SUPER-SENSES

Effect: Sensory

Action: Free

Range: Personal

Duration: Permanent

Cost: 1 point per rank

Optional: Fatigue

One or more of your senses are enhanced. Each rank gives you one of the following effects. Some options require more than one rank, noted in their descriptions.

ENHANCED SENSES

The following effects enhance or improve existing senses, whether one of the five normal senses or the additional senses listed in the following section.

• Accurate (2 or 4 ranks): You can use a sense to pinpoint something’s exact location. You can use an accurate sense to target something in combat. Visual senses are accurate for humans. 2 ranks for one sense, 4 for an entire sense type.

• Acute (1 or 2 ranks): You can sense fine details about anything you can detect with a particular sense. Visual and auditory senses are acute for humans. 1 rank for one sense, 2 for an entire sense type.

• Extended (1 rank): You have a sense that operates at greater than normal range. Your range increment with the sense is increased by a factor of 10. Each additional time you apply this option, your range increment increases by an additional factor of 10, so one increase makes the range increment 100, two makes it 1000, and so on.

• Radius (1–5 ranks): You can make Notice checks with a Ranged sense against any point around you. Subjects behind you cannot use Stealth to hide from you without some other concealment. Cost:1 rank for use with one sense, 2 ranks for one sense type, 5 ranks for all your senses.

• Ranged (1 rank): You can use a sense that normally has no range (taste or touch in humans) to make Notice checks at a normal range increment (–1 per 10 feet).

ADDITIONAL SENSES

The effects here grant additional sensory capabilities or senses beyond the normal five senses.

• Awareness (1 rank): You can sense the use of powers or effects with a particular descriptor with a successful Notice check (DC 10, modified by range). Examples include Cosmic Awareness, Divine Awareness, Magical Awareness, Mental Awareness, and so forth. You can apply other Super-Senses to your Awareness to increase its range and scope. Choose the sense type of your Awareness; usually, it is a mental sense.

• Blindsight (4 ranks): Using a non-visual sense type (chosen when you take this effect), you can maneuver as well as a sighted character. Obscure effects are irrelevant to you unless they specifically affect the sense type you use (such as Obscure Radio against a radar sense). You can make Notice checks using Blindsight, but you cannot distinguish fine detail or colors (Blindsight is accurate, but not acute.)

• Communication Link (1 rank): You have a link with a particular individual, chosen when you acquire this option, who must also have this power. The two of you can communicate over any distance like a use of the Communication power (see page 78). Choose a communication medium when you select this option.

• Danger Sense (1 rank): When you would normally be surprised in combat (see Surprise, page 153), make a Notice check (DC 15). Success means you are not surprised and may act during the surprise round (if any). Failure means you are surprised (although, if you have the Uncanny Dodge feat, you retain your dodge bonus to Defense). The GM may raise the DC of the Danger Sense check in some circumstances. Your Danger Sense must belong to a particular sense type (see Sense Types, page 68). Sensory effects targeting that sense also affect your Danger Sense ability and may “blind” it.

• Darkvision (2 ranks): You can see normally in the dark, even darkness created by an Obscure effect (although other Obscure descriptors, such as fog or blinding light, affect you normally).

• Detect (1 rank): You can detect a particular item or effect with a move action and a Notice check. Detect has no range and only indicates the presence or absence of something. Choose what sense type your Detect falls under. +1 rank allows you to use Detect as a free action (making it a Sense). A seperate +1 rank can permit you to detect at range.

• Direction Sense (1 rank): You always know what direction north lies in and can retrace your steps through any place you’ve been.

• Distance Sense (1 rank): You can accurately and automatically judge distances.

• Infravision (1 rank): You can see in the infrared portion of the spectrum, allowing you to see heat patterns. Darkness does not provide concealment for objects differing in temperature from their surroundings. If you have the Track option, you can track warm creatures by the faint heat trails they leave behind.

• Low-Light Vision (1 rank): You can see twice as far in low-light conditions as normal.

• Microscopic Vision (1–4 ranks): You can view extremely small things. You can make Search checks to see tiny things in your own area. This costs 1 rank for dust-sized objects, 2 ranks for cellular-sized, 3 ranks for DNA and complex molecules, 4 ranks for atomic-sized. The GM may require a Knowledge skill check, particularly Knowledge (physical sciences) to interpret what you see.

• Postcognition (4 ranks): You can perceive events that took place in the past. You can make Notice and Search checks to pick up on past information in an area or from a subject. The Gamemaster sets the DC for these checks based on how obscure and distant in the past the information is, from 15 (for a vague vision that may or may not be accurate) to 30 (for near complete knowledge of a particular past event as if you were actually present). Your normal (present-day) senses don’t work while you’re using Postcognition; your awareness is focused on the past. Your postcogntive visions last for as long as you concentrate. Postcognition does not apply to mental powers like Mind Reading or any other ability requiring interaction with the past.

• Precognition (4 ranks): You can perceive events that may happen in the future. Your precognitive visions represent possible futures. If circumstances change, then the vision may not come to pass. When you use this ability, the Gamemaster chooses what information to impart. Your visions may be obscure and cryptic, open to interpretation. The Gamemaster may require appropriate Notice skill checks for you to pick up on particularly detailed information, with a DC ranging from 15 to 30 or more. The GM can also activate your Precognitionto impart specific information to you as an adventure hook or plot device. Your normal (present-day) senses don’t work while you’re using Precognition; your awareness is focused on the future. Your precognitive visions last as long as you concentrate. Precognition does not apply to mental powers like Mind Reading or any other ability requiring interaction with the future.

• Radio (1 rank): You can “hear” radio frequencies including AM, FM, television, cellular, police bands, and so forth. This allows you to pick up on Radio Communication (see page 78).

• Scent (1 rank): You can detect and identify individuals by scent alone, although you cannot determine things like exact location, only their presence or absence (your sense of smell is acute, but not accurate).

• Time Sense (1 rank): You always know what time it is and can time events as if you had an accurate stopwatch.

• Tracking (1 rank): You can follow trails and track using a particular sense. The basic DC to follow a trail is 10, modified by circumstances, as the GM sees fit. You only move at half normal speed while tracking. For 2 ranks, you can move at full normal speed while tracking, for 3 ranks you can move all-out while tracking.

• Tremorsense (3 ranks): You can accurately feel the location of moving objects in contact with the same surface as you (such as the ground). If used underwater, you can feel objects moving through the water all around you, like a Radius sense.

• Ultra-Hearing (1 rank): You can hear very high and low frequency sounds, like dog whistles or ultrasonic signals.

• Ultravision (1 rank): You can see ultraviolet light, allowing you to see normally at night by the light of the stars or other UV light sources.

• X-Ray Vision (4 ranks): You can see through solid objects as if they weren’t there (such objects provide no concealment to you). You have to define one reasonably common substance you can’t see through (such as lead, gold, iron, wood, etc.). A subject with no cover or concealment relative to you cannot use Stealth to hide