Shrinking

Shrinking

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Class:     Physical    Link:        Str
Range:     Self        Type:        Auto
Base Cost: 15          Factor Cost: 5     

Description: This Power allows a Character to decrease their size. For each AP of Shrinking that such a Character engages, one AP is added to their OV against Physical Attacks and one AP is subtracted from their movement speed. A Character need not use the full AP's of Shrinking; they may choose how much to shrink. A Character's Attributes are not affected by the use of Shrinking.

In addition, a Character with Shrinking might be hard to notice in certain situations, depending on the Character's size. If a Perception Check is made to notice a shrunken Character, the AP's of Power which the Character has engaged serve as the OV/RV to the Perception attempt. The AP's of Shrinking reduce the character in size as detailed in the following chart:

AP's   Size         
2      Small Human
3      Dog
5      Cat
6      Small Bird
8      Mouse
11     Insect
13     Tiny Insect
25     Virus
32     Atom

This Power may be purchased with a special -2 Factor Cost Limitation: Character's Str and Weight are Reduced by The AP's of Shrinking Engaged.

Salu Digby (Shrinking Violet) of the Legion of Superheroes has this Power.



Source: 3rd Edition Rulebook, page 49



Ed's Notes: A weird note on the Atom's write-up, another Hero who famously has this Power. 2nd Edition Sources had the "Bonus" that "[Density Increase] can negate the positive Column Shifts on his opponents' RV's against Physical Attacks (see Shrinking in the Character Handbook.)" The only problem is that the entry for the Power includes no such mention of RV Bonuses (in either 1st or 2nd Edition) nor does include the Limitation suggested above. Since that seems to be what they were going for, originally I went ahead and reworded the "Bonus" into the "Limitation" with the caveat that AP's of Density Increase can offset it (by one AP for each AP engaged.) So at full shrinking (16) he'd be about the size of a bacteria, have an OV of 22 against Physical Attacks, but a Str of -8. If he activated Density Increase at full power, his Str would go up to about -3 (lol) and his OV would DROP to 17. There is probably a decent, balanced combination of Shrinking and Density Increase that he could use, but it does appear that at ANY combination he'd either be too weak, too slow, or just not all that enhanced. I think the problem, mechanically, was that the books referred to negative COLUMN SHIFTS not AP's. So I really had to tweak that rather a bit to come up with something that doesn't render him basically useless in combat. See his entry for more details.