Can you use Mindlink to go through walls?

Question

I have a telepathic Psion with the Mindlink ability which states: "When you use your Send Thoughts, your psion attacks against the target ignore concealment and cover until the end of the encounter, or until you or the target drops to 0 hit points or fewer."

The way I imagine Mindlink to work is that it creates a direct psychic link between your character and the target, ignoring all obstacles including things such as walls. But is that right or do you still have to have line of sight on the target?

Answer 1

You still need line of effect, and you'll still take a -5 penalty for not having line of sight.

Cover and superior cover are not the same thing as line of effect. From the RC, p219:

Determining Cover: To determine if a target has cover, choose a corner of a square the attacker occupies, or a corner of the attack's origin square, and trace imaginary lines from that corner to every corner of any square that the target occupies. ... If three or four of those lines are blocked yet line of effect remains - such as when a target is behind an arrow slit - the target has superior cover.

Concealment comes in 2 flavors: concealment and total concealment. A target having total concealment against causes you to lose line of sight to it. Note that not having line of sight doesn't stop you from attacking the target (unless the power specifically says it targets enemies/creatures you can see), it just means you take a -5 penalty on melee/ranged attacks against it. From the RC, p221:

Total Concealment (-5 Penalty to Attack Rolls): An attacker takes a -5 penalty to melee and ranged attack rolls against a target that has total concealment. The attacker can't see the target: it is invisible, in a totally obscured square, or in a heavily obscured square and not adjacent to the attacker.

From the RC, p107:

Line of Effect: When there is a clear line from one point to another in an encounter, there is line of effect. Unless otherwise noted, there must be line of effect between the origin square of an effect and its intended target for that target to be affected.

When a power says it ignores cover & concealment, it means only the -2 penalty versions. Powers that are intended to let you ignore the superior/total versions or line of effect will explicitly say so.

For example, the Chosen Threshold power allows you to teleport to certain squares even if you don't have line of sight or line of effect to them.