I strongly disagree. Bearhugs by dreambodies shouldn't hurt.

Fine, I'll make myself clearer.

I WANT MY WINGS TO WORK WHEN IN DREAMFORM!

And that would be overpowered LAND TREES = nowhere is safe to sleep

I think all those in dreamform should be able to at least fly, if not climb trees and mountains as well. When you have no physical form you can travel with very few limitations.

Alright, so walk in, force divert, whip, instakill. It wouldn't take all that much longer.

We have been told that will not happen. Dreambodies are intended for the ground elevation only.

Except I believe Dominate and Mindburst are on the same channel. And in 6 seconds, I'm betting you can bring your mana back above half.

Ego, not mana.

Same difference, semantics boy.

<-- hates people who debate with pettifoggery in real life.

There is not much to debate, any skill that could potentially take 2500 ego, and leave me incredibly close to an instakill is to much.

It's the same reasoning behind the necromancy worries, in which you take away 2000 mana in one go.

Ok, so, you walk in, they dominate you, then whip you. Say that drops you from 5k to 2300. They then have to wait 6 seconds before they can do anything, even move. So, your options are:

Sip Bromide, Read Scroll of Healing (this alone will probably have you somewhere close to full ego again)

or

Walk away

The only way you are near death is if you have 2 Telepaths that are PERFECTLY synchronized to kill you. I say perfectly synchronized, because by all rights, your system should have you sipping the instant you get dominated. So the first Telepath would have to send both Dominate and Whip in the same command line, and the second Telepath would have to have it triggered to Mindburst when you divert. And he would have to PRAY that your system lags, otherwise, you'll probably sip before his Mindburst goes off.

I really don't see this as any kind of feasible.

I'm glad its not an instakill.

If I was an evil telepath, I think I'd carry along an uninfluenced pilgrim or scholar, and rather than force divert, force an enemy to actually influence.

If they divert, they will be under half ego. If they don't, they will continually take ego damage. Then all the mage has to do is keep them afflicted/hindered.

Edit: Not that cheap tactics with influence are limited to psionics. Is it still possible to seduce 10 scholars so you have a mobile entourage dealing 2000 damage a round to your enemy?

No.

It is still possible.

Also, you can only divert when you are at -full- ego, so that situation is slightly flawed, still viable but it wouldn't put them under half ego in that way.

Ah, good point.

Hrm, maybe forcing multiple influence battles with your scholar/pilgrim entourage? Although that isn't as viable because you need them to have balance and equilibrium to influence.

Would there be any objections perhaps to having all of the influence skillset unforceable? It could be justified in the sense that although you can dominate someone's will enough to make them perform routine actions, it is somewhat harder to force them to use their own personality in a charismatic sense. (Weird emotes aside.)

That is, INFLUENCE, DEBATE, and DIVERT commands.

There is no need for this.

It is? I was told it wasn't...

In that case, ghosts should as well.