Barrier Powers (FiD)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark fan page

Main Page is Powers Barrier is the ability to create walls and circles of protection. A barrier is normally a wall up to your twice your tier meters in height and width or a globe with a diameter equal to your tier. Yes, that means that at tier zero, you cannot create a barrier. If you only know this power, the barriers you make are transparent and vaguely luminous. If you use another power together with barrier, you can imbue your barrier with that power at no additional cost, which can give additional effects, often damage to creatures that try to break through your barrier. A barrier can be one-way, hindering effects only one way.

When used to attack, barrier takes the form of darts or blades that cut or pierce.

No creatures are associated with the barrier power.

Barrier Power Effects Table

Action	Basic No minimum 3 Stress	Advanced Minimum 2 Dice 5 Stress	Master Minimum 4 Dice 7 Stress	Apex Minimum 6 Dice 13 Stress
Attune	Perceive You can feel the presence of barriers of all kinds. You can identify what power a creature is linked to, which helps you to decide what kind of barrier to use against it.	Ward Barriers you create can repel any summoned creature and stop any power. When you create the barrier, you can make it ignore some powers of your choice.	Sanctuary A barrier you create can selectively bar mundane creatures and effects.	Arena You can create a large extradimensional barrier covering an entire scene. You can pick who you bring into this extradimensional space, and who stays put. People you bring can in turn bring allies.
Command	Message Ward You can create signs or imbue barriers that impart a simple non-verbal message across language barriers to creatures nearby.	Translation Wall You can create a barrier that translates speech from one side to the other. You need to know these languages, or at least have a dictionary.	Mental Well You can make a barrier that commands all or certain creatures not to cross. This can be in addition to other effects of the barrier.	Honey Well You can make a barrier that commands all or certain creatures to cross. Making the barrier one-way thus creates a prison.
Consort	Magic Mask You can create clothes and accessories from barrier. These can take any form but look supernatural. This can mask your identity or create fabulous outfits.	Body Mask You can cover yourself in an obviously supernatural barrier that envelops you, disguises your appearance and can even change your sounds and scents.	Give Mask You can use Body Mask on willing or helpless creatures. In combination with other powers you can create barriers that change those who pass through them, making such as an underwater club where every guest gets a mermaid tail and the like.	Wild Hunt You can body mask a large number of creatures over a wide area, making them anonymous and unidentifiable.
Finesse	Ride You can control existing devices based on barriers. Barrier devices are rare and barrier vehicles rarely even exist.	Barrier Blade You can create barrier splinters that work as a fine and potent close-range attack, similar in effect to a fine potent dueling sword	Labyrinth You can create very temporary barriers that are persistent enough to split a battlefield and negate an advantage in numbers.	Storm of Blades Your barriers can form a storm of blades, suppressing the effect of multiple opponents and acting as a fine potent weapon.
Hunt	Track Barriers You can sense and track barriers powers.	Cage You can cage a target to isolate it for an hour or so.	Prison You can cage all creatures in a small area. This allows you to fight many creatures in the same area very effectively, but there is a risk of caging allies.	Fort You can create a great barrier bubble that spans a small city, allowing you to control who can pass.
Prowl	Dark Barrier Gives you the protection of a barrier when you prowl, reducing position by one step to a minimum of controlled.	Barrier Walk You can move on and through barriers.	Barrier Team You can use Dark Barrier and Barrier Walk on you and allies simultaneously.	Bubble Walk You and allies can teleport from inside one globular barrier and into another. This is regional travel, you stay within the same city or region.
Skirmish	Barrier Blade You can use barriers as close-range attacks, similar in effect to a melee weapon or pistol.	Fine Barrier Blade Same as Skirmish Attack, except the weapon is fine and potent.	Maze You cage all opponents who try to attack you except the one you are fighting. You can do this as a part of an attack.	Barrier Shards Your power strikes out in all directions, attacking all enemies in a wide area.
Study	Analyze You can identify and get a basic analysis of a barrier.	Research You know the powers and abilities of something you analyze.	Hindsight You can read the past events of something you analyze. This allows you to see the creator as they create the barrier.	Omniscience You research every barrier in a large area. This is easy to do where you are, more difficult at range. You can then use hindsight on some of these targets.
Survey	Detect Barriers You can sense barriers at a distance and understand their general nature. This works even when you can't see the target, but both range and information suffers.	Barrier Eye Choose a power barrier that you have detected; you can perceive as if you were at that spot. You cannot use your Survey action for anything else when doing so.	Barrier Scry Choose a location or creature. You gain a sensor at the nearest power barrier, which is often close enough to perceive the target.	Omnibarrier You perceive from all power barriers at once over a wide area. As long as you concentrate you retain this perception and can report what you see to others.
Sway	Signpost You can create signs or imbue barriers that impart a simple non-verbal message across language barriers to creatures nearby	Echo Wall You can create a barrier that translates emotions and expressions from one side to the other. This is not language-dependent.	Insinuate You can imbue a barrier with the ability to insinuate an action in the mind of a nearby creature. Common insinuation are to steal something, attack someone, or ignore some event.	Instill You change the personality and motivations of creatures that move through a barrier. The target remember their past, but regard it as unimportant compared to their new motivations.
Tinker	Barrier Beginner You can manipulate existing power barriers as if they were made of stout wood.	Barrier Novice You can barriers to block passage and attacks.	Barrier Master You can create complex barriers.	Barrier Factor This is similar to Barrier Master, but you mass produce objects, even a set of different objects. You can also make something large, such as a vehicle or building.
Wreck	Jimmy Barrier You can noisily jimmy barriers, but not to a great degree.	Smash Barriers Similar to jimmy. When smashing barriers you affect hard objects as if they were wood. Works as a fine potent sledgehammer in combat.	Aegisbreaker Similar to smash, but destroyed barriers silently disappear or are reduced to a fine dust.	Aegisquake Similar to smash, but over a large area. This can level a city block, empty a canal system of water, raze a city wall, and similar massive destruction.

Expanded Barrier Powers

Expanded descriptions of effects that differ significantly from Typical Powers.

Attune

Barrier powers are not linked to any kind of supernatural creature or plane. Instead, you learn how to create barriers that specifically protect against summoned creatures and alter against supernatural creatures.

Perceive: You can feel the presence of barriers of all kinds. You can identify what power a creature is linked to, which helps you to decide what kind of barrier to use against it.

This is usually done to spot a disguised summoned creature. However, it can also help identify a creature's connection to powers, providing valuable insights into their nature. The position usually starts controlled, with the usual consequence that you cannot try again in the same situation. A risky consequence could make your scrying noticeable to onlookers or give you faulty information. A desperate consequence could allow targets enough information to set up an ambush, or misidentify who the target is possibly leading you to attack the wrong creature.

Scanning a specific creature you can see only requires a limited effect. Scanning an area you can see, even maintaining a scan as you move around to inspect several areas, requires standard effect. Scanning an area you cannot see requires great effect.

Ward: Barriers you create can repel any summoned creature and stop any power. When you create the barrier, you can make it ignore some powers of your choice.

Barrier cannot dismiss creatures. However, you can create selective barriers that only hinder certain types of creatures, enhancing the utility of your defenses. This increases the utility of the barrier as it can potentially be made to block enemies and not allies. You can make a barrier that only hinders fire creatures, or a barrier that hinders all but mind and air creatures. At this level, you cannot selectively bar creatures that lack powers, if you use Ward, your barrier can be ignored by mundane creatures and effects. If you don't use Ward, your barrier will block everything. This is an added feature to whatever Barrier effect you are using, it uses the position and effect of that ability.

Dispelling any power effect is more versatile than the common effect. Most powers only dispel effects of their own power, but barrier can dispel the effect of any power. It can be used as a defense against others' use of power, or it can be used to break the continuing effects of powers.

Dispelling is usually used as a setup action to help another character in a situation when the opposition is using powers. The position is controlled, possibly risky if there are a lot of other dangers around. Limited effect creates an opening that makes the supported action potent. Normal effect improves the position of the supported action. Great effect improves both position and effect of the supported power.

When used directly, the effect is usually limited unless the opponent is relying on powers for their safety. Against an opponent that uses power to fly or even breathe you can have a better effect.

When it is dramatically appropriate that a power is hard to dispel, often because it is the crux of the situation, this will simply not work, but will instead give you a clue to what you need to do to resolve the situation.

Sanctuary: A barrier you create can selectively bar mundane creatures and effects.

This is the same as Barrier, above, except it is not restricted to affecting creatures with powers. People are governed by the Mind power and most other mundane creatures by the Animal power. You also block mundane attacks used by the selected types of creatures.

Arena You can create a large extradimensional space covering an entire scene. You can pick who you bring into this extradimensional space, and who stays put. People you bring can in turn bring allies.

This essentially creates an arena without bystanders where you can interact with others without risking collateral damage. It moves you and selected creatures into an extradimensional space that is identical to the physical reality of the place where you used this ability, but only you and the selected creatures are there. Creatures you select as the primary targets can in turn make Attune tests to select other allied creatures in the area and bring them along as well, but such secondary targets have the option to refuse to come and can't invite more creatures.

The area is rather large, a city block or terrain like a grove, field, or lake. Large enough to have an interesting encounter in, small enough that its not very useful for travel. It lasts until all conscious creatures in the area agree to end the effect, or for a maximum of one day.

Anything picked up while in this extradimensional space works normally as long as they remain there, but disappears when creatures try to bring them out of the extradimensional space. This means that any doors, barriers, traps, fortifications, and similar features of the area are still present. Any changes in the extradimensional space do not carry over to physical reality when Arena ends.

Using this ability is pretty easy, if costly. It is used to set up a situation to avoid collateral damage rather than to win a confrontation, so the only effect on targets is to bring them along and possibly to separate them from their allies.

Bringing people along that you can see is a controlled situation, bringing people you know well or if you have a body part or recently used item is a risky situation, and bringing creatures based on a description is a desperate position. Your primary targets that use Attune to bring allies along are always in a controlled situation. A common consequence is that there might be faults in the extradimensional space where it differs from physical reality, usually to your opponent's advantage.

A limited effect brings you and one other person. A standard effect brings you and a small group of allies (usually the other player characters) and a similar group of outsiders. Great effect can bring a large gang of both allies and enemies, and might sometimes be required to bring a particularly tough opponent, such as a legendary creature.

Command

There are no Barrier creatures for you to Command. Instead you can turn barriers into signposts that transmit or even translate messages. At the highest levels, you can mentally call or repel creatures from a barrier.

Message Ward: You can create signs or imbue barriers that impart a simple non-verbal message across language barriers to creatures nearby.

This is basically a mental signpost. Creatures approaching the barrier hear your message as if it was spoken in their native language. They are not compelled to do anything. This is a modification to some other barrier you are setting up, it does nto have a position or effect of its own.

Translation Wall: You can create a barrier that translates speech from one side to the other. You need to know these languages, or at least have a dictionary.

When you set up this barrier, pick two languages you know or have dictionary for and decide which side of the barrier will use which language. Any words of the chosen language will be translated into the other language and be spoken on the other side of the barrier. So if you pick French and German, anything said in French on one side will be translated into German on the other side, and vice-verso. The quality of the translation depends on your fluency in the language.

This is usually used as a setup action. The position is usually controlled unless hostiles are trying to stop you. Consequences complicate communication or waste time. Effect determines the volume of speech and the authority words are spoken with.

Mental Well: You can make a barrier that commands all or certain creatures not to cross. This can be in addition to other effects of the barrier.

You can make your barrier to repel certain types of creatures. Type is defined by the powers they are related to, so people are Mind, animals are Animal, and monsters are whatever power they use. You don't need to know a power to affect creatures of that type, but if you do you increase your effect.

This is a mental compulsion that is not dependent on language or even sound. This is a command to stay away from the barrier, out of sight or further away than a typical ranged attack using Hunt has range at your tier.

These things are mainly used as defenses. Creating permanent Mental Wells, such as defenses for your base, is a long-term project. Simple fortune rolls can be made for opponents to see if they escape the effect, with relative tier modifying the effect

Used during a score, this is a kind of diversion to mislead an encounter. A large number of creatures can be creature caught in the effect, and they will ignore anything but immediate threats while wrestling with the lure of the Mental Well. You can select a small group of allies that are immune to the effect. Limited effect provides a brief distraction. Standard effect lasts for the entirety of the score. Great effect means targets will ignore even direct threats, allowing you to lure them away in the middle of combat. Position depends on how dangerous the situation is, controlled if the opposition is unaware of you, desperate in the middle of a fight (where you will also need great effect).

Honey Well: You can make a barrier that commands all or certain creatures to cross. Making the barrier one-way thus creates a prison.

This is the same as Mental Well, but it attracts instead of repels, making creatures move towards your barrier and stay there. You can make the barrier such that they can enter but not leave, trapping them physically as well as mentally. The rules are the same as Mental Well, but the effect is more absolute, instead of dispersing targets you concentrate them at one spot, clearing the area more effectively, making them vulnerable to area attacks, and potentially trapping them physically as well.

Hunt

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Track, attack, and unleash devastating barrages with the power of Hunt. As you advance in power, the scope of your attacks becomes greater, allowing you to control significant areas and cause widespread destruction. At short range, this is dangerous to you and yours.

Track: You can track and pursue based on your power, even if the target does not leave any mundane trail or clues.

Consequences here are mainly to lose the trail, but depending on the environment and targets, it might lead you to get lost, into traps, or even into an ambush.

Potent Snipe: You can use your power to attack, similar in effect to a fine and potent rifle.

The effect of this action varies depending on the nature of your power. For instance, fire will burn, wind can slice, ice might pierce or freeze, and so forth. While some targets may exhibit more or less vulnerability to specific types of attacks, this is the exception rather than the rule. Essentially, this ability serves as a versatile replacement for traditional equipment; a fine and potent finesse weapon would be equally effective in combat. Moreover, using this action in a fight doesn't consume any additional time; activating your attack power is akin to drawing a weapon—neither faster nor slower.

Area Attack: You can use your power to attack similar to a fine and potent grenade. This allows you to fight many creatures in the same area very effectively, but there is a risk of collateral damage.

An escalation of Potent Snipe, this affects all enemies in a single location. The effect is more powerful but less precise. This means it does more collateral damage, but no more effect on enemies. Targets in trenches, behind walls, or otherwise shielded are not in direct damage, but tend to keep their heads down, which gives your side the initiative.

Barrage: You call down the equivalent of a fine potent artillery barrage, attacking everything and everyone in a wide area. Depending on your power, this can raze buildings and create rubble. Usually enough to provide cover for any escape.

Continued escalation, this can create a crater or raze buildings, but creatures are no more or less likely to survive. It is no more likely to harm creatures than Potent Snipe or Area Attack, but does so over a wide area. Enemies in bunkers and other cover are discomforted, but not damaged. Creatures in this area need to keep their heads down, which is usually enough of a distraction that your side can do something else unopposed, such as prowling about or running away.

Prowl

Barrier is not the most versatile Prowl ability, it mainly gives you the ability to pass barriers used by others. Important when it happens, but it happens rarely.

Dark Barrier Gives you the protection of a barrier when you prowl, reducing position by one step to a minimum of controlled.

You are no better at sneaking than anyone else, but you do so protected by a shield barrier that reduces the effect of attacks and your own failed maneuvers, improving position by one step.

Barrier Walk You can move on and through barriers.

Barriers are normally either slick or indistinct, offering poor support for climbing. They are possible to climb, but progress is slow and precarious. You can climb barriers as if they were regular walls, and you can even wriggle through barriers. This is a slow process, not very useful in combat unless someone is buying time for you.

Play this as regular climbing and contortions maneuvers, squeezing through a barrier is comparable to squeezing through a tight window.

Barrier Team: You can use Dark Barrier and Barrier Walk on you and allies simultaneously.

All your allies can move as you do using these abilities. They still use their own Prowl action.

Bubble Walk You and allies can teleport from inside one globular barrier and into another. This is regional travel, you stay within the same city or region.

The globular barriers can be ones you just created for the purpose.

This takes you to places you are familiar with. Both effect and position is worse unless you know where you are going, which means it is great for escapes but less so for intrusion into an enemy's territory that you are likely to be much less familiar with.

Tinker

This is what you use to create actual physical walls and barriers.

Barriers normally come in two varieties, permanent barriers and temporary barriers. Creating a permanent barrier is a long-term project. A temporary barrier has a rather limited duration, it never lasts beyond the scope of a score. Either type of barrier is very hard to break down. Unless the setting includes a

Barrier Beginner You can manipulate existing power barriers as if they were made of stout wood.

This requires there to be a barrier for you to work with. Super-conditional, but when it is needed, it may be the only way. You can work barriers as if they were of thin wood (about 2 cm or one inch thick) and you had a knife, a saw, and glue. Changes take time, especially if you want to do something complex.

Barrier Novice You can create barriers to block passage and attacks.

You create barriers that serve as walls. This can be a flat circular wall or a globe. Either can be partially inside objects without interfering with that object.

Its usually best to handwave any complexities with large barriers, but here are som tips how to handle things if you decide you have to. It does not matter if there is enough room for your barrier to form, it will just continue through whatever was in the way. It is not possible to circumvent a globular barrier by going through solid objects. When the barrier disappears, the material is still intact. Strangely, any cables or pipes will continue to function, so air, water, and electricity can pass through the barrier if in such conduits. The barrier may or may not extend into other floors or rooms as required by the story.

Size depends on the effects, limited effect can create a wall with a radius in meters equal to your tier. Standard effect adds five to your tier, great effect can create huge fields to cover entire large buildings or city blocks. Position depends on the complexity of the situation. If you can see the location of the wall and the situation is generally calm, its a controlled position. If the area is very busy, such as an ongoing skirmish, the situation is desperate. Otherwise it is risky. Consequences include having someone caught on the wrong side, the barrier having holes in it, structural damage to the scene, or the barrier not functioning as it is supposed to.

Barrier Master You can create complex barriers.

This can do what Barrier novice does, except that you can make barriers that are not just simple convex shapes. Consequences limit the duration of the effect, makes a created item somehow warped or extra conspicuous, or leaves other unexpected openings in either form or function.

You can make simple tools and weapons out of barriers. You can hand these out for others to use. This works like fine and potent melee weapons or as armor that absorbs the first physical harm taken by the wearer. You can make barriers that can be passed in one direction, but not the other. You can make barriers that only stop fast-moving projectiles but allow slower-moving creatures to pass through.

When doing long-term projects that involve building or crafting, you can use Fabricate to gain great effect, even under what normally be poor conditions, but this has the usual stress cost.

Barrier Factor: This is similar to Barrier Master, but you mass produce objects, even a set of different objects. You can also make something large, such as a vehicle or building.

Pretty self-explanatory, this is Barrier Master on a larger scale. Rather than having to repeatedly use Barrier Master you can use Barrier Factor once to create a large amount of items. This is useful for equipping a large band or building something large out of nothing.

Wreck

Destroy, dismantle, and obliterate animal matter.

Mangle You can jimmy organic materials either made of animal products, or that animals could reasonably destroy. Noisy and leaves a twisted object in place. Can be used to attack in melee like a sledgehammer.

Just as crude as it sounds. You destroy animal matter and strike with the force of a sledgehammer in combat. As usual, Wreck may be at an advantage or disadvantage compared to Finesse and Skirmish, depending on the situation.

Decompose You can apply the effect of reducers like bacteria and insects like woodworms. Still slow but powerful. You can also create a bone club that works as a fine potent sledgehammer in combat.

You can slowly rot any organic matter by attacking it with bacteria and worms. This is slow, so more of a long-term project. It is also subtle, so if you do make a long-term project of it, you can create a back opening in a wooden wall to exploit in a score, giving you +2d on the engagement roll.

Wildwarp Similar to Mangle, but destroyed targets silently disappear or are reduced to a fine dust.

The real difference here is that wrecking things is now silent when you have the right power. You also leave less traces, as what you wreck disappears. This can also be used to get rid of animal evidence.

Obliterate: Similar to Mangle, but over a large area. This can level a tent camp, disarm a host of troops armed with organic weapons, and similar massive destruction.

Rather straightforward, this just scales things up.