Non skin-tight force field?

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FuzzyBoots
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Non skin-tight force field?

Post by FuzzyBoots »

In discussions about the most recent page of Grrl Power, where the protagonist, Sydney, has her nearly impenetrable shield down for some reason, and thus gets jabbed and drugged by a villain, it struck me that the "not conforming to my body" kind of force field is pretty common in the comics, with people having something like a bubble. Clearly, this creates some issues with having it up all the time, from taking up too much space (you're a proverbial assumed spherical cow from mathematical explanations of crowd spacing) to not being able to easily touch things outside of your shield, requiring you to drop it at times.

Since it's as expensive to have the shield only up when you choose to (Sustained) as to have it up at all times (Permanent), what's the best way to handle this? SImply a Complication when it comes up?
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catsi563
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Re: Non skin-tight force field?

Post by catsi563 »

Id say complication mostly unless theres some very specific disadvantages to having the field up complications were tailor made for this sort of thin.
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FuzzyBoots
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Re: Non skin-tight force field?

Post by FuzzyBoots »

catsi563 wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 1:25 am Id say complication mostly unless theres some very specific disadvantages to having the field up complications were tailor made for this sort of thin.
{nods} As much as anything, I think it kind of speaks to how the average Permanent Protection character has very little disadvantage compared to someone who goes for Sustained.
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catsi563
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Re: Non skin-tight force field?

Post by catsi563 »

Yep and even sustained technically is a +0 modifier
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Woodclaw
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Re: Non skin-tight force field?

Post by Woodclaw »

The big problem is also that any kind of area force field in M&M is obscenely expensive requiring both Area and Affect Others (which is nonsense to me, but that's how it was done in the book). In theory, the baseline Protection comes with the in-built problem of making some situations extremely awkward or flat out impossible. For example, any surgical operation on a character like Luke Cage or Ben Grimm would be pretty damn hard. Unfortunately, this is a complication at best and could often being worked around with other superpowers (like phasing).
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Hellstormer1
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Re: Non skin-tight force field?

Post by Hellstormer1 »

LOL, saw the topic title, and it got me thinking of this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkQFhPJuxgk
"NOPE!"
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