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Tech Descriptors
Super-Science: Comic books often feature technology far in advance of that in the real world, from the
inventions of human geniuses to artifacts from alien
civilizations or future time-periods, to name a few.
Technology in advance of what is known in the real
world falls under the super-science descriptor. Its essentially science-fiction. Sometimes its useful to distinguish between super-science and ordinary technology, as the M&M rules for equipment and devices
do (Heros Handbook, Chapter 7).
Computer:
Computerscalculating
machines
capable of running programsare increasingly ubiquitous in the modern world. Few pieces of technology
do not feature an on-board computer of some sort
(even just firmware chips). Electronic computers are
sensitive to electromagnetic forces, which may scramble their circuitry. In comics book settings, sophisticated computers are essentially electronic brains often
with intelligence of their own.
Machine: Machines are mechanisms with moving
parts capable of accomplishing work when supplied
with a source of energy. This might be as simple as
sheer muscle power (like turning a crank) or, more
commonly, electricity. Steampunk technology uses
captured steam pressure to drive machines. Some
tech powers may supply machines with the energy
they need while others only work on machines that
have a power-source; the ability to interface with
Tech Features
Some potential Feature effects associated with Tech
Powers include the following:
Built-in Functionality: You have a built-in capability similar to a 1-point piece of equipment, such as a
timepiece, cell-phone, calculator, or similar technology. Your body or mind may simply mimic the technologys capabilities or you may literally have one
installed as part of your body (a cybernetic implant
or a feature of an artificial body).
Offensive Powers
Most offensive tech powers involve creating or controlling
weapons, or attacks affecting machines themselves and
deactivating or disabling them.
Animate Machines
You imbue machinesor machine partswith animation and a semblance of life, turning them into agents
able to act under your command. Essentially, you turn
the affected machines into constructs under your control
(see Constructs, Heros Handbook, page 179). Create the
machine as a construct with (effect rank x 15) total power
points. Constructslike other agentsare subject to the
series power level limits.
This power assumes the ability to modify the animated
machines, reconfiguring them to provide any traits or
effects reasonable for the descriptor (see Tech Descriptors). So you can transform a car or even a pile of mechanical junk into a robot, for example. If lacking this
capability, the GM may allow an additional Limit on the
power.
Animate Machines: Summon Animated Object, Controlled,
General Type (Machines), Self-Powered (see Summoning
Powers profile) 3 points per rank.
Control Technology
You can exert control over the technological devices and
equipment of other characters. Your power does not
control the characters actions, but affects the technology instead. This allows you to cause a weapon to fire,
or suit of power armor to act on its own, contrary to its
wearers wishes. The device cannot do anything it is not
normally capable of doing, such as aim itself, without the
use of a power like Animate Machines (previously). At the
GMs discretion, the Technology skill may be used to over-
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Deactivate Technology
You deactivate technology in an area. Shutting down a
specific machine may simply be a matter of using a tech
power as a countering effect (see Countering, previously). This power is wider-reaching, affecting all technology
in a particular area. If you can choose which targets in
the area are affected and which are not, apply the Selective modifier. Otherwise, you deactivate all technology
effects in the targeted area. If you can deactivate technology around a point at a distance, rather than in a radius
around you, apply the Ranged modifier.
Deactivate Technology: Nullify Technology, Burst Area (30foot radius), Broad (Technological), Simultaneous 4 points
per rank.
Rather than shutting-down, you may cause affected technology to go haywire instead, activating and functioning
at random. This applies the Randomize modifier of Nullify
with no change in cost.
Disassemble
You can reduce a target machine to its component parts,
literally causing it to fall to pieces. This power leaves the
machine in pieces until it can be reassembled. The Assemble power (see Utility Powers) can counter this one.
Disassemble: Ranged Continuous Transform (assembled to
disassembled) 4 points per rank.
Defensive Powers
Defensive tech powers tend to be associated with the
greater durability of machines in comparison to fragile
human biology. Powers involving technology providing
more direct defense (armor plating, life support, and so
forth) are described in the Armor Powers profile.
Machine body
You are a machine, or at least you have the body of one,
rendering you immune to many of the mundane concerns
of living creatures. This power assumes you are self-repairing to some degree (allowing you to recover from damage
normally).
Machine Body: Immunity 30 (Fortitude effects) 30 points.
Machine Mind
Rather than a biological brain, you have a digital mind,
most likely a computer of some sort. Your lack of a mind
gives you full to powers that affect minds or apply the
Limited to Half Effect modifier. You may be affected, on
the other hand, by powers which work specifically on
computers. The GM may consider this a form of Power
Loss for your Immunity and award you hero points for the
complication when it occurs.
Machine Mind: Immunity 10 (mental powers) 10 points.
Movement Powers
Tech movement powers interact with the computer
reality of networks and cyberspace as well as the ad hoc
use of technology to get around. Most technology-based
movement powers are devices or equipment, as detailed
in the M&M Heros Handbook.
Cyberspace
You can transfer your consciousness (and perhaps even
your body) into a virtual world that exists inside a
computer or computer network, allowing you to interact
with that world as if it were real and physical: data and
software manifests as objects and other beings and interactions with them affects the computer systems. The
GM decides if some form of cyberspace even exists in the
setting and, if so, how you interact with it, but generally
your mental abilities and skills like Technology have the
greatest impact. Apply the Limited modifier if only your
mind travels into cyberspace, leaving your body behind.
Cyberspace: Movement 1 (Dimensional Travel, Cyberspace)
2 points.
Network Jump
You transform into digital data or electricity to travel instantly through a computer or communications network,
reappearing from a connected device at your destination.
If you are able to stay inside the network, see the Cyberspace power (previously).
Transport Platform
You can turn nearby technology or parts into a platform
able to carry you aloft. It may be self-propelled (with anything from rockets to anti-gravity) or levitated by your own
animating power, a kind of technokinesis. If the platform
is a regular device rather than something you create as
needed, replace the Quirk with the Removable modifier.
Otherwise, you can assemble your Transport Platform out
of any available tech. This power often complements the
broader Assemble power (following).
Power: Flight, Platform, Quirk: Requires available technology
or machine parts (1 point) 1 point for 2 ranks + 1 point per
additional rank.
Utility Powers
Tech utility powers involve creating, manipulating,
fooling, or even being like machines in various ways.
Assemble
You can assemble technology instantly out of collections
of parts, causing the disparate parts to fly together of their
own accord, even modifying them to suit the needs of the
particular machine, as if working them with tools. If the
GM allows, Assemble can reduce the time required for
the construction check of an invention (Heros Handbook,
page 159) possibly one created by a Tech Savant (see the
Tech Savant power). If allowed, the GM may wish to treat
multiple inventions in the same scene as extra effort,
requiring fatigue or hero points, in order to balance the
speed with which the character can create them.
Assemble: Ranged Continuous Transform (parts into finished
machine) 4 points per rank.
Computer Mind
Your mind functions like a computer, with perfect recall
and able to think faster than an ordinary human, and may
even be a computer! Note this differs from the Machine
Mind power (previously) in that it does not provide any
particular resistance to mental powers, although the two
powers are often found together.
Computer Mind: Enhanced Advantages (Eidetic Memory) plus
Quickness, Limited to Mental Tasks 1 point + 1 point per 2
ranks.
Interface
You can mentally interface with computers and computer networks, operating them as if you were a connected
computer yourself. You still use the Technology skill to
make checks to program or otherwise interact with the
Manipulate Technology
You can operate technology at a distance without touching or directly interacting with it. This is a limited sort of
Animate Machines (previously) in that the devices controls move of their own accord, as if operated by an invisible person, but the object itself is no more animate
than it normally is while operating. This power cannot
accomplish gross mechanical tasks not directly controlled by a machine or mechanism; for example, you
can operate a mechanism to raise or lower a gate, but
you cannot move a gate which has no mechanism. This
power also cannot supply power other than the kinetic
or muscle power needed to move a mechanism, so it
cannot, for example, manipulate technology that has no
power source. If the power has no obvious effect apart
from the target technology operating on its own, apply
the Subtle modifier as well.
Manipulate Technology: Perception Ranged Move Object 1,
Precise, Limited to Operating Machines 3 points.
Sensor Masking
You can blind electronic sensors and computer-connected devices to your presence, giving you total concealment
from them. This has no effect on minds, just technology,
so while a security monitor will not pick up your presence, a human guard can still perceive you (provided he is
present to do so and not monitoring the area remotely via
technology). Some characters may even have Permanent
Concealment; machines cannot detect them even if they
want them to!
Sensor Masking: Concealment 10 (All Senses), Limited to
Technology 10 points.
Sensor Network
You can perceive through various nearby sensor devices
and technology: closed-circuit cameras, security monitors,
microphones, even cell-phones and Web-cams, exactly as
if you were receiving the output of those devices. Your
effect rank determines if a particular device is in range for
you to pick up its output. Although the default effect is
picking up audio-visual signals, the GM may allow your
Sensor Network to pick up on other types of input, if
theres a suitable sensor available, particularly if you also
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Technomorph
You are able to transform yourselfor parts of yourself
into different machines, giving you various capabilities,
from turning your hands or arms into weapons, your feet
or legs into rockets (or wheels, or treads) or your skin
into armor. Each rank gives you 5 power points to apply
to different tech powers. You can reallocate these points
as a move action once each round and allocated points
remain fixed until you change them. Technomorphs with
the Slow modifier may need modification in a lab.
You might be made up of nanotechnology, microscopic
machines able to reorganize themselves into different
forms, or simply able to alter your molecular structure in
different ways to mimic machines and technology. Your
potential powers could include any of those given in this
profile, as well as other powers with the technology descriptor found in other profiles.
Technomorph: Variable (Tech Powers), Continuous Duration,
Move Action 9 points per rank.
Tech Savant
You have considerable intuitive ability where technology
is concerned, you just know how to work with, operate,
and even build or repair technology without any formal
training or experience.
Tech Savant: Enhanced Skill (Technology) 1 point per rank (+2
skill ranks per power rank).
Some tech savants couple extraordinary inventive abilities with their insights, making them Tech Geniuses able
to take otherwise ordinary technological components
and cobble them together into amazingalbeit temporarydevices. Especially brilliant Tech Geniuses might
have the Computer Mind power (speeding up the time
of the design check for inventing) or ranks of Quickness
added to Tech Genius, Limited to Design Checks (and
therefore costing 1 power point per 3 Quickness ranks).
Tech Genius: Enhanced Advantage (Inventor) 1 point.
power over technology and powers provide by technology. Tech characters often have a measure of both:
supplementing their tech powers with various devices,
equipment, and inventions, often of their own making.
Gamemasters should be on the lookout for attempts
to circumvent the built-in limitations of tech powers by
having certain technology always available to the character. In those cases, flaws like Limited might become
little more than Quirks or the occasional Power Loss
complication.
Tech Complications
The primary complications of tech powers are their reliance upon technology and the gulf between tech and the
often more complex and variable nature of living, intelligent beings, whether they are organic or not.
Accident
Accidents happen, especially when dealing with experimental prototypes and cutting-edge technology tested
for the first time in the field. This complication is the
Gamemasters ace-in-the-hole, to invoke whenever superscience or tech powers need a setback. It deals primarily
with unexpected side-effects of technology, or accidents
involving it: a hypersonic commlink that accidentally shatters all glass in a two-mile radius, for example, or the dimensional viewing-scope that also unleashes an interdimensional invasion. Gamemasters can use tech accidents
as story hooks that immediately involve the heroes, especially if their tech caused the problem!
Disability
Tech powers are sometimes associated with characters
with various disabilities, such as the networked tech
savant who is a force to be reckoned with in cyberspace
and able to operate through remote control of machines,
but trapped in a crippled body, or the technopath who
understands machines far better than people, and prefers
them, in fact. A robot or android character might be
lacking certain human capabilities, from emotion to a
sense or taste or touch, which can cause problems from
time to time.
Identity
An artificial character might seek to maintain a secret
identity as an ordinary human being, to experience
human life firsthand or to conceal the truth (in which case
an additional Secret complication may come into play).
Tech characters are effective at keeping their secrets
even in the modern interconnected age, using Technology skills and influence with computer database and
networks to create false identities and even whole histories. At the GMs discretion, an especially comprehensive
fake identity might constitute a Benefit advantage for the
character, while several would require multiple ranks of
the advantage.
Power Loss
Tech powers all depend on various machines, and machines break down, suffer from power losses, or simply
get smashed up in super-battles. Some of this is accounted for in Limited and other flaws applied to different tech
powers, in which case a power loss complication does
not apply; if a heros Network Jump power is limited to
only working across electronic networks, and none are
available in the area, then it is the flaw coming into play
rather than a complication. On the other hand, if the GM
happens to have a power blackout during the adventure,
taking down the local network and making it unavailable,
that should constitute a complication for the tech hero. As
with other complications, exact application is situational
and guided by the Gamemaster.
Prejudice
Artificial heroes like androids, robots, artificial intelligences, or cyborgs (particularly those that are a brain in
a fully robotic body) may face societal prejudices. Some
do not consider them real individuals with the same
rights or feelings as people. Corporations or governments may consider them valuable property, leading to
legal battles over their status, and fears of inhuman machines mingling with ordinary humanity might cause
some people to shy away from these characters or even
outright attack them.
Responsibility
In addition to the various responsibilities to friends,
family, and employers maintained by other characters, artificial characters might deal with a responsibility to their
creators or even owners, if they are treated as property
rather than people (see Prejudice, previously). Similarly,
the creators of artificial life may feel a sense or responsibility to their children.
Rivalry
Rivalry amongst tech-types is fairly common, with inventors trying to out-do each other with their latest contraption, or pitting their technical skills against one another in
various contests, both online and IRL (in real life).
Weakness
While immune to many mortal concerns, tech does have
weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and so, too, may tech
users and controllers. Artificial characters may be vulnerable to electricity, magnetic fields, immersion in water, or
other interference with their systems. Tech powers reliant
upon transmissions could be jammed or even suffer from
painful or debilitating feedback. While a machine mind
might be immune to telepathy, it is vulnerable to being
hacked, perhaps even hijacked by someone who knows
the right passcodes!
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