redsash

Yes read back a couple. (Also the side effects idea was explored a few pages back 🙂 Consider: Gandalf struck a blue light from the end of his magic staff": Dispel 5d6, All Darkness Effects (+1/2); Area Of Effect (16m Radius Explosion; +1/4), No Range (-1/2), OAF (Staff; -1), Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4): 26 Active Points, 7 real Points ...would dispel a character-created Darkness field with the SFX (no light), or a Change Environment (low light conditions). The fact that it uses SFX: light means that it would mitigate even the blackest cave. Would it also not work to illuminate a "very dark night, -4 sight PER" in much the same way that a torch would, falling off at the outskirts but visible from a long way off

6e1 193: "Some examples of Dispel include spells designed to disrupt or “break” other spells, light-based powers that can Dispel Darkness fields, or the ability to destroy or ruin gadgets."

That was to disambiguate Gnomebody's example of Cthonian impenetrable darkness. Yes that is the intent. Call it a Constant Dispel vs low light conditions. The baseline is a brightly lit combat arena. In a dark space, there is a GM-mandated effect identical to an Uncontrolled Change Environment: "lack of natural light" up to -4. I propose we can use a Constant Dispel against that CE effect, targeting the affected area (6e1 p194) with an effect threshold of 12AP. Or at least use that as a model for a custom power. Look at the Gandalf spell again. Note how it *does* dispel Darkness Power effects defined as "Darkness" and also how it would work against a character-driven Change Environment: Low light conditions. Are you saying it *wouldn't* work against natural GM-imposed low light conditions? You're reaching. As you point out, those all have nice clear mechanisms already in place.

Suppress darkness 4d6+1 Standard Effect: 13 (to automatically overcome 12AP of Change Environment. No power advantages are required to affect a single target) (Good example: this is *really* hard to do any other way, but trivial with Suppress) Candle: Suppress natural darkness 2d6, Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4); OAF Fragile (Candle; -1 1/4), Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2), No Range (-1/2), Requires flame source to light (-1/2), Extra Time (Extra Phase, Only to Activate, -1/2), Side Effects (May start fires; -1/2), 1 Continuing Fuel Charge lasting 20 Minutes (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4) (7AP 1 Real) Flickery light and shadows, but partially compensates for a couple of meters out. (Bad roll? Trim the wick and try again, maybe you'll get another +1.) Outside of the 4m radius you will still be able to see at -4 even if it's otherwise pitch black (because SFX: light counteracts the game effect of pitch blackness, and photons don't just stop 🙂 Suppress natural darkness (defined as CE: low-light conditions) 4d6+1 (standard effect 13), AoE

To clarify, we're dealing with several different game effects here: (Natural) no light conditions (i.e. a sealed unlit room or underground pit) Normal sight perception entirely disallowed. Nightvision does not work. Mitigated by *any* light source to: (Natural) low-light conditions Normal sight perception allowed with up to -4 penalties (for a "very dark night"). Nightvision (at 8AP, 5 Real) entirely compensates. Character-generated Change Environment: low light conditions 12AP to require a PER roll at -4 to see for a single target (can buy AoE or "deeper darkness" effects at -1 per 3AP). Nightvision will still compensate for up to -4 (because the SFX match: 6e1 p177) Character-generated Darkness vs Sight Perception (ie Cthonian Darkness) Sight perception entirely disallowed at 5AP per 1" radius. Nightvision does not work. SFX-generated light effects do not work. Also on 6e1 p 177: "A character who creates a Darkness field cannot automatically perceive through the field. To do so, he should buy an appropriate Enhanced Sense or apply the Advantage Personal Immunity to the Power." So yeah, Cthonians would have to buy a special non-visual targeting sense. Someone suggested a limited Spatial Awareness, but Infrared Perception is cheaper and works, since it's not in the Sight group anymore (Black Panther FTW!) Cthonians could also buy the Darkness power (through their base?) with the "Personal Immunity" advantage.

Earlier in the thread we explored how Nightvision costs 5 real or 8 Active Points to counter low light conditions, so we should at least aim for that. If we buy natural darkness as Change Environment, it would cost 12 AP. So 4d6+1 Dispel would negate it without a roll (using the +0 Standard Effect modifier).

You were asking for illumination models in the original quote. Your Cthonian Darkness is a power: the only choice in the rules is to use suppress to illuminate it. If you want to see personally, buy a perception power that is not covered by the Darkness. or personal immunity if the Cavelords are generating it themselves somehow.

That's clearly a Darkness power, so you'd need Dispel or Suppress to "illuminate" it: Gandalf struck a blue light from the end of his magic staff": Suppress 5d6, Area Of Effect (16m Radius Explosion; +1/4), All Darkness Effects (+1/2); OAF (Staff; -1), Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2), No Range (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4): 26 Active Points, 7 real Points Note that, strictly speaking, this light effect would cut off in a bubble as soon as the Explosion drops the suppressed power level below the AP of your Cthonian Darkness power as bought. (Which I find totally faithful to both the comics and the X-files) This power-based Darkness is explicitly different from what I'm calling "natural darkness" or more accurately, the absence of light. This would of course be mitigated by any light source, including any power SFX defined as such, like an Energy Blast or magic sword or a simple flashlight. So the Suppress-based flashlight would illuminate the cone of effect clearly and fade off as described, but would also mitigate the _complete_ darkness of Hugh's underground pit to a -4 PER penalty (a "very dark night") just by SFX, no matter where it was pointed. ...which presents a clear difference between power-generated Darkness and natural (GM-decreed) low- or no-light conditions, and how they behave vs powers and natural light sources. Again, a score for genre appropriateness 🙂

Hi-Beam Headlights: Suppress natural darkness 4d6+1 (standard effect: 13 points), Area Of Effect (128m Line Explosion; +1/2) OAF Fragile (Headlight; -1 1/4), No Range (-1/2), Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2) 19 Active Points 6 Real Points

Agreed. So silly 🙂 Note that using the base Dispel/Suppress power without the No Range AoE lets you dispel effects on a single target at normal ranges with an attack roll (Iron Man often does this with narrow spotlight beams [when his armour isn't broken in a pit in Avengers 115, thanks Hugh ;-]) Or simply place an AoE effect using normal attack power ranges. You don't have to take the No Range Lim. All depends on how you design it. I like Suppress since it's scalable (cheap candles!) and uses the existing rule framework.

The -4 for natural darkness is defined as "a very dark night." You can get that effect with CE (the example there is "fog" but it works) I would consider a dead black underground room with no light source to be the same as a base Darkness field (5AP per 1m radius); i.e., no sight PER allowed without an exempt power: clearly that's the reason Darkness is a separate power from CE. At 10 AP per 2m radius, the Suppress flashlight works fine. I personally would allow it to work on such a pitch-black Darkness effect without further Advantages because it specifies "Natural Darkness," which would otherwise be worth a small Limitation (since it can't dispel character-created CE "fog" or the Darkness power). Gandalf's Light spell is specifically designed to counter darkness effects of any type. But yes, a logical way to do this would be with CE, except that the rulebook specifically disallows bonuses with CE. Oh, and CE wouldn't counter the Darkness power without tweaks...

Final builds. Gandalf's spell gets stronger as the books wane on... 3 Torch: Suppress natural darkness 3d6, Area Of Effect (16m Radius Explosion; +1/4) (11 Active Points); OAF (Torch; -1), Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2), No Range (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), 1 Continuing Fuel Charge lasting 1 Hour (-0) 7 Gandalf struck a blue light from the end of his magic staff: Suppress 5d6, Area Of Effect (16m Radius Explosion; +1/4), All Darkness Effects (+1/2) (26 Active Points); OAF (Staff; -1), Costs Endurance (3 END to maintain; -1/2), No Range (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4) 5 Flashlight: Suppress natural darkness 4d6+1 (standard effect: 13 points), Area Of Effect (16m Cone Explosion; +1/2), Thin Cone (-1/4), Mobile (12m per Phase; +1/2) (16 Active Points); OAF Fragile (Flashlight; -1 1/4), Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2), No Range (-1/2), 1 Continuing Fuel Charge lasting 1 Hour (-0) Weaponized Flashlight, all slots OAF (-1) 6 Suppress natural darkness 4d6+1 (standard effect: 13 points), Area Of Effect (16m Thin Cone Explosion; +1/4), Mobile (12m; +1/2) (19 Active Points); Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2), No Range (-1/2), 1 Continuing Fuel Charge lasting 6 Hours (+1/4) 3 Sight Group Flash 1d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (7 Active Points); Linked (Dispel; -1/2) 2 +5 PRE (5 Active Points); Linked (Flash; -1/2) 4 Hand-To-Hand Attack +2d6 (10 Active Points); Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/4)

My pleasure. It was bugging me 🙂 You don't even need the AoE, since Dispel and CE handle AoE the same way. Technically you can dispel the darkness on a single target with 12AP (which fits the effect of a long-range narrow beam spotlight). Yes, the math still works out the same with Standard Effect: 3pts/d6.

Range isn't a variation on the normal combat environment, like darkness is, so it would not apply. Skill rolls -- well, I guess that depends. If the slope is slippery because of ice, would you as the GM allow Thaw Man to use his AoE Dispel vs Ice effects to mitigate the penalty to Climbing skill?

This was the blind spot (ha) I had to overcome as well. Arguing from SFX (light vs dark) rather than game effects (change environment vs dispel). Past that, it's an easy leap to conceptualize natural darkness as an uncontrolled environmental effect.

Yes I did design an aid-based version which takes into account the sniper scenario, but it gets pretty clunky and expensive. No better than Images in the long run. But then I thought it over and my new choice for this is Dispel. So simple! It works as written to illuminate a single target at range to all witnesses, or we can buy an AoE: radius, explosion, line or narrow cone to simulate torches, flashlights, etc. 3d6 (standard effect: 9) would entirely counter the 8pts of effect from natural darkness (deduced from Nightvision). Alternatively, 4d6 would dispel the 12AP necessary to create natural darkness affecting a single target with Change Environment. I prefer the latter because it scales 1:1 with Dispel, including the way both powers treat Area of Effect.

Agreed. first draft 🙂 By design; increase aoe radius for a brighter light. Outside the lit circle a bright light won't help you make out details, although you can sure see the group benefitting from the light! Also by design. It takes an action to redirect the light and keep it steady so another can see. Try helping someone to read with a cell light. According to the power description, making it cost end to maintain makes it constant. But I see your point about adding new people who come into a lit area. Sure: buy another Constant +1/2 for the two stronger effects. Hmm, would one also have to make it Uncontrolled to get a repeated "attack" effect without using up an attack action? (Or is that an Advantage from an old edition? 🙂 I don't see how one *could* cover that effect with Hero rules. I'd probably just let a player do that as part of the sfx. I might grant it as an Everyman skill: Primitive Signalling (requires a light source). Call it "not to enhance perception above normal values" if you prefer. Same limitation. I thought of how to do a police mag light the other day; I will post that when I get a minute, and include your feedback. Thanks!

According to the Nightvision description, compensating for normal darkness (-4 Sight PER) takes 8 Active points, or 5 Real Points with [-1/2 only to counteract natural darkness] So why not do that with Aid? You don’t even have to break any rules to get it cheap. Crappy penlight/cell phone light: Aid Sight PER vs Darkness 1d6, One Hour Fuel Charge (Battery; +0); OAF Fragile (-1 1/4), Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-4 to Stealth & Concealment; -1), Only to counteract darkness modifiers (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4). Active: 6, Cost: 1 (Note: Jiggle it an extra phase or two to max out the constant Boost for +3 vs darkness. Not really useful as illumination for others unless they’re right beside you.) Shoplight Lantern: Aid Sight PER vs Darkness 2d6, One Hour Fuel Charge (Battery; +0), Area Of Effect (8m Radius; +1/2); OAF Fragile (-1 1/4), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-6 to Stealth & Concealment; -1), Only Restores To Starting Values (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4). Active: 18, Cost: 4 Light Spell: Boost Sight PER vs Darkness 2d6, Area Of Effect (8m Radius; +1/2); OAF (Staff, Amulet, etc; -1), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-6 to Stealth & Concealment; -1), Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2), Only Restores To Starting Values (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4). Active 18, Cost: 4 That last interests me because it models Gandalf’s light spell best. He’d keep the light low to reduce the side effects and long-term END loss, but he could crank it up if he wanted too.

from 6e v1 pg 211: Nightvision Cost: 5 Character Points (+4 Enhanced Perception, with a -½ Limitation, Only To Counteract Darkness Modifiers; Passive). The character can see in total darkness (not including the Power Darkness, but including some forms of Change Environment that obscure vision) as though it were normal daylight. ...which means 8 Active Points, although he doesn't spell it out. That's where I'd start.