One of the players in my game wanted to recreate a weapon from Terraria for her M&M character. She wanted to create a Flamarang.
We worked out the basic ability: Ranged Damage 8, Limited Range (3) – it shoots out up to 80 feet, dealing fire damage.
She then wanted a chance to set enemies on fire. While the book says that it doesn't take extra for a flame attack to ignite flammable objects, it seems that it's more common for people in superhero comics to not catch on fire from most of the fire attacks (unless it's intentional or supposed to be a learning moment for the hero).
So how would I model a secondary effect to the Flamarang that lights the target on fire if they fail a reflex save, and burns for a number of turns (or until extinguished) dealing damage each turn?
Best Answer
Honestly, in 3E, your options are pretty limited. In DC Adventures, they established an Increased Duration extra that would let you take your Instant Damage up to Concentration, then Sustained. When they put out the 3E Heroes Handbook, they took that back out. If you allow it up to there, you could probably add Fades to have it reduce in rank over time.
In 2E, you would bring the Damage up to Sustained, then apply the +0 Independent modifier from Ultimate Power, which was a combination of Increased Duration (to Continuous) and Fades with some handwaved bits about how it continued operating without your control, but it was actually outside of your control after that, requiring something like a Counter action to stop it.
If you do set things up to Fade , I recommend having damage effects fade at a rate of 1 rank per round instead of the canonical 1 pp per round, especially if there are some extras on it like Area (Cone) and with the additional cost of getting it up to Sustained. Also, adopt the commonsense rule allowing for environmental and/or skill counters to end the effect (so that a fire-extinguisher, jumping into a pool of water, or stop-drop-and-roll will work).