A way to deal doppelgangers without psi.

[jubisloviu]

Honestly this has been bugging me for a while now, the way all my non-psionic characters are absolutely devastated by a mental breakdown + bilocation combo from thought controllers stops being hilarious after some dozen of hours in the game.

i've been thinking on ways to actually deal with them besides tanking or going in a short trip to reload-save town.
1- Killing the Thought Controller kills the Doppelganger.
2- A new unique helmet made to resist mental attacks, a tinfoil hat perhaps?
3- Doppelganger damage becomes mechanical damage because it's technically just you hitting yourself after all.
4- Black Dragon poison being able to make the Doppelgangers go alway upon poisoning the Thought Controller.

[Mercon]

it's technically just you hitting yourself after all.

Is it? I think the doppleganger is a product of a harmful psionic field that manifests itself with apparitions and produces direct mental damage. I don't think you actually hurt yourself.

Making this ability mechanical will trivialize its threat. Your armor will likely negate the damage, even more so with shield. Besides unblockable mental damage is a staple of thought control school, mechanical damage is for telekinesis.

Dopplegangers are certainly annoying but I don't feel that they need nerfing. If you know that the character uses this ability you can prioritise him and flashbang him or burn his psi, in other cases you can evade the spectres with other means.

It somewhat makes sense for your thought control skill to reduce mental damage, because you learn techniques to protect your mind but it should be mild. Also though it would certainly cement psi users as the most powerful class but I still wish for some kind of psionic shield ability. It will reduce physical damage by 25% and negate mental for as long as its active. Every hit drains psi by damage number.

[Hazard]

I certainly wouldn't be opposed to doppelgangers having their active turns reduced to one if the caster is killed (so that they're not completely negated), since that alone can be enough for them to do some pretty hefty damage to you.

One argument for armor working against doppelgangers is that according to wiki their chance to hit is already affected by Dodge. I've no idea how well that actually works, but it does imply that their effectiveness can be reduced through completely physical means. That might just be a technical limitation, though, and doesn't change the fact that armor would totally nullify doppelganger attacks, especially if the damage type was changed to mechanical.

[TheAverageGortsby]

One argument for armor working against doppelgangers is that according to wiki their chance to hit is already affected by Dodge. I've no idea how well that actually works, but it does imply that their effectiveness can be reduced through completely physical means.

That seems more like a Touch Attack mechanic.  In D&D (and presumably other systems but I don't know of one off the top of my head) there's this mechanic where ghostly attacks, and some magical attacks, just need to touch you - they're not really of this world, so they ignore physical defenses.  Your Dexterity bonus still applies to see if you can prevent being touched (Dodge, here, obviously) but your physical defenses don't mean much when a ghostly wraith touches you and the chill of the grave saps your strength.  Doppelgangers seem like the ghosts of the UnderRail game world.

I like the idea of dispersing the doppelganger when the creator dies, yeah.  But as much as doppelgangers are a pain when you don't have psi, they're the opposite of Psicognitive Interruption/Black Dragon Poison, which is only a pain if you do.  Seems fair to have a weakness tailored to each build approach, though I do mostly play psi so the doppelgangers don't bother me much.

[Hazard]

That seems more like a Touch Attack mechanic.  In D&D (and presumably other systems but I don't know of one off the top of my head) there's this mechanic where ghostly attacks, and some magical attacks, just need to touch you - they're not really of this world, so they ignore physical defenses.  Your Dexterity bonus still applies to see if you can prevent being touched (Dodge, here, obviously) but your physical defenses don't mean much when a ghostly wraith touches you and the chill of the grave saps your strength.  Doppelgangers seem like the ghosts of the UnderRail game world.

I like the idea of dispersing the doppelganger when the creator dies, yeah.  But as much as doppelgangers are a pain when you don't have psi, they're the opposite of Psicognitive Interruption/Black Dragon Poison, which is only a pain if you do.  Seems fair to have a weakness tailored to each build approach, though I do mostly play psi so the doppelgangers don't bother me much.

All Thought Control skills seem to directly affect the target's mind, though, and then there's that one researcher in Caerus Residential Block who went all Event Horizon on himself, apparently due to a doppelganger fucking him up from within his own mind. We do see legitimate psionic ghosts down in Deep Caverns too, but lore-wise they seem to be a different thing than doppelgangers, despite using the same gameplay mechanics with some exceptions (for one, they don't have true-sight).

Anyone with at least 60 Biology can craft and use a Psi Reinvigorator and then a Psi Booster to clear the Inhibited status and restore 75 psi points, so there's an effective countermeasure that's not exactly costly in terms of required skill points. For those without psionics you can only try to run away, tank the damage (not really an option on Hard and above if there are other enemies, except maybe if you have 10+ CON) or rely on Dodge, which does very likely need heavy investment to be reliable. Yes, they are build-specific weaknesses which naturally should exist, but while you can outright eliminate the problem of being Inhibited, the damage from a doppelganger you can only attempt to mitigate. IMHO, that's not a small difference.

[crossfirex]

I do think thought control should have more defensive ability against other thought control, and that dopplegangers should be dispersed on enemy death, or psi inhibition like poisons. At the same time the damage and the ability to bypass armor should stay. And quite possibly maybe electric damage or energy damage of some kind could be useful against them, since after all energy fields especially magnetic do have an effect in real life on brain wave related activity, this could also be seen as a helper for disrupting psi ability. Maybe make a skill to nullify your own psi but also nullify any thought control psi related effects on you?

[TheAverageGortsby]

Anyone with at least 60 Biology can craft and use a Psi Reinvigorator and then a Psi Booster to clear the Inhibited status and restore 75 psi points, so there's an effective countermeasure that's not exactly costly in terms of required skill points. For those without psionics you can only try to run away, tank the damage (not really an option on Hard and above if there are other enemies, except maybe if you have 10+ CON) or rely on Dodge, which does very likely need heavy investment to be reliable. Yes, they are build-specific weaknesses which naturally should exist, but while you can outright eliminate the problem of being Inhibited, the damage from a doppelganger you can only attempt to mitigate. IMHO, that's not a small difference.

That's true, but for less than half that investment (and using much more readily-available component materials, too, which isn't a small difference - Statolith is not fun to farm) your non-psi user can create and pop morphine and take an advanced health hypo before it wears off.  And on Hard or Dominating, eating the damage from a 300-skill Psicognitive Interruption (that's about the skill of a Goliath beetle with two friends nearby) is most certainly no less difficult than eating the damage from a doppelganger.

No, Hard is meant to be hard.  I can't agree that this is an unbalanced scenario if we give non-psi a fairly accessible way to handle doppelgangers.  As it is right now, I'm sympathetic to the claims that doppelgangers are not fun or well-balanced.  I don't agree with them, from my tanky sledge experience, but I'm also super nitpicky about action management and am willing to load a save if I die.  I get that not everyone is.

crossfire's suggestion seems fun.  What if psi doppelgangers couldn't be hurt by normal weapons but could be stunned for a turn by electricity?  Everybody and their uncle carries a Taser anyway, right?

[Hazard]

...Yeah, I completely forgot about Morphine Shot. You have a good point.