Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

Is it me or does it seem that for only 10 points, penetrating Vision is a bit OP.
1. You could hardly be surprised anymore, seeing through walls as you move along. In a fantasy dungeon type of game that is nice and in a modern or SciFi game that is HUGE,
2. You can now armor your eyes. Goggles of steel because you can look through them easily.
3. You can diagnose broken bones, internal injuries and such.
4. You can search an individual, a vehicles, a desk, or a safe just by looking at it.

Imagine what you could see through at Penetrating Vision 2?
Just curious on how other GMs handle this.

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

It doesn't give you 360° vision, doesn't automatically negate Stealth, doesn't ignore darkness, and at Level 1 can only see through up to six inches of wall. So no, it doesn't mean you can't be surprised.
I suppose, but then you can only see through 5.5" instead of six.
Not without a skill roll you can't. It probably is worth a +2 to Diagnosis since it replicates imaging equipment.
This is what Superman generally uses it for. You probably still need to make a Search roll, but again at a bonus. Since there is equipment that can do this, this also is probably a +2.

A whole foot, which might get through one wall in a dungeon or fortress.

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

Penetrating Vision can be considered to cheap for some games. In those if it is allowed at all an Unusual Background could be charged.
That first six inches can do a lot but as noted in the previous reply perhaps not as much as you thought. Additional levels are less useful though which is why I favor using the SSR for them.

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

This does make me rather curious.
How does Penetrating Vision deal with visibility behind the barrier it goes through?
For example, if you look through the wall into a room without any light sources, do you see anything?
And would the same scenario also apply to a closed drawer?

Do you need to add Dark Vision to achieve the sort of vision advantage most people have in mind?

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

Penetrating vision is a great advantage, two characters in my supers campaign have that advantage. The scout who also has hyperspectral vision and precognition, that character is rarely surprised. And the party Tank who also has permeation with tunnelling and infravision. The penetrating vision is so he can see where he is going when traveling through the ground.

For supers the advantage is not overpowered but I could see it being a problem in a lower power, more realistic setting.

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

I rule you need both dark vision and penetrating vision to look into a locked drawer. Infravision and hyperspectral vision can substitute for dark vision.

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

People can be surprised by people that are in plain sight. The surprisers don't have to be hidden. Penetrating Vision doesn't affect that.

"Surprise" in a more general sense, meaning something like "ambush", would be harder to pull off.

Not when your vision also penetrates the contents of the safe, giving you only a dim outline of where objects are. You can't read a document when your vision penetrates the ink as well as the paper to know whether it's the one you're looking for.

The Advantage text doesn't go into detail, but it doesn't say that the viewer has fine control over his vision, picking and choosing different materials to be penetrating, able to adjust that automatically and unconsciously on the fly so as to look (non-penetratingly) at everything in 3D. Flip on base Penetrating Vision, and you're in a world of mostly transparent everything with dim, fuzzy boundaries.

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

I think that I would require someone who abuses their Penetrating Vision to start developing certain mental disadvantages because they are violating the privacy of everyone else by always looking through their clothes (and into their bodies). I do not think that a human could maintain sanity for long if they keep seeing other humans as masses of organs and bones rather than as human beings.

When I think about it, Penetrating Vision would be a rather natural candidate for the Corrupting limitation (making it cause Corruption every time that it is used to examine a human being rather than the default version of Corruption). The character would gradually become more and more jaded as they see their fellow humans as nothing more than sacks of meat (effectively trading in Corruption for mental disadvantages).

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

If you have penetrating vision, would that help with things like smoke or fog?
Are there modifications you can take to improve it's effectiveness against smoke(or silt under water)?

Re: Is Penetrating Vision a bit OP?
 

If Penetrating Vision is always on and can'r be depth focused, it seems more like a disadvantage. You wouldn't be able to recognise people or read almost anything.