The order is limited to a maximum of three words, but what if the adept speaks Finnish, for example. I can come up with pretty detailed orders in Finnish that have only three words, but expand to 8-10 words when translated to English.

How about an adept ordering someone to 'tell me the security code for your apartment'. That's eight words in English, and three words in Finnish: 'kerro asuntosi turvakoodi'. And there are languages that can say even more in three words, though I'm not familiar with them. I guess adepts speaking Inuit language could say pretty much anything with three words.

Of course the target has to understand the words. Still it's funny how much leeway the 'three word limit' seems to give.

If you think that's bad, imagine what you can do with the fake languages like Sperenthiel or Or'zet.

Yeah, the three word limit seems like an arbitrary thing they set to keep people from arguing endlessly the exact definition of "a short phrase". It doesn't even say if you can use contractions.

You can condense almost anything into three words:
'tell me the security code for your apartment'
becomes
"APARTMENT CODE NOW!"

But, I'm more for whatever they can spout in a single shout counts.

But it would be funny to shout "Don't shoot me!" and have the guy say, "Technically, thats four words, 'do not shoot me' because contractions aren't allowed." Blam!

I wonder what would happen if you told the enemy mage to, "Geek the mage!"

He'd probably shoot you since "mage" is a generic term for any magician when used in that context.

An adept isn't a magician, unless you are of the magician's path.

An adept /is/ a magician, but they aren't a mage. See, magician replies to anyone who uses magic, while mage generally refers strictly to spellcasters and/or members of the Hermetic tradition, and sometimes is just used for magicians in general.

And wouldn't the whole thing be pointless when you can just tell them to

SHOOT YOURSELVES!

Or perhaps "just shoot him." Remember, you don't have to out run the bullets, just the rest of your team

How 'bout, "Pleasure me softly"?

Good for those lover/seductress/siren types!

I am seized by an impulse to collect a few of the most absurd possible three word command combinations.

"Empty your bowels!"
"Simplify your life!"
"Refinance your home!"

Or the classic Preacher line, "Go f@$^ yourself."

"Become antidisestablishmentantarianist now"

You know most of those would just cause the target to falter in confusion, right? Especially since the requested action can't last longer than a Simple Action or so, and only if they understand the command (as well as the language). Otherwise they just stand there confused.

Back to the original command, if "Apartment code now!" works in English then "Kodinturvakoodisi!" will work in Finnish. The lack of determiners, the widespread use of suffixes for nearly all grammatical stuff and the huge amount of compound words that count as single words allows for all kinds of fun stuff. I'm sure there are languages where you can fit even more meaning into a 3-word command, but English is certainly one of the worst for this.

Elikkä ollaan vaan tyytyväisiä, että pelataan tätä suomeksi.

Should they work?

Kill Yourself Now! (instant suicide?)

Fall Asleep now! (narcolepsy?)

Is the command followed up by the conscious or subconcious mind following the order?

Or in the event of "Empty your bowels", and unpleasant odor and an awkward social situation.

Are you saying commands like "Void your bowels!" would fail because
1) The guy didn't understand the word 'void' (or for that matter 'bowels') or
2) Voiding your bowels is a complex action?

By the way, can someone give me a quick ref page on this? I'm not sure where this ability is mentioned.

Let me past (entering a club)
let us in (security check point)
let us go (stoped by the star)
open the door (get past locked door)
shred the ticket (when the star pules you over)
shred the cheque (at a restaurant)

and for sheer bloody mindedness when being approached by a tough opponent order him to “SIT” in just the tone you would use on a recalcitrant dog. Even if he pauses he will look bad in front of his gang.

Edward

"not your droids" (these aren't the droids you're looking for)
"eat hot lead" (umm...)

SOTA:64 page: 64. heh.

i suppose you could just go with "piss/crap your pants". hard to misunderstand that.

edit: hah, how about a Fast Talker power? 0.5 pp, lets you speak twice as fast and still be understood. in game terms, you can speak two words per simple action, and can speak six words in conjunction with the Commanding Voice power. just drop those tiny micromachines, mister!

Oh, you can't finish in over one second, but just starting should be enough to distract someone. And if he's got a little dysentary (inner city water being what it is), a second might be vastly more time than he needs to empty out his whole digestive tract.

Require a body test with TN modifiers based on diet and health. Sometimes its easy, sometimes it isn't.

"Oh, drek."

or even, "Drek!"

This could lead to interesting social situations if the adept is in the habit of talking to him/her-self and people overhear...

-Siege

Once again, that's not what the power does. "...should be enough to distract someone" is exactly what the spell does. It's sole purpose is to get them to lose a Free or Simple Action. It's not a poor man's Influence or Control Actions spell.

In all fairness, if a guy has dysentary, a minor distraction may be all that is needed to unleash the golgatha toxic elemental.

I've give ya that. And I think you meant an Excremental. <has his breath spray at the ready>