@FiendishFox Seems like mental abilities are all but banned in nearly all shape and form. Granted, there's a reason they're banned (if not several) but even they have weaknesses, like thinking false thoughts and other such tactics. As for automatons themselves, well, they're really only as useful as the ones controlling them (in this case, Artist), and humans do have limits to ingenuity. I could remove the "use to fullest extent" part on Artist's abilities, making it so that he can't use it beyond what he can think of, and the lack of experience makes it quite difficult for him to use objects very well. He'd need to learn how to use something before he can actually wield it. Like with the mind-reading automaton fly, he'd be given a wide range of emotions and pictures to interpret, but he'd need experience to learn [i]how[/i] to interpret them, and of course, human judgement makes errors all the time, even with trained professionals, and Artist is anything but a pro.

@Gisk I suppose I was trying to keep supernatural powers, and if that's the price to keep the ability to summon pictures, then I guess I can discard the idea of supernatural powers.