Requesting clarification on some Abilities

[DouglasOsborn]

I think that a few Abilities need to be reclassified or be more explicit in their definitions.

1. Living Bomb (from Sorcerer Archetype): “Destroy one d6 or d8 minion. Roll that minion’s die as an Attack against another target.” I think this should be a Reaction or Inherent Ability because of the “If you do action A, then effect B follows” structure of the definition. There is no required power use for the ability and seems to closely resemble Wild Strength (Nature Power Source), a Reaction Ability or Endurance Fighting (Red Physical Ability), an Inherent Ability.
2. Attune (from Extradimensional Power Source): “Boost yourself using [power]. That bonus is persistent and exclusive. Damage dealt using that bonus is all [energy/element].” Does that mean that you have to take that energy/element as one of your powers, or is it just a byproduct of your boost? I haven’t found any other ability that might require two powers to use it.
3. Reality Scorned (from The Multiverse Power Source): “Attack using [power]. If your target survived, Hinder them using your Max die.” Shouldn’t this Ability include Hinder in its icon?
   I would be interested in hearing other people’s thoughts on these issues.

[FrivYeti]

Okay, so in order:

1. Living Bomb is an action because it doesn’t trigger from destroying a minion, it just flat-out kills a minion, and then activates the second half.

2. Attune: No, you don’t have to take the element for the ability, although it’s common to. Similarly, you don’t need to take various elements in order to gain immunity from them in various abilities.

3. Yeah, it probably should include the Hinder icon; I’d expect that’s just a misprint.

[fjur]

@DouglasOsborn

Living Bomb (from Sorcerer Archetype): “Destroy one d6 or d8 minion. Roll that minion’s die as an Attack against another target.” I think this should be a Reaction or Inherent Ability

I think I’ll have to respectfully disagree. Living Bomb is an action ability simply by virtue of it requiring your action to use. Further, reactions trigger in response to specific other things happening, whilst inherents either do that too, provide a passive effect (e.g. damage reduction), or a free non-reactionary effect (e.g. removing a penalty at the start of your turn). Living Bob* is none of these things; it’s an effect that you can do on your turn, not in reaction to anything.

If it were a reaction it would be phrased something like:

After you destroy a D6 or D8 minion, use its save as an Attack against another target.

Which is a substantially different effect: it only triggers after you destroy a minion with another action or ability, instead of giving you the capability to destroy a minion itself.

@DouglasOsborn

because of the “If you do action A, then effect B follows” structure of the definition.

But it’s not precisely that. Living Bomb is more “Do action A, then do action B;” it starts its own effect sequence — it doesn’t trigger off of an existing one. Further, there are also several other abilities with a similar effect structure that are actions rather than reactions or inherents, like Overwhelming Vision (Genius), which lets you Attack and then Attack again or Recover.

@DouglasOsborn

There is no required power use for the ability

Not all action ability use powers, though. See: Call to the Wild (Nature), Purification (Elemental/Energy Red ability).

@DouglasOsborn

seems to closely resemble Wild Strength (Nature Power Source), a Reaction Ability or Endurance Fighting (Red Physical Ability), an Inherent Ability.

See, but Wild Strength is a reaction 'cos it’s dependant upon you using another effect to actually destroy the minion; it doesn’t give you a minion-destroying effect on its own like Living Bomb does. Similarly, Endurance Fighting only adds an additional rider onto your existing Attacks; without using another action or ability to Attack it does nothing. (Unlike Living Bomb, which you can directly use to destroy a minion.)

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@DouglasOsborn

Reality Scorned (from The Multiverse Power Source): “Attack using [power]. If your target survived, Hinder them using your Max die.” Shouldn’t this Ability include Hinder in its icon?

Yeah, the basic action icons can be a tetch inconsistent at times. I imagine that they neglected to include the Hinder icon 'cos it’s only conditional, but they also included the icons for conditional actions in other abilities, e.g. Fast Fingers (Speedster), Gimmick (Wild Card).

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*Typo, but I’m keeping it.

[fjur]

Ninja’ed by Friv!

@FrivYeti

Attune: No, you don’t have to take the element for the ability, although it’s common to. Similarly, you don’t need to take various elements in order to gain immunity from them in various abilities.

That’s cert. a very reasonable conclusion (and likely one I’d adopt), but I’m curious as to where you’re drawing it from. I can’t recall anything in the rules that point towards it.

[Omegatron]

On point 2, the Cosmos power source’s Cosmic Ray Absorption specifies “If you would take damage from [element/energy you have a related power for]”.

This would imply that any other ability that only specifies [element/energy] (without including the “you have a related power for” phrase) like Attune or Accident’s Immunity can be any element/energy even if you don’t have it as a power.

[Chief_Lackey_Rich]

Well, I’m late to the party. About all I’ve got on the OP is “What they said” - all of them.

@Omegatron

On point 2, the Cosmos power source’s Cosmic Ray Absorption specifies “If you would take damage from [element/energy you have a related power for]”.

Worth noting that effectively limits it to Cosmic, the only e/e power that the Cosmos source can take - and even then, you need to actually take Cosmos to take the ability. You might be able to change it later using a retcon to re-key it to an e/e power gained through your archetype, but realistically who’s going to do that?

I do think you’re correct that it serves as an answer (albeit a somewhat indirect one) to whether you need a power of a given e/e type to select that type when just “e/e” appears as a choice.

@fjur

*Typo, but I’m keeping it.

Of course you are. “Night of the Living Bob” sounds like a Halloween Guise story.

FWIW, I’ve heard a couple of other points of confusion about Living Bomb:

• When it says d6 or d8 minion, it means their current die size. You can absolutely whittle down a minion that started with a larger die and then blow them up with this ability.

• Mods don’t have any effect on the “blow up the minion” clause, but it’s less clear if they apply to the Attack using the minion’s die afterward. I lean toward no as a default myself, but if you can narratively justify a bonus or penalty applying here it wouldn’t break anything. Really depends on the mod - if you’ve got a +2 Surrounded By Mystic Energy that’s easier to accept than a +2 Carrying A Tire Iron, and you probably aren’t going to use up that -4 Glued To The Wall you got (ahem) stuck with on the minion’s roll. Mods on the minion (including abilities that alter Attacks) wouldn’t apply, since it isn’t actually taking an Attack action, you’re just using its die to represent its explosive demise.

[FrivYeti]

@Omegatron

On point 2, the Cosmos power source’s Cosmic Ray Absorption specifies “If you would take damage from [element/energy you have a related power for]”.

This would imply that any other ability that only specifies [element/energy] (without including the “you have a related power for” phrase) like Attune or Accident’s Immunity can be any element/energy even if you don’t have it as a power.

Yep. And in case you might be inclined to view that as a one-off mistake, both Blaster and Elemental Manipulator use the same phrasing for their elemental immunity/recovery abilities.