Mechanic Vs. Special Effect

[dsatow]

Say you have two supers.

 

Shadow, a darkness elemental, and Lightbeam, a light elemental.

 

The two get into a fight over who gets the last Eggo Waffle.

 

Both have the same speed and dex and are right now delayed to grab the Eggo Waffle. To make the game more dramatic, the GM makes them fast draw each phase to see who can get to the waffle.

 

Lightbeam plans to AoE flash Shadow and take the waffle. Shadow uses his delay and puts up his darkness w/personal immunity. Does Shadow get flashed? My guess is no, as the darkness will block the flash.

 

Not wanting to be seen, Shadow leaves to the rear of darkness field and uses his darkness based stretching power to reach around and grab the Eggo. Seeing Shadow's action in a mirror that Shadow hadn't noticed, Lightbeam releases an AoE Line flash against Shadow's hex. The line goes through the darkness field. Does Shadow get flashed? By mechanics, this should be yes. By special effects, this should be no.

 

Undaunted, Shadow gets his Eggo, but Lightbeam is pretty miffed. He is hungry afterall. Lightbeam releases an EB against Shadow. Will the EB penetrate the darkness field? If we rule by SFX from the above, don't we have to rule yes to this also? If we rule by mechanics, how does should Shadow create a field where light can not penetrate but everything else can?

 

BTW: In conclusion to the scenario, a little kid no one notices, steals the Eggo and makes off with it.

[Steve Long]

Re: Mechanic Vs. Special Effect

 

1. Shadow gets Flashed. Darkness to Sight Group blocks ordinary light, including light generated by Images, but it’s not “Drain/Suppress/stop all powers with a light-based special effect.” You can treat it that way — there’s some discussion of this in THE ULTIMATE ENERGY PROJECTOR — but as a default Darkness does not protect someone from any power with a Light-based special effect.

 

2-3. Same answer — Darkness does not automatically “block” or “stop” Light-based powers.

 

To answer more generally, mechanics always win. We have GMs in place to decide whether special effects should influence things, and a book (UEP) on the way that discusses how to make SFX more prominent in the game from a mechanics point of view, but ultimately special effects are just window dressing. It’s the mechanics that matter when you get right down to it. If you want to emphasize the differences between different special effects more, pick up UEP and give it a try.