Type: Movement
Action: Move (active)
Range: Personal
Duration: Sustained
Saving Throw: None
Cost: 2 points per rank
You have a special form of movement. For each rank in this effect, choose one of the following:
• Air Walking: You can “walk” on air at half your normal ground movement speed as if it were solid ground, and move up or down at a 45 degree angle at half speed (one-quarter your ground movement speed). For two ranks, you move at your normal ground movement speed (half speed when ascending or descending).
• Dimensional Movement: You can move from one dimension to another. Dimensional Movement is instant duration. For one rank, you can move between your
home dimension and one other. For two ranks you can move between any of a related group of dimensions (mystical dimensions, alien dimensions, etc). For three ranks you can travel to any dimension. You can carry up to 100 lbs. with you when you move. Each Progression power feat moves this amount one step up the Progression Table (250 lbs., 500 lbs., etc.). Since this effect can be extremely useful in some situations, the GM should carefully regulate its use, possibly requiring modifiers like Limited or Unreliable or even disallowing it for player characters altogether.
• Permeate: You can pass through solid objects as if they weren’t there. For one rank, you can move at one-quarter your speed through any physical object as a move action and half your speed as a full action. For two ranks, you can move at half your speed as a move action and your full speed as a full action. For three ranks, you can move at your normal speed through obstacles. You cannot breathe while inside a solid object, so you need Immunity to Suffocation or you have to hold your breath. You may also need a Super-Sense (such as X-Ray Vision) to see where you’re going. Permeate is often Limited to a particular substance (like earth, ice, or metal, for example) as a –1 modifier (reducing base cost to 1 point per rank). Permeate provides no protection against attacks, even against materials you can pass through, although you do gain total cover while inside an object (see Cover, M&M, page 160).
• Slithering: You can move along the ground at your normal speed while prone instead of crawling at a rate of 5 feet per move action. You suffer no penalties for making attacks while prone.
• Slow Fall: As long as you are capable of action, you can fall any distance without harm. You can also stop your fall at any point so long as there is a handhold or projection for you to grab (such as a ledge, flagpole, branch, etc.). If you have the Wall-Crawling effect (see following), then any surface provides you with a handhold. Slow Fall assumes you are capable of reacting to your circumstances; for the ability to fall any distance without harm whether you are capable of action or not, take Immunity to Falling Damage for 5 points.
Swinging: You can swing through the air at your normal ground movement speed, using a swing-line you provide or available lines and projections (tree limbs, flagpoles, vines, telephone- and power-lines, etc .).
Sure-Footed: You’re better able to deal with obstacles and obstructions to movement. Reduce the speed penalty for hampered movement by one-quarter for each application of this effect. So heavy obstructions or a bad surface only reduce your speed by one-quarter rather than one-half, for example. If you reduce the movement penalty to 0 or less, you are unaffected by that condition and move at full normal speed.
Temporal Movement: You can move through time. Temporal Movement is instant duration. For one rank, you can move between the present and another fixed point in time (such as 100 years into the past, or 1,000 years into the future). For two ranks you can move to any point in either the past or any point in the future. For three ranks, you can travel to any point in time. You can carry up to 100 lbs. with you when you move. Each Progression power feat moves this amount one step up the Progression Table (250 lbs., 500 lbs., etc.). Temporal mechanics and the effects of time travel are left up to the GM. fully regulate its use, possibly requiring modifiers like Limited or Unreliable or even disallowing it for player characters altogether.
• Trackless: You leave no trail and cannot be tracked using visual senses (although you can still be tracked using scent or other means). You step so lightly you can walk across the surface of soft sand or even snow without leaving tracks and you have total concealment from tremorsense (see Concealment, M&M, page 161). This effect may be Limited to particular types of terrain.
• Wall-Crawling: You can climb walls and ceilings at half your normal speed with no chance of falling and no need for a Climb skill check. You still lose your dodge bonus while climbing unless you have 5 or more ranks of Climb. An additional rank of Super-Movement applied to this effect means you climb at your
full speed and retain your dodge bonus while climbing. A third rank in Wall-Crawling allows you to “stick” to surfaces with any part of your body, rather than just your hands and feet (so you could, for example, hang from a ceiling by the top of your head, or stick your back to a wall to leave your arms and legs free).
Wall-Crawling may be Limited to particular kinds of surfaces (metal, stone, wood, etc.) as a –1 flaw. It may also be Limited to only while moving.
• Water Walking: You can move or stand on the surface of water, quicksand, and other liquids without sinking. Water Walking may be Limited to only while moving (making it more “Water Running”).
INCREASING SUPER-MOVEMENT SPEED
The default movement speed of most Super-Movement options is a character’s “normal ground speed.” For those with the Speed trait (see Speed) this may be a considerable rate! The assumption is that Speed affects Super-Movement modes like Permeate, Slithering, Swinging, Wall-Crawling, and Water Walking just as it does normal ground movement. If this proves unbalancing, or in a setting where differentiated movement is more important, the GM may wish to have Speed apply separately to each form of movement; so a character would have ranks of Speed for normal ground movement and separate ranks for Super-Movement
traits like Wall-Crawling and Water Walking. (Note this changes the Wall Run and Water Run power feats of Super-Speed to extras, among other things. See the
Super-Speed power description for details.)
EXTRAS
When applying modifiers to Super-Movement, you can apply the modifier(s) to just one rank of the effect, some of them, or all of them, depending on which movement mode(s) you want to modify. So it’s possible, for example, to make Dimensional Movement Unreliable while having Permeate Affect Others and applying no modifiers to Sure-Footed. The GM should approve any distribution of modifiers to Super-Movement. As usual, the total cost of the effect cannot be reduced below 1 character point.
• Affects Others: This extra, applied to one or more of your modes, allows you to take “passengers” along with you, granting them the benefits of your movement mode(s) so long as they are in close-contact with you (or within range, if you add the Range extra to the effect as well). This extra is particularly common for Dimensional and Temporal Movement (often Affects Others and Area).
• Attack: Dimensional and Temporal Movement can apply this modifier, allowing you to send an unwilling target into another dimension or time! Since both options have relatively fixed costs, the GM may allow additional ranks in Dimensional or Temporal Attack to increase the effect’s saving throw DC: 2 power points per additional rank. Like other effects with the Attack extra, these Attacks are touch range by default, making them ranged is a +1 extra and perception range is a +2 extra.
Under the Hood: Dimensional and Temporal Movement
Dimensional and Temporal Movement, although potentially useful
and powerful abilities, are handled as Super-Movement options for
a relatively low cost. This is because the usefulness those abilities is
dictated by the nature of the setting (how time and dimensional travel
work there) and by the wishes of the Gamemaster. Players should be
aware that Temporal and Dimensional Movement are largely intended
as plot devices, not means to circumventing challenges. Unless the
game is specifically about time- and dimension-hopping (and perhaps
even then) the effects are largely enablers. The ability to travel back in
time and change history (for example) is more of an X-trait (see X-Traits,
M&M, page 211) than anything: too powerful to allow for heroes except
under very specific (and controlled) circumstances. Generally speaking,
heroes in the comics are trying to prevent others from changing history
rather than trying to change it themselves!