MP - Converting Magnetic Powers to Mighty Protectors

As ive said before, MP does a great job capturing the feel of VnV powers, often while extending and clarifying them. Light Control and Sonic Abilities are two great examples.

In many cases, the translation loses a bit, even while improving some core aspects, and Magnetic Powers is one of these.

In VnV, Magnetic Powers has three core components: a direct-damage magnetic blast, magnetic manipulation of ferrous metal objects, and a protective deflection barrier (or "force field").

MP's Magnetism Ability does a fantastic job capturing the essence of the first two, while streaming and clarifying both. I love that it explicitly defines control of two objects, or one object and a direct-damage attack, with an easy modifier to increase the number kd objects available. The loss of "duration" is easily offset by the reduced PR, which also elomates a sometimes-frustrating variable ("So, Magnetic Man can control objects twice as long as me, for the same PR, because he has Heightened Strength? What a bogus combo!")

Reduced PR is easily the most wonderful and readily abused Modifier in the game. Reduced PR on Magnetism? Boo-yah, who needs "duration" anymore!

If the Magnetism Ability has one flaw in the translation from Magnetic Powers, I think it is in the defensive power.

Magnetism quite reasonably says to apply the Personal Force Field only against ferrous metals. However, anyone who has studied physics knows powerful magnetic fields can do more than this, such as protect the Earth from "cosmic radiation" (which is ionic particles, meaning they have a charge that can be affected by a magnetic field). 

Also, while this limitation is consistent with common sense, it is not consistent with either the comic book sources, nor the VnV roots (where Magnetic Powers worked against a variety of other attacks).

I think VnV Magnetic Powers defense is better represented by something like this:

• Magnetic Force Shield - Personal Force Field: Protection 22 total, Kinetic 5, Energy 7, Biochemical 4, Entropy 6 (17.5), PR=8 to activate, Modifiers: Reduced PR (+5) (22.5 CP) 

And I have done so in this example.  In VnV, most of the attack powers map to an Energy or Entropy attack, and Magnetic Powers is very effective against those. This is consistent with the comic books.