Looking for advice on pairing powers & qualities

I recently started listening to the RPG Season 1 podcast episodes, and it got me all excited about the RPG again. For fun, I decided to run my wife through the character creation process. She enjoyed it! But I have a few questions/concerns about her powers and qualities.

She rolled up an Academic -> Power Suit -> Shadow. This character feels more like she has a powered skinsuit than an Iron Man type suit. (I'm thinking the Marvel villain "Ghost," or the Batman: TAS villain Lloyd Ventrix.)

Powers

Powered Suit 10

Electricity 8

Intangibility 6

Invisibility 6

Qualities

Science 12

Self-Discipline 8

Stealth 10

Special Background Quality TBD 8

Anyway, these are all cool, but...her abilities are pretty combat-oriented (mostly defensive and buff/debuff, plus a big electric blast), yet she doesn't have any combat-oriented qualities, or really any "physical" qualities aside from Stealth. In general, aside from the Invisibility/Stealth combo, it seems like her qualities wouldn't necessarily pair well with her powers.

So, some questions:

1) How hard is it, in practice, to get by without obvious combat-oriented qualities when you're not a psychic/controller/minion-maker type? I feel like it could get tedious trying to engineer every attack into a "sneak attack" to use Stealth. And her really cool electric blast that hits multiple targets seems like it would be hard to tie to any quality, except maybe Science in some specialized situations.

2) Let's say she decided to forego choosing Invisibility as a Shadow power, and instead chose the Close Combat quality. Would it be legit to say her Power Suit provides camouflage and roll Power Suit + Stealth for sneaking around? This seems reasonable, yet also kinda cheap since she'd actually be sneakier than she would have been with literal Invisibility. (I realize that straight-up Invisibility would be necessary/more suitable in certain situations, like waltzing through a crowded, well-lit room.)

3) I'm also wondering if Technology would be better than Science for a power suited saboteur type. Though she was thinking maybe she'd be more physics-oriented. Tachyon has Science instead of Technology, but then Tachyon also has the "Inventions" power. This one's really more of a personal preference thing, so we probably don't really need advice, here. Though I am curious how people have interpreted Science vs. Technology. It seems like Technology was pulled out separately and Science covers "everything else." Presumably because comic book Technology skills are so useful in a modern-day setting.

The Metallian

1) In practice, I've rarely seen characters who seem to lack combat-based qualities have trouble making dice pools. As far looking at the qualities you have, I feel like there's plenty of situations you could leverage. Comic Book logic is in full force for these:
- Science: Presumably the power suit has a generator or a fuel source? Science could reflect knowing exactly how much you can draw on that in a pinch, or what nearby materials you can shove into it for fun and profit. Electricity is a super complex thing IRL, and I could easily see Science being used to reflect knowledge of how nearby conditioins will affect it and leveraging that. Intangibility and Invisibility are very straightforward: The methods by which they are achieved could possibly be used to induce secondary (and normally undesirable) effects.
- Self Discipline: Keeping calm to avoid over-exerting your power suit, or to focus bursts of electricity are options. For Intangibility and Invisibility, keeping calm can help control your usage for more fine or precise tasks. You could even use it to emulate 'unreadable' body language, an advantage in close combat scenarios.
- Stealth: Stealth can refer to anything from being naturally silent and hard to track to being knowledgeable on stealth techniques. It could even be sleight of hand.

(2) That would depend on the narrative of the Power Suit, but I would lean away from that. There's a reason that Invisibility is a separate power.

(3) My main thoughts for Technology versus Science boils down to: "Are you an engineer, or a scientist?"
- An engineer would more likely have Technology, as they have practical knowledge for how to build the tech that does the thing.
- A scientist would more likely have Science, as they have excellent theoretical knowledge for what needs to happen to make the thing work.

Hope this helps!

I tell ya, from having seen the last in-house session recording, it's much better to have no combat qualities than only combat qualities and find yourself rolling d4's for overcomes. c.c

I was actually thinking of putting together a guide on how to build an effective character.  Part of it would cover this exact question: what to look at so that you don't find yourself rolling d4's or really straining to explain how your abilities work narratively.  I wasn't sure if anyone would find that useful.

Thanks, everyone, this is good stuff.

MindWanderer, I think such a guide would be very useful! I was poking around the sample chapters to see if they had anything like that, but I didn't find anything. Some games do say things like, "You should have at least some means to get around quickly and at least one combat ability, etc."

I looked at the published heroes for some guidance. For characters with no combat qualities, they for the most part have obvious ways that they work:

Unity: She makes minions to fight for her, so that makes sense. I'm not entirely clear as to the best way for her to attack with Electricity, unless she's facing especially Tech-based targets or in very Sciencey situations (e.g., Science tells me that this creature is vulnerable to electricity!).

Headlong: Rather surprisingly, he doesn't have any direct combat qualities. Acrobatics seems pretty easy to apply in close combat, though.

Muerto: No direct combat qualities, but I suppose Finesse is often applicable? Anima isn't really described, here, so I'm not sure if it would be applicable. Most of what he does involves manipulating/being Technology, so for him that seems broadly applicable to combat.

Muse: Her powers are psychic, and all of her Qualities are mental, so that one works out just fine.

BTW, my working assumption here is that the special "Create your own quality at d8" is not really intended to be a way to get a combat quality, though they may apply in certain situations. I don't think it'd be in the spirit of things to say "Tech Ninja" or something (IDK if that's how she actually wants to flavor this character, I just made it up) and use that for all hand-to-hand combat and throwing stars or whatever.

The d8 quality is supposed to encompass some fundamental fact about your character that their other qualities don't quite grasp. It can certainly end up covering combat scenarios, but if it does? Happy side effect.

Best one I've made is 'Survivor Of World's End'.

In the live stream, Adam had "Living Weapon."  I'm pretty sure that has combat applications. :)

Let's not forget Jenn's "Reluctant Hero" that got rolled a lot when she was inadvertently being heroic. :)

Yeah, that one might actually be a little broken.  "Reluctant Hero" when you're actually being a hero (which is always, in a game) is basically "anything you want".  But it was only a d8, so meh.

I'll write up that guide.

She also only had two other qualities, both of which were exclusively combat-based, which left her in a real pickle outside of a fight. I think I alluded to this earlier. :B

Generally, it seems a lot easier to use non-fighting qualities for a damaging effect than the other way round.

User your science to blow up a car - sure.
Use your kung fu to repair it - eh…

Bottom line - better make sure you’re good at anything else but smash 'n bash if you don’t want to be the one-trick pony.