[Types]
(Rank 1)
You apply your keen intelligence to outwit the dark forces, reveal corruption, and put a stop to illegal activities. Though some see you as a super-detective able to piece together fragmented clues and unravel complex mysteries that stump the police, you can also hold your own in a fight. You might be skilled in various martial arts, tactical combat, and/or strategic use of nonlethal gadgets, ensuring you can subdue opponents of all kinds.
You often work alone in the shadows, but sometimes you join other heroes, especially when they are looking for a way forward against a particularly cunning villain. You being part of the team means they gain something of your reputation—a terrifying enigma who will pursue criminals wherever they might lead.
To know what the details in an ability description mean, see see Understanding Character Abilities
You build a single-use technological device. You can choose its effect from the low-power manifest cypher table. Your device cypher counts toward your cypher limit (or to the limit of anyone you give the device to). If you are already at your cypher limit, your choice of one of your current cyphers shorts out, had to be salvaged for parts to create the new device, or something similar, and the new device takes its place.
Each time you use Always Tinkering, you can choose a different manifest cypher you want to build.
At tier 3, you can choose a low or medium-power manifest cypher as a single-use device.
At tier 6, you can choose a low, medium-, or advanced-power manifest cypher as a single-use device.
Ten minutes to build.
When you’re tracking a target, looking for anything out of the ordinary (such as a clue or a single piece of evidence) at the scene of interest, or otherwise attempting to learn something about a mystery, you can ask your GM one question about the task and get a very short, helpful answer that might be obvious to your character, but not to the player who doesn’t have their character’s experience.
You are trained in a specific attack of your choice, such as eye lasers, punches, or guns; or in a broader category of attacks such as light bashing weapons, light bladed weapons, light ranged weapons, medium bashing weapons, medium bladed weapons, medium ranged weapons, and so on.
At tier 2, you can choose to become specialized in the same attack method you chose at tier 1, but you must gain the skill normally.
At tier 6, you can become an expert in a specific attack method (either the one you chose at tier 1 or another weapon skill you're already specialized in), but you must gain the skill normally.
Choose one Pool: Might, Speed, or Intellect. For tasks using your chosen Pool, add your rank to the amount of Effort you can apply, allowing you to apply additional levels of Effort to tasks in that Pool.
In addition, you can choose to push yourself so hard that you take a moderate wound in exchange for two free levels of Effort you can apply to tasks in your chosen Pool (as long as this doesn’t push you past your Effort limit for that Pool).
By using Effort and free levels of Effort, higher-tier superhero characters can easily hit he game’s normal limit for six levels of Effort on any task. The Superheroics ability adjusts this limit upward so the ability remains useful at higher tiers. In effect, superhero characters have three different Effort limits (one for each Pool) instead of just one.
Finally, add your rank as a bonus to your recovery, with those points going only into the Pool you have chosen.