Dispelling Entangle followup

[Mancer]

Hey Steve, first off great job on everything you (guys) have done with everything Hero (5th ed, the great software and this site).

Now, I was wondering -- if a character can't "turn off" his own Entangle, how are mundane SFX like handcuffs and other realworld restraints suppose to work? I can imagine a limitation that allows an entangle to be disabled with lockpicking, but a huge OAF (Key) dispel seems silly (not to mention it would destroy the cuffs and not merely unlock them).

Sorry to bother you with such a silly question, but I was just curious as too how you would handle it (officially that is).

Thanx for taking the time to answer.
MANCER

[Steve Long]

It's not a silly question at all. I've been giving the issue some more thought, and I now think ultimately it should probably come down to GM's judgment. There are enough situations where a character should be able to easily remove his own Entangle that the rules might as well not place any unnecessary roadblocks in the way of common sense.

Too bad this didn't come up prior to my recent HEROglyphs article on Entangles. I could've addressed the topic in more detail then, and not felt as if I were avoiding the "real work" of writing books. ;)