Plant Control

Effect: Array (Snare)

Action: Standard (active)

Range: Ranged

Duration: Instant

Saving Throw: Reflex

Cost: 2 points per rank

You can control the growth and movement of plants. You can cause plants in an area of (rank x 5) feet in radius to rapidly grow and entangle opponents as a Snare effect. Targets in the area receive a Reflex saving throw to halve the rank of the effect as well as the usual Reflex save to avoid being entangled.

COUNTERING

Plant Control is primarily useful for countering other uses of Plant Control, although certain effects may be suitable for countering other power effects at the Gamemaster’s discretion. For example, the Insect Control effect (see Alternate Powers, following) may be useful for countering other effects that influence or control insects. Likewise, Plant Control may be able to counter certain plant-based effects using pollen or plant toxins as a medium, for example

ALTERNATE POWERS

The following are some suitable Alternate Powers for a Plant Control Array:

• Fatigue: By touch you can cause an allergic reaction or drain living targets of some moisture, causing a Fatigue effect at a rank equal to your Plant Control rank. If you can cause Fatigue at normal range, reduce the effective rank to two-thirds your Plant Control rank.

• Insect Control: You can emit certain scents that attract and influence the behavior of insects, giving you a Summon Insect Swarm effect at your Plant Control rank. Once you stop maintaining this effect, any swarm disperses, effectively disappearing as it breaks up into its component creatures.

• Nauseate: Your touch can carry a plant toxin or allergen that induces illness like a Nauseate effect at your power rank. If you can induce Nausea at normal range, reduce the effective rank to two-thirds your Plant Control rank.

• Plant Growth: You can stimulate the growth of plants, causing them to grow even greater than their normal mature size. This is a Growth effect (see Growth in the previous chapter) with Affects Others (+0), Limited to Plants (–1), and Permanent in duration (+0), since the enlarged plants remain that way. Apply ranks of Growth equal to your Plant Control rank, so Plant Control 12, for example, can increase a plant’s size category by three, turning a small sapling into a huge tree, for example.

• Plant Perception: You can sense things occurring near living plants like an ESP effect at two-thirds your Plant Control power rank (see ESP in the previous chapter for details).

• Stun: Either by using a plant-based toxin or influencing intestinal flora, you can stun a creature by touch like a Stun effect at your Plant Control rank. If you can stun at normal range, reduce effective rank to two-thirds of your Plant Control Rank.

• Transform: You can turn one type of plant into another, a sustained Transform effect at half your Plant Control rank. Transformed plants revert to normal over time (assume a save bonus of +0 against the lasting effect).

• Transmit: You can transport yourself by stepping “into” a plant large enough to accommodate your body and stepping out of a similar plant at your destination like the Transmit power at your Plant Control power rank. Alternately, if you have a Plant Form body (see Associated Effects, following) you may be able to abandon your current plant form and grow a new one elsewhere at your destination; the same effect, but with different descriptors.

ASSOCIATED EFFECTS

• Photosynthesis: Your skin is tinged green with chlorophyll, allowing you to photosynthesize food from water and sunlight. You have the benefits of Immunity 1 (starvation).

• Plant Form: The ability to control plants may come from being a plant, or at least having the ability to turn into one! You have the Alternate Form power, either allowing you to change from flesh-and-blood to mobile vegetation or a permanent version for mobile, intelligent plant creatures (see Alternate Form for details).

• Protection: Your skin is covered with tough bark-like armor, giving you a Protection effect.

• Speak With Plants: You can communicate with ordinary plants, learning what they know and “speaking” to them in return (see the Comprehend effect in the previous chapter for details).

• Strike: You have tough wooden limbs, perhaps covered with sharp thorns or spikes, giving you a Damage effect that enhances your unarmed attacks. If the benefits stack with your normal Strength, apply the Mighty power feat as well (see Damage in the previous chapter for details).

• Super-Movement: Super-Movement effects appropriate for plant-controllers include permeate (through plants, wood, or natural earth), slithering (vine-like along the ground), swinging (via hanging vines), sure-footed (via roots and the ability to move through undergrowth), and trackless.