Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile 6 Weather Powers
Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile 6 Weather Powers
Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile 6 Weather Powers
Weather Descriptors
The weather descriptor includes a number of elements (so
to speak):
Countering
Weather powers can potentially counter a number of other
powers, depending on how they are used. In particular,
weather can counter powers with air descriptors. The right
weather can counter the environmental effects of cold and
fire powers by raising or lowering the ambient temperature, and may be able to counter fire effects with sudden
downpours.
Precipitation like heavy rain may help counter some Concealment effects by revealing a targets footprints and
outline within the falling rain, for example. Rain may also
wash away Area Concealment effects involving clouds of
fog, smoke, or gases.
Air powers can potentially counter weather powers by shifting air masses or even removing the air (see Atmosphere,
previously). Likewise, temperature-affecting powers may
be able to counter or break-up some weather effects: snow
and ice melt rapidly in the presence of extreme heat, for
example. The GM should use common sense in handling
the interaction of weather effects with various power descriptors.
Weather Features
Some potential Feature effects associated with Weather
Powers include the following:
Offensive Powers
From bolts of lightning and crashes of thunder to freezing
blizzards and searing heat waves, weather powers offer
numerous ways to strike at enemies from afar.
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Arctic Freeze
A blast of freezing air causes the temperature to plummet
around your target, masses of ice and snow forming instantly around them.
Arctic Freeze: Cumulative Ranged Affliction (Resisted by
Dodge, Overcome by Damage; Hindered and Vulnerable,
Defenseless and Immobilized), Extra Condition, Limited
Degree 3 points per rank.
Blinding Arc
A blazingly bright arc of lightning temporarily blinds your
target.
Blinding Arc: Cumulative Ranged Affliction (Resisted by
Dodge, Overcome by Fortitude; Impaired, Disabled,
Unaware), Limited to Vision 2 point per rank.
Cyclone
You create a contained cyclone or hurricane-force storm
capable of battering and hindering foes.
Cyclone: Burst Area Ranged Affliction (Resisted and
Overcome by Strength; Hindered and Impaired, Prone and
Stunned, Incapacitated), Alternate Resistance (Strength),
Concentration, Extra Condition, Instant Recovery 4 points
per rank (+1 point per rank per +1 to area value).
Exposure
You alter the atmosphere around your target to cause
dehydration, heatstroke, or even early stage frostbite by
raising or lowering the temperature and humidity. Victims
often begin suffering effects before they realize what is
happening. Apply the Area modifier to affect multiple
targets in an area all at once.
Exposure: Ranged Affliction (Resisted and Overcome by
Fortitude; Fatigued, Exhausted, Incapacitated), Subtle 1 point
+ 2 points per rank.
Hailstorm
Frozen chunks of wind-driven hail pummel the targets in
the area of the sudden storm.
Hailstorm: Burst Area Ranged Damage (bludgeoning), Indirect 2
(falling from above) 2 points + 3 points per rank.
Lightning Bolt
You hurl a bolt of lightning from your personhands,
eyes, etc.to strike your target with the fury of a storm.
If you call down lightning from above instead, apply 2
ranks of the Indirect modifier as well (Heros Handbook,
page 141).
Lightning Bolt: Ranged Damage (electrical) 2 points per rank.
Thunderclap
A thunderous boom deafens your target. Thunderclap is
often Linked with a Lightning Bolt attack, simultaneously
damaging and deafening a target, perhaps even connected with a Blinding Arc as well, expanding the effect of the
Affliction (simply removing the Limited to Vision flaw from
Blinding Arcs Affliction effect).
Thunderclap: Cumulative Ranged Affliction (Resisted by
Dodge, Overcome by Fortitude; Impaired, Disabled,
Unaware), Limited to Hearing 2 points per rank.
Wind Blast
A powerful blast of wind sends targets scattering like
fallen leaves. The effective Strength of the Wind Blast
equals its Move Object rank. Targets make a Strength resistance check against your powers Strength (half that if
they succeed on their initial Dodge check against the area
effect), success allows them to hold their ground while
failure means they are thrown a distance value equal to
your Move Object rank minus their weight rank.
Wind Blast: Cone Area Move Object, Close Range, Limited to
Pushing Away 1 point per rank.
Defensive Powers
Command over the weather can provide protection
against many hazards of the environment, as well as harnessing the winds and clouds as defenses.
Fog
A thick bank of fog rolls in, impairing or disabling visibility
in the area (a 2 or 5 modifier to Perception and related
visual checks).
Fog: Environment (Visibility) 1 point per rank (impairment) or
2 points per rank (disabling).
Immunity to Weather
Your powers protect you from the harmful effects of
weather; youre never hot or cold or affected by exposure
or other (Earth-like) weather conditions. Some weathercontrollers may have lesser degrees of Immunity to singular environmental conditions like cold or heat, rather than
weather in general.
Whirlwind
You create and maintain an area of powerful winds that
disrupt ranged attacks.
Whirlwind: Deflect, Cloud Area 2 (30-foot radius), Limited to
Attacks Targeting Dodge 2 points per rank.
Wind Screen
Swirling winds moving at high speeds around you deflect
physical projectiles and attacks before they can strike you.
Wind Screen: Impervious Protection, Sustained, Limited to
Physical Damage 1 point per rank.
Movement Powers
Weather powers can grant, enhance, or inhibit movement,
particularly through the air or along the ground.
Weatherproof
Your movement is unimpeded by the effects of the weather
and you suffer no circumstance penalties for weather-related environments. So you can move at normal speed in a
storm or high winds and ignore things like visibility modifiers (for anything less than total concealment).
Weatherproof: Movement 1 (Environmental Adaptation:
Weather) 2 points.
Wind-Riding
You can harness the power of the winds to soar through
the air as fast as they can carry you. Wind-Riding tends to
be limited to the speed of rank of hurricane-force winds
on Earth, rarely more than rank 6 (120 miles per hour).
Weather controllers with Wind Lifting (following) may use
it to carry others aloft on the winds with them, flying at
their normal speed so long as the weight value they carry
is within their effect limits.
Wind-Riding: Flight 2 points per rank.
Utility Powers
Control of the weather provides a number of other useful
effects. Take a look at the Weather Descriptors section
Weather Control
You control the weather in a radius around you with a distance rank equal to your Environment effect rank, so rank
10, for example, creates weather effects within a 4 mile
radius. Rank 20 is sufficient to affect a 4,000 mile radius,
essentially an entire hemisphere. Rank 21 can encompass
most of the Earths surface.
The Selective modifier, rather than allowing you to choose
who in the area is or is not affected, allows you to choose
how the Environment effects points per rank are distributed amongst cold, heat, impair movement, and visibility
(see the Fog power; if you have this power, you can also
produce its effect). To increase the amount of weather
effects you can produce in an area at once, increase the
points per rank of the Environment effect.
If you can also selectively choose your targets, or apply
different effects to different targets, apply the Selective
modifier twice. Gamemasters should be cautious about
permitting two applications of Selective to Environment
effects, given their potential to impose circumstance
modifiers to a wide area, affecting everyone present,
without imposing any penalty on the heros allies. Such an
effect can strongly shift the balance of an encounter.
Note that you can also use your Weather Control to negate
up to your effect rank in weather conditions in your area
as well, creating calm, clear weather. So you could, for
example, eliminate intense cold and impeded movement (due to ice and snow) in your area, transforming it
from the depths of winter to a temperate, Spring-like day.
Normal weather conditions reassert themselves once you
stop maintaining the effect.
Weather Control: Environment (3 points of effect), Selective
4 points per rank.
Weather Prediction
You can sense weather patterns in your area, predicting
weather conditions in the coming hours and days. The
GM may require a secret Perception or Expertise (Meteorology) skill check for detailed or long-range information.
Weather Prediction: Senses 4 (Precognition), Limited to Weather
2 points.
Wind-Lifting
You focus powerful gusts of air or even mini-tornadoes
to lift and move objects around, push things over, and so
forth. Each individual object in the affected area cannot
exceed your effective lifting Strength, although their combined weight value may do so. So, for example, if your effect
rank is 4, each object you move cannot exceed 800 lbs., but
you can move as many as fit into your area of effect.
Wind-Lifting: Burst Area Move Object, Selective 4 points per rank.
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Weather Arrays
Weather-controllers will often have various weather
powersparticularly offensive and some utility powers
as Alternate Effects of each other in an array (See Alternate Effect, Heros Handbook, pages 136138). These
arrays may be Dynamic, allowing for mix-and-matching of
different weather effects reflecting the characters ability
to control different aspects simultaneously, but with a
finite amount of power and concentration.
Weather arrays are well-suited for performing weather-related power stunts, temporarily adding a new Alternate Effect
to the array and making even powers a weather-controller
does not have from this Profile a useful source of ideas.
The Weather Control utility power (previously) might be
part of an array or separate, allowing the character to
affect environmental conditions while also producing
specific weather effects.
Weather Challenges
A common challenge for weather-controllers is the environment itself; heroes are called upon to tame out-ofcontrol storms and impose their will upon the raging
weather. This can be considered a simple matter of countering weather effects (see Countering Effects, Heros
Handbook, pages 9595) but reducing the feat to a single
effect rank check may reduce the drama of the conflict.
Gamemasters may wish to consider these kinds of struggles as challenges (Heros Handbook, pages 185186, and
the Gamemasters Guide, pages 173182), requiring multiple checks in order to achieve complete success, with
some back-and-forth as the character struggles to gain
the upper hand over the challenge.
Weather Complications
The weather is a vast and complex system, often subject
to unexpected shifts. As the chaos theory maxim suggests,
the stirring of a butterflys wings may radically change the
weather months later and half a world away; how much
more complicated might direct intervention in the shape
and expression of the weather be?
Accident
Controlling a primal force like the weather may require a
great deal of self-discipline and awareness. It is easy for
Honor
A sense of honor and responsibility concerning their
powers is common for heroic weather-controllers, and they
often choose not to use their ability in order to allow the
natural cycles of the weather to continue uninterrupted,
even when that decision may be personally difficult.
Obsession
A strong personal connection to the forces of nature can
give weather-controllers a sense that the natural world
is more importanteven all-importantcompared to
human civilization. Certainly humanity is still at the mercy
of the weather in various ways, but also affect the climate.
Weather-controllers may be obsessed with studying weather-related phenomena, working to slow or prevent climate
change, or dealing with the impact of civilization upon the
weather (or vice versa).
Phobia
Given that weather occurs outdoors, under the open sky,
weather-controllers may be given to claustrophobia, a
fear of small, enclosed spaces where their powers may be
limited or ineffective (see Power Loss, following).
Similarly, even weather-controllers may be awed by the
tremendous unleashed power of the weather, fearing
what might happen should their powers get out of
control or if they summon up a storm they cannot stop.
This fear may cause hesitate or even paralysis in some
situations as the weather-controller fears to call upon
the weathers full fury.
Power Loss
The Weather Descriptors section discusses some of
the necessary conditions for weather effects, notably an
atmosphere sufficient for weather to occur. Tightly enclosed conditionsranging from being inside a building
to trapped inside a small, enclosed spacecould limit or
negate weather powers. So, too, would being underwater, in space, or anywhere else lacking an atmosphere to
manipulate.
Note that this does not have to be the case: a magical or
dimensional weather controller, for example, may also
have the ability to create the necessary environment, able
to summon storms anywhere, even in the air-less depths
Responsibility
The power to control the weather can be an awesome
responsibility. Weather threatensor is responsible
forthe well-being of people around the world every
day. How does a weather-controller deal with this? Do
you bring rains to the deserts, turn aside hurricanes,
melt blizzards, and stop tornadoes before they strike? If
so, how much can you interfere with the worlds weather
without actually making it worse due to unforeseen
consequences of your changes? Weather controllers
must often balance their sense of responsibility towards
humanity with their code of ethics (see Honor) and responsibility towards the environment and the cycles of
nature.
Temper
Weather is often used as a metaphor for emotions. In
your case, the weather actually reflects your emotions:
When you are happy, the sky is clear, when you are sad,
it is grey and drizzly, and when you are angry, dark storm
clouds gather and thunder crashes. This complications
telegraphs what you are feeling to anyone paying attention and can have other inconvenient side effects
(such as literally raining on somebody elses picnic). In
extreme cases, your feelingsand the weathermay
get away from you (see the Accident complication, previously).
Weakness
Weather-controllers may face weaknesses associated with
their powers and adaptations involving them. Some possibilities include the following:
Beyond just power loss (see the Power Loss section) a
weather-controller cut off from the natural environment
may begin to weaken or suffer other conditions. So time
spent outside of an atmosphere might lead to the character becoming impaired, disabled and, eventually, incapacitated or even dying. This could even be so extreme
as to extend to time spent in enclosed areas, beyond just
psychological claustrophobia to a physical effect.
Just as the environment can reflect a weather-controllers mood, so the environmental conditions can influence someone so strongly connected to them. So polluted and toxic environments may have a more serious
effect on the character, or weather patterns might alter
the characters moods: sad and morose when it rains,
for example, cheerful when its bright and sunny, angry
during storms, and so forth, shading into the Temper
complication (previously).
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