Desolids & Side Effects

[Zed-F]

I am creating a ball lightning construct to act as a summon. Its main powers are Desolid (0 END, Persistent, Inherent, Always On), and a Damage Shield (0 END, Persistent, Inherent, Always On) with a RKA Side Effect Explosion (no range) which occurs when the damage shield activates against a grounded conductive object. The special effect of the RKA is the ball of lightning explodes against whatever conductive object it hit. The explosion should be large enough to eliminate the ball lightning's BODY. Obviously the side effect should affect the physical world, and ought to be reasonably impressive.

 

Here are some questions:

 

1) Can I take a Side effect that's greater than the largest given AP value for the side effect? I assume in that case I'd still max out at a -1 base value for the limitation (so with the limited circumstance, that's a -3/4 limitation.)

 

2) Do I need to buy Affects Solids for the side effect? Since in FREd p.165 it mentions that Inherent powers can be turned off, should I assume that the desolidification is automatically turned off with the ball lightning's final self-immolation? Or should I make up some custom limitation on the Desolid such that it automatically turns off when the damage shield contacts a grounded conductive object?

[Steve Long]

1. A character can make a Side Effect as large or powerful as he wants, but the maximum base value for it is -1, even if it’s greater than the larger of 60 Active Points or the Active Points in the power.

 

2. I'd say that what you should be doing is building this ability with an Attack Power, not through some sort of Summon-based construct. That'd solve all your problems pretty quickly, I expect. I can think of situations where Summoning an attack makes sense (e.g., the Nega-Beam in the USPD), but generally that's not the way to go.

 

To the extent there's a rules question here: Side Effects created by a character while Desolidified do not need Affects Desolidified to affect him. If they affect the environment around him, they do so without the need to apply Affects Physical World to them somehow (but the GM may change this if he feels it’s abusive or the character’s attempting to use his Side Effects as a “weapon” rather than as a legitimate Limitation).