Can you use Overcome to damage enemies, and other questions

Hi.

1. We had a Bunker in our game yesterday who was in Utility mode.

According to the text, it says that while in this mode, he's not allowed to take the Attack or Hinder action. So the PC in our game decided instead to bring down a pile of rubble on the spider bots.

Since this is an indirect attack, does it:

a) count as an attack regardless?

b) count as an Overcome action?

If a), would it mean that Bunker in Utility mode is therefore not allowed to do so?

If b), does it mean it's a Risky Action, as hinted on page 8 of the Starter rules? "An Overcome action also uses the Min die to deal damage to a target in the way."

2. I see folks here mentioning Defending as a Reaction (Hit the Deck) and all other Reactions use only one die. But I can't find this anywhere in the Starter rules. Anyway, for Defending as a Reaction, can the player choose whichever die is the biggest among Power, Quality and Status?

1.a. That seems like it would count as an Attack action. Ergo, Bunker in utility mode cannot do so.
1.b. If it is taken as a Risky action, then it would still not work. There needs to be some type of Challenge in the scene for Bunker to Overcome. If he can come up with something in the narrative, great. Otherwise, it still would not work. He also would not be using the ability from Utility Mode in that case; It would be an Overcome with Mid die, damage with Min die, and then whatever the Minor Twist he takes is.
2. The player can choose any Power or Quality die, but what they use must be reflected in the narrative for how they are defending against the Attack. Keep in mind that when a player uses Hit The Deck, they also take a Minor Twist immediately afterward, regardless of the results.

1.  That would be an attack and not an option for Bunker in that mode.   Overcomes in general won't cause any damage.
2. It's not fully described in the Starter Kit but all reactions only use a single die if rolled.  What you roll can be any single power, quality, or status die for Hit the Deck.   They just need to provide some justification for why it would work.  

Ok, but this begs the question – narratively, what’s stopping him from doing so? Especially since he’s not making a direct attack.

Does this mean that you’re not supposed to take an Overcome action unless there is a Challenge predetermined beforehand (or one that can be justifiably made up with on the spot)?

Also, aren’t approaching enemies considered a “challenge” in itself? Or do such challenges (where taking an Overcome action would be apt) need to not have any objects or creatures with Health alluded to within?

The fact that the current mode they are in stops them from making an attack and what is being described is an attack not an overcome. An Overcome is rolled for getting past an obstacle that carries a risk of failure. The situation presented and described doesn’t provide risk of failure it’s just an amount of damage that might be done.

Narratively? Perhaps the fact that Utility Mode is explictly described in the Starter Kit as a mode used for preparing for combat or dealing with non-combat threats. Preparation is quite different from combat itself.

A Challenge in the Sentinel Comics RPG is only solvable using Overcome actions. Minions and Lieutenants have dice sizes, and need to be handled via Attacks unless that particular minion or lieutenant is explicitly stated to be affected by a particular Overcome action.

Generically, letting a Modular character ignore the restrictions on their Modes kind of ruins the point of the archetype.

I understand and concur with the mechanics of it, I'm just personally having a hard time wrapping my head around it fiction/narrative wise. I.e. What is stopping the hero from taking a particular action?

Thanks for the explanation. I fully understand now.

I’ve decided that fiction-wise, the suit is programmed to automatically change modes when faced with certain situations. It will refuse to activate otherwise. Lol

Story-wise you could always say that the cannons deactivate while in this mode. Also, the hydraulic fists could be powered down so the power can be focused inward. It may be that the machine literally cannot do anything overtly offensive.

The five basic action types are actually effects, not really actions.  Bunker can absolutely bring down the ceiling no matter what mode he's in, but what he can do with it is restricted.

• Attack: Crush and damage the enemies.
• Hinder: Trap or otherwise impede the enemies.
• Boost: Clear a path to make an action easier for an ally.
• Defend: Create a barrier in between enemies and allies.
• Overcome: Hard to create a blanket case, because Overcomes are usually done to beat a specific challenge or remove a (named) mod.  But clearly there are situations where it could work.  But an Overcome isn't going to deal damage or create a mod.

Hi again. This sentence on page 9 in issue #801 regarding armored spider bot snipers has me confused again:

Taking them out requires either an Overcome action to dislodge them en masse from their positions or Attacking them. 

What does their minion entry say?

ARMORED SPIDER BOT SNIPERS

d6 Minions (1 per Hero)

Description

Some bots sought out high ground in and all around the park (building facade, park walls, on statues, etc.). They then created thick, protective web cocoons, reconfiguring themselves into fixed laser batteries.

Ability

Cover: Armored spider bot snipers have +2 to their save roll due to their superior positions.

Tactics 

During the scene they focus on making Attacks against large or well-defended heroes. Taking them out requires either an Overcome action to dislodge them en masse from their positions or Attacking them. 

Since the Cover ability is due to superior positions, then I would say that a sucessful Overcome to dislodge a group of Spiderbot Snipers would simply remove their Cover ability. After all, dislodging them wouldn't destroy them; Just knock them off of their perches.

A GM could allow an overcome to remove hostile forces
In season 3 Adam allowed Christopher to make overcome actions so his pacifist could capture an enemy
That would not be damage though and probably be more trouble than it’s worth unless you can not or choose not to attack
Of course the point of Modular is that you give up some options to be better at others

It's situational, but I'd allow folks to use an overcome to close off an enemy (but the enemy might now be doing something else you don't know about), disable an enemy (as Sea-Envy noted has been done before), or otherwise get around any enemy's threat (e.g., shut down a power source). For example, a player in a demo game of the starter set decide to tie down a spider-bot and disable it (as they wanted to capture it for examination) instead of directly attacking it, and we used an overcome to represent that. 

That would make sense. Restraining an otherwise dangerous foe in such a way that they can't act without harming them is certainly a superhuman challenge.

Heck, I bet Bunker has electronic warfare equipment somewhere in that suit, with the coms and sensors as part of it. I could see an Overcome to shut down one of the Spider Bots in such a way that rebooting it would disconnect it from the network.

To chime in on the narrative part:

I made a Modular Power Suit character for a home game.  Her callsign was Spark, as the suit was powered by her own Bioelectricity die.  Each mode was the suit "optimizing" the power flow for certain tasks, and in the case of someone playing Bunker I always imagnined it his same way;  All the power that would go to his weaponry is being rerouted to sensors in Utility Mode, or something like that.

Technically, to remove Boost mods (in this case, the sniper bots' cover), shouldn't a Hinder action be taken instead?

Regardless, if we were to go back to my initial example, could Utility-mode Bunker have used the overcome action to stop the spider bots in their tracks (but not damaging them) by having a heap of rubble fall on them?

It depends on the situation setup.  There are some global hinders that when applied say an overcome can be done to remove it.   In the case of Spider Bots individually applying Boosts then a Hinder action would be needed to negate any bonuses.   
 

As to your second question in this scenario it does describe they can be removed as a threat through an Overcome.   Though honestly they'd need to describe taking out their perch without a weapon instead of having rocks fall on them as the description of where they are don't quite support having rocks fall on them.   In most cases though Bunker in Utility Mode would not be able to do much about them as he would need to attack to take out the minions.   

I would agree, except the “shouldn’t” is “couldn’t”. There are multiple ways to do things – it depends on what someone wants to do! You could take an Overcome to directly counter the specified bonus (the mod provided by the Boost action), but you’d have to descriptively word it in a way to do so. For example, if someone has a bonus because they got a shiny new knife, you can take an Overcome to disarm them and break the knife. You could also attach a device to them that causes them to lose control of their muscles, giving them a penalty through a Hinder action that could negate the bonus.

Again, how are they descriptively doing that? They can’t shoot the wall – weapons aren’t functional in Utility mode. But can they pull it down? Probably not without pulling it down on themselves, but that would depend on the situation. Maybe they find an I-beam they can use to leverage the wall away from the building, crashing it down on the bots. And if they don’t roll well enough, maybe the twists involve people hiding inside the building; some of the wall DOES hit Bunker, damaging the suit; or some part of the wall slams into the suit and punctures it, acting as a Hinder.

Focus on how they’re doing it more than what they’re trying to accomplish, and it might be easier to see possibilities. Get into that description and get the players to do so, also, and it’ll help. One of the things we talk about in demos is describing what the panel looks like in the comic showing this situation, which helps get folks into the right mindset.

NOTE: Different GMs are going to have different approaches. We’ll see if the final rules clarify all these questions when they’re available…