Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
ATR makes it impossible to socially interact with people, or use Feint against people, who do not possess an equivalent ATR, meaning that you have to switch it off (beneficial and switchable, but problematic if always left on). Conversely, there are not associated problems with using Compartmentalized Mind or Extra Attack, so they are always on.
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I don't believe you need to actually switch off ATR, in the Switchable sense, in order to interact with normal speed characters. "In order to do anything that depends on someone else’s reactions, you must deliberately 'slow down' and function at his speed. This applies both when making a Feint in combat and when making an Influence roll (see p. 359) out of combat. For instance, if you choose to Feint, that is all you can do on your turn – you can not take extra actions".
The wording seems, to me, to imply that ATR is a passive, permanent ability that gives you a "maximum speed" higher than others - but like a Move score, you don't need to switch it off or take a Variable enhancement - in fact, Powers p.107 says "Variable is strictly for
attacks, which otherwise work at full power at all times. Non-attack abilities don’t need it - their range, area, level of effect, and so on are variable automatically". Of course it still becomes Switchable if your ATR has, e.g., the Temp Disad: Hemophilia example in Basic.
Speedsters in the comics never have trouble understanding the speech of others while they're zipping around, despite the frequency shift logic would dictate for someone living in a slow-mo world. It's RAW that you can't use Influence skills on people unless you use your full turn (or set of turns, if you look at it that way), but I would argue that you can still
say things during your ATR (intelligibly), as the comics speedsters can - you just need to be able to incorporate a subject's reactions, and thus slow down, in order to actually use an Influence skill.
Edit: ... In an appropriate supers setting, anyway, or with ATR digital minds that have the trivial capability to buffer people's speech or otherwise process the slow-mo version. I can easily imagine some versions of ATR with other rationales being unable to understand or speak intelligibly.