Teleporting to Clean and Strip Paint

[JCurwen3]

If a character had Affliction (Warp) (suitably modified, perhaps), could they use it to do at least some rudimentary cleaning of objects / vehicles? Strip paint?

The PC has a vehicle that was stolen and then vandalized. Spray paint was used to cover it in insulting graffiti, and in addition some more offensive things were used to cover the outside of the vehicle. (In another scenario, imagine a PC with an SUV that ends up covered in mud after driving through rough terrain.) No actual damage was done to the functionality of the vehicle, nor any cosmetic damage to the interior.

So the player argues they could just teleport off the junk, cleaning the vehicle. Is this plausible? If so, what penalties, if any, are reasonable for the roll?

Ideally they'd want to target the destination of the "vandalism" at the NPC that vandalized the vehicle. This wouldn't really do them any real harm, but it would smell and leave them with obnoxious markings... I'm thinking that this is way to complex and sophisticated a thing for teleportation, but I'm open to the idea with sufficient justification (and penalties).

Any suggestions / thoughts?

[Nereidalbel]

Targeting the vandalism itself is basically a freebie, since the PC can just touch it. As for targeting the NPC? Range penalties as usual if within LoS, good luck otherwise.

[Anthony]

You can't use affliction (warp) to teleport away part of a solid object, which is what stripping paint would be; use a corrosive attack instead. I don't recall exactly how you'd power stunt that. Targeting the vandals would be a separate power, even if it was possible to target them using affliction(warp), once the paint is dry it's not going to stick to a new surface.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Anthony

You can't use affliction (warp) to teleport away part of a solid object, which is what stripping paint would be; use a corrosive attack instead. I don't recall exactly how you'd power stunt that.

I wouldn't want the Corrosive Attack to damage / remove anything aside from the paint. I wonder if there's a reasonable limitation for that. For instance, analogously, let's say I wanted to have an Innate Attack that only did damage to a particular hit location (it wouldn't hurt anything besides, say, the arms)... maybe in those cases to borrow from the Partial limitation from DR? I wonder what Skin only should be?

Originally Posted by Anthony

Targeting the vandals would be a separate power, even if it was possible to target them using affliction(warp), once the paint is dry it's not going to stick to a new surface.

That's a good point about the dry paint. Although the other unmentionable objects on the vehicle might still be used for targeting effectively.

[spacemonkey]

iirc it's a 1 point perk to leave behind all the foreign content from your body, applying that to other objects seems a bit more versatile but a bit less important

edit: expulsion from Psionic Powers

[the_matrix_walker]

Originally Posted by Anthony

You can't use affliction (warp) to teleport away part of a solid object, which is what stripping paint would be; use a corrosive attack instead. I don't recall exactly how you'd power stunt that. Targeting the vandals would be a separate power, even if it was possible to target them using affliction(warp), once the paint is dry it's not going to stick to a new surface.

I think you could, with Cosmic and Selective Effect. I would say Cosmic +50 for excluding dirt, debris and surface liquids, Cosmic +100% to leave an outer layer behind (strip paint) and +300% Cosmic to teleport away chunks of your target.

[Walrus]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

For instance, analogously, let's say I wanted to have an Innate Attack that only did damage to a particular hit location (it wouldn't hurt anything besides, say, the arms)... maybe in those cases to borrow from the Partial limitation from DR? I wonder what Skin only should be?

It's just additional Selective equal to Selective Area. There're official examples of that in Powers and DF.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

+300% Cosmic to teleport away chunks of your target.

This is what Alternative Abilities are for. If your teleport power can be used as an attack, then buy an appropriate IA and just declare the special effects are that it teleports away chunks of the target. Abilities aren't entire powers or sources; no need to make one Advantage carry the whole load.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

iirc it's a 1 point perk to leave behind all the foreign content from your body, applying that to other objects seems a bit more versatile but a bit less important

edit: expulsion from Psionic Powers

This I think is the best way to do it.
Its cheap and RAW. Just Afflcit the target with Warp and the perk.

[Figleaf23]

If someone has appropriate teleportation powers they'd never have to go to the bathroom again.