Flight

Type: Movement

Action: Move (active)

Range: Personal

Duration: Sustained

Saving Throw: None

Cost: 2 points per rank

You can fly through the air, including hovering in place. You have a flying speed of 10 MPH (100 feet per round) at rank 1. Each additional rank moves your speed one step up the Progression Table: 25 MPH at rank 2, 50 MPH at rank 3, and so forth. At rank 19, you can reach anywhere on Earth in a single move

action. At rank 20, you can accelerate to near the speed of light! Speeds per rank are shown on the

Flight Movement table

CARRYING AND FLIGHT

You can carry up to a light load in flight with no reduction in speed. A medium or heavy load reduces your speed to two-thirds and a heavy load also reduces your all-out Flight speed to one-half normal. You cannot carry more than a heavy load while in flight.

UNDERWATER FLIGHT

Flight works normally in vacuum or a gaseous medium (like a planet’s atmosphere). Moving through liquid, such as underwater, flight speed is slowed to that of the equivalent rank of Swimming (see the Swimming effect later in this chapter). This may also include “liquid” atmospheres on alien planets. Essentially, Flight includes the benefit of moving through liquids at Swimming speeds. If it does not, you may apply a 1-point Power Loss drawback (doesn’t work underwater). Likewise, an inability to fly in space may qualify for a drawback, if the GM expects it to ever come up, otherwise it’s best handled as a complication, on those rare occasions when it happens. For movement through solids, see the Burrowing effect as well as Insubstantial and the Permeate

effect of Super-Movement.

POWER FEATS

• Maneuverability: If the option for flight maneuverability (see Flight Maneuverability, Mastermind’s Manual, page 74) is in use, then this feat grants an additional level of maneuverability (from average to good, or good to perfect) per rank.

• Subtle: The default Flight effect is normally noticeable, whether from the rush of air, the roar of rockets, or a glowing contrail or aurora. This feat reduces, and then eliminates, these traces. If your Flight is completely Subtle, you do not need to make Stealth checks to move silently while flying (you do so automatically), although you may still need to do so to avoid being seen or otherwise detected.

EXTRAS

• Affects Others: While characters with Flight can lift and carry up to a heavy load while flying, this extra enables them to transfer their Flight ability to others.

• Attack: In order to send an unwilling target “flying,” see the Move Object effect in this chapter and the Telekinesis power in the next chapter. These should be used rather than a Flight Attack effect, which is an unbalanced means of achieving similar results, since a high rank Flight Attack could send someone flying into a wall or the ground at thousands of miles per hour!

• Duration: Continuous duration Flight operates even when the character is stunned, unconscious, or otherwise unable to sustain it. The user remains hanging in space, maintaining relative position to the ground, if necessary. Alternately, the user might float safely down to the ground when unable to maintain Flight.

FLAWS

• Distracting: A clumsy or uncertain flier might suffer from this flaw, losing dodge bonus at all times while flying rather than just when moving all-out.

• Duration: Concentration duration Flight can represent an effect requiring additional focus or effort on the character’s part; you can fly, but can’t do much else at the same time. Since concentration requires a standard action each round, it also means you can’t fly at accelerated or all-out speeds, just the normal pace of your Flight rank. A useful Flight effect cannot have a duration less than concentration. At the GM’s discretion, an instant Flight effect can serve as a single "burst” of propulsion, suitable only for sending the character flying at full speed in a particular direction for one round, but this type of effect is better handled with Leaping (see the Leaping effect description for details).

• Gliding (–1): You lose altitude equal to half the distance you travel, meaning the maximum distance you can glide is twice the height you start from. You may be able to gain altitude occasionally by catching thermal updrafts and winds at the GM’s discretion. You cannot have more than 4 ranks in Flight if it has this flaw.

• Levitation (–1): You can only move straight up and down, not side to side, although you can allow yourself to be carried along by the wind. You cannot have more than 4 ranks in Flight if it has this flaw.

• Platform (–1): Your Flight is reliant on some sort of platform on which you stand or sit. If you suffer any knockback while flying (see Knockback, M&M, page 165) or you are grappled by someone standing on the ground, you’re knocked or pulled off your platform and cannot fly. You can regain the use of your

flying platform by reactivating your Flight effect (which may require a Concentration check, depending on circumstances).

DRAWBACKS

• Forward Only: You cannot back up while flying; you can only fly straight ahead.

• Low Ceiling: You cannot gain much altitude, remaining fairly close to the ground. A ceiling (maximum altitude) of 30 feet is a 1-point drawback, 15 feet is worth 2 points, and 5 feet is worth 3 points. This drawback is suitable for “hovercraft” type flight and similar effects.

• Maneuverability: If the option for flight maneuverability (see Flight Maneuverability, Mastermind’s Manual, page 74) is in use, then each reduction in maneuverability (from average to poor, and poor to clumsy) is a 1-point power drawback.

• Minimum Speed: You must fly no less than half your maximum speed or you “stall” and begin falling. You can restart your Flight as a move action unless circumstances prevent it (including other drawbacks). You can’t hover while in flight.

• Power Loss: If your Flight is dependent on being able to flap your wings, rockets with air-intakes or jets that can be jammed, and so forth, you can apply this drawback to reflect conditions where your Flight effect may not function. If your Flight has limitations that render it inoperative about half the time, it should have the Limited flaw instead. Note that this differs from having your Flight countered in that you lose it automatically when your Power Loss occurs, with no opposed check.

• Reduced Load: If you cannot carry more than a medium load while in flight, you have a 1-point power drawback. If you cannot carry more than a light load, you have a 2-point power drawback.

• Runway Required: You need a level runway to take off and land. You can’t take off or land vertically or hover.

• Wide Turns: You cannot execute a greater than 45 degree turn per move action while flying, although you can slow your flying speed while turning in order to make tighter turns, if you wish. A combination of Minimum Speed and Wide Turns means you can only bank widely at best.

Power Stunt: Flight Leverage

You can use the “thrust” generated by your Flight effect to help you push a heavy weight, provided it suits the effect’s descriptors. You have to push the weight in the direction you are flying, in which case you gain a bonus to effective Strength for carrying capacity equal to twice your Flight power rank. So Flight 5 gives you +10 effective Strength, increasing your carrying capacity by four times for pushing a heavy object. Example: Hero Man has to contend with a falling building after Villain takes out its main supports. The hero's strength allows him to lift 24 tons as a heavy load, not nearly enough. He swoops under the collapsing building and pushes. He has Flight 5, so the GM gives him an effective +10 boost to Strength, pushing his heavy load up to 92 tons. Still not quite enough, so his player uses extra effort to double his carrying capacity for a round for 184 tons, enough for the hero to push the collapsing building back into place!