Dimensional Room & Gateway.

[ESREVER333]

Let's say a hero name Lexx already has several Saved Gateways around Earth. Can Lexx enter the Dimensional Room (he's in New Jersey) to escape or rest and then upon exiting D-Room, Lexx immediately opens a Gateway to step from D-Room to Gateway at very short range and travel to Paris?? Without anyone seeing him doing this? It's like a lightning flash for bystanders who witness this event. It's very similar affects from that tv show called "Lost Room" if anyone remembers that. I would love to combine these two powers!!!

[Razorwing]

No... it will still take him one melee round (15 seconds) to open a Gateway... assuming he has Paris as one of his locations already. He can't open it while he is in a Dimensional Room as he technically is no longer on Earth (in a separate dimension) so he has to emerge from it before he can open a Gateway... takes 1 melee round to open, then can step through (taking one action), then allow it to close. The Gateway can be created right in front of him once he is out of the Dimensional Room... to minimize the distance he needs to cover to reach it.

Still... this is remarkably fast... and unless one is looking exactly where the Dimensional Room has been created at that point in time, it will likely take a few actions in that melee for anyone to notice the character and reach him before he escapes. He will be a very hard character to trap because of this combination of powers... and will likely make a habit of entering a Dimensional Room in places where people can't directly see him... so that they won't know exactly where it will open (since it doesn't state how much time it takes to open the dimensional room, I would assume it takes the same amount of time as opening a door and walking through... 1 action). Thus if he turns a corner he can open such a door quickly and vanish almost before anyone can turn that same corner and see where he went (especially anyone tailing him).

A character like this could easily become a master criminal/bank robber as he can open gateways to distant places (thus escaping most dragnets that cops might try to set up to capture regular robbers/criminals) and even if surrounded or pursued, can escape into a Dimensional Room (with a change of clothes and/or another place to stash loot so one isn't caught "red handed"... or even with additional weapons... or at least a place to wait for the heat to die down). All he would need is a melee round or two of being unobserved and he could be on the other side of the city, the country or the world... the ultimate escape artist. Add the Cloaking power and even if captured by the police and put into a cell monitored by electronic surveillance devices, he will be able to disappear... likely without them figuring out how (and unless they have reason to suspect he has such powers, power dampeners are unlikely to be used to prevent it... and may not work given the Cloaking Power... the dampeners won't be able to sense him to monitor his use of powers).

[Regularguy]

He will be a very hard character to trap because of this combination of powers... and will likely make a habit of entering a Dimensional Room in places where people can't directly see him... so that they won't know exactly where it will open (since it doesn't state how much time it takes to open the dimensional room, I would assume it takes the same amount of time as opening a door and walking through... 1 action). Thus if he turns a corner he can open such a door quickly and vanish almost before anyone can turn that same corner and see where he went (especially anyone tailing him).

A character like this could easily become a master criminal/bank robber as he can open gateways to distant places (thus escaping most dragnets that cops might try to set up to capture regular robbers/criminals) and even if surrounded or pursued, can escape into a Dimensional Room (with a change of clothes and/or another place to stash loot so one isn't caught "red handed"... or even with additional weapons... or at least a place to wait for the heat to die down). All he would need is a melee round or two of being unobserved and he could be on the other side of the city, the country or the world... the ultimate escape artist.

The combination I've been mulling lately, is Gateways plus Sixth Sense.

So you tag your home base as Location #1, and then visit the other side of the city or the world to have an adventure with whatever else you have up your sleeve -- which at the very least includes marking some spot as Location #2, so you can pull a short-range teleportation trick whenever you feel like opening a Location #3.

And, hey, maybe that works. Maybe you are clever enough to stay one step ahead of the opposition: sensibly marking a Location #2 while innocuously visiting it before popping back to it from Location #3, and then planting a bug or making off with stuff or leaving explosives behind before popping back to Location #3 -- unless you were simply eluding folks by leaving Location #3 for Location #2, see. And if you pull off a whole adventure that way, terrific.

But if you ever get a precognitive flash "that something life-threatening will happen within the next 60 seconds (4 melees)" -- well, you call the whole thing off by popping back to Location #1. So you win if you can, which is great; but you leave before you'd lose, which is just as great.

And maybe you were in the right place at the right time to have a shot at making a difference, because you have long-range Clairvoyance on top of short-range Sixth Sense -- but, hey, that's another story for another time. The point is, your specialty is throwing your hands up before things go bad and saying well, back to Square One.

[Razorwing]

You don't need to mark a location to open a Gateway where you are. You mark locations you wish to travel to.

Say you have 3 markers... mark 1 could be your hidden base. Mark 2 can be near where you live (which should probably be different from where your base is). Mark 3 could be close to where you work. Now, if you were a thief-type character, you could go to a bank or a store... open a gateway to your base to stash the loot there... without having to mark the location you are at as one of your 3 (thus changing one of the places you've already set) since you likely have no intention of returning to this place once you've robbed it.

This is the difference between Gateways and Teleportation... Gateways allows you to travel vast distances... but only to specific locations (destination markers)... while Teleportation allows one to travel almost anywhere... though the range is more limited and success is iffy if not viewed. Both have no limitation on where you start from... merely the destination.

Now if the character wanted to mark a location so that he could rob it after hours when there is less chance to draw attention to the robbery... then he would have to abandon one of his previous marks to set up a new one at a given location. One only has to use their destination locks on places they intend to return to... not at places they are traveling from.

Just making sure we are on the same page... your post suggested that you required people to use a lock to open a portal at their current location... but then I might be reading more into it than you intended.

[Regularguy]

Well, my point was -- forget about Location #1. Yes, you mark your HQ as that -- but then imagine you put that aside during the actual adventure.

So you head out -- as if there were no Location #1 back at the batcave under your stately manor or whatever -- and innocuously visit whatever place you'll be using as Location #2. Maybe it's a museum you'll visit during the day before you return as a burglar that night. Maybe it's an office where you'll pop back in after hours with a bug or a bomb.

Whatever.

If that's all you're interested in doing for now, then I figure you'd also tag a Location #3 right before you pop back to Location #2 -- because, okay, getting in to Location #2 is easy, you just pop yourself there; but how do you get back out of Location #2? Well, by returning to Location #3.

You know, since you're acting like there is no Location #1.

And so I figure you'll do the entire adventure like that -- marking a new Location #2 as the need arises, and then setting up a new Location #3 before popping over there so you can pop right back to what you were doing -- and if you're always long gone long before anyone who'd get the drop on you would show up, or whatever, and you thus make it through without ever being sixty seconds away from a life-threatening situation? Well, then, (a) congrats, and (b) keep building up experience, so you can start adding in a Location #4 and a Location #5 and et cetera.

But if, even at 1st level, you're suddenly caught with your pants down and so not one step ahead of the opposition -- well, that's when you just stop acting like you're limited to "One To Get In, And One To Get Out By Getting Back To The Adventure" tactics. You do your best to plan things so you'll never be in a life-threatening situation -- but if that fails and something of that sort is unexpectedly heading your way within the next sixty seconds, you say "Oh, Screw This; I'm Going Home."

[Razorwing]

Not sure what you are getting at.

Gateways can only be opened between where one is and locations where one has marked as a destination. Where one is now doesn't have to be a marked destination... thus he can open a Gateway anywhere... it only leads back to a location he has marked before.

At first level, that is 3 locations... the character's hidden base... and maybe near his home or work place... and one last location he can change to suit any break-ins he might want to commit (without the risk of drawing undue attention). These are the places he can gate too... but he can open a Gateway anywhere he may be... to any of these locations. He could be at a restaurant (not one of his three marked locations) and still open a Gateway... to one of the locations he's already marked.

Somehow I get the feeling you believe that the one with Gateway can only open them at locations he's marked... so he can only open a Gateway from those locations to the others. While this would still make it a powerful power given that distance is not much of a factor... it still limits it far too much to be useful. Besides... the power specifically states that he only needs to mark destinations... not the place where he is traveling from.