I have two questions about the capabilities of telepathic communication. For context, lets assume its a Sorcerer using the Invasive Thoughts feature on the Aberrant Mind (UA) subclass.
Are you only able to communicate words? Or are you able to use the feature to imitate sounds? If so, your memory of a sound and the ability to imagine or think of what it sounds like would be way better than if you tried to make the sound yourself. So would you be able to mimic the sound of anything you have heard before and remember, and then force those into the brain of another creature?
Can you make your words (and sounds, if question 1 says so) come from certain directions? For instance, making someone think they heard your words or sound come from behind them?
To paint a picture for you, I was thinking of a situation where this sorcerer may have been captured by bandits. He is sitting there, tied up and gagged. He uses his invasive thoughts ability to make one of the bandits think a nearby bandit said something rude about his mother to instigate a fight between them. Or, maybe to use whispers or sounds to make one of the guards think he is going insane.
Think of it like speaking to the target regularly, except no sound is actually made and a magically translates between languages.
1. Yes for sounds, but only as good as you would be able to normally do
2. No, they just hear the voice in their head.
For your examples, as a DM, I would handle them as:
Fight Instigating: You could roll deception to try to sound like the other bandit, and but the one hearing the voice would probably know something is going on. Insanity: Guard would make a will save, contested by your persuasion, deception, or intimidation depending on how your role-played what you are going to say. Some threshold number of successes before it took hold.
In order to keep a low level ability from being stronger than it should be, I always go with:
The voice is directionless/internal.
To the recipient, it is like a loud thought they can't control. They are always aware it is internal.
You can change your voice and mimic sounds to an extent, but it is limited to what the recipient has experienced. (If they never heard a car horn, they won't hear one).
No sending of images, emotions, or sensations.
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I have two questions about the capabilities of telepathic communication. For context, lets assume its a Sorcerer using the Invasive Thoughts feature on the Aberrant Mind (UA) subclass.
To paint a picture for you, I was thinking of a situation where this sorcerer may have been captured by bandits. He is sitting there, tied up and gagged. He uses his invasive thoughts ability to make one of the bandits think a nearby bandit said something rude about his mother to instigate a fight between them. Or, maybe to use whispers or sounds to make one of the guards think he is going insane.
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Think of it like speaking to the target regularly, except no sound is actually made and a magically translates between languages.
1. Yes for sounds, but only as good as you would be able to normally do
2. No, they just hear the voice in their head.
For your examples, as a DM, I would handle them as:
Fight Instigating: You could roll deception to try to sound like the other bandit, and but the one hearing the voice would probably know something is going on.
Insanity: Guard would make a will save, contested by your persuasion, deception, or intimidation depending on how your role-played what you are going to say. Some threshold number of successes before it took hold.
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In order to keep a low level ability from being stronger than it should be, I always go with: