Invisibility or Darkness

[Peregrine]

If the special effect of a power vs. Danger Sense is 'self-control of conscious intent' (as per my question on the Rules Questions board), would that be best modeled by Invisibility or Darkness? My first inclination is Invisibility, but I wanted to canvass Herodom Assembled for your input.

[argent]

I would say in most cases Invisibility Vs. Special/Unusual Sense Group(Danger Sense); with or without "fringe", depending on whether you wanted the Danger Sensing character to have an increased chance to detect the danger once the Invisible character got close.

OTOH, if the danger was mindless or non-conscious(like most traps), or covered an area, Darkness Vs. Danger Sense might be more appropriate.

[TheEmerged]

Good rule of thumb: if the effect only disguises the user, it's invisibility.

Remember that Darkness blocks a sense it affects just like a wall was there. Consider this:

X_____Y______Z

If X is a danger to Z, and Y has Darkness to Danger Sense, Z can't detect the danger X presents.

[Seenar]

The problem here is that I am not sure I would allow buying once sense group against Danger Sense. There are so many potential Special Effects for Danger Sense after all.

[Monolith]

I would go with Invisibility. When activated, Darkness must be visible to 3 senses (unless bought with the IPE Advantage). Invisibility, on the other hand, by it's very nature is invisible. So every time you turned on your Darkness, everyone would see it coming on.

Also keep in mind that if you want the Darkness to travel with you, you would need to load up on a few additional Advantages as well since Darkness cannot normally move with someone.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Seenar
The problem here is that I am not sure I would allow buying once sense group against Danger Sense. There are so many potential Special Effects for Danger Sense after all.

There are a lot of SFX for Infrared Vision as well (So cold you automatically detect heat, so hot you see everything as thermal, IR Goggles, ect). If you are assuming a single power can block all of the different SFX of Infrared, then it should not be any more difficult to block all the SFX of Danger Sense.

[TheEmerged]

Originally posted by Seenar
The problem here is that I am not sure I would allow buying once sense group against Danger Sense. There are so many potential Special Effects for Danger Sense after all.

I could see SFX mattering if we were talking about a Dispel Danger Sense or somesuch -- but for sense-affecting powers, it seems to me that how you do the sensing doesn't matter as much as what you're looking for.

If Player Z has the ability to detect danger and Player Y has the ability to not look dangerous, does it really matter HOW they do what they do?

[Seenar]

Let me put it this way:

Danger Sense is not one sense group, but many. IR is always using the same sense group.

Spiderman's Danger Sense is not the same sense group as one the Silver Surfer might have.

One is a animal type sense, one would be attunement to the power cosmic.

[TheEmerged]

Hmm, let me try explaining what I said again.

It doesn't matter so much HOW the Widget is being sensed, but that Widget is being sensed. If you can disguise the Widget, does the effect behind the Widget Sense matter?

Replace Widget with Danger and...

[mattingly]

Invisibility, on the other hand, by it's very nature is invisible.

So, then, for a "mental invisibility" (see other thread), if the invisibility were visible to the mental sense group, would that qualify for a -1/4 Visible limitation?

[Monolith]

Originally posted by mattingly
So, then, for a "mental invisibility" (see other thread), if the invisibility were visible to the mental sense group, would that qualify for a -1/4 Visible limitation?

No, because you choose the Sense Groups you wish to be invisible to. If you buy Invisibility to Sight Group, you are still detectable by Hearing, Mental, Smell, etc. Invisibility would not be invisible to the Mental Group unless it was bought for the Mental Group; and if you buy it for that group you would not take an Advantage to be both invisible and visible to the group.

Now I could see someone taking Invisible to the Mental Group, and then maybe giving it a -1/4 Limitation for Not Invisible To Mind Scan or something like that, but that would be the exception.

[Seenar]

Originally posted by TheEmerged
Hmm, let me try explaining what I said again.

It doesn't matter so much HOW the Widget is being sensed, but that Widget is being sensed. If you can disguise the Widget, does the effect behind the Widget Sense matter?

Replace Widget with Danger and...

Yes because of what sense group the Widget Sense is using.

Look, you cannot make something in Hero totally undetectable. I can always come up with one more Unusual Sense Group that one has not purchaced in one's invisibility against.

If there are Widget Senses that use different sense groups, then you will have to buy your invisiblity against each of those groups.

A Danger Sense based on Mental intent could be blocked by invisibility to Mental Sense Group, but that would not stop a Danger Sense based on Precognition special effect.

See the difference?

[MarkusDark]

Many of my players have such things as 'Detect Lifeforce' or 'Detect Aura' with analyze, discriminatory, etc. The use of these is multi-faceted. First, there are rarely powers that target Detects (Flash, Darkness,Invis, etc). Second, it is difficult to describe HOW this power is working - is it through sight or more of a mental awareness style? To help combat this, I require that ALL Detects need to be specifically categorized as to how it is being perceived by the person "Well I can see the aura." "Then anything that effects ALL sight will effect the detect". Granted, just because you are in the dark, you could still see an aura being projected but to avoid the difficult issues, it is the way that I go.

As for Danger Sense, it is almost a style of mental ability be it precog or instinct or something else. I feel that anyone that has invisibility to Danger Sense is a person who has trained themselves in attacking so much that they give off no sort of anticipation or special thought to the attack and thereby the detector doesn't sense it. Likewise, if it was a Darkness field (and I would love to know the rationale behind it), it would simply lower the overall 'vibes'of the area to neutrality.

Another way to make an attack less detectable by Danger Sense is to puchase minuses to the Per roll for the attack. Danger sense is perception based, afterall. A -10 Per to an attack could seriously hinder any danger sense. Also, check out the Digital Hero #5 article on Danger Sense http://www.herogames.com/digitalHero...angersense.htm to give you some more ideas. Often Danger Sense is played much more powerfully than it actually was intended.

[archermoo]

Originally posted by Monolith
When activated, Darkness must be visible to 3 senses (unless bought with the IPE Advantage).

Personally, I'd disagree with this. Extrapolating from the description of IPE under Sense-Affecting Powers on FREd p85, I'd say that sense affecting powers are generally only perceivable by the senses they affect.

[Doug Limmer]

Originally posted by MarkusDark
I feel that anyone that has invisibility to Danger Sense is a person who has trained themselves in attacking so much that they give off no sort of anticipation or special thought to the attack and thereby the detector doesn't sense it.

But if someone literally sees 3 seconds into the future, wouldn't that one still see the attack coming? Regardless of how 'non-agressive' you are? (Now, if the sneaky character also had Invisibility to Precognition, or the right kind of IPE on his attack, that'd be different.)