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I am not sure if it belongs here but I will just take a leap.

I dont know what the rules are on telepathy. For example i play a shifter who has assumed an illithid shape. Well lorewise I know that Illithid use telepathy to communicate with their minions/slaves.

So before I break any rules (since i tend to roleplay the shape when shifted) would it be okay for me (after asking the groups permission oocly of course) to use telepathy as a means to communicate when ONLY in a shape or form of which uses telepathy as a means of communication?

I was told by a dm, no no no, psionic is beyond the comprehension of non psionics, communication would take a mastery you cant get through shapeshifting.

also it can be exploited like hell..

Agreed. I was fairly certain that the use of telepathy was too highly abuseable to use in any circumstance, unless expressly overseen by a DM and approved by everyone involved. While given permission or not, telepathy can lead to a VERY hefty amount of metagaming, as well.

Also, as Kraniumbird pointed out, while a Shifter assumes the form and can use a large number of abilities of that form, they aren't actually /that/ particular creature. Something as incredibly complex as psionics and telepathy would be impossible for anyone who has no latent psionic ability to understand in the slightest. Even spells that may be used for telepathy function very differently from psionics.

How on earth can it be metagaming? Telepathy is only transferring ones thoughts to the other. It has nothing to do with mind control or anything else.

you cannot read someone's mind or tell someone what to do. Well you could but you are not dominating someone.

Of course I get that a character has to actually learn how to do it when learning such shape. Which would open up a lot of rp imo and also dangers for losing one self as a shifter for being in another shape for so long.

At least that is how I roll my shifters generally and thus this was my question. Though i can understand that it is a "taught to" and powerful skill I can hardly find it a good tool for metagaming.

I actually looked up the definition of telepathy and it litterally said: transferring ones thoughts to the other.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepathy

It would be no different if I whispered or wrote certain information to someone without actually speaking it.

Sorry for the long rant but I just do not see how it is metagaming. So please take no offense to this

That may be the base definition of telepathy, but its actual function extends well beyond that. The possibilities are endless for what a PC could do with the power of telepathy, let alone what they could exploit. For example, when an evil PC decides to pull some shenanigans, what's to stop a telepath from simply reading their mind and tattling? It could destroy quite a bit of viable rp.

Not to say you'd do that. It's just a dangerous precedent to set, and governing the use of it would be nigh impossible. I only ever remember seeing one psionic on Amia, and after years of character development, he still didn't have the use of telepathy.

Yeah, Telepathy isn't allowed on Amia.

You can use the illithid form's psiconic telepathy and such only under the purview of a DM. Galenson's drow shifter has done it but only because he was granted permission to do so for the purpose of a very specific task.

And technically, if you are using telepathy the only way to make it legit is to use tells, and tells are not acceptable for RP. People can metagame the information if you post it in the talk channel, and if you are using telepathy there's no way to intercept it that easily (if at all?). It also opens the door for anything else, ie reading someone's thoughts. So it's best to just stay away from it unless you get DM permission.

I've seen people do it, and I blatantly ignore them because the server has a rule against telepathy.

Neve wrote:

It would be no different if I whispered or wrote certain information to someone without actually speaking it.

That's actually incorrect because people can overhear you. A sneak (or even someone invisible) could be standing right there and find out everything you whisper. Can't do that with telepathy.

It's a shame really, because ghostwise halflings, a subrace that is freely available without requests, are known to have natural low-level psionic powers. It's actually part of what drove me to play one way back when, and I was more than a bit disappointed when I learned that I wasn't actually allowed to roleplay those abilities.

To be honest, I don't see why telepathy is such a taboo thing when PnP abilities like Sending and Sense Alignment can be used on anyone that agrees to it.

Telepathy encompasses a broad range of power levels. Sendings and Alignment senses are strictly that; low level spells that encompass one specific function. They can be governed by the DM staff, and blocked when necessary. Telepathy is just too strong of a PnP ability to be used by the playerbase, and it simply can't be governed. Other psionic abilities have been allowed, to an extent, but it's just a dangerous territory to tread. Once you set a precedent of allowing something like that, you can never really go back.

Sorry, I don't really see how the DMs can govern Sendings done in tells any more than they can govern telepathy done in tells.

And I disagree on Sense Evil being so low-level. Low power-level, sure, but it can have a big impact. Seeing how close to all player-driven Evil is by necessity being conducted in secret these days, having your alignment pinged can be just as bad as having your plans revealed.

You can block an alignment sense, and should do so if you're in that sort of environment. As for Sendings, they're governed by the simple fact of what they can do. You're limited in what you can say, as far as length, and when you can say it, especially in combat situations. If telepathy were limited to simply sending a message, it might be construed differently. But it's not.

Why not restrict only the mind reading/controlling aspects of telepathy, then? Why the blanket ban?

Because telepathy doesn't stop there, and there's no real viable rp reason for it to stop there, I suppose. I think there are interesting things that could be done with it, even in the context of scripting real visual components of the ability. I fully agree it could be a very neat thing to see. It's just a horribly complicated ability to try to introduce, and one that can very easily be abused. I see the potential it could have as a very cool skill or feat for select PC's, but I also see the horrid consequences it could have when used improperly, especially on the quality of rp on Amia.

Don't forget you have to spend 10 minutes casting the Sending spell. Telepathy is instant.

Well in that case I've seen a couple of fudged Sendings. Hrm.

Protip for P&P users: Greater Scrying (level 6) takes only a round to cast and allows you to cast the Message cantrip to the subject or anyone within 10ft of them, and remains a superior option for long-distance communication compared to Sendings. It also lasts for 10 minutes per caster level and is two-way. It is governed by standard P&P rules.

Scrolls of Sending, though limited to DM-sanctioned use (you can't simply P&P-use them), bypass the 10 minute casting time. But yeah, forgetting the casting time is one of the P&P errors people often make.

I have opinions about the degree of power tacitly granted to spellcasters (and a properly-played Shifter) with these P&P rules, but this is not the place to discuss them.

Greater Scrying also invokes a will save. Considering you have no idea -who- is casting the divination against you, I'd argue that voluntarily failing the save unless very specific situation were laid out before hand, is pretty close to meta/semi-cheating for the sake of convenience.

Will saves which are routinely the lowest, and if you're prearranging this sort of contact (and why wouldn't you if you knew it was an option?) dropping the save into oblivion is trivial.

serbiris wrote:

I have opinions about the degree of power tacitly granted to spellcasters (and a properly-played Shifter) with these P&P rules, but this is not the place to discuss them.

That's the thing that bothers me so much about the telepathy ban. As overpowered as it supposedly is, you don't have to get very creative with PnP spells to be just as overpowered. 3.5 was caster edition for a reason.

That's probably because it's nearly impossible to police within the rules, if people do it with tells. Especially because people can sometimes play fast and loose with the pnp rules and not ask for permissions from everyone involved prior.

In the end it's really a non-issue because the gain would not outweigh the potential cost and abuse of it, and so I completely understand why it was broadstroked with an outright ban.

Naivatkal wrote:

You can use the illithid form's psiconic telepathy and such only under the purview of a DM. Galenson's drow shifter has done it but only because he was granted permission to do so for the purpose of a very specific task.

To those who are curious, the supervised ability was psionic suggestion. The DMs made me work for it.

question about: telepathy

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