Non-combat/ non-action powers

[chaosnet]

I think the difference is in terminology: Conflict vs. Combat.

There is conflict in combat, but not all conflict is combat...if that makes sense.

Die Pools can still be assembled to do various activities IF the need to assemble said die pool is necessary. If my street level vigilante, the Mocker, needs to go into his tool belt to pull out a lock pick and pick the lock to the warehouse where the badguys are, does it make sense to make him roll for it? If the goal is to get him in, then no. If the Watcher says "there is an alarm system that will alert the baddies, roll against the doom pool".

Mocker has no stealth ability explicitly on his datafile, but it is also possible that per his background narrative that he could sneak into where the hostages are being held IF it makes sense in the story line to do so. If no, no amount of powers and abilities should be used to derail the storyline...only to add to it.

Many of the powers and specialties can be used without the die rolling, or with die rolling conflict sans combat. The Mocker is a stand up comic in his secret ID, so if I want to know how his act went I may apply his Psych Mastery D10 as the effect to show how great he was, OR I may have to assemble a die pool including the Psych Mastery and roll against the Doom Pool if the Watcher says so. Still no combat.

[clackey]

And, again, those are fringe cases and not examples of powers whose primary use is out of combat. I'm not looking for fringe cases. I am looking for powers primarily useful for out of combat situations.

I think cam's list works. Plus Mind Control. If I had Mind Control as a power, I would NEVER get into a fight. I wouldn't use it obviously, either. Walk into a bank and ask the teller to give you money and it raises too many questions. Go to a business man and 'ask' him to 'invest' a million in your 'project' and you have it clean.

I think you're looking at it all wrong. A lot of powers that aren't combat focused could still be used in combat, like the powers Cam listed.

[Beast]

I think cam's list works. Plus Mind Control. If I had Mind Control as a power, I would NEVER get into a fight. I wouldn't use it obviously, either. Walk into a bank and ask the teller to give you money and it raises too many questions. Go to a business man and 'ask' him to 'invest' a million in your 'project' and you have it clean.

I think they call that being a Super Villain.

[salsa]

As much as I hate to bring up material from different publishers, we all live in the same world so we have to deal with that:

You can check the Power Profiles series from Mutants & Masterminds or the Ultimate Power for second edition. You WILL notice that most powers that aren't useful in combat are just FEATURES of an array of combat-useful powers. Any alternate power or basic power in there is bound to be toward combat. And no, you don't roll for flight, or for any non-relevant situations in neither game.

Story driven is the key phrase. As it was noted before in this thread. You read comic books because you are into the conflicts, those conflicts CAN be combats (and most of the time they will be). Being this powerful there's really no sense in rolling to remove a rock, or to transport some people, or to traverse a wall with intangibility...

UNLESS... It's something that's important to the story, something that is harder than your common use of the power. And when I say that, most of the time traps, grandstanding, challenges, dilemmas aren't meant to immobilize forever or kill. They are meant to DELAY.

This is when your powers (non-combat or not) really shine, and for that to happen you have to be creative, especially with this system. You have a situation where you need to think and use your powers wisely. The character you see on my avatar, I've used his swingline (in another system) in countless different ways, for example. And it's IN THEORY just a movement power in both systems.

When you have a bonus die from a power stunt, it's exactly for that, to create a jaw-dropping stunt. Not to just say "I hurl a fireball at him" *crickets*...

A friend of mine told me about how Mystic once got access to Iceman's powers. She began using so many power stunts and SFX it was crazy, she then told him "Boy, you have control over less than 8% of your true power potential."

[clackey]

I think they call that being a Super Villain.

Don't I know it. I'm afraid if I was ever gifted with super powers I would become corrupted faster than a stripper at political convention.

"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

I would start out doing good, but that slow creep over to what's good and what you think is good goes far too easy!