Mutants & Masterminds 3e - Power Profile - Dream Powers
Mutants & Masterminds 3e - Power Profile - Dream Powers
Mutants & Masterminds 3e - Power Profile - Dream Powers
Dream Descriptors
The following are important descriptors associated with
dream powers.
Dream Features
In addition to an Enhanced Trait version of the Trance advantage (Heros Handbook, page 88), potential Feature effects
associated with Dream Powers include the following:
Offensive Powers
Offensive dream powers combine disturbing nightmare
images with control over sleep for effects ranging from
mental shock and fatigue to putting targets to sleep
against their will.
Dream Trap
You cause a sleeping target to go into a coma, trapped in
the dream-world and unable to wake. Although the targets condition is asleep, until the transformed condition
is removed, the target cannot awaken. A more gradual
version of this power may have the Cumulative or Progressive modifier.
Dream Trap: Perception Ranged Affliction (Resisted and
Overcome by Will; TransformedAsleep), Limited Degree
(third only), Limited to Sleeping Targets 1 point per rank.
Nightmare Blast
Putting your target through a terrible nightmare, you
are able to inflict psychic trauma so profound as to have
real consequences in the waking world. The exact nature
of the trauma and its effects depend on the nightmare
imagery, ranging from the classic if you fall to your death
in a dream, you die in reality to inducing coma (incapacitated), psychological conditioning (controlled), or even
changes in personality (transformed). This power is normally limited to affecting a sleeping targets dreams. If you
remove the Limited modifier, you can project a Nightmare
Blast into the mind of any target you can perceive, waking
or sleeping. This power uses the Variable Conditions extra
from the Illusion Power profile.
Nightmare Blast: Perception Ranged Affliction (Resisted and
Overcome by Will; conditions vary), Variable Conditions,
Variable Descriptor 1 (nightmares), Limited to Sleeping
Targets 1 point + 4 points per rank.
Sleep
You can place a target into a deep sleep, simply by looking
at them. In addition to the usual resistance check to overcome the asleep condition, the target can be awakened
by normal means (see Sleep under Dream Descriptors).
This power may be both Subtle and Insidious, meaning
the target is unaware you are causing sleep; they simply
feel more and more drowsy until they finally drop off.
Sleep: Perception Ranged Cumulative Affliction (Resisted and
Overcome by Will; Fatigued, Exhausted, Asleep) 4 points
per rank.
Sleep Deprivation
You leave a target unable to sleep, or at least unable to
rest, their sleep troubled by disturbing images and nightmares such that it provides no recovery from fatigue.
Sleep Deprivation: Perception Ranged Affliction (Resisted
and Overcome by Will; Fatigued, Exhausted, Incapacitated),
Progressive, Subtle, Limited to one check per day 1 point +
4 points per rank.
Defensive Powers
Defensive dream powers primarily protect against other
dream powers or the effects of fatigue or sleeplessness.
Dream Dissipation
You can counteract the effects of dream powers, either allowing a subject to return to wakefulness (if something
prevented them from doing so) or slip into a normal
asleep condition. This power affects a single subject by
default but the Area modifier allows it to affect multiple
subjects at once. The GM may allow an area use of this
power in the dream dimension to affect a group within
the designated area there, regardless of how far apart
their sleeping physical forms may be.
Dream Dissipation: Nullify Dream Powers, Simultaneous
2 points per rank.
Dream Immunity
You are unaffected by dream powers, either due to some
sort of shielding or protection or simply because you do
not dream (see the Sleepless power, following, if you also
do not sleep).
Sleepless
You do not ever need to sleep or dream, although you
may choose to do so, if you wish (as a descriptor of the
Immunity effect). If you are incapable of dreaming, then
you also have the Dream Immunity power (previously).
Note that this power does not grant immunity to physical
fatigue: you still tire from exertion and need to rest, you
simply do not sleep or tire from mental activity.
Sleepless: Immunity 1 (Sleep) 1 point.
Movement Powers
Most dream movement powers are concerned with shifting in or out of a dreaming state or the dream dimension.
In addition to those powers, characters in a dream may
possess movement capabilities they do not in waking
lifeas anyone who has experienced a flying dream
knows. It is up to the GM whether the ground rules of
a particular dream grant characters additional movement
abilities or if they are best handled as power stunts (see
the Dream Dimension under Dream Descriptors).
Dreamport
You can bodily transport yourself over great distances
in the waking world by traveling through the dreams of
sleepers. You must be within about arms reach of a sleeping dreamer and you emerge into the waking world about
the same distance from another sleeping dreamer within
range of your Teleport effect. Other Teleport modifiers,
particularly Extended, are common for this power.
Dreamport: Teleport, Accurate, Medium (dreamers) 2 points
per rank.
Dream Projection
You project a mental image of yourself into another persons dreams. You cannot perceive the content of the dream
unless you also have Dream Reading (see Utility Powers)
but you can communicate with the dreamer and anyone
else present within the dream. You will tend to blend into
the context of the dream, although with a modest effort of
will you can exert your normal appearance. If the power is
Insidious, then your dream projection fits into the dream
and is taken as just another element of it, granting you a
circumstance bonus to use the projection for interaction
checks like Deception against the dreamer.
Healing Trance
Dream Travel
Utility Powers
The power over dreams has many potential uses, from
learning about a persons innermost thoughts to influencing them or even controlling the otherworldly realm of
dreams itself.
Dream Control
You have the ability to control the content of a persons
dreams, dictating what they dream, creating nightmares,
or soothing them, and so forth. If you can draw images
from the subjects own mind, apply the Psychic modifier
(see the Illusion Powers profile).
Dream Control: Illusion (All Senses), Limited to Minds, Limited to
Sleeping Subjects 3 points per rank.
Dream Mastery
You are virtually omnipotent in the world of dreams,
limited solely by your imagination and willpower in terms
of what you can accomplish.
This power is significantly limited, in that both you and
anyone you interact with must be asleep and dreaming, but
otherwise it is capable of achieving real effects in that anything affecting dreamers on the mental level is reflected in
the waking world, including damage and other conditions.
There may even be psychosomatic or mystical physical repercussions of your powers, depending on descriptors.
Dream Mastery: Variable (dream powers, Free Action, Limited to
while asleep, Limited to while in dreams) 7 points per rank.
Dream Reading
You can connect to a sleeping subjects dreams and perceive them as they occur, as if they were happening to
you, but with a degree of psychological distance insulating you from their effects. You can even direct the dream
to a degree to uncover particular information the subject
knows, ranging from direct questioning of the subjects
dreaming self, to revealing imagery, such as revisiting old
memories. The subject may (with an Insight check versus
DC 10 + power rank) perceive you as a presence in the
dream, perhaps cloaked in appropriate imagery, unless
your power is Subtle. The subject gets the usual Will resistance check to prevent you from perceiving anything or
from increasing the information you receive.
Dream Reading: Mind Reading, Limited to Sleeping Subjects 1
point per rank.
Dream Touch
You can reach out with your mind to touch the sleeping mind of another being known to you, sufficient for
you to connect with their dreams and use other Perception Ranged dream powers on them. This is a particularly
useful power, in spite of working only on sleeping minds,
and Gamemasters should be careful about allowing playercontrolled characters to have and use it, since it can potentially unbalance the game and may leave other characters
largely out of the activity that occurs on the dream level.
Dream Touch: Remote Sensing (mental), Senses 4 (Accurate
Ranged Detect Dreamers, mental) 4 points + 1 point per rank.
Precognitive Dreams
You receive visions of the future in your dreams. These may
be couched in symbolic dream imagery and require interpretation, but you always know the difference between
a vision and an ordinary dream. This power is often Uncontrolled in addition to only occurring while you dream,
meaning the visions come unbidden, and only when the
Gamemaster chooses.
Precognitive Dreams: Senses 4 (Precognition), Limited to
Dreaming 2 points.
Sleep Substitute
You can provide the benefits of sleep to someone without
them actually needing to sleep for any length of time.
Sleep Substitute: Healing (Energizing, Limited to Energizing) 1
point per rank.
Phobia
Lastly, depending on how dreams and the dream dimension work in the setting, some Summoning Powers could
also be dream powers, calling servants or minions from
the depths of the dream dimension or out of a targets
own worst nightmares.
Dream Complications
Power Loss
Accident
Its one thing for a hero to cause collateral damage in
the real world, but what do you do when you accidentally
break something in someones mind? An accident in the
dream world could have serious psychological or even
physical consequences in waking reality, giving heroes
good reason to be careful when adventuring in others
psyches and to return to clean up or repair any damage
they might have done (an adventure unto itself ).
Addiction
Plenty of fiction has speculated about addiction of dream
games or similar recreational uses of lucid or directed
dreaming. Characters might become addicted to living
in a dream world where all of their fantasies seem completely real and fulfilled, particularly if reality is harsh or
uncompromising. Those with dream powers may suffer
from the same sort of addiction or to a need to interact
withor even feed onthe dreams of others.
Disability
Dream powers do not require anything more than the
ability to sleep and dream, so they may allow a character
who is physically disabled to actively adventure in both
the dreaming and waking worlds. The characters physical
body might even be completely paralyzed or comatose!
In more extreme cases, the character could be a disembodied brain sustained by life support machinery, or a
conscious dream completely unaware that he or she is
not real, simply a figment of someone elses imagination.
Enemy
Dream powered characters often pick up an enemy or two
from the realm of dreams, anything from the living embodiment of nightmares or a rogue god of dreams to a
manifestation of the heros own repressed shadow side
or a rival dreamweaver with similar powers, but different
motives for using them.
Responsibility
Characters with dream powers are sometimes healers
of broken and scarred psyches. Day jobs as psychologists, counselors, or other mental health professionals are
common, and the character may feel a sense of responsibility to patients and those in need.
Secret
Like illusions, dreams are a subtle power. Its just a dream
is the mantra for warding off even their most frightening
effects. Characters with dream powers also often have significant limitations in the waking world, giving them good
reasons to keep the full nature and scope of their powers
and identities secret. Its one thing to deal with the mysterious Dream Mastera cloaked and hooded figure who
appears in dreams and wields great powerand learning
that the Dream Master is really a paraplegic mutant boy
living in a shoddy apartment complex by day, only barely
aware of his own nighttime activities. Indeed, given the
nature of dreams, it is possible some aspects about the
character are secret even from his or her waking self! It all
seems like just a dream.
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