Type: Defense
Action: None (passive)
Range: Personal
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Cost: 1 point per rank
You’re particularly resistant to harm. You gain a bonus on your Toughness saving throws equal to your Protection rank.
EXTRAS
• Absorption (+3): In addition to helping you resist damage, your Protection actually “absorbs” some of the incoming energy of the attack, which you can use to improve your own traits!
Applied to Impervious Protection, this extra essentially gives you a Linked 1-point Boost that operates automatically when your Protection stops damage (see boost for details and the Absorption power in the following chapter for an example).
• Force Field (+0): Rather than being a permanent quality, your Protection is an active free action sustained effect you must maintain, but can turn on or off, and improve using extra effort. As an active effect, your force field is automatically noticeable (as shown in this effect’s Drawbacks) unless you apply the Subtle power feat.Impervious (+1): Your Protection stops some damage cold. If an attack has a damage bonus less than your Protection rank, it inflicts no damage (you automatically succeed on your Toughness saving throw as with the Immunity effect). Penetrating damage (see the Damage effect) ignores this modifier; you must save against it normally. This modifier can be applied to the Toughness save bonus from Constitution as well (costing 1 point per +1 save bonus made Impervious).
• Reflective (+1/+2): Applied to Impervious Protection (see the previous), this extra “bounces” any damage blocked by your Impervious extra back at the Attacker. This occurs automatically when the attack happens and the reflected damage automatically hits the attacker, who saves against it normally. If the attacker has sufficient Impervious Protection himself, the attack has no effect (and is not further reflected, if the attacker also has Reflective Protection). As a +1 modifier, Reflective works against a limited group of damaging effects, either melee or ranged or a reasonably common descriptor (such as heat, light, or radiation, for example), as a +2 modifier, it applies to all damaging effects.
FLAWS
• Fades: Your Protection is ablative; damage chips away at it. Each time it provides its bonus, it loses 1 power point of effectiveness. When reduced to 0 power Points, it no longer protects you.
• Limited (–1): Your Protection applies to only one of a broad type of damage (physical or energy). If your Protection applies to only one of a narrow type of damage (edged weapons, blunt weapons, electricity, fire, magic, etc.) it has a –3 modifier.
DRAWBACKS
• Noticeable: Protection with this drawback is noticeable to anyone who sees you. You might have armored plates, steel skin, or some similar clear indication of your greater Toughness. Note this drawback does not apply to devices or equipment that provide a Toughness bonus; it is already a part of their nature.
POWER STUNT: "LIKE HITTING A BRICK WALL"
The Reflective extra is useful for creating characters with an “iron jaw” or “stonewall” effect, where attackers striking them in combat actually suffer damage themselves! This is Reflective against melee damage; an attacker wielding a melee weapon does not suffer damage, however, the weapon is subject to an immediate sunder attack from the reflected damage and may break! This effect is particularly devastating when combined with the Immovable effect against slam attacks: the attacker suffers the additional damage from Immovable, plus any damage blocked by the target’s Impervious Protection, making the slam attack more like a bug hitting a windshield... SPLAT!