don't need sense of touch to feel your arms and legs. If you can't feel your limbs at all, that means you're paralyzed. Feeling in this sense is not tactile feeling, but an instinctive notion of how your arms and legs are positioned. Loosing sense of touch would severely effect manipulating things with your hands, and you would run a higher risk to hurt yourself on hot or sharp things, that's about it.

I mean, you would certainly be inclined to watch your feet in stairs and on uneven ground. If you think about it, everybody knows when they really rely on touch to walk. It's when you can't predict how the ground looks. And even then, sight is better than touch. In normal circumstances, when the ground is even, you don't need to use neither sight or touch.


(oops, seems Moon-Hawk covered this already. oh well, call it an elaboration then :))

[Garrowolf]

Okay I would suggest that at -6 it becomes total. That would put it at the same level as total darkness.