Hide Matrices vs See Supernatural

[cdcace 3]

Ok this question came up recently in my gaming group. Of course never really thought about it till one person felt it needed to be addressed so after discussing it in our group, and not really coming to a consensus, decided to see what others say about it.

 

This is how Hide Matrices is described:

This Power hides the psychic’s mental abilities from the Sense Matrices Power. Hide Matrices decreases the results for Sense Matrices by as many degrees of Difficulty as indicated on the Effects Table. If an adversary’s Potential for Sense Matrices falls below the base requirement (that is, Easy), the psychic’s Powers of the character remain unnoticed. The Sense Matrices Power is only annulled against the Psychic using Hide Matrices. It still works normally against other tar

 

How its described makes some people in my group wonder, is there really a way to hide the use of psychic powers from people that have see supernatural or some other form of detection that works against psychics? Does this power really only work against sense matrices? Or does it allow you to hide psychic powers from all forms of detection?

 

Let me know what you think, or if this has been covered before let me know cause I couldn't find it anywhere.

[cdcace 3]

Nvm just found my answer lol.

[TyrHawk 10]

Another job well-done. Excellent work, team.

[Nathaniel Cain 0]

Nvm just found my answer lol.

Good to hear, though for the benefit of anyone else who might need the answer at some point could you please post the answer or where you found it.

 

As for how my group decided to handle see supernatural (until we find a better way) is that see supernatural simply makes it possible to see these things and thus it becomes a contested check between the players notice/search against whatever skill is being used to hide the power. This of course takes into accounts for any appropriate penalties, for instance accumulating large small amounts of zeon gives a small penalty to hiding it, while large amounts of zeon brings larger penalties. 

[cdcace 3]

Well its pretty simple for Matrices. You cannot hide them, at all from see supernatural, or any other thing that lets people see matrices.  So if someone has the power to see them, you literally can't hide them. Kinda sucks but thats the way it is, and thats the official answer from Anima Studios. Though you can't really hide them, doesn't mean that someone will understand what powers your using unless they use Sense Matrices. 

 

The Hide Matrices power in psychics only works against people using Sense Matrices powers, which pretty much is only needed if you can't already see them, or if you want to know more about the power itself that the person is using. Hope that helps, if not I will try to find the source to what I found later today.

[Sebastian Traitor 18]

Better intend this in to a restricted way.

 

Also I use the way of Nathaniel, otherwise, See Supernatural would be too strong.

 

So, at my table, in short, it simply negates the malus and allows the tests.

[cdcace 3]

The problem with Nathaniel's way is the fact their is no skill intended for hiding Matrices.  So either you would have to create a new skill to do just that to oppose notice or search or your stuck with using a secondary which already exists like Hide itself.  But then you fall into the problem that hide already has its own functions, so suddenly giving it an added ability doesn't really make since and honestly can end up being kinda broken.

 

If you really want to go with this idea, I suppose its up to the GM, but rather then just making it a power that hides matrices, why not just go with the normal rules of hide.  See Supernatural can't see your powers if your hiding in general so that no one can see you.  Psychics function so differently than Magic that just giving it a skill to hide it really wouldn't work.  Reason being, most powerful magic spells zeonic costs go well above 440. But the highest potential you can achieve is 440, so if you use the similar ruling as Magic Appraisal to keep your magic hidden, that would be double that to hide it, so 880. So to hide a psychic power at Zen level you would have to get 880 (insert new skill here) seems pretty pointless.

[TyrHawk 10]

The problem with Nathaniel's way is the fact their is no skill intended for hiding Matrices.  So either you would have to create a new skill to do just that to oppose notice or search or your stuck with using a secondary which already exists like Hide itself.  But then you fall into the problem that hide already has its own functions, so suddenly giving it an added ability doesn't really make since and honestly can end up being kinda broken.

 

If you really want to go with this idea, I suppose its up to the GM, but rather then just making it a power that hides matrices, why not just go with the normal rules of hide.  See Supernatural can't see your powers if your hiding in general so that no one can see you.  Psychics function so differently than Magic that just giving it a skill to hide it really wouldn't work.  Reason being, most powerful magic spells zeonic costs go well above 440. But the highest potential you can achieve is 440, so if you use the similar ruling as Magic Appraisal to keep your magic hidden, that would be double that to hide it, so 880. So to hide a psychic power at Zen level you would have to get 880 (insert new skill here) seems pretty pointless.

I think there's both a bit of misunderstanding, and a few assumptions being made here which I'm obligated to step in and clarify.

 

First off, while Nathaniel did use the generic 'skill,' there's no reason to assume that he means you need to make a new one for Hiding Matrices, or even expand the usage of an existing secondary. There's a power which hides matrices, based off the Primary Ability (to use game terms) Psychic Potential, which can either be directly compared to Notice/Search, or can be scaled to affect Notice/Search in the same way that it affects the power Sense Matrices. There's no reason whatsoever to create a new skill because there are already examples of Primaries vs Secondaries (including Acrobatics vs. Attack, Sleight of Hand vs. Attack, and a few others).

 

Secondly, your examples shows that hiding Psychic powers should function in the same way as Magic Appraisal, and yet you yourself point out that the two are completely different. Furthermore, the penalty to Magic Appraisal is from Zeonic cost (typically fixed), not from rolled Potential (typically random), so why the two should ever be assumed as equals in any equation is beyond me. If you want a scaling secondary penalty like the one magic accumulation gives, you'd need to work a penalty using Psychic Points, not Psychic Potential. Otherwise, difficulty can be traded equally for difficulty, as I already said, with no problems other than the Psychic complaining that they need a high maintained potential to keep themselves from being spotted by those with See Supernatural.

 

Of course, I could go into more depth about why that last line is also nonsense, but I think I've made my point. We don't need a new skill, we don't need to give more power to old ones, we only need a ruling for the intersection of one of the most common advantages with one of the most common psychic powers and, well, Nathaniel's ruling does that well, even if official Anima sources allegedly do it differently. Personally, I've always used the direct comparison, because the assumption that See Supernatural trumps all (and a few other official rulings by AS, honestly) is a little silly to me.

[Nathaniel Cain 0]

One of the biggest reasons my group ruled that See Supernatural shouldn't trump all methods of hiding the supernatural is due to the fact that it only costs 1 CP. Take Danger Sense for example, it grants players a sixth sense that makes it impossible to be caught off guard by danger and impossible to be surprised by anything other than being beaten by 150 points in initiative. Even though Danger Sense doesn't tell you the source of the danger and thus is no more than a really reliable though vague warning system, it is still a 2 CP advantage. Therefor it made no sense to give a 1 CP advantage that kind of all seeing power.

[cdcace 3]

Well its your group do as you would like. But when I originally made this topic I was looking for the official answer. Discussing if you like the official answer or not is entirely different. And my post wasn't saying you should treat it like magic appraisal if you were, was saying it wouldn't make since to do it that way. I more personally lean towards just using Hide to hide yourself physically, then you don't have to worry about them seeing you use the power, since you can't hide the power itself according to the rules.

 

Either way, interpret how you would like here is the answer from the Official Anima source "Allegedly" http://cipher-studios.com/AnimaBB/index.php?topic=576.480 that I came across in my own searches which is a bit hard to understand, but pretty much just says Hide Matrices can only be used against the actual Sense matrices.

 

But like always, Homerules are acceptable in all groups if your group likes them. Use them, I know my group uses plenty as well.

Edited May 1, 2016 by cdcace

[TyrHawk 10]

here is the answer from the Official Anima source "Allegedly"

Noooot certain if you're using the quotation marks here because you're not certain if the post is official, or because you're being sardonic. I hope it's the first but, just in case, here's a response to each version. ;D

 

If it's the first one then yes, that's an official Anima Studios post. I believe it was Carlos himself running the account back when it was active years ago (as that thread in the forum shows), though I could be mistaken since the poster does say "we" on occasion (which could still be a single guy speaking on behalf of the group, but I digress).

 

If it's sardonic, however, then screw you too, good sir. I originally said allegedly because no proof had been offered that there was an official response other than your claim to have found one. That you've now presented the link to the proof is no reason to be snarky, and I'd ask you not to be in the context of a discussion like this. I don't mind jokes, I don't mind a bit of light banter, and I am sarcastic so often it's practically my first language, but being sardonic is not appropriate when people are trying to explain things civilly to one another.

 

In either case, I'm still glad you found your official answer, since that's what you were after, even if I'll personally never use it (just like I never use the official "Attack/Defense aren't limited by Inhumanity and Zen" ruling, which is in an earlier post in that same thread).

[cdcace 3]

 

here is the answer from the Official Anima source "Allegedly"

Noooot certain if you're using the quotation marks here because you're not certain if the post is official, or because you're being sardonic. I hope it's the first but, just in case, here's a response to each version. ;D

Yep screw me, just providing what I found cause said I would if what I say wasn't enough. No one asked for the link after I had answered the original question even though I offered getting it. If I offended you with "Allegedly" it was only in return to your own comment of "Allegedly" making it seem I was just making everything up instead of asking for the link which I did offer originally to get. 

 

 Hope that helps, if not I will try to find the source to what I found later today.

So decided to just post the link to clear that up since you insinuated that I was just making it up and wasn't providing any source to it. Which I originally didn't post then because was at work and wasn't gonna dig through that site to find it again.

 

And don't act all innocent tyrhawk, your first post in this topic and your allegedly post only lead to me getting fed up with your verbose and frankly rude posts. Sadly I couldn't delete the topic after I made it then shortly after finally found the answer I was looking for to clear some ruling within my group when it was brought up. Which has now lead to this completely different topic of homebrew ruling on it. I apologize for my sardonic behavior.

Edited May 1, 2016 by cdcace

[TyrHawk 10]

A few things:

 

1. I never asked for the link because I wasn't interested in it. Others might have been and it was their prerogative to get it or not. Regardless, within the context of my original post the word 'allegedly' meant, and still does mean, "used to convey that something is claimed to be the case or have taken place, although there is no proof." At the time, this was exactly what the answer you had was. I didn't claim you were lying, that the answer was wrong, or any number of other things; I only said that there was no proof provided of the claim at the time. I wasn't interested in the proof because you had your answer and others had their own, which has been the point of this conversation for a while now.

 

2. I'm sorry if I seem rude. I honestly don't intend to be. I say what I mean and I tend to use the most literal definitions of words rather than the connotative definitions for words people seem to have (since they vary so greatly that I can't possibly account for them all). If I seem rude, I assure you again that it's not my intention because being rude doesn't get you anywhere except disliked. It's one of the main reasons I pointed out that being sardonic has no place in these discussions. I will not "act" innocent in this case; I am innocent. Yes, I made a small joke with my first post by saying "Excellent work, team" which implied that the answer had been obtained through group effort rather than your own searching (which is what actually happened). It was nothing more than that, and nothing less. I'm sorry if minor jokes made at the supposed end of a one-sided conversation offend you; I'll refrain from them in the future on your threads.

 

3. There's a reason the forum rules don't dictate that a topic must be locked or closed once the original poster has found an answer. Forums are avenues for open discussion, and creating a new topic every time one answer is finished and a similarly-threaded question comes up taxes resources. I'm sorry if you don't (not saying that you don't, mind you, only that your post suggests you might not) appreciate the conversation's natural evolution to "what else people do when they don't know/like the official ruling" but, such is life. Just like conversations face-to-face don't necessarily end at the official answer, so too can topics go on after the original author has gotten what they came for, or even left the conversation entirely.

 

And, if that's all, I think we've got this one covered. Again, I apologize for seeming like something I'm not, and you're forgiven for being something you were (which is wordplay, not an insult. Just to be 100% clear on that).

Edited May 1, 2016 by TyrHawk

[cdcace 3]

Nope.

I apologize to everyone else for allowing things to get this way. In the future I will make sure never to respond to anything Tyrhawk says and would only hope he would do the same in regards of myself.

Edited May 1, 2016 by cdcace