is Reflexive enhancement even less controllable than Uncontrollable limitation?

[Plane]

B116 "you must make a Will roll to keep your ability under control, even if you did not intend to use it!"

P109 "lets your ability switch itself on"

Reflexive is intended for "defenses" but what if you don't want it to turn itself on?

I could understand if you are unconscious that you can't stop it from happening, but if you are conscious, should you be able to will it not to activate?

If Reflexive is unstoppable (a defense will ALWAYs activate against a threat... your switchable Damage Resistance Force Field WILL stop that Small Piercing needle from giving you that vaccine!) then would "Selectivity" (ability to turn off enhancements) by the only way to stop it from auto-protecting you?

This is the only explanation I can figure for P119's "Those with this ability can’t shield others with their body, of course."

I don't think that originates from "Uncontrollable" because someone with Uncontrollable Insubstantiality COULD shield others with their body long as they passed their Will roll and the ability did not activate.

If you had Insubstantiality which is both Reflexive+Selective and Uncontrollable and wanted to shield someone with your body, then I imagine you could opt to use Selectivity to de-activate Reflexive (to prevent it automatically turning on) but then Uncontrollable would try to turn it on anyway, so you would need to make that Will roll.

Of course another way might be the limited enhancement of "Uncontrollable while Reflexive" (+36%) where you could remove the Uncontrollable limitation using Selectivity to turn off the limited enhancement?

The distinction I'm thinking is that while Reflexive auto-protects you "when exposed to damage", Uncontrollable would also activate it in non-damaging stressful situations like "someone is trying to gently touch me and triggered my phobia".

Grappling is an interesting thing since that's not exactly 'damage' but unlike a zero-damage "touch" can have negative effects (-4 to DX).

I'm thinking maybe one could treat "Control Points" (in Technical Grappling) like "damage" (1 cp triggers Reflexive, 0 cp does not) so that you don't have Reflexive Insubstantiality over-reacting to stuff like "we're gently holding hands" which on some level can likely be perceived as a 0CP grapple.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Plane

B116 "you must make a Will roll to keep your ability under control, even if you did not intend to use it!"

P109 "lets your ability switch itself on"

Reflexive is intended for "defenses" but what if you don't want it to turn itself on?

It's also intended for senses and anything that the GM deems serves a similar purpose. If you don't want it to turn itself on, don't take the enhancement.

I could understand if you are unconscious that you can't stop it from happening, but if you are conscious, should you be able to will it not to activate?

The point of reflexive is that the ability you've enhanced turns on by itself without you needing time to activate it, which is why it's great for defenses. The defense is there before you can get through processing, "oh, that's a threat. I need to protect myself." So, no, you should not be able to will it not to activate. OTOH, once it has activated, you can likely turn it off. But that is on your next choice of maneuver.

If Reflexive is unstoppable (a defense will ALWAYs activate against a threat... your switchable Damage Resistance Force Field WILL stop that Small Piercing needle from giving you that vaccine!) then would "Selectivity" (ability to turn off enhancements) by the only way to stop it from auto-protecting you?

Yes, selectivity would allow you to turn off Reflexive, but it would have to be for something like a needle that you know ahead of time is coming. However, until you turn Reflexive back on, Reflexive doesn't work on the ability at all. If you turn Reflexive off to get a jab from a needle and a bullet arrives at the same time, your defense won't activate to defend you against the bullet [not Reflexively, at any rate].

This is the only explanation I can figure for P119's "Those with this ability can’t shield others with their body, of course."

Please, check P118. The discussion on P119 about insubstantialty carries on from P118 where the discussion is about effective invulnerability, the different abilities that can be used to achieve that effective invulnerabilty and the limitations that ability has as an effective invulnerability.

In that context, P119's "Those with this ability can't shield others with their body, of course." is crystal clear in its interpretation. Yes, you can use Insubstantiality as way to model effective invulnerability, but it has the obvious limitation that unlike Superman's invulnerability, if you jump in front of someone while you're invulnerable because you are unsubstantial, you can't shield them with your body. The attack will go right through you [harmlessly] to affect them. It won't bounce off of you or be absorbed by you [maybe if you have a linked ability that would bounce or absorb the attack, but Insubstantiality by itself won't do that job]. That's an important limitation that keeps that effective invulnerability fairly priced compared with the other abilities you might you to achieve the same object.

That is as far as that statement goes on the subject of insubstantiality. It deals only with the base ability of Insubstantiality, saying nothing about it in regards to either being enhanced with Reflexive or limited by Uncontrollable.

<snip>

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

OTOH, once it has activated, you can likely turn it off.
But that is on your next choice of maneuver.

Reflexive counts as one level of Reduced Time meaning it would be a free action... which makes me wonder... if you can "power dodge" to activate Insubstantiality during your opponent's turn (to avoid attacks) couldn't you possibly also "power dodge" to DEactivate it during opponent's turn to shield an ally?

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Yes, selectivity would allow you to turn off Reflexive, but it would have to be for something like a needle that you know ahead of time is coming.

Given that selectivity AFAIK allows switching off enhancements as a free action, do you think a last-minute use of Selectivity to switch off an enhancement should be done like a power dodge?

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

However, until you turn Reflexive back on, Reflexive doesn't work on the ability at all. If you turn Reflexive off to get a jab from a needle and a bullet arrives at the same time, your defense won't activate to defend you against the bullet [not Reflexively, at any rate].

Well this makes me wonder... if it's a free action for Selectivity to disable an enhancement (and perhaps we allow power-dodge to disable them during opponent's turn) ...

If it is also a free action to re-activate disabled enhancements, maybe we could also allow that during opponent's turn via a Power Dodge?

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

It deals only with the base ability of Insubstantiality, saying nothing about it in regards to either being enhanced with Reflexive or limited by Uncontrollable.

I guess I wasn't sure whether to read it as "can't shield allies while insubstantial" or "can't turn substantial to shield allies"