Non-combat/ non-action powers

[Mouse]

I feel like the game supports combat well. There's lots of mobility, attacks, defenses, a rock/paper/scissors thing going on among your options, support for a variety of roles, etc.

Several of the powers also have non-combat applications. Sense can find clues, Teleport can get you to a birthday party on time, and flight is great for getting dates. Etc.

Most of that stuff is either focused on action scenes with conflict or is hand waved. As far as the mechanics are concerned, those uses are kind of secondary to their use in a combat/action scene.

So how about powers whose primary use is outside of combat/action? I'm definitely not talking about, "Oh, you could just make a resource for that," or the like, because that's stuff you do on top of powers. I mean powers that you write down in a Power Set that are modified by SFX that are primarily intended for other stuff.

I'm about to run out the door, so I'm having trouble thinking of the perfect example. So maybe, I don't know, a Sense power where you're good at noticing every little object and detail in a room. The primary use of it is investigation, where your Sherlock type guy finds all the clues with ease.

What sorts of non-combat/non-action powers have you thought up for your games? Feel free to include things like the above where it's just a variant application of another power.

[Beast]

There's some good examples in the book...

Like Beast using his feral senses to sniff out the best/most expensive bottle of wine in the Hellfire Club wine cellar. So yeah, the game mechanics handle both combat and non-combat scenes well. Just need to think outside the box about how you want to handle things when building your dice pools.

[Mouse]

Yeah, but that example is sort of silly and doesn't really accomplish anything. I mean, is finding the best wine bottle important or does it add anything to the plot? Not really.

And I understand that you can reach with other powers to justify using them outside of combat. That's really not what I'm talking about.

I'm asking about powers whose primary use is outside of combat, which are useful, and which are impactful.

You know how someone after a big fight scene might say, "Dude, I'm glad you have that d12 Strength. There just isn't any way we could have gotten past his defenses without you!" Then everyone secretly eyes the Strength power and considers taking it for a moment. Well, how about something with that sort of impact on the game that's completely non-combat.

Because no one after the game turns to Beast's player and says, "Dude, it's great that you found that bottle of wine. We couldn't have managed without you!" and then strongly considers buying a super sense of smell so that they can find the bottle of wine next time.

[Beast]

It depends on how someone uses their abilities. Creativity is key. Every power can be useful in or out of combat. Sure the book example is silly, but there's other ways any power can be used. Players and Watchers just have to think outside the box.

[Mouse]

I'm not asking you to tell me to think outside the box. I'm asking for powers that are defined such that the inside of the box is outside of combat.

[cpip]

Well, it kind of depends. Offhand, I'd say Mind Control, Senses, Telepathy, Sorcery, and the movement and elemental control powers are all ripe for non-combat application, and I could easily imagine a character who uses any or all of them and never once gets into a fight.

Sometimes they also seem to be folded in as SFX -- see Spider-Tracer on Spider-Man's character sheet in the Basic Game, for instance, as an SFX. Spend a PP and you can track a character for a long while.

Are there any particular characters that come to mind as examples of what you're looking for?

[Mouse]

Are there any particular characters that come to mind as examples of what you're looking for?

That's actually sort of the issue.

My players were like, "Hey, there are lots of powers that are obviously useful in combat. If I wanted a power whose primary use is outside of combat, what should I look at?" And I was like, uh...

Then, later, I was building totally noncombatant NPCs, and I kept running out of powers for them. Elemental Control: Technology worked for a super-hacker. The information gathering aspects of Sense and Telepathy came to mind.

But beyond that, I kept running into the issue that many of the potentially useful powers are just sort of there. Like Flight. When would you roll that outside of combat? I can think of times that you might say, "And then I fly to where we're going," but I'm having issues coming up with a use where's it's actually rolled that's not a chase scene or trying to outrun a timer of some sort (both of which are action oriented and which would often occur inside or alongside fight scenes).

I often run games that go for several sessions without fights. Like my entire current plotline (converted from another game) is a big mystery.

[Udo Femi]

I'm basically on the same line.
I find the game very well designed to handle Action Scenes (well, Fight Scenes, mostly) but not very well equipped for anything else.

Even in the metagame structure itself: Action Scene/Transition Scene/Action Scene...
Which is obvioulsy a design choice, no problem with that.

No much room for Social Interactions, for example. Of course, we can handle that using some Specialities or a few Powers but that's still limited (no real way to shine, as Mouse said)

That's why I guess I'll use MHR for one-shots, more or less lengthy, because I know that after a very short time.

Anyway, we're in the middle of a Smallville|Gotham campaign, with tons of non-combat scenes but I must say that action-oriented scenes are somehow too short and lack color...

Can't have it all !

[chaosnet]

I kindve understand where this is coming from, however the social and transion scenes should be just that. If players only take this time to recover and not do the 'behind the scenes' stuff, then it will look like the action scenes are bridged together by transition scenes, instead of having transition scenes be bridged by (and the precipitor to) action scenes.

The group controls the narration and if the group (including the Watcher) are about the action, then there is nothing wrong with it.

[Duck Call Lass]

Social interaction scenes can be represent by the same mechanics as combat -- there's an example in the book of Kitty Pryde and Wolverine arguing with an anti-mutant protester.