col_impact

That was just one extreme example. To the evil mentalist, the world is full of normal ego human assets that can be leveraged without leaving any traces. Why go for a bank robbery when you can simply use telepathy/mind control to have a CFO happily wire money to some random person's account and then use telepathy/mind control to have that person happily wire the money to an account under your control. Mental powers with IPE at +1/2 are brutal.

You stop them with good mentalist PC's of course. Also don't freak out about Mental powers. Barring GM permitted unbalanced power builds, they really don't have much long term effect out of combat. An 8 EGO normal will shake off a 12 DC power at the +20 EGO level in 1-5 minutes on average and 1-6 hours at the extreme. LOS can be broken by simple cover or movement. Mind Scan can be a problem but it needs to be purchased outside of any frameworks that hold the attack powers and has that little drawback of telling the targets exactly where YOU are. Cumulative,Damage over Time and IPE Mental powers are one of the worst examples of advantage stacking abuse and should be limited to plot maguffins when used at all. Also, it could be pointed out that IPE (at a mere +1/2) makes mental powers fully invisible to target and is a fully legal one advantage combo that wreaks havoc amongst normals. You simply keep taking mental attacks until you get what you want with mind scan or telepathy or mind control. It's just a matter of time.

You stop them with good mentalist PC's of course. Also don't freak out about Mental powers. Barring GM permitted unbalanced power builds, they really don't have much long term effect out of combat. An 8 EGO normal will shake off a 12 DC power at the +20 EGO level in 1-5 minutes on average and 1-6 hours at the extreme. LOS can be broken by simple cover or movement. Mind Scan can be a problem but it needs to be purchased outside of any frameworks that hold the attack powers and has that little drawback of telling the targets exactly where YOU are. Cumulative,Damage over Time and IPE Mental powers are one of the worst examples of advantage stacking abuse and should be limited to plot maguffins when used at all. Cumulative by itself is sufficient to wreck havoc against normals. The rules don't indicate this as stacking abuse at all. In fact, cumulative is tailored for Mental Powers. From the rules . . . [6E1 328] Continuing-effect Mental Powers and some types of Adjustment Powers are the sort of abilities for which Cumulative is most suitable

Just like anything else, the construct that I built is something that would require GM approval, especially since if you switch the terms around it can easily just become overwhelmingly lethal. However, its is being used to simulate something that is a very narrow nullify ability. Probably only 10% of supers are heavy mentalist and some additional 10% dabble in it (mostly users of magic) so one should keep in mind that it does absolutely nothing for the character 80% of the time and really only proves to be a tactical hoser only a very small percentage of the time. Nullify abilities are a mainstay of the X-men style comics so being able to feature this kind of ability without having to resort to astronomical pricing might be something that some campaigns would like. I think it is weighing in at approximately the right cost in terms of power and the fact that it often simply does nothing. Interestingly, because mentalists have recourse to line of sight and mind scan it's not as if decent mentalists can't find a way to circumvent relatively easily even a power that hoses them to the extent that this one does. That's part of the reason this power is put on a megascale and has IPE. Mentalists get megascale (in the form of line-of-sight) and IPE for free. If anything, this puts a giant target on the player's head. Part of the reason this power exists is as a plot device in my campaign. The reason for that is that I play my mentalist bad guys to the full extent of their power. If you have criminal mentalists in your campaign and they have mind scan and mind control and they aren't insanely and unbalancingly powerful then you aren't playing them to the full extent of their power and tactical potential. How do you stop an evil mentalist from starting World War 3?

For reference and as a sanity check on how many active points should be involved with a power of this magnitude here is the power as a transform power . . . Severe Transform 1d6 (Being with Mental Powers into Being with No Mental Powers), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Persistent (+1/4), Constant (+1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2), MegaScale (1m = 1 km; +1), Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible, effects of Power are Invisible to target; +1 1/2) (86 Active Points); No Range (-1/2) For those of you who think that the ability to strip mental powers off supers is insanely powerful and undercosted at 86 active points keep in mind that a transform like the one above could alternatively be used to turn a whole city's population into a city of willing slaves or a city of ducks. Or change into an AVAD Killing attack and you can just kill the city in a matter of a minute or two with nuclear radiation. You could even turn off IPE since hardly anybody would be able to move outside of the massive area of effect quickly enough anyway. Using transform to define this power is nice and clean. It is inherently cumulative and by default its transform effect pops on suddenly (a sudden shut off of powers is the desired effect here). And you can define in an arbitrary fashion how the transform goes away.

Here is where you can find the equivalent in 6th ed . . . [6E1 142] At the GM’s option, if an Adjustment Power also has the Variable Effect Advantage, buying Expanded Effect at the “eight game elements simultaneously” level (+3½) allows the character to affect all game elements of the defined special effect at once, even if there are more than eight of them. For ease of reference you can write this as Expanded Effect (+4).

re: Indirect. If you want the power to not be stopped by a wall or window it would be necessary (Mental Powers can work through windows by default via Line of Sight). re: IPE & Surpress vs. Drain The costs and applicability of function both depend greatly on what version of the rules you are using. That's why I posted the multiple 5e and 6e versions (built using Hero Designer v3). Even though it seems logical that you might need Indirect in the case of AoE radius, the rule book seems to indicate that you don't. [6E1 319] Area Of Effect attacks completely fill the affected area. There are no “shadows” created by obstacles that a target could take shelter behind. If a GM wants to be more “realistic” and come up with rules for taking cover from Areas Of Effect that way, he can.

Thanks for the input Psyber624. I probably do need IPE at +1 1/2 to get the desired level of invisibility. To clarify, this would only only make the affect invisible to the target for powers that aren't activated. The target would obviously be aware of their active powers being shut down when this suppression field takes effect. So someone flying with a mental power would suddenly come crashing down. But, if a character was not actively using any mental powers while in the suppression field they would have no awareness of them being shut off. Importantly, once the target realizes they have lost their mental powers they don't know what is causing it. Suppress is constant, but a constant advantage can be applied to it (see 6E1 197) which makes it so that each "layer" of suppress doesn't require additional attack rolls beyond the first to take hold. And, the constant modifier reduces the amount of bookkeeping the character needs to maintain with the power. He just needs to actively keep it on and new layers of suppress will keep layering on people who enter the suppression field. However, to fit the concept of a suppression field that simply surrounds the character and requires little or no amount of effort to maintain I need an Uncontrolled advantage. With uncontrolled and 1d6 of effect the power weighs in at 97 active points which is right about the active cost this kind of power should have in my mind. Keep in mind that the power could also be rigged with an invisible transform and be probably cheaper. Also, even though the power seems very potent it is entirely shut down by merely 4 points of power defense. The limitations that make the suppress only able to kick on when it has reached the potential of full effect is an interesting one and one that I think merits a -1/4 limitation. It means that defensively someone could aid or heal points in the power to temporarily turn their powers back on at full blast which introduces a nice weakness to the overall power. Also, throttling in the radius where full effect can be achieved means that the target only needs to get 400 m away rather than 4 km away in order to restore their powers at full level.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. It's interesting to see all of the different approaches people take tackling the same concept. *** Lucius, It's a great suggestion that I don't need the +4 advantage to cover all Mental Powers. However, the concept for this particular character is that he can suppress all Mental Powers which would include the iconic 6 (Telepathy, Ego Blast, etc.) no matter what special effect they had AND any power with the special effect "Mental or Psionic" (e.g. mental transforms, clairsentience defined as mental in origin, psychokinesis, etc.). I also like the suggestion of Damage Over Time since that seems a possible avenue to take to get this power precisely tailored to function according to concept. I am going to look into that and play with that. Thanks for directing my attention to that Advantage. *** I have a couple of questions for Hyper-man. First, why did you include an Indirect advantage in your versions? Also, for Invisible Power Effect you indicated a (+1 1/2) version of the advantage. I was under the impression that a +1 version of IPE is sufficient to achieve a fully invisible effect. In fact, Lucius for his proposed version is implementing a + 3/4 version of IPE, presumably thinking that +3/4 worth of effect that is sufficient to the task. Which level of this advantage insures that targets aren't aware that their mental power is being diminished until it is actually used? **** Re: Drain Vs Suppress I think Drain or Suppress could be used here. Suppress bought to 0 END needs special permission, but a Drain 1d6 that accomplishes some measure of positive effect per turn over and above the 5 point return rate accomplishes effectively the same thing. Suppress seems a cleaner application of the concept to me (and I am the GM in this case). **** Further Tinkering . . . Here is a further refinement of my original posted idea. Not sure if the refined original is the way to go, but I thought I would share my further tinkering with it. Psionic Black Out: Suppress All Mental Powers 1d6, Personal Immunity (+1/4), Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Persistent (+1/4), Constant (+1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible, effects of Power are Imperceivable to target; +1), MegaScale (1m = 1 km; +1), Expanded Effect (all Mental Powers simultaneously) (+4) (87 Active Points); No Range (-1/2), Limited Power takes effect only when all mental powers of target reach level of full suppression (-1/4), Proportional (power can only reach full effect in inner 10% of radius; -1/4) So basically I am tinkering with adding a few limitations to throttle the Megascale so that the power runs up in "stored potential" when targets are within the 4 km radius and "turns on" when the actual "active" radius threshold is reached at 400 m radius. This would work conceptually against just about anybody since in most encounters a 4 km spatial buffer is enough for a run up. Its okay if greater than 3 points of power defense shuts the power down, that fits into the concept of the power (and keeps it from being too powerful). However, if someone rapidly entered the 4 km threshold with teleport or very rapid movement there would be a significant slice of time they could act with their mental powers before getting shut off by this power . . . which is a loose end. Ideally, to fit the concept 100%, there is simply a psionic dead zone around the character that is fully on whenever anyone walks into it. **** Again, thanks for all the suggestions so far.

double post - see my next post below

So in the TV show "Heroes", the Haitian character could shut off everyone else's powers. The "suppress" would happen whenever the Haitian was nearby and would come off as a total surprise to anyone who was afflicted by the "suppress". They never saw it coming. What would be the most legitimate and efficient way to represent such a power? I am interested in building a similar kind of power but one that affects Mental Powers only (the Haitian would affect all super powers). This is what I have so far . . . Psionic Black Out: Suppress All Mental Powers 1d6, Personal Immunity (+1/4), Area Of Effect (1m Radius; +1/4), Persistent (+1/4), Constant (+1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible, effects of Power are Imperceivable to target; +1), MegaScale (1m = 1 km; +1), Expanded Effect (all Mental Powers simultaneously) (+4) (87 Active Points); No Range (-1/2) This is about as close to the effect as I can get and it seems a legitimate application of the rules. If I put it at (1/2)d6 effect it would still work just slower but within legal active points (44) and you could even put a penetrating advantage on it to insure that it worked through power defense, but using penetrating in that way probably goes too far into munchkin-y. Either way, basically the large scale and total invisibility to its targets compensate for the slow cumulative run-up to total suppression. This version takes about a minute to get to 60 active points of suppression (assuming 3 standard effect * 5 speed each turn). Ideally, I would like to have a smaller scale but an instant run-up to total suppression. Any ideas? Suggestions?