Mental Contacting (3.5e Variant Rule)

This material is published under the OGL 1.0a.

Mental Contact (Cha)

You can make telepathic contact with another mind.

Requirements: Telepathy feat, can be used untrained.

Check: You can make psychic contact with another mind. The base DC is 10, modified by familiarity. If the subject has a Psychic Shield, you have to make a Mental Contact check to overcome it. An unwilling subject gets a Will saving throw to avoid contact. If the save is successful, no contact is made. If you do not want the subject to know that you are making mental contact, you can make a Mental Contact check against the subject’s Wisdom, Psychic Sense, or Psychic Shield check (whichever has the highest bonus). If you win, the subject is unaware of your attempt. If the subject wins, he is aware of your attempt (whether you succeed or fail).

While you are in mental contact with another creature, the two of you can communicate at the rate of normal speech, “hearing” each other’s transmitted thoughts. You can also send a single visual image each round instead of speaking. Both you and the subject can choose to lie or omit information; you’re “speaking” to each other telepathically, not reading each other’s thoughts.

Mental contact is two-way, meaning that you are in mental contact with the subject for purposes of his psychic skills and vice versa. If a friendly mental contact turns hostile, the subject can make a Will saving throw or Psychic Shield check to break contact. Once the subject has failed a Will save to eject the intruder from his mind, he can’t break the contact. The intruder is in his mind until he chooses to break contact or some outside force interferes, such as a distraction or another psychic skill such as Psychic Shield or Psychic Static. If your mental contact is broken, any other psychic skills you are maintaining that require mental contact are also broken.

Psychic Shout: While in mental contact with another creature you can hit them with a “psychic shout” (the mental equivalent of screaming in their ear). A psychic shout is a standard action and the creature must make a Will saving throw against your Mental Contact save DC or be dazed for 1 round. Since Mental Contact is a move action, you can make mental contact and shout in the same round.

Psychic Grappling: You can initiate a psychic grapple with any creature that you are in mental contact with, a mind-tomind struggle. See page 208 for details.

Deathcry: If a creature you are in mental contact with dies, you must make a Will saving throw or Psychic Shield check (DC 20) to avoid being dazed for 1 round by the psychic feedback. Since mental contact is two-way, this applies to any creature in mental contact with another. A creature can deliberately avoid letting out a deathcry when it dies by making a Will saving throw (DC 20).

Rapport: Two or more characters with the Mental Contact skill can enter a psychic rapport with each other, an intense state of mental contact. Each character establishes mental contact with the other (who must be willing). Characters in rapport are like one mind, each instantly aware of everything that the other thinks and experiences. Characters in rapport cannot deliberately lie or deceive each other. Characters in rapport can enhance their psychic abilities in a psychic gestalt (see page 208).

Special: You can take 10 on a Mental Contact check, but you can’t take 20.

Time: Mental Contact is a move action. The contact lasts as long as you choose to maintain it.

Strain: 2 plus modifiers for familiarity, 1 per psychic shout.

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