Proposal: Soundless advantage

[Not another shrubbery]

From the Silence and Dynamic Silence thread, where I had suggested

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

I won't argue that Silence is an attractive buy at the price offered. AIS, a Soundless advantage would be my preference. OTTOMH, I'd figure that such a trait would probably be about half as valuable as Invisibility, would be inherently switchable [I never liked that feature of Invis.], and might have some analogue for Affects Machines. Maybe something like:

Soundless (Physical, Exotic) 20 points


You are completely silent when you wish to be. You can still be perceived by other senses, but are undetectable by hearing when this trait is switched "on". This effect does not extend to items worn or carried unless you take the Can Carry Objects enhancement. When Soundless is on, you cannot be heard nor recorded by any sound-recording device, and you cannot communicate by speech. You are still detectable by Sonar (see Invisibility for that).

Not playtested, but I'd imagine that would be a good starting point. I could be sold on an argument that it should be Supernatural rather than Exotic ;)

I thought a bit more about this after laserd's response in the original thread. I tried comparing my proposal to existing traits that served similar functions: Obscure (Hearing), Silence, and Illusion (Auditory Only). Obscure was fairly straightforward... Normally, Obscure is 2pts/level for -1 to Hearing. 10 levels makes a zone of inaudibility. Defensive (+50%) lets you hear normally. Temporary Disadvantage:Mute (-25%) covers the cannot talk limit envisioned. Reduced Area:Self Only restricts the effect only to you and what you are carrying (Pegging this at -25% is arbitrary, but probably not far off). This suggests a cost of 20 points.


Auditory Illusions is a more involved derivative, and thus more suspect: AudOnly is a -70% limit on Illusion. Cosmic NRR is +100%. (One Illusion Only, Silence) I estimate at -50%. I keep the same value from above for RedArea:SelfOnly, -25%. Independence (+40%) allows the Illusion to continue without mental effort. This suggests a cost of 23.75 points.

Silence, I eventually gave up on. The advantage as written seems overpriced in comparison to the constructs above, and would be replaced by the proposed Soundless construct anyway. I'd suggest that straight situational or racial modifiers to Stealth be used in its stead.

Currently, I think that the above write-up for Soundless only needs a change to the third sentence ("This effect does not extend..."). It would be simplest to just delete it entirely, but I still have the idea that encumbrance should matter somehow :?

Still tinkering...