Cloak: This Ego-based skill is, in essence, a form of "Mental Stealth". It is used to hide the use of a character's mental powers from persons with mental awareness. It reflects subtle use of mental powers, so cautiously that no one notices them. Cloak cannot be used to hide a mental attack, any more than normal Stealth can be used to hide the effects of a regular attack. Cloak can be used to make mental signatures and traces harder to locate. If the mentalist uses Cloak when using a mental power on someone, another mentalist trying to use Telepathy in order to locate his or her signature must make a Perception Roll in a Skill vs. Skill contest with the first mentalist's Cloak skill.
Cloak does not hide a mental power which has the Limitation Visible from normal sight; it only hides mental powers from mental senses. Of course, as with normal Stealth, if someone who can sense mental powers is "looking" directly at the attack, Cloak will not serve to hide it from them. The Invisible Power Effects advantage is required to do that. It is harder to Cloak a large use of mental power than a small one -- Subtle uses of mental powers are easier to hide. The GM should apply a -1 to the Cloak Skill Roll for every 10 Active Points of mental power being used.
The GM should apply situational modifiers, both positive and negative, to the use of the Cloak skill. For instance, it is easier to hide your use of a mental power when there's a lot of psionic "background noise" going on (a crowd, for example). |