force wall and sense affecting powers

[quozaxx]

If several people are completely englobed inside of a force wall. (a rather large area) can someone from outside of the force wall darken the area within the force wall? Or do they have to penetrate it first?

[Steve Long]

Re: force wall and sense affecting powers

 

For purposes of this answer, I am assuming “darken” means to generate inside the Force Wall a power such as Darkness (Sight Group) or Change Environment (penalties to Sight PER Rolls). If that’s not what you mean, please post a follow-up.

 

It’s well-established that a Force Wall is going to block all “physical” effects — any effect affected by the defenses it generates, which typically means any attack that does STUN and/or BODY damage. However, that raises the question of what might be called “non-physical” effects, such as Darkness fields or Images.

 

Stated more broadly, the question is this: can a character with a power that creates a “non-physical” effect (such as a Darkness field, an Image, or most forms of Change Environment) generate that effect “inside” (or on the other side of) a transparent barrier, or does that require Indirect? The answer is, unless the GM rules otherwise, non-physical effects such as the ones described can be generated inside/on the other side of a transparent barrier. Similarly, a character could try to generate them inside/on the other side of a non-transparent barrier, but of course he typically won’t have a Targeting Sense to perceive the target point with (and thus is subject to the appropriate penalties).