[Supers] Undetectable As A Super

[JulianLW]

From Thaumatology: Magical Styles, this perk:

Secret Mage

You’re trained at minimizing your magical emanations. For the purpose of the Aura spell (p. B249), your Magery and associated magical advantages and perks are “secret” traits, comparable to lycanthropy, vampirism, etc. Thus, your magical gifts only show up on a critical success – or when you use them visibly. This also affects Detect advantages that can sense mages.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

From Thaumatology: Magical Styles, this perk:

Honestly, this is probably priced more fairly than my Obscure build. Obscure isn't a great fit for this - it has the same base cost regardless of if you're blocking vision or a vague detection ability, it's priced assuming it's an area effect, and so forth - but is the only real building block we have for stuff like this. My first assumption was a Perk anyway, so this works better.

[Otaku]

I thank both of you for your answers! The Perk sounds good to me, but I'll keep the Obscure build just in case.

[ericthered]

Immunity to Detect might be useful as well. That might be at the [5] level, and might be at the [10]

[David Johnston2]

One approach to being undetectable is "This is the X-Men universe and there are mutant detectors everywhere. But they only work on mutants and I'm not a mutant. I'm an alien or a magician or a cyborg or something with another power modifier so rare that nobody's on the look out for it."

In other words a literal Unusual Origin probably only worth 5 points because while they aren't on the lookout for aliens with superpowers they are on the lookout for superpowers. But that wouldn't be an "I'm only detectable when using my power"

[Otaku]

First, let me state that I edited my original comment: I wanted to be clear I'm just making this character for the fun of it.

Second, since the character is a work-in-progress and I like it when generic, universal answers can help others, I'm trying not to go into too many character-specific details. I will share some of the details unlikely to change, as talking around them is proving cumbersome. The character's superhero name is "Stick Shift", and he's a Speedster using Alternate Forms to model different "Gears" of his speed. "Neutral" is his normal human state, and the idea is that one of its benefits is while in Neutral, stuff that can detect Supers will "see" him as a normal human.

Third, I have read ericthered's response, and I will keep it in mind. Thanks, eric.

Fourth, I have read David Johnston2's comment, and you did me a favor, David. :) I debated citing how mutants are (were?) handled in Marvel Comics, but I worried it would be too confusing. I think I can build on what you said.

Imagine a Stick Shift is a mutant in the Marvel Comics setting. When something like a Sentinel or Cererbro or [insert character with mutant-detecting powers] interacts with Stick Shift while he's "in Neutral", Stick Shift registers as a baseline human (flatscan). When he's in any other Gear, however, he'll be detected as a mutant (as just being in a gear other than Neutral is "using his powers").

Again, the character I'm working on is just a generic "Super", but I'm building him assuming a setting where the "Super" power modifier is worth -10%. It may seem like "Why would it matter if 'stuff' can detect him as a Super while obviously using his powers?" Like I said, just being in a Gear is "using his powers". I am also assuming a "kitchen sink" setting, so even when he's running around at superhuman speed, knowing he's a Super (with the Super, -10% Power Modifier) and not a different Power Modifier is important. Oh, and that he's not an illusion being used to trick whomever or whatever is doing the detecting.

Hopefully I have made things more clear instead of less. >.> Thank you all again for weighing in; feel free to keep the discussion going if you have more to add. :)

[Anaraxes]

If all the super abilities are hidden in the AFs, then you might get away with No Signature on the base form cost of 15. (In human form, there's nothing else to mask until you change; the only weird ability you have at that point is exactly the ability to change.) Only 3 points that way, but still more than the Perk.

Certainly arguable that you should have to pay to mask the whole point pool as well. That would make more powerful supers easier to detect, or else more expensive to hide.

If the setting is such that you need to hide from the Sentinels, then it's probably too cheap to let the supes easily hide for a point or three.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Imagine a Stick Shift is a mutant in the Marvel Comics setting. When something like a Sentinel or Cererbro or [insert character with mutant-detecting powers] interacts with Stick Shift while he's "in Neutral", Stick Shift registers as a baseline human (flatscan). When he's in any other Gear, however, he'll be detected as a mutant (as just being in a gear other than Neutral is "using his powers").

So you knock 5% off number of points you get for your power modifier, because your power modifier is "switchable".

[Plane]

Secret Mage perk sounds way over-powered, pretty much every mage is going to want that.

The approach of using "Obscure: Detect Magic" sounds a lot more fair considering those benefits. This the approach Powers 64 has for Obscure: Detect POWER

If Secret Mage is allowed then there should be some way of buying increased chances of critical success with Detect Magic.

Given that Secret Mage is itself a magic perk, it probably would not function in No Mana so using Mana Damper should be able to deactivate it if the mage is in range, though that's a pretty hard setup.