[Sorcerer] Mark

[Bankuei]

Hi Mike,

Ralph is talking about using Mark as a making something either a "transmitter" for powers, such as Marking a person combined with Perception so that you can see through their eyes, wherever they go, or else "loading them" or objects with potential powers.  

Example #1-
Human time bomb-
Mark + Special damage, maybe Perception too, to know when to set it off.  Boom!

Example #2
Curse upon thee-
Mark + Taint + Boost Stamina + Perception...whenever you are around someone who you truly love, you transform into a werewolf and kill them.

Nasty stuff there.

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

Must be some part of the Mark ability that I'm not remembering that it allows that. I'll check it out when I have a book handy.

Mike

[Lxndr]

Nothing specifically about Mark allows it, but there's nothing AGAINST it, as long as you and your players are all on the same page.

Or at least, that's what I've gathered.

[Valamir]

Correct, I was riffing off of Raven's idea above.  It isn't explicitly stated...but then we already know that about the Demon powers as currently written...

[Lxndr]

I was originally drawn to Mark as part of the Puppetman ensemble, or what I was imagining as the puppetman ensemble.  I imagined he'd Mark the people he later wanted to puppet from a distance, and then the Mark would somehow help cement his powers (I was imagining something that Raven was actually able to express).  

But Puppetman is an incredibly secretive bastard, and a Mark others would instantly recognize (or even see) seems counterintuitive.  Which led me down the "When would I ever want a Mark that I wanted other people to see?" which led me, eventually, to post this thread.

I absolutely love the idea of using Mark as a vehicle for other abilities, like they were runes.  And Marking as a vehicle for such things as seeing-through-others-eyes, or as curses... now that's something I can sink my teeth into.  Yum.

Sorcerer and Sigil?

[Mike Holmes]

But Puppetman is an incredibly secretive bastard, and a Mark others would instantly recognize (or even see) seems counterintuitive.  Which led me down the "When would I ever want a Mark that I wanted other people to see?" which led me, eventually, to post this thread.

Ah, I get it. What if he's the only Sorcerer in the world? That would work, then, wouldn't it?

On the other topic, I think that the use presented is way out of line. You can't argue "doesn't say you can't". The text also doesn't say you can't use the Daze power to make it snow. But that doesn't mean that you can use the Daze power to make it snow.

The rules are to be constued narrowly in terms of mechanical effect, IMO. It's only the outward appearance of the effect which changes, it's appearance in the game. The mechanical effect is to allow a sorcerer to do something to some object or person (or can you only mark people), that allows others to know that the object has been marked by another sorcerer. Nowhere in there is it implied that Mark can be used for anything else.

The use of powers is not meant, IMO, to be a wishy-washy as people are construing it to be. There's a basic misunderstandling of what constitues the base mechanics here, it seems to me.

Now, I wholly and vigorously endorse the idea of building these powers appropriately, and then adding a Mark that comes along with, as a special effect of using the power (and appropriately limited so that it can only be used with the other powers). That looks the same in effect as what you're trying to do. But Mark itself is not what allows a power to be used, say at range. That's what Range is for.

Mike

[Piers]

However, something like a Perception (Marks) or Perception (Around where Marks are) would be one way to build at least some of these powers, though Range might be needed again.  Because Perception specifically has to be defined as associated with something, it interacts well with Mark.

[Lxndr]

Yes, I was imagining Mark, and then Perception-Through-Marks, as a way to see through the eyeballs you painted on your ceiling, for instance, or the friendship bracelet you marked before putting it around your best friend's wrist.  Or in Puppetman's case, Mark so he could perceive his pupets even when out of LOS (or more specifically, perceive the emotions of his puppets).

As to the others, they are a bit stretchier.  In general, it's a time-released power connected to a Mark.  "This is now Marked.  If a sorcerer sees the Mark, he will be affected with <X>."  Now, how do you set up that time-release power?  The Mark is just sort of the seal, the epoxy that says "Here is where said time-released power will go off!"

Or that's how I'm seeing it, anyway.

Mike>  Yes, if my Puppetman character was the only Sorcerer in the entire world, then it'd work.  I was simply planning on the seemingly standard setup "other PCs are sorcerers at the very least; it's not impossible that NPC sorcerers exist also".

Of course, Puppetman could believe he's the only guy who sees his Marks, and then gets a rude awakening.  That could be quite the Kicker.

[Mike Holmes]

Ah, I get the perception thing now. It's not the Mark that does it but a very creative definition of what the Perception power percieves. "Stuff around Marks". Hmmm. I'll have to try that trick in Hero System as see how it goes.

Mike

[Lxndr]

Wouldn't that be, in the hero system, some sort of clairvoyance with a limitation on location, "only what/who you have marked."

Grrr.  I don't have my book with me.  Can you mark a non-living entity?  I seem to remember Mark having something to do with Humanity, in terms of a resolution method, but I don't remember for sure.

[Fabrice G.]

Hi Alexander,

yep... that's the demon's Power vs. the target's Humanity. So it seems that, by the book, you can actually only mark people. You may be able to stretch that definition to say that  marking an object is an automatic act. But then, what about marking other demons ? ... it seems to open another can full of worms.

Extanding the mark definition to affect non human thing fails to me to convey the relationship that is instored by marking an individual. But that is only IMHO.


Take care,

Fabrice.

[Mike Holmes]

Hm. That's an interesting question. Given that you can target a door, with Claw, however, and use the door's difficulty to have it resist being busted down, I think that you can roll against an inanimate object. Give the object one die and add one to the Demon's power (assuming Zero Humanity, and applying the rule of currency).

Target seems to be anything, potentially. And anything can be rated using the rules. So by that broad interperetation I think it works. Local descriptions of Sorcery will be telling, however, and marks that only work on Humans should be a common limitation (vampire bite marks, for example).

Mike