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Time Descriptors
The following are important descriptors for time powers
and their effects.
Tachyon: Tachyons are theoretical subatomic particles able to travel faster than the speed of light
(from the Greek tachys, meaning swift). Because of
their ability to violate causality as we understand it,
tachyons are often used as an explanation for temporal powers: characters emit or control tachyons as a
means of producing their effects. Tachyons are often
treated as an exotic form of energy or radiation, allowing for various other power effects, similar to
those found in the Electrical Powers and Radiation
Powers profiles. Examples include tachyon-based
energy blasts inflicting Ranged Damage (perhaps
Time Features
Feature effects associated with Time Powers include the
following:
Chronal Memory: You have the ability to remember other timelines. If someone changes history,
your memory contains two versions of events: the
current timeline and the original one. These differing
Temporal Tampering
The ability to alter time, especially to change history, has
tremendous repercussions, and has been the subject of
countless stories and theories. While time tampering and
its effects are a common comic book plot device, they can
cause considerable headaches for a Mutants & Masterminds
Gamemaster, if left entirely in the hands of a group of
players. Settings generally take one of four approaches to
temporal tampering and changing the past:
Offensive Powers
Offensive time powers involve manipulating the flow of
time in ways harmful or detrimental to targets, whether
directly (causing rapid aging, for example) or indirectly
(using stopped time to set up harmful circumstances).
Age Manipulation
Exerting control over a discrete portion of time, you can
cause a target to rapidly grow older or younger, even to
the point of death (or birth) where they cease to exist!
The primary effect of this power is to strip away some of
the targets capabilities: reducing physical abilities due to
extreme age or youth, perhaps even reducing or removing mental abilities due to infirmity or immaturity. Ultimately, the mechanical effects are similar. If you can shift a
targets aging both forwards or backwards, apply 1 rank of
the Variable Descriptor modifier.
By default, this power only works on living beings you
can touch. If you do not need to touch the target, apply
Ranged or Perception Ranged. If you can also rapidly age
objects, to the point of causing them to break down and
decay, apply the Affects Objects modifier as well.
Age Manipulation: Cumulative Affliction (aging; Resisted and
Overcome by Fortitude; Impaired, Disabled, Transformed) 2
points per rank.
Temporal Ambush
By stopping (or vastly slowing) time, you can set up a
target for an attack: placing an object to drop onto them,
for example, or a projectile to hit them. When you restart
time again, from the targets perspective, the attack
appears out of nowhere. This power is often used in conjunction with Temporal Shift, Temporal Movement, and
Time Stop, which also rely on stopping time.
Temporal Ambush: Perception Ranged Damage (objects and
hazards of opportunity), Indirect 4 4 points +3 points per rank.
Time Freeze
You trap a target in a bubble of stopped (or vastly
slowed) time, essentially freezing them from the perspective of the outside world. You must touch the target by
default. If you can use this power at a distance, apply the
Ranged or Perception Ranged modifiers.
Defensive Powers
Defensive time powers take advantage of influence over
time to cheat in avoiding attacks, or involve protection
from the effects of time and temporal powers.
Temporal Phase
Shifting just a moment out of phase with ordinary time,
you become an immaterial phantom image, able to pass
through solid objects, and you are immune to harm.
Some forms of Temporal Phase also render you undetectable to anyone existing in normal time. In this case, add
Concealment 10 to the power, giving you total concealment from all but specific exotic senses like Time Sense.
Temporal Phase: Insubstantial 4 20 points.
Temporal Sidestep
You can evade attacks by stopping time, moving out
of the path of the frozen attack, and re-starting time
again, making it appear that you have moved faster than
the eye can follow, or simply teleported from place to
place. Temporal Sidestep requires some conscious effort
on your part (to know when to stop time and move), so it
is useless against attacks you cant perceive or that catch
you by surprise.
Temporal Sidestep: Immunity 80 (Dodge and Parry based
attacks), Concentration, Limited (not against surprise
attacks); Reaction Teleport 1 (when attacked) 32 points +
5 points per additional rank of Reaction Teleport.
Timeless
You are a fixed point in time, completely unaffected
by its passage or any other temporal effects. This power
includes immunity to aging from the normal passage
of time. It may also include the benefits of the Chronal
Bulwark and Chronal Memory Features (see Features),
depending on how time travel works in the setting.
More extreme forms of this power include the benefits
of Accelerated Healing and even Immortality, giving you
a natural tendency to revert back to your fixed state
when your condition is changed by damage or injury.
Timeless: Immunity 5 (temporal effects) 5 points.
Movement Powers
Time movement powers involve either moving to different points in time (time travel) or manipulating time to
speed up normal forms of travel.
Temporal Shift
By stopping time, moving to a different spot, then restarting the flow of time again, you make it appear as if
you have jumped from one location to another without
crossing the space in between, even though you actually
did so outside of ordinary time. The powers rank isnt
technically the distance you can go, its the time you have
to move while time is stopped for everyone else.
Temporal Shift: Accurate Teleport, Limited to places you can
reach physically 2 points per rank.
The ultimate version of this power allows you to rearrange anything in an entire area, setting a whole range of
events in motion for when time resumes its normal flow.
With the Area modifier, you can shift around any subject.
From their perspective, everything jumps to different locations instantly.
Manipulative Area Temporal Shift: Perception Range Burst
Area Teleport Attack, Limited to things you can physically
move 5 points per rank.
Time Portal
You can open a portal or gateway to a different point in time,
allowing yourself or others to step through it and travel to
that time. The exact effects of time travel depend on the
nature of the setting; see the Temporal Tampering section.
Time Portal: Movement 3 (Time Travel 3), Portal 15 points.
Time Travel
You can transport yourself (and anything you are wearing
or carrying) to a different point in time. The exact effects
of time travel depend on the nature of the setting; see the
Temporal Tampering section. Apply the Increased Mass
extra if you can carry along additional cargo or passengers
when you time travel.
The Time Portal and Time Travel powers are frequently
provided by either vehicles (time machines or time-travel
capsules) or headquarters (installations with a time portal
of some sort), providing a useful way to regulate them.
Time Travel: Movement (Time Travel) 2 points per rank up to
rank 3 (6 points).
Utility Powers
Influence over time is rife with possibilities. The following
are some of the useful effects, but Gamemasters should
be aware of the considerable potential for temporal power
stunts.
Accelerated Healing
Speeding up your own natural healing process, you can
recover from injury in moments.
Accelerated Healing: Regeneration 1 point per rank.
Rapid Perception
You speed up your ability to perceive relative to the
normal flow of time. Each rank increases your speed of
perception by a factor of 10.
Rapid Perception: Senses (Rapid, all senses) 5 points per rank.
Replay
You cause time to jump backwards, essentially replaying
the recent past in a way that allows events to occur differently for a different outcome. For example, after a victim is
struck by an oncoming car, you might replay the moment
the victim steps off the sidewalk, allowing you the opportunity to intervene and save them.
In game terms, this power is a Feature added to Precognition; you gain knowledge of the future by living through
it, and can use that knowledge to re-do certain events,
trying to cause them to come out differently. You can do
this once per game session per rank in Feature.
Replay: Senses 4 (Precognition), Feature 1 (retcon events) 5
points +1 point per additional Feature rank.
Temporal Duplication
Shifting yourself sideways in time or summoning versions of yourself from parallel timelines, you can arrange
to not only meet yourself but team-up with yourself, or
-selves, as the case may be.
See the Duplication power in the Summoning Powers
profile for additional details. This power assumes your
temporal duplicates think and act much like you and
are naturally friendly towards you, and that you suffer
Temporal Summoning
You summon assistance from elsewhere in the timestream.
This power can range from the ability to call up soldiers
from different points in history, summoning dinosaurs
and other creatures of bygone ages, or even calling upon
beings from the distant future (cyborgs, aliens, or superadvanced forms of life). The basic power summons a single
being as a minion, apply the Summon modifiers from the
Heros Handbook to customize the power, including summoning Heroic beings or a Horde of Multiple Minions.
Villains with this power may have access to vast armies
of temporal minions as a plot device, which is not really
worth pricing out as a power.
Temporal Summoning: Summon, Broad Type (beings from
history) 4 points per rank.
Time Sense
You can sense temporal disturbances and the use of time
powers nearby with a successful Perception check.
Time Sense: Senses 1 (Temporal Awareness) 1 point.
Time Stop
You can put time on pause, freezing the entire world and
allowing you to move and look around at the tableau at your
leisure. You cannot affect anything while time is stopped (for
that, see Temporal Ambush). Still, this power allows you
considerable opportunity for scouting and surveillance, such
as stopping time, walking into a place and having a good
look around before walking out and restarting time again.
Your effect rank determines how much subjective time
you get; with rank 9, for example, you have an hour
outside of time to do things, then time returns to its
normal flow. The Subtle modifier means no one notices
you move when time is stopped.
Time Stop: Quickness (Subtle 2), Speed (Subtle 2), Quirk: Limited
to routine actions while active (4 points) 2 points per rank.
Time Complications
Tampering with time can become very complicated, very
quickly (depending on what quickly even means in
terms of temporal tampering). The following are some of
the complications time powers may bring up in a series.
Accident
When your energy blast powers go awry, there might
be some collateral damage. When your time powers go
awry, all of history might be changed! A temporal accident can range from a change in circumstances for a few
to cosmos-wide catastrophe, depending on how the GM
wants to play it (and what the possibilities are for temporal tampering in the series).
Power Loss
Given the potential of some time powers, Gamemasters
may want to keep this complication available, should it
be needed. For time powers that do not rely on devices,
vehicles, or other things that can be taken away, there are
mysterious temporal eddies (currents, storms, etc.) and
possibly higher beings overseeing the orderly flow of time
Quirk
Those with time powers may be strangers in a strange
land when it comes to known history, as they are often
from future eras, parallel timelines, or realities that no
longer exist except in their own memories, making them
unfamiliar with many aspects of our world and culture.
This complication blends into a Disability when it comes
to lacking common knowledge, but is mostly a social
problem, causing the character to act out-of-place (or,
technically, out-of-time).
Likewise, time travelers may be averse to forming close
relationships, especially if they expect to leave, rewrite
reality, or simply outlive any potential loved ones. On the
other hand, a Relationship complication could span multiple timelines and occur over and over!
Responsibility
The power to affect time, and especially to know the
future or change the past, can be a heavy burden. Characters with time powers may uphold a personal code when
it comes to interfering with the natural flow of history,
limiting their choice of actions and taking the high road
when it comes to avoiding needless tampering.
Another responsibility for time travelers might be fixing
history: The characters are aware of some previous temporal change and seek to undo it, which might well be
why they are acting as heroes (or villains!) in the present.
For an additional twist, the characters may be the ones responsible for causing the original change and now want
to undo it, if they can.
Secret
The power to influence time is an important secret in and
of itself, and time powered characters may conceal their
abilities, or at least the full extent of them. It is fairly easy
for a time controller to pose as a speedster or teleporter,
for example. In fact, the character may initially be aware of
any powers beyond what appears to be super-speed, only
later discovering the time-manipulating wrinkle to those
powers.
Those with knowledge of the future also carry the burden
of keeping it secret, lest they unintentionally change the
course of history. Cautious or ethical time travelers may
have secrets that can literally change the world, if they fall
into the wrong hands.
Lastly, as mentioned under Responsibility, a time controller might well have a secret regarding a past mistake
which changed things, something the character is trying
to fix (or atone for) without anyone learning the truth