I'm just starting a V&V game and one of the players has the following powers:

Magnetic Powers, Adaptation, Hgt. attack (skill), Natural Weaponry +2, +4, Hgt Agility A+16, Hgt Cha B+14 and Heightened Senses.
Weakness is diminished senses : Blindness.  The Blindness makes him immune to visual illusions, light based attacks (flash etc).

Trying to work out a balanced power for his Heightened Senses.  He suggested the ability to see or sense magnetic fields.

Any suggestions for this.  So far I'm thinking 360 degree vision (not sure on the inches range yet).  This would Negate facing modifiers and allow auto detection of invisible characters.  I was also thinking it could be disrupted by magnetic attacks and even cause temporary loss of the ability from electro-magnetic attacks (kind of like a flash grenade going off.  Inability to sense the magnetic fields for a while).

I would probably describe this ability as a MRI-type ability (magnetic resonance imaging).  I don't really know much about how it works, but that's where I'd start.  Getting the player to imagine his vision appearing like this will probably be fun.

I know metal interferes with MRI somehow, but the player can be assumed to have some sort of biological "fail-safe" that prevents a problem in normal circumstances.

As for the wooden door thing, you can assume any normal object distorts the earth's magnetic field enough to show up.  Or anything you want.  It really doesn't even have to be justified.

I wanna play Daredevil, too! 

Thanks for the feedback guys.  I'll let you know what the other players have as characters when they generate them.  I was mainly concerned about this one as the player has a tendency to "metagame" his characters and wanted to make sure I had the ground rules for his ability set out

As for how it would work in outer space.  I think he'd use his own magnetic powers to "ping" things.  Like a magnetic kind of Sonar.

Exactly.

Areas of multiple magnetic fields would be like a fog.

I have to research about the glass but I'd say no to watching TV or reading.

I've also put down the Height Cha B to his "magnetic personality" for a bit of cheese

yep. clearly depicted around 248-249 during the Wolverine crossover/ hunting Bushwhacker story arc. and it also highlights his inability to see photographs. his RADAR sense isnt acute enough for reading tho. so a streetsign or something could cause probs

Started rolling up another character with a player today.

Powers came out as

Transformation Type A
  Lightning Control
  Invisibility
  Low self control
Disintegration Ray
Height Agility B +20
Height Agility A +5
Speed Bonus x 2 : 190"
Vulnerability

Here's the rough sketch for the character concept we've come up with.

When his powers are activated he transforms into a being of Electrical energy.  I'm going to see if he wants to change the invisibility for Non-Corporealness as it would work better.
Low self control will mean that his electrical powers don't have any ranged attack component.  I was thinking of making the non-corporealness permanent and the electrical attacks HTH only (carrier attack).

He has his disintegration ray for ranged attack.  The vulnerability will be reverting to normal form if grounded.

Any feedback valued.    (as a side note the power we dropped was Weather Control.)

teleportation or even Vibratory Power defense. could restrict teleportation to "only along conductive material" or "not thru insulation".

I also thought of Teleportation.  I'll suggest it to the player and see what he thinks

I'm also leaning towards changing the "revert to normal form when grounded" to something along the lines of Vulnerability to electromagnetic (well magnetic) attacks.  Save vs End or knocked out of Electrical form back to normal form.

Very nice set of powers and tweaks

Nope.  He only shorts out and needs another action and power source to "energise" again.  I did give the player the option of dropping one of the Speed Bonus powers and also to drop a weakness but he wanted to keep both (likes to role play).

He also doesn't want to wear a mask as he thinks the idea of role playing someone who may revert to being buck naked is fun   

I also suggested that he and the magnetic dude have a shared origin but that does not look like it's going ahead.

One question the player did ask was is water a bane for him or can he conduct through it.  I'm thinking more along the lines that it does not damage him but does not give him any bonus.

and salt/sea water is a better conductor than fresh water or any type of ionized water or bottled water

sorry, for my 2 cents i am a former science teacher who is a salt water hobbyist

He was concerned that he might take damage from water or that if the total volume of water was more than his body mass he would be dispersed.

I can go down that track but I still want it to be a role playing GAME rather than a science thesis LOL

but normally it does 

It's why we all do it 

I guess the trick is finding the balance that works best for you and your players/campaign. Personally I set the line somewhere around "Who wins? Blue Beetle or Captain Crunch?"      

Pre-Emptive Strike has some handy underwater combat rules  you can use if you like em (or disregard if you dont! lol)

Luckily I'm good with improvising

Bill Kropp wrote on Jul 25^th, 2012 at 7:37pm: