Use of Naked Advantage for Mental Powers to push through Opponent's Magic or Mental Defenses

[Jujitsuguy]

This may be more of a rule question, but more of being creative.

I wanted to be able to beat someone that has Magical Darkness that covers all senses, including Mental Detection.

I thought of one way to do so is to have a global Naked Advantage on a Mental Detection...just curious as to anyone's wisdom if this is viable and how would I write this up?

[Grailknight]

Combat Sense is a thing.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I wanted to be able to beat someone that has Magical Darkness that covers all senses, including Mental Detection.

 

Detect the magical darkness, or dispel it, suppress it, etc.  Use an area effect images spell that causes objects to glow.

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Jujitsuguy said:

This may be more of a rule question, but more of being creative.

I wanted to be able to beat someone that has Magical Darkness that covers all senses, including Mental Detection.

 

 

I am just go8ng to throw rhis out there, because apparently in all the years since Naked Advantages became officially endorsed, only my players are the kind of creative jerks to try this:

 

 

Personal Immunity, Ranger, useable as attack.

 

 

Suddenly  you are untouchable by at least one opponent's favorite attack.

 

I didn't allow it, obviously, but it was fiendishly clever.

 

 

 

 

[Jujitsuguy]

So, this is meant to get around a character in my game that is using his powers to get around my NPCs.  This counters his Darkness against everything that I cannot punch through.  In no way I am any expert in the rules, so I am to the point where it is my players' knowledge of the rules over my knowledge, and they know more than I.

Let me give you the power(s) and you tell me if my guess is wrong and what would you implement to bypass it:

• Curse of the Void :  Darkness to Sight, Hearing, Mental and Radio Groups 1m radius, Area Of Effect (2m Surface; +1/4), Usable As Attack (+1 1/4) (50 Active Points); IAF (Elder Sign Lapel Pin; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4)
• Void Darkness:  Darkness to Sight, Hearing and Mental Groups 2m radius, Personal Immunity (+1/4), Time Limit (1 Minute; +1/2*), Usable Simultaneously (up to 16 people at once; +1 1/4), Grantor can take back power at any time, Grantor pays the END whenever the power is used (60 Active Points); IAF (Elder Sign Lapel Pin; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4)

I do have an NPC/Creature that can do things dimensionally, if there is such a detection via dimension...

 

Here are examples of my attempt to detect them:

• Mental Tracking:  Active Sonar (Mental Group), +5 to PER Roll, Discriminatory, Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees), Penetrative, Tracking, Inherent (+1/4) (56 Active Points); Linked (Punching through Mental Defenses - Darkness, Invisibility, etc.; -1/4)
• Mental Awareness, +5 to PER Roll, Discriminatory, Analyze, Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees), Penetrative, Inherent (+1/4) (44 Active Points); Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (1/2 DCV; -1/2), Linked (Punching through Mental Defenses - Darkness, Invisibility, etc.; -1/4), Extra Time (Delayed Phase, Only to Activate, -1/4)

Of course, these won't punch through the player's abilities...but this was what I thought the Naked Advantage may help on, unless there is another modifier out there.

[LoneWolf]

 You cannot have darkness that covers the unusual sense group as a whole.  Each unusual sense is considered a completely different sense group.  So, you can have darkness to detect souls (in the unusual sense group), but that does not block another sense in the unusual sense group. You would have to buy each unusual sense as a separate sense.  This does mean when you build your enhanced sense you don’t get any sense groups modifiers for free.  Just build a sense from the ground up to counter this darkness.  It will probably be fairly expensive and if you want to use it to attack you will need at least ranged and targeting and probably sense.  

 

Naked Advantage will not even work. All a Naked Advantage does is allow you to buy an advantage or adder for a power or group of powers.  It does not allow you to create a power you could not create with the normal rules.  If you can build the power with naked advantage, you can build it without it.  
 

 

Something like this would work.  Detect Souls (unusual) Discriminatory, Ranged, Sense, Targeting for 27 Points.

Edited February 11 by LoneWolf

[Doc Democracy]

58 minutes ago, Jujitsuguy said:

Let me give you the power(s) and you tell me if my guess is wrong and what would you implement to bypass it:

 

What I am not seeing is the "reasonably common and obvious set of defenses that cancels out the attack" required by any power bought as usable as an attack. The player should be rolling you directly how you bypass the effect.

 

Doc

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Personal Immunity, Ranged, useable as attack.

 

Heh wow I had never considered that.  Its too cheap to allow but its a neat twist.

Edited February 11 by Christopher R Taylor

[tombrown803]

those powers don't cover smell/taste or touch groups. Make your normal smell targeting, or targeting, ranged for your touch group

 

[LoneWolf]

That will also work, but the power can be boosted to include those sense groups.  They would be considered Nontargeting sense groups so be 5 pts each.  Each unusual targeting sense would also cost 5 pts, but you have to pay for each one separately.  There are an almost infinite number of unusual senses that can be created.  

[Duke Bushido]

3 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

 You cannot have darkness that covers the unusual sense group as a whole.  Each unusual sense is considered a completely different sense group.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

What I am not seeing is the "reasonably common and obvious set of defenses that cancels out the attack" required by any power bought as usable as an attack.

 

Yep.  That caught my eye as well.  Darkness is not built correctly until it includes ways to negate or turn it off completely.  Determining the exact special effect of the darkness can often help, as sometimes the SFX themselves have known interactions:  smoke and such can be dispersed with strong  air currents; heat or fire-based powers may dry the moisture from the air and negate fog.  That sort of thing.

 

 

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Heh wow I had never considered that.  Its too cheap to allow but its a neat twist.

 

 

 yep., my guys are actually great, but when they decide they really want to check the system for cracks, they go all out.   Devious little ba--  darlings that they are....

 

 

47 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

That will also work, but the power can be boosted to include those sense groups.  They would be considered Nontargeting sense groups so be 5 pts each.  

 

I need a quick clarification for 6e:  if the character pays specifically dor Targetting on a normal-not-targetting sense (which, given the nature of rhe five normal,senses, means "olfactory senses"), is it not treated as a Targetting sense after that with regard to Darkness?

 

 

 

 

 

47 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

Each unusual targeting sense would also cost 5 pts, but you have to pay for each one separately.

 

This is the second time Lone Wold has mentioned this, and there is a very good reason:

 

He is absolutely correct.  I don't know who approved the builds; as you said you are not intimately,familiar with the rules, I suspect this was either an innocemt misunderstanding or someone more familiar with the rules kinda pulled one over on you, because this "slip up" is the absolute crux of your problem. 

 

I have never, _ever_ liked the inclusion of the phrase "unusual sense group" because it suggest that, like the Hearing Group or the Sight Group, the entire infinite spectrum of "special senses" are tightly related in a way that makes them similarly vulnerable.  It doesn't help that the rules specify targetting individual senses and targetting 'sense groups' then breaks down the senses into "groups," to include the "special sense group."

 

The sight group has in common that everything within it is percieved via the eyes, and,is presented to the character's brain as information ascertained by seeing it.

 

 

The Hearing group, similarly, is things the character has percieved auraly, meaning they are "grouped" because they generally come in through the ears.

 

The "special sense group" (even after several,editions, the word "group" remains to cause lots of confusion here) has in common that they are _not part of the five 'normal senses.' 

 

To be clear:  they _can_ be.  A character may declare that his ability to detect radiation is tied to his Sight Group; that he is actually able to 'see the glowing waveforms of the radiation being shed.'  It might even be discriminatory, where he seea different colors or hues depending on the type of radiation or richer colors from steonger sources.

 

Similarly, however, he can also declare them to be tied to his Hearing Group, and different frequencies of sound or oscillations of the same shrill keening let him know what kind of radiation and how strong it is.  Maybe he can actually _taste_ the radiation akin to the way we can all taste when our IV is being flushed with normal saline.

 

But-  and this is a big but--  he is _never_ required to tie them to a sense group.  

 

The whole "Detect" thing exists to simulate senses that, at least foe humans, are not real.  This makes it impossible for us to understand or discuss how they would work.  So if we do not want to tie it to a normal Sense Group, we buy it as "Detect" The Thing and apply whatever modifiers we want it to have, and do our best to srumble through how it works:

 

"My character is very in tune with the spirit world, and can just kind of feel when a restless soul is in the area."

 

Yes; I said "feel," but I sis not mean "sense of touch."  Again, this is because we as humans have a finite number of senses in common, and we cant really,get our heads wrapped around perceiving in a New, never-has-a-human-done-it kind of way.  Explaining color to a man born blind, so to speak.

 

Muddying the waters is the fact that extraordinary senses are all built,as "Detect."  This leads a lot of folks to the erroneous conclusion that there might be a "Detect Group."  The fact of the matter is that _all_ senses arw 'detect.'

 

Detect motion.  That's vision.  Detect color., vision again.  Detect size (ranged).  That one, again, goes to vision.  Detect emmision of certain frequencies.,,could be vision. Could also be hearing.  Detect texture.  Detect temperature.  Detect moisture.  All of those are touch.

 

And So on and so forth.  We use "Detect" to build a new sense because we all underatand what that word _means_, even if we cannot appreciate how a particular thing might be detected, or a common and known thing might be detected in a new way.

 

The upshot of that is that there is no "Detect group;" that would literally,be every possible sense.

 

 

Circling back around to your immediate problem-  well, LoneWolf got it one, and went on to stress it  a second time:

 

The "Unusual Sense Group" has in common that they have nothing in common; they are a group of detects that belong individually outside of all other groups.  It is not possible to have Darkness,versus this entire group, though it is possible to have Darkness to as many as you can afford, one at a time, for five points each.

 

Or, to go for an even shorter explanation:

 

The Darkness builda presented here violate the rules and ahould be re-examined.

 

 

Good luck, Sir!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LoneWolf]

Darkness does not require a way to turn it off.  UAA is what requires a reasonable way to turn it off.  So, the first instance would require some way to avoid the attack, but the second one does not.  The second instance does not have UAA it has Useable simultaneously by 16 people.  That means the targets have to be willing.  The price is also wrong for that one it should be + 1 ½ for 16 people.  The second instance has personal immunity, so I am assuming it was designed as a defense and does not affect the target. 

 

It’s possible the power does have a reasonably common way to avoid it but is just not listed.  When I construct the power in Hero Designer it does not list the defense for the UAA, the comment section is commonly used for this, but nothing prompts you for it.

 

The power is fairly strong but there are plenty of ways to get around it.  As Grailknight pointed out combat sense will negate this. 

[Grailknight]

Combat Sense will let you fight them. If you need to search an area of Darkness, you'll need an Unusual Sense that the darkness doesn't cover.

[LoneWolf]

Considering the small area it looks like this was designed more for combat.  If you want to search the area the darkness does not cover touch so you can use that a grope around to find something hidden. 

[Chris Goodwin]

Clairsentience would work.  It would let you put your sense point outside the Darkness.  Note that if the Darkness affects any of the Clair- senses, then you won't be able to perceive into the Darkness area, but you'll still be able to perceive outside of it.

 

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I need a quick clarification for 6e:  if the character pays specifically dor Targetting on a normal-not-targetting sense (which, given the nature of rhe five normal,senses, means "olfactory senses"), is it not treated as a Targetting sense after that with regard to Darkness?

 

If they've bought Darkness vs. taste/smell, it would cover that sense group even if the group was bought with Targeting.  The cost of the Darkness assumes the 'normal human suite' regardless of what extras (i.e. Targeting) the target might have bought. 

 

 

[Jujitsuguy]

All:

Thanks for the wisdom on this item...yes, I have to look out for violations on the part of the player that has created the power; at the same time, building a counter against this is what matters most to me.

Not like the character can just walk through and not be touched.

[Gauntlet]

Another way you could do complete total darkness is an area effect transform. It would transform the people that are in the AE to have absolutely no senses. It would be 15 per dice but would still not necessarily be any more expensive then trying to do darkness and listing every sense. Of course you would want it as AE and probably both personal immunity as well as 0 END as well but could also have the limitation stating that the transform is only as long as the targets are in the AE.

[Doc Democracy]

@Gauntlet you have hit the Godwin's Law of HERO boards, when you suggest Transform, you lose the argument! 🙂

 

I reckon, in this case there are too many mechanical berriers for it to work properly. Another hoary old fallback is Mind Control - only to tell victim they cannot see anything....

 

Doc

[Gauntlet]

8 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

you have hit the Godwin's Law of HERO boards, when you suggest Transform, you lose the argument!

 

How so? Not sure what you mean.

[Chris Goodwin]

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

you have hit the Godwin's Law of HERO boards, when you suggest Transform, you lose the argument! 🙂

 

You have to throw in Extradimensional Movement as well!

 

1 hour ago, Gauntlet said:

 

How so? Not sure what you mean.

 

It's a very unstated rule, humorous in nature.  A few of us used to throw around a joke... once a thread got long enough, someone would suggest Transform or Extradimensional Movement as the "if nothing else works" solution. 

Edited February 13 by Chris Goodwin

[Duke Bushido]

And for the true Trifecta of Cobble, you need T-form, EDM, and Desolidification.

 

 

Boom.

 

You can now do anything.

 

 

Good night, folks!