Okay, let me clarify, because there is a contradiction.
The description of Aces definitely says you can apply it to "powers" (which means hyperstats, hyperskills, and miracles). But Jinx says, "Jinx, like Aces, does not affect Talent powers." Well, except that Aces does affect Talent powers.
So, which is it? Aces can't affect Talent powers, or Jinx is not like Aces and can't affect Talent powers while Aces can, or should Jinx be just like Aces and affect Talent powers?
To try and answer that, I went to the 1st edition Wild Talents book. It doesn't mention Jinx or Aces not working with Talent powers. It does specifically say that neither of them work on level based powers. If I had to guess, I would say that there is a sentence missing from Aces that says it doesn't work on level-based powers, and that the sentence in Jinx should have said "level-based Talent powers" instead of "Talent powers".
Therefore, I'd say that, sure, let Aces and Jinx both apply to Talent powers. Both are expensive in terms of Will, and there are already enough restrictions in stopping enemy Talents. In that case, if you used Jinx against any dice pool of an enemy Talent, including their power, it would trigger a Contest of Wills (as only the Zed power does not trigger a Contest of Wills).
For Zed, the term "self-affecting" is pretty vague, for the reasons you noted. The rules specifically mention "psychic", "non-physical" and "non-visible" powers as immune. The description of the Zed power states that it works by taking the Talent's power and negating that power's effect on the environment. The best analogy is sound-cancelling headphones. The headphones pick up the outside sound in a microphone and project that sound with the opposite amplitude. They don't stop the outside sound from being formed, and they don't block the sound from coming in (though, in reality, they do some of that, too, with padding). Zed takes the power as it affects the environment, and reflects back the inverse of that power.
When I think "self-affecting" I think something like hyperbrains. Just like psychic abilities, they happen inside the Talent's head, so they can't be affected by a Zed.
Hypercoordination and hyperbody are noticeable, or directly affect other people, or affect the environment. While you could argue that it's impossible to tell the difference between a Rifle skill rolling 2x10 on 4 dice versus rolling it on 2d with 2wd, elsewhere it is stated that you can use a Contest of Wills on someone shooting at you. The effect of the power on the environment is noticeable to the Talent in a metaphysical way if not a mental way. Hypercommand is all about projecting an effect onto other people, so it can be negated by Zed.
Hypersense: is the Talent's body suddenly changed, physically, or is it the environment that is somehow altered? I can see the argument either way. I went back and forth on this one, but decided that the Talent is picking up things that are already there (faint sounds, rays of light too few to normally focus with your eyes, chemicals that can't normally be tasted or discerned). Therefore, hypersense cannot be negated by Zed.
Hypercool... hmm. Hyper Bluff and Hyper Lie affect others, so Zeds can cancel out those powers. Hyper Mental Stability, though, is self affecting and cannot be cancelled.
As you can see, these explanations make it impossible to simply say that hyperstats and/or hyperskills are unaffected or always affected.
Going through the miracle cafeteria, I would say the following powers are immune to the Zed power:
- Alert: This is psychic danger sense. It's not physically noticing something but receiving a psychic message that something bad is about to happen.
- Detection: This is like psychic sensing, You aren't physically noticing something. Your body is psychically noticing something for you.
- Precognition: It's a psychic snippet of the future, which might not even happen. Besides, it solves a thorny time paradox revolving around how a Zed who isn't present yet can stop a power in the past. Just don't go there, Zeds don't stop precognition.
I left out a few that might be considered "self-affecting". Here's my reasoning why these "self-affecting" miracles can be negated by a Zed:
- Perception: It requires a physical change to the environment or the character's body in order to perceive things that humans can't normally perceive. We don't have senses that pick up x-rays, so it's not just enhancing what is already there but creating new senses. It helps differentiate Detection from Perception, too.
- Rapport: I was tempted to make this one immune, but Talents can see a Rapport link as soon as they view the target, so there must be something in the environment that is detectable.
- Thought Control - Projected Hallucination: Though this seems like a psychic power, it involves changing a target, so it can be stopped by a Zed.
And no problem with the spelling of my name! There's a guy I've been working with for almost 15 years and he still can't spell my name right. :-)
On Sat, Nov 3, 2018 at 11:23 AM antaine <antaine@eircom.net> wrote:
Amazing Alan, thanks for the clear cut clarification. I suppose my confusion/cunning attempt to circumvent the rules came from the fact that Aces mentioned Powers in the description. One for the errata?
So while I have your benevolent wisdom working for me, can I ask one more question?
Could you please explain to me which Powers Zed works on? I got confused as technically both examples (flight and lifting a truck) are self affecting and are by the Zed's definition immune to influence. Are they referring to when those Powers are used as Attacks?
Thanks again for your brilliant reply on Aces
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