Newbies ask the darnest things

[Sanctaphrax]

I would buy her power as a variant of Mistform.   Mistform gives you flight, physical immunity and an extra catch based on your special effect (in her case electricity instead of high winds).  Pretty much covers all she does, lets you do maneuvers (like popping up and scaring people, or disrupting electronics) but not attacks.  Pay an extra refresh to shift in/out as a supplemental action, 4 points, call it done.

Do you mean Gaseous Form?

If so, it could work. Though you'd have to hack it a bit.

You're a little off-base about how it works as written; there's no option to swap the extra weakness. And I don't think it lets you move through solid objects...the writeup contradicts itself on that point, but I think it makes sense to go with the bit at the end.

I think adding the ability to move through solid objects and swapping the gaseous weaknesses for electricity would be worth a Refresh. I'm not sure how fair adding the ability to shift supplementally for another Refresh is. If you materialize, attack, and dematerialize in a single turn, you're basically attacking with impunity. An opponent with better initiative might be able to interrupt depending on how you interpret those rules, but it still seems like a bit much.

PS: By coincidence, I wrote up a similarly-powered character recently. (Worm spoiler warning.) Didn't use the Gaseous Form approach, though. Attacking while immaterial is pretty key to that character.

[dragoonbuster]

If we're only talking about Kitty, her powers seem to be "always tangible except when concentrating." IIRC, and admittedly my knowledge of her is relatively limited, it's not something she just shifts over to back and forth for indeterminate amounts of time, it's something she has to be actively focusing on. She stands in front of a wall, furrows her brow, and walks through it. She sees an attack coming, she grits her teeth and closes her eyes, and the attack moves through her. She also is a bit harder to see and likes to just poke part of her body out of a wall to spy on people, but isn't really invisible.

Mechanically, this seems to break down to a simple custom power:
-Can use Discipline to defend against non Catch-covering attacks (ranged or melee). Perhaps build a specific weakness into the power, electricity/lasers and possibly intense sound waves.
-Can use Discipline instead of Athletics or Burglary to overcome zone borders, including traversing so-called "impossible boundaries" or ones that would require picking a lock, etc
-Discipline modifies Stealth when hiding part of herself in an object's mass, or perhaps always complements it.

Call it Intangibility, seems worth -2 refresh to me. Require a HC or aspect related to it, probably. If you want her to be able to make physical attacks by materializing part of herself inside them, I'd make that cost another refresh and give it Weapon: 2. Use compels or the Catch to keep her from getting into places she shouldn't.

Thoughts? Did I miss anything?

[kgy121]

That seems a bit complex. I'd just attach the Human Form [+1] to Spirit Form [-3] and be done with it.

Back on the subject of Physical Immunity, if someone has a Magical Immunity and is targeted by something like an entropy curse with cars of bees out of nowhere, what's the sequence of events there? Does the targeting get pulled off by the magical immunity and the bees never show up? Or do the bees just count as magic and not affect them? Would Thaumaturgy just be able to get around it somehow?

[dragoonbuster]

Back on the subject of Physical Immunity, if someone has a Magical Immunity and is targeted by something like an entropy curse with cars of bees out of nowhere, what's the sequence of events there? Does the targeting get pulled off by the magical immunity and the bees never show up? Or do the bees just count as magic and not affect them? Would Thaumaturgy just be able to get around it somehow?

Depends. You could go either way. For a PC, I would say they need to run from the bees. For an NPC, I would argue that any magic not cast at insane levels of power slides off without issue.

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Everything anyone tries to do with magic against Lord Raith seems to slide off...I'm not positive it's explicit that thaumaturgy slides off his immunity, but it's certainly implied. The only magic that we know for sure works against him was Maggy's Death Curse, and, well, that's a Death Curse.

[Saracen]

Her catch is actually electricity.  She can affect and be affected by electronics.  Magneto took her out in an early appearance when she tried to raid his lair and fry his computers.  I *think* that was after she tried using roller skates on a very unfortunate super hero costume.  Early Kitty Pryde was kind of a goof.

Her character (and the X-Men comics in general) is so inconsistent that this is true in one issue and disproven in the next. We've seen her phase through raw electricity multiple times during the years.

As for attacking while phased, she does that too, since she can phase single parts of her body (for example, she can stand mostly inside a wall but use her hands to yank someone in there with her). She can extend her phasing to anything she touches (so making others immune to physical attacks and phasing others into solids is right up her alley).

In short, she's not just broken. She's borken.

[Quantus]

Depends. You could go either way. For a PC, I would say they need to run from the bees. For an NPC, I would argue that any magic not cast at insane levels of power slides off without issue.

(click to show/hide)

Everything anyone tries to do with magic against Lord Raith seems to slide off...I'm not positive it's explicit that thaumaturgy slides off his immunity, but it's certainly implied. The only magic that we know for sure works against him was Maggy's Death Curse, and, well, that's a Death Curse.

In general I dislike too many rules that work differently for PC's vs NPC's, especially when it's not a "PC's get this because they are supposed to be extra awesome" sort of rule purely for increased fun.  In this instance Id want to make it a blanket ruling one way or the other: either all effects are considered magic regardless of source if they are being manipulated by Magic, or else Magic that manipulates a physical object counts as a physical attack.  So an entropy curse that targets you with a turkey that just happened to fall from a 747 would be in all ways a physical attack (other than the targeting), as would an earth Magic spell that tosses a really real rock at you.  However a Spell that tosses energy (like Fire) or that materializes something whole with ectoplasm (like a zombie or spectar) would be magic.  If the bees existed before then the PC would have to run, if they materialized inside the car from scratch then they would not because they are not "real".  So the Mantra Question Id ask is " Can the frog Poop in your hand?"   
 
The Nature of Lord Wraith's protections are a bit of a mystery anyway, but iirc somebody (Bob or McCoy)  theorized that it would take some active protection of a ridiculous powerful being to accomplish, so outsider Sponsored Magic makes the most sense to me. 

Her character (and the X-Men comics in general) is so inconsistent that this is true in one issue and disproven in the next. We've seen her phase through raw electricity multiple times during the years.

As for attacking while phased, she does that too, since she can phase single parts of her body (for example, she can stand mostly inside a wall but use her hands to yank someone in there with her). She can extend her phasing to anything she touches (so making others immune to physical attacks and phasing others into solids is right up her alley).

In short, she's not just broken. She's borken.

True enough, Marvel is bad about that in general (Im looking at you Wolverine Healing Factor), but I think we could impose some basic balance and still fit her power set, ignoring any random Secondary Mutations for time travel or Movie Plot.  Ghost style intangibility covers most of it pretty well, as others have outlined.  In the Comics her catch was typically strong electricity, but the explanationw as just that it bridged the gap to where-ever she was phased to, so if it was a computer she woudl short it out by phasing through it, but a large jolt would still reacha nd hurt her.  In magical terms you could concievably expand that to any energy (making phasing through fire out of the question).  Id say that she can only "touch" another person by either un-phasing herself completely or else drawing them into the phase with her making them intangible as well.  She can phase multiple people and/or large objects with added difficulty, I think phasing the Blackbird+passengers is more or less the upper limit.  She can move freely in three-dimensions only when the material is solid enough to support her weight (ie solid rock Yes, water or air or a card castle No).  The only other bit would be unphasing inside somebody as an attack, and that's one Im not sure about.  Ive never seen it get as...messy as it should, but then Ive mostly seen it in animated versions with young audiences.  You could say she doesnt phase back all teh way but instead just solidifies enough to through the body pressures out of what and cause unconsciousness, you could make it a full lethal attack, or something in between and dependandt on actual medical knowledge, or at the other end you could make it blanket impossible.  Given that affecting the inside of a person is supposed to be explonentially more difficult with any magic in the DV, Id say Impossible but let them Stunt it if they had a thaumaturgucal link that would reasonably let them bypass those sort of basic Mortal protections. 

[Sanctaphrax]

Mechanically, this seems to break down to a simple custom power:
-Can use Discipline to defend against non Catch-covering attacks (ranged or melee). Perhaps build a specific weakness into the power, electricity/lasers and possibly intense sound waves.
-Can use Discipline instead of Athletics or Burglary to overcome zone borders, including traversing so-called "impossible boundaries" or ones that would require picking a lock, etc
-Discipline modifies Stealth when hiding part of herself in an object's mass, or perhaps always complements it.

Call it Intangibility, seems worth -2 refresh to me.

Sounds mostly reasonable. But it seems kind of odd that someone with Intangibility can't go through an indoor wall, since neither Athletics or Burglary allows that.

That seems a bit complex. I'd just attach the Human Form [+1] to Spirit Form [-3] and be done with it.

I don't think that'd be appropriate. Partly because Human Form makes Spirit Form better and therefore shouldn't give a rebate, partly because Spirit Form has a lot of baggage.

Back on the subject of Physical Immunity, if someone has a Magical Immunity and is targeted by something like an entropy curse with cars of bees out of nowhere, what's the sequence of events there? Does the targeting get pulled off by the magical immunity and the bees never show up? Or do the bees just count as magic and not affect them? Would Thaumaturgy just be able to get around it somehow?

Depends. There's no such thing as standard magical immunity.

As for attacking while phased, she does that too, since she can phase single parts of her body (for example, she can stand mostly inside a wall but use her hands to yank someone in there with her). She can extend her phasing to anything she touches (so making others immune to physical attacks and phasing others into solids is right up her alley).

In short, she's not just broken. She's borken.

That doesn't sound broken to me.

[dragoonbuster]

Sounds mostly reasonable. But it seems kind of odd that someone with Intangibility can't go through an indoor wall, since neither Athletics or Burglary allows that.

My second line was intended to imply that, especially the part about "impossible boundaries," but rereading it obviously wasn't clear. To me any wall anywhere would become a zone border to a character with Intangibility, probably usually set @ -2 difficulty and not needing a real roll to traverse (possibly allowing supplemental movements through simple, easy walls) until things started getting serious (thick concrete, etc), though that might get more complicated than other GMs want to deal with.

-Can use Discipline instead of Athletics or Burglary to overcome zone borders, including traversing so-called "impossible boundaries" or ones that would require picking a lock, etc

A full write-up of the power would be clearer, but I was just spit-balling.

[Saracen]

Well, as I see it, you have to give her (and anyone/anything she touches) the ability to be unaffected by physical attacks and the ability to move through borders (except rifts, pits and the like) as if they're not there, and I don't think it makes sense to say she uses Discipline to do it - the only conscious "effort" she makes to use her power is switching it on, then she walks (Athletics) through borders and ignores physical attacks (no roll). Beside that, you have to give her bonuses to all Stealth trappings and to Infiltration, also to blocks, maneuvers and possibly to attacks from inside a solid/with objects (maybe you want that to work as "forcing" the target to use a specific skill when defending - read Might/Athletics - or maybe as attacks bypassing armor).

Also, if you go the movies route, you have a form of Time Travel on your hands. If you go the comics route, you have teleportation, flight, Fists, Weapons and Scholarship stunts, and a pet dragon. Something like a touch-based Mana Static and some kind of defense/resistance to supernatural mental attacks, too. But really, this just means she would have a high refresh level, and in the X-Men universe, that wouldn't be out of place. It's just the Phasing that's broken, in my opinion. She can walk up to someone with a pencil, stick it into them while completely phased, let it go and have it return to its normal solid form now inside their body. She can do the same but with her allies attacks, and actually, now that I think about it, she can also make her enemies' attacks pass through her body and her allies' by simply touching them (and still remain phased herself). She can go anywhere in a building, easily out of reach of anyone with access to her catch for example, or to spy, prepare ambushes, steal stuff, etc.

I honestly think it's broken anywhere, but it is especially so in what amounts as a turn-based system, unless you give it limitations that, canonically, it doesn't have.

[Sanctaphrax]

None of that sounds all that impressive to me. Take Teleportation, a Stealth stunt or two, Immunity, and Incite Effect and you're basically done. Phasing things into people is just an attack, phasing allies through attacks is just a block (though you could also represent it with the Tank custom Power if you wanted it to be infallible), making the attacks of your allies phase is just a maneuver.

Would be tricky to do at Submerged, but phasing nowhere near as powerful as some of the things I've written up in this system.

Time travel, now that's unfair.

[Quantus]

Time travel, now that's unfair.

Truer words have never been spoken 

[Saracen]

None of that sounds all that impressive to me. Take Teleportation, a Stealth stunt or two, Immunity, and Incite Effect and you're basically done. Phasing things into people is just an attack, phasing allies through attacks is just a block (though you could also represent it with the Tank custom Power if you wanted it to be infallible), making the attacks of your allies phase is just a maneuver.

This power?

(click to show/hide)

TANK [-1]
Description: You shield your allies with your body. Obviously, this makes you a good friend to have.
Skills Affected: Endurance.
Effects:
Tank. Whenever a character in your zone would take physical stress, you may take that stress on their behalf. You take the same amount of stress that they would have taken, except you use your own armour in place of theirs. Stress taken this way bypasses Toughness Powers, including Recovery and Immunity.
Toughness Surcharge [-varies]. Normally, Toughness Powers don't apply to stress that you take with this Power. But by spending some Refresh, you can get around that. Using this Power with up to 4 Refresh of Toughness costs 1 extra Refresh, using it with up to 10 Refresh of Toughness costs 2 extra Refresh, and using it with up to 20 Refresh of Toughness costs 3 extra Refresh. Using it with more Toughness than that cost 4 extra Refresh.
Aura Of Protection [-1]. You may use this Power to take hits for anyone within two zones.

Looks cool. Out of curiosity - though I doubt it - does Toughness Surcharge count the Catch as part of the refresh of Toughness powers? Anyway, I really think this is broken... how would you go about defeating Kitty and her group in a physical conflict if you don't have access to her catch?

Also, one more question: can you guys explain to me the reasoning and balancing behind the non-canonical power levels found here?

[Sanctaphrax]

Out of curiosity - though I doubt it - does Toughness Surcharge count the Catch as part of the refresh of Toughness powers?

It's ambiguous, but I think it's supposed to count.

Anyway, I really think this is broken... how would you go about defeating Kitty and her group in a physical conflict if you don't have access to her catch?

Hit them with mental attacks.

Failing that, you're mostly screwed. Physical Immunity is a pretty scary Power. But it's a standard ability in this game. It's not even homebrew.

Also, one more question: can you guys explain to me the reasoning and balancing behind the non-canonical power levels found here?

I was making NPCs, and some of the people I wanted to write up were too strong for Submerged. So I made up some levels.

There wasn't really much reasoning or balancing to be done.

Though you'll notice that Refresh increases pretty quickly compared to skills. That's intentional. High-end supernatural beings often have downright silly amounts of Refresh, but they usually don't have blatantly superhuman skills.

[Saracen]

I was making NPCs, and some of the people I wanted to write up were too strong for Submerged. So I made up some levels.

There wasn't really much reasoning or balancing to be done.

Though you'll notice that Refresh increases pretty quickly compared to skills. That's intentional. High-end supernatural beings often have downright silly amounts of Refresh, but they usually don't have blatantly superhuman skills.

Isn't that because more often than not they don't care about descending into negative refresh territory? And aren't blatantly superhuman skills connected to a raise in the skill cap as opposed to more skill points? Or maybe that was your point and I misinterpreted. I just find it weird that you gain refresh basically at the same rate as you gain skill points, even faster at the very high end of the custom power levels.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yeah, blatantly superhuman skills have a lot to do with the skill cap. That's why I made sure to increase the skill cap slowly.

The number of points is honestly not as important as the cap, but I found that the totals I chose were pretty suitable for the characters I was writing up when I made those levels.

Of course, many of those characters were negative Refresh anyway. But where it counted, with the Wizards and such, I found that the numbers worked pretty well.

The fact that Refresh increases faster than skill points during the last jump is weird, I admit. But 65 is already a huge number of skill points. It's enough to make pyramid-building a real hassle.

If the disparity bugs you, I recommend raising the base skill. In a way, starting skills at Average is like adding 25 skill points.