Questions

But if it is legal and does require a skill roll, then that would not be a legal use of that perk, it's outside the bounds of what a simple perk can do.

Yep. As we are playing in the USA where you do use 110/120V, the house line is rather on the weak end of that scale. I'd say 1d-3 is what you got to expect from a japanese house line (100V, 50 or 60 Hz). The US american lines (120V, 50Hz) will get you one or two points more. The european norm of 230V, 50 Hz will in general get you 1d+, as will the us-american heavy power lines for climatization (240V, 50Hz). Don't touch the oven lines in Germany, they do have 2kV, and will earn you the 3d button.

Make it Immunity Electricity (Occassional) [10] and you are fine. Remember that this DOESN'T protect you from the burning damage (as resistante doesn't protect you against direct damage, buy DR for that).

I'd say the first is a 15% limitation, the second 25%.

Well, if you've got Super Jump 7 you've got a combat jump of 64 x ((2xBM)-3). This will definitely be farther than your BM, so the max move during a combat round is 1/5th of this (a jump never takes more than 5 seconds). So your max coverage during a second is 12.8 x ((2xBM)-3). RPK said that it would be ok to divide this distance by 10 (as following the "step rules if your move is higher then 10). And I agree with him.

So yes, you can take a short jump as a free "step maneuvre". The longest distance of this "jump-step" is 1.28 x ((2xBM)-3)). Remember that you can replace BM with half your jumping skill. So if you've got a jumping skill of 20, you can "jump-step" 1.28 x ((2x10)-3) = 21.76 feet or 7 yards. With a mere BM of 5 you could still "step-jump" 3 yards.

Well, if you've got Super Jump 7 you've got a combat jump of 64 x ((2xBM)-3). This will definitely be farther than your BM, so the max move during a combat round is 1/5th of this (a jump never takes more than 5 seconds). So your max coverage during a second is 12.8 x ((2xBM)-3). RPK said that it would be ok to divide this distance by 10 (as following the "step rules if your move is higher then 10). And I agree with him.

So yes, you can take a short jump as a free "step maneuvre". The longest distance of this "jump-step" is 1.28 x ((2xBM)-3)). Remember that you can replace BM with half your jumping skill. So if you've got a jumping skill of 20, you can "jump-step" 1.28 x ((2x10)-3) = 21.76 feet or 7 yards. With a mere BM of 5 you could still "step-jump" 3 yards.

I'd allow the perk, and would suggest to take a look into the jumping skill, if it would allow you to chaff off points. Of course remember that you can't buy skills from the 500 CP allotement, and more than 1 or 2 CP in jumping for the mundane char would be rather funny given his age. But you can buy talents from the 500 CP.

Why would I allow the perk? Because there are other perks that allow you to get rid of nuissance rolls. Of course I expect you to get the appropriate skill at a level where you basically can't fail that roll anyway, so a 16 or 17 would be in orde... depeninding on the setup this might be the hard part.

Thanks for the answers. I have another question (or a few):

The Detect power (Basic pg 48) with the designation Electrical and Magnetic Fields, and the Precise and Analyzing (Powers, pg 47) modifiers, seems to be as 'sensitive' as that power can be. With those modifiers, can I Detect the electric fields created by living beings? How about being able to sense individual circuit paths in electronic devices?

If the answer to either (or both) question(s) is no, what additional modifiers would be required for this level of sensitivity? And, if you rule that this power can't be used on that kind of scale, what would be a good alternate for being able to sense (and analyze, and differentiate) these two types of 'targets' (biologically based electrical fields and individual circuit paths)?

You've said that supersuits are impossible; I just wanted to make sure you understood what I meant by taking the perk.

John is made of, essentially, a sort of ultra-pliant liquid rubber type material. With Elastic Skin, the 'supersuit' was going to be him, nude, but molding away all the dangly bits so that he looking something akin to a mannequin, humanoid but blank everywhere but his hands and head. That, mixed with his chameleon ability (which I intended to have active, but forgot, so I'll add that back in) would be what I meant; he mildly shapeshifts himself to avoid embarrassment to make it look like someone wearing a spandex suit, 'colored' in by his active chameleon ability, but it's all his own skin, not a separate suit he wears that doesn't tear when he stretches.

If you still don't like that idea, how would you suggest going about that?

He has Elastic skin now; would that cover it?

The only other thing I can think of would be giving him morph, but that would end up costing hundreds of points; it would require, as far as I can tell, both unlimited and improvisational just to allow him to 'mimic' something that doesn't exist, and since it's just to preserve his modesty, that seems far too expensive for something so minor.

With those enhancements you can analyze both, but will probably get modifiers for "weakness" of the fields. Add to that distance modifiers and it can get tricky.

I'm assuming a normal american household line to be unmodified (0). Using the long distance table (B241 as appropriate for "information spells"), and assuming a factor of 10, the detection (and analyzation) of a laptop with 100W output gets a -2. If you want to detect/analyze a biological beings electrical field you get an additional -5, the typical modifier for a default to an average skill. So to detect a human sized target you'd be at -7, an elephant would be a -4, This is necessary to make detect life worth it in comparison. Let's just say your power isn't very well attuned to chemo-electrical pathways.

Of course for only 1/5th of the cost of your detect EM ability you could get the alternate ability "Detect Neuronal Systems", which would allow you to detect chemo-electrical systems without the -5 modifier. Or you could buy one or two levels of long-range at 50% each, which would get you from the speed and range table to the long distance table (level 1) or even to no distance penalities (level 2). Then you'd probably not care that much about the -4 for chemo-electrical systems anymore.

Oh and as a hint: circutry tends to be very complex. A nice high IQ AND more importantly eidetic memory might be very helpful.

Supersuit is fine that way. Just remember that at the start he doesn't know how to do it, so he'll have to learn to use his powers like everyone else.

I just want to avoid you guys from dropping into the setting looking like a marvel designers wet dream. It might sound funny to call for realism in a "supers" game, but as said, it's more a "teenager with weird powers in an even weirder setting" game than a classical supers game.

How about a moderate IQ and some power-driven talent? I actually intentionally made this character so he wasn't optimized between his starting self and his power set. Over time, he can put the two together better, but, for now, he does anything involving Electronics on instinct alone. Perhaps he might even push himself to better his memory over time.

For now, I posted my powers in the applications thread. There are a few custom modifiers in there that I may have to modify based on GM preferences, and I am okay with that. Please let me know what issues are present and I will work to resolve them.

The problem is, that while the power talent will allow you to detect and analyze the patterns, it doesn't allow you to memorize them. So if you later want to write it down or such, you'll have to make an IQ roll, which will be modified for complexity. The only thing helping here is improved memory and/or IQ. A lightning power talent will not give bonuses on memorization.

If your intention is only to detect circuitry (organic or anorganic) and find the weak spots, then you don't need IQ or memory. If you want to rememver the schematics though ...