Sensing Minds

[Elegrand]

I was just reading the thread about geomancers and somebody mentioned that mages cant see 360 degrees.
Well I was just wondering that Azure splecasters should be able to sense minds. Of course the (battle)mage must have good skills to do this and should only apply to creatures/people with a high intelligence. The more experiance you gain, the more you can sense. To implement this I guess a little map would appear at the bottom and orbs of light would appear where minds are. If you directly see the creature/person, their head/where ever the mind is on the creature should have an aura. What are your thoughts about this?

[Sir Fishy]

Its sounds intreasting, So they could sence the presents of another being so like if an assasian was hidden it the shawdows he could sence them? if so that would be really pretty awesome.

[druke]

it should drain mana to have this ability active

[Elegrand]

Originally posted by druke
it should drain mana to have this ability active

Yeah, I thought that was pretty obvious.

[druke]

the thing is though is that the way spells are, i dont see ohw this would be possible unless it was an \"ability\" rather than a spell

[Elegrand]

Maybe you cast it, then for a while you get the effects of my first post, and it constantly drains mana.

[SnowWolf]

I think this would definitely be an ability as opposed to a spell because there would be other \"classes\" that can use it- for example a ranger or a mage of the Blue Way - just like more than one job would have say, \"Make Food.\"

If it was connected to specific jobs it could be a modifier for how good you are at it - where it would help you to be really good at the Azure Way, but not hurt you if you weren\'t.

I would also think that this ability would be free in terms of mana since it is such a trivial task - or perhaps it would start off costing a bit and then go to nothing as you got better at it?

The problem with having skills that cost almost nothing is the programming - it has to cost at least 1 unless they want to use decimals. To get around this you could just \"say\" that is costs something when in reality it\'s free. The catch is you would only be able to use it if you had some mana left - like 3 or something like that - it doesn\'t cost anything but if you have zero you can\'t do anything.

At first the idea sounds like it\'s one of those - \"Yeah, maybe in your dreams\" ideas, but since the Blue Way has techniques for telling the future and seeing the past you\'d think the Devs would have some kind of idea for implementing things like this....

[RussianVodka]

Maby assasins should have an ability where they click on a player and they can see what that player is wispering to people... that would be great for reconosence in guild wars...

[tallimar]

why not have lip reading as a skill available for all, since there will be no actual classes such as mage or rogue.  it could work similar to what russianvodka had said, accept you have to be able to see the players at all times.  the skill would be interrupted by anything that blocked the line of view between the target(s) and the lip reader...

i cant really think of anything to say about the mind sensing idea though, im hitting a mental block of sorts here

[Ghostslayer]

I think this mind sensing thing would be pretty cool, as long as there would be a way to block it or make it more difficult.  Eg.  A character with a high wisdom score would be harder to sense, having some sort of \'mental barrier\' of sorts.
Either that, or the higher skill you have in that spell is also relative to your resistance to it.

And if this was an ability rather than a spell, it could be used for hearing your enemies aproach.  Again, it could be some sort of opposed listen vs. moving silently.

[SnowWolf]

Here\'s a question - What does the character sense coming? Do they sense just another mind, or can they tell something about it? I.E. Certain/All of the approaching character?s stats.

If it\'s not just a simple - \"There is a mind approaching\" type of system, it gets really interesting.

To try to get some ideas following lets consider the ability to sense people coming IRL (in theory of course)

If it was a hearing skill you could probably gage how fast the person was moving and that\'s about it. (You could say size but that\'s not as easy.)

If you could sense someone\'s physical power this would be good, but only to a point because you wouldn\'t know how skilled they were - their experience in battle makes a difference when they are using their strength.

If you could sense their wisdom you\'d have the reverse where you\'d know where you stand in relation to experience, but not in brute strength.

And in both those examples, if the person is smart enough, they may be tricking you into underestimating their skills, soooooo that?s just nasty.

This would be a useful skill if you could calculate a character\'s fighting strength or \"difficulty level\" in relation to yourself - that is what you\'d want to sense. (Of course you\'d still have that faking problem, but that just adds to things)

This number wouldn\'t reflect one of your stats but how each of your stats work together. For instance, your abilities with weapons compared to your hp, strenth, agility, dexterity, etc. would reflect your melee abilities, while your intelligence, wisdom, mana, and proficiency in the different ways would reflect your magical abilities. If you add these two together (melee and magic) you\'d have an approximation of their overall combat ability.

[Sir Fishy]

Originally posted by tallimar
why not have lip reading as a skill available for all, since there will be no actual classes such as mage or rogue.  it could work similar to what russianvodka had said, accept you have to be able to see the players at all times.  the skill would be interrupted by anything that blocked the line of view between the target(s) and the lip reader...

i cant really think of anything to say about the mind sensing idea though, im hitting a mental block of sorts here

How would lip reading work im mean couldnt you just walk by them and see what their talkin about? plus how would it work i mean maybe if you were and enemy guild you could spy on another guild... i dont really understand this one?

[Elegrand]

When you sense someone coming you can only tell their wisdom/intelligence. Lip reading can work if there is no obstacles and you remain hidden, and depending on your skill you may misread.

[toadman31]

maybe you could give every one a little thing at the bottom . but make it 2 diffrent things.

for example a mage would be able to see peoples minds.  so they would be able to tell the realitive location in comparison to them .  but they would also be able to tell something else say the targets intellegince stat.

a ranger or hunter on the other hand sence they might not be that smart but have good hearing( not shure what stat this would fall under) it would be a hearing type detector. and tell there relative location and maybe like there strength, cause a stronger person would prolly make a lounder step.

so you could balence it casue every will have it to some degree . and what path you choose wont make it useless. it just does something a little diffrent.  

and for u rouges out there you have to accomidate for bolth types of detection.  high will will make it hard to see into your mind but if they use listning it wont do crap. the\'ll still hear you. and if you have good stelth it wont matter if a mage can\'t hear you he will be able to feel you comming.  

thats all i got

[Junilia]

it all sounds good but there is a problem. Why does being stronger make your footsteps louder? it should only be like that if you are angry