Telepathy (Superpower)

## Telepathy

The power to mentally control any function the brain controls, hearing thoughts, scan memories and send thoughts directly into the brains of others.

When selecting Telepathy as a superpower, you get:

* **Detect Thoughts:** For up to 1 minute/rank in this power, you can read the thoughts of certain creatures or detect how many minds are within range of you.

* + *Probe:* When you use this ability , you can focus your mind on any creature that you can see within 30 feet of you with an INT score of 3 or more. You initially learn the surface thoughts of the creature—what is most on its mind in that moment, general emotions and general intent (friendly, hostile, neutral, etc). As an action, you can switch targets or choose to probe deeper into the target’s mind. The target gets a WIS saving throw to resist. If it fails, you gain insight into its reasoning (if any), emotional state (and their general cause) and something that looms over its mind (lovers, stressors or those it hates, for example). Either way, at this point, the target knows you’re there and can try to boot you out on its turn with an INT check opposed by your ability score. Questions verbally directed at the target naturally shape the course of its thoughts, so this ability is particularly effective when used with interrogation.

* + *Detection:* You can also use this ability to detect the presence of thinking creatures you can’t see. When using Detect Thoughts, you can choose to use a scanning pulse to search for any thoughts within 30 feet of you. The ability can penetrate barriers, but 2 feet of rock or 2 inches of metal other than lead blocks you. You can’t detect creatures with an INT lower than 3. Once you detect an invisible or hidden creature, you can choose to switch to the Probing aspect of this ability.
* **Missive:** You send a short, one-way communication to a single creature with which you're familiar, within a range of 1 mile. This ability is always free, given that you have at least 1 power point available.
* **Telempathic Projection:** Alter target's emotions by 1 step with a WIS save. They remain under your influence for up to 1 round + 1 round/rank in this power.

## **Mutations**

### **Rank 1**

* **Biotelepathic Healing:** By using your power on your own body, you can stimulate the adrenaline portion of your brain, allowing you an additional Healing Surge in an encounter. Does not stack with any other power that allows an extra Healing Surge.

* **Compelling Voice:** You can flood a target's mind with signals, thoughts and hormones that will make them more likely to follow a stated course of action. *Suggestion.*

* **Conceal Thoughts:** You can protect yourself another person's mind from analysis. You must touch those you wish to protect, though the contact does not have to be maintained. They receive advantage on all Deception checks against those attempting to discern its true intentions and any saves against any power used to read its mind.

* **Daze:** The targeted creature must succeed at a CON save lose its next action.

* **Discern Lies:** Select one target within 25 feet. By concentrating, you can tell if the target is deliberately and knowingly speaking a lie by discerning disturbances in their thought patterns caused by lying. This ability does not reveal the truth, uncover unintentional inaccuracies or necessarily reveal evasions, only lies. Duration is 1 round/rank in this power.

* **Distract:** The target's mind wanders, imparting a -1 penalty to skill checks and attack rolls for 1 round/rank in this power.

* **Empathetic Connection:** You flood a target's mind with happy thoughts and endorphins, causing it to regard you as a friend. *Charm Person.*

* **Empty Mind:** You can clear your mind by focusing on a sense of emptiness, purging yourself of doubt and discomfort. By spending a power point. You can remove the blinded, confused, dazed, deafened, staggered or stunned condition from yourself.

* **Hear Thoughts:** You can open your mind to the full torrent of thoughts within 60 feet of you. By making a Power check, you can single out one specific train of thought and concentrate to maintain this effect. This power is free as long as you have at least 1 power point.

* **Inflict Pain:** You attack a target's mind, dealing 1d6 nonlethal damage/2 ranks in this power.

* **Mind Heist:** You can spend a Hero point to probe deeper into a target’s mind without getting caught. Additionally, when in a Dream or Mindscape, you can use this ability to target specific memories that take the form of protected objects (such as a safe).

* **Painful Reminder:** As a swift action, you can cause an enemy to take 1d4 psychic damage if you dealt psychic damage to that enemy since the start of your last turn. You can’t use this ability again until you take a Short Rest.

* **Patient Insight:** When you attempt a medicine, Knowledge, Insight or Survival check, you can spend a power point to gain advantage to a single check.

* **Sedation:** You can use your power to sedate a target, giving them the *Fascinated* condition.

* **Sleep:** You can target a creature's mind, overwhelming it to the point that they fall asleep. The target makes a WIS save or fall asleep for 1d4 minutes or until damaged or sufficiently roused.

* **Share Memory:** You momentarily link your mind with the target and share a single memory of no longer than 1 minute. You can show the target one of your own memories or view one of the target’s memories.

* **Stealthy Mind:** You can slink past psychic defenses, gaining advantage to any check made to avoid psychic detection.

* **Telepathic Combat:** You can predict the movements of an opponent in any combat, granting a +1 bonus to attack rolls and a +1 dodge bonus on your current opponent.

* **Telepathic Illusion:** You can create a realistic illusion, functioning like a basic Illusion spell.

* **Telepathic Lash:** Your mind lashes out, overwhelming the target with raging emotions, flooding them with memories and impulses they can't control. Select one target you can see within 30 feet. That target must succeed at a WIS save or take 1d4 Psychic damage. By spending a Power Point, the target is stunned for 1 round, as well. This power is free (unless you wish to stun) as long as you have at least 1 power point.

* **Verve:** Flood a target with adrenaline, granting them temporary hit points equal to your primary ability score modifier.

### **Rank 3**

* **Absorb Information:** By spending a move action to touch a creature, you can copy their skill proficiencies for 1 round/rank in this power.

* **Attraction:** Target develops an attraction you specify if they fail a CHA save. Lasts for 1 minute.

* **Bleeding Stare:** Your telepathic assault causes a foe’s brain to hemorrhage. The foe make a CON save. If they fail, they suffer 2 Bleed damage.

* **Burdened Thoughts:** You fill a creature's mind with the realization of its responsibilities. Disheartened and wearied by these thoughts, the creature gains heavy encumbrance. If more than two size categories larger than you, it is also staggered. This lasts for 1 round/rank in this power. WIS save negates.

* **Déjà vu:** You reach into the target’s mind and put its thought processes into a temporary loop. Whatever full-round, standard or move actions the creature takes on its first turn after you use this ability, it must repeat them the turn after that. The creature must take the same type of actions in the same order and must act against the same targets, but doesn’t have to make exactly the same choices. If circumstances would prevent them repeating the action, the target instead becomes confused until the ability ends. A creature affected by déjà vu can’t delay and if it readies an action on its first turn, it must ready an action on the second. This ability lasts 2 rounds.

* **Dreamscape:** You, or a messenger you touch, send a message to others in the form of a dream. You must be able to touch the target. You then concentrate for 1 minute and enter the dream to communicate with the target. You cannot influence the dream, but you are free to interact with the target.

* **Emotional Contagion:** If a target is affected by any emotional condition (Fear, Fatigued, etc), you can cause one additional target per two ranks in this power to make a WIS save or gain the condition as well, for whatever duration the original target had at the time you used this power.

* **Enshroud Thoughts:** You protect yourself against the effects of memory tampering, hiding certain things from psychic probing. As a reaction, you can make an opposed Power check to hide specific memories, and you gain advantage to any check made to resist memory-altering abilities.

* **False Sensory Input:** You can alter a target's base sensory perception.

* **Horrifying Mind:** You can project thoughts in another's head, causing them to see their worst fears. The target must succeed at a WIS save or be panicked for 1d4 rounds. A success instead only makes them staggered for 1 round.

* **Improved Thought Detection:** All subjects receive disadvantage when trying to resist mind reading effects.

* **Mental Blast:** Select one creature per three ranks in this power, all of whom can be no more than 15 feet from one another. Each creature must make a WIS save or receive 2d6 psychic damage. A successful save negates damage.

* **Mind Buffer:** You get a number of Temporary Hit Points equal to your ability modifier + your ranks in this power, but the hit points apply only to psychic damage.

* **Mindlink:** Forge a telepathic bond with another person. The bond can only be established with a willing subject. You can forge a link with one other creature you are touching and it lasts for 10 minutes/rank in this power. It works over any distance, with the exception of other timelines, dimensions and planets.

* **Seek Thoughts:** You can scan an area, sorting through the chatter until you find a specific piece of information. You detect all thoughts within a 40 foot area. Make a Power check. If successful, you can quickly receive the answer to a simple question ("where is the nearest hideout for a local gang?") or information on a specific topic ("the beliefs of an ancient cult"). You cannot read their thoughts, per se, but you pick up who is thinking about the topic you're looking for. The field of affect travels with you and lasts 1 minute/rank in this power + concentration.

* **Stop Hitting Yourself!:** You can alter a foe's perception, causing them to attack themselves. When you or an ally is targeted by an attack, make a Power check. If successful, the attacker must succeed at a WIS save or direct its attack at itself.

* **Suppress Compulsion:** You can help a creature fight another's mental influence by flooding it's brain with conflicting signals. When you use this ability, the target gets an automatic attempt to free itself, gaining advantage on the check.

* **Warped Brain:** Your mind is difficult to comprehend. When another creature uses a mind-affecting ability against you, that creature must attempt a WIS save. If it fails, it becomes nauseated for 1 round. This ability triggers even if you succeed on the save against it.

### **Rank 5**

* **Advanced Telepathic Combat:** Not only can you predict your foe's movements, but you can utilize your telepathy to heighten their pain receptors, gaining a bonus to damage equal to half your ranks in this power for 1 round/rank.

* **Aversion:** If the target fails an INT save, you plant a powerful aversion in the mind of the subject. If the aversion is to a physical object, they will not approach within 30 feet of it. If it's a word, they won't utter it and if it's an action, they will not willingly attempt to perform it. If it's an event, they won't willingly attend it. The subject will take reasonable steps to avoid it, but won't put itself in harm's way to do so. They get disadvantage to all checks if forced into taking an action they have an aversion to. This lasts 1 hour/rank in this power.

* **Expanded Detect Thoughts:** You can detect thoughts out to 120 feet.

* **Focused Trance:** You can enter a deep period meditation, allowing you to concentrate on a single problem, philosophical issue or memory by listening to the collective subconscious. This trance lasts 1d6 hours, during which time you can take no actions. When you come out of the trance, you have some kind of insight (discuss with your DM) and gain a +20 bonus to the next Knowledge check made regarding the problem. You can use this ability once per session.

* **Forced Mindlink:** You can forge a telepathic bond with a subject who does not wish to be linked with (such as an enemy henchman). To do this, you must make an ability check opposed by their WIS check.

* **Greater Mindlink:** You can now link with 1 creature per rank in this power.

* **Mind Probe:** All the subject's knowledge and memories are accessible to you, from memories deep below the surface to those still easily called to mind. You can learn the answer to one question per round, to the best of the subject's knowledge. You must touch the target to use this ability; breaking contact stops this power. It lasts 1 round/rank in this power.

* **Object Reading:** Study psychic imprints to reveal an object's past.

* **Psychic Asylum:** You retreat into a mindscape of your own design that allows you to perform a lengthy mental task in nearly an instant. You create a mental landscape that provides succor and calm for you, such as a library, sitting room, garden or childhood tree house. You can spend up to 15 minutes in your psychic asylum. While you are within, no time passes for your body; when you emerge, only a full-round action has passed. In the mindscape, you can consult any text, recall any conversation, recall the layout of a building or room, or remember any image with clarity and recollection, as if you had an eidetic memory, as long as you saw it or heard it within 1 week per two ranks in this power. You can alternatively use this time to meditate and recall a single power point. Any mind effecting abilities continue to affect you here.

* **Sequester Thoughts:** You can affect a creature's memory in a limited capacity. By making a Power check, you may sequester a creature's memory of either an event not lasting more than 1 minute per rank in this level or all of its knowledge about a single topic. For example, a single battle or conversation , or its knowledge about a plot to assassinate the President. The memories are not truly erased or removed, but sequestered away behind a psychic wall that lasts indefinitely. The information is still there, however, and can be uncovered through constant meditation or psychic intervention. It takes 10 minutes to sequester memories.

* **Waking Dream:** You can take control of the body of a sleeping creature within 30 feet of you for 1 hour. This ability functions like Possession, except you must target a sleeping target and you retain none of the skills, training or powers of the target.

### **Rank 7**

* **Alienation:** Subject loses ability to communicate with or understand others.

* **Hallucinogenic Aura:** You exude a mental field, touching the minds of those nearby and causing them to hallucinate. Any creature within 30 feet of you must succeed at a WIS save or be Confused for 1d4 rounds. A creature who succeeds is immune to your Hallucinogenic Aura for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting effect. You’re immune to your own aura, as well as the Hallucinogenic Aura of other psychics.

* **Impart Consciousness:** You can impart part of your mind into a living host. It takes 10 minutes to do so. Holy shit, this is kind of terrifying.

* **Locate Person:** You can use psychic impressions to locate a person. This allows you to determine their general location (such as a city or highway, but not a specific address). It also reveals what direction the target is moving, if any. You can track a creature for 10 minutes/rank in this power, out to a range of 100 miles/rank in this power.

* **Memory Modification:** Changes a subject's memory.

* **Mind Possession:** Functions like *Lesser Domination*.

* **Psychic Surgery:** Use your power to heal temporary or permanent ability score damage.

* **Tailor Memory:** Instead of erasing a memory, you can alter it to your specifications.

### **Rank 9**

* **Create Mindscape:** You create a small, finite mindscape in the mind of a target (about the size of a small room or a warehouse). You determine the mindscape’s physical makeup, temperature and light level, which effects the entire mindscape and cannot be changed. There are no native creatures or plants in the mindscape. When you finish activating this ability (which takes two hours), you may bring yourself and one other creature/rank in this power into the mindscape. Here, you may all have a private conversation with no chance of being overheard, or else learn or read through information or view memories rapidly. Other creatures can only enter the mindscape without Astral Projection, Dream Travel or the use of Telepathy. As a standard action, you may eject a creature from the mindscape (INT save resists). You can also attempt to trap a single creature here, as well by initiating a Psychic Duel. If you win, the target is unable to leave the Mindscape without your assistance for 1 day/rank in this power. If you lose, you are ejected from the Mindscape, along with everyone else.

* **Greater Detect Thoughts:** You can detect thoughts out to 1 mile.

* **Mind Seed:** You can plant your personality into the mind of another creature.

* **Mind Switch:** Temporarily switch your mind with that of a subject. You possess the target's body and force the creature's mind into your own. You can dismiss the effect as a free action. You can call on rudimentary or instinctual knowledge, but nothing learned. You can use your telepathic powers in this state.
* **Telepathic Mastery:** The range of all telepathic powers you possess is Sight.