Weakness Detection and You... er me.

[Warmonger]

So I have my character Ronin here. And he has this super sense: Detect Weakness: Acute, Visual.

Exactly what does that tell him? Lets take a current PC oh lets say vampire or something. What would that tell him. Would it simply say that the subject was a vampire and left me to assume a weakness. Would it tell me one vampire weakness? Would it tel me about drawbacks on the powers?

Now lets say I add Analytical to it. What more does that tell me what is the difference?

Also while on the subject. I wanted to sort of model the idea that Ronin's sight lets him see weaknesses in an opponent's structure no matter who or what they are. I had some ideas to model this.

I was thinking maybe it could be like Drain Toughness 3(Extras: Perception, Alternate Save Reflex) Draw Back: Quick Recovery x3. The idea is so that only Ronin gets the improved damage and the effect fades before anyone else can take advantage of it.

I was also thinking Drain Toughness 3 (Extras: Perception, No Save[Drawback]).

[Dr Archeville]

You can forget the No Save thing. I'm also a tad leery of Alt Save/Reflex put on things. (I'd probably also ask for a Drawback "Does not work on targets with Immunity to Critical Hits," as such targets most likely do not have "secret weak spots".)

Problem with what you've built is that it's a stripped-down version of the already established (per ULTIMATE POWER) Detect Weakness super-sense. That is built as Super-Senses 4 (Acute Analytical Ranged Detect Weakness), and lets you know of a target's "drawbacks, flaws, and similar weakness" if your Notice check beats their Bluff, Sense Motive, or Stealth check (or some other trait of the GM's choice).

Without either Acute or Analytical -- just a Ranged Detect Weakness -- I imagine you'd know whether or not a target had drawbacks, flaws, and similar weaknesses, but no idea what they were. Just that they have some type of drawback, flaw, or similar weakness.

Acute and Analytical get hairy. Acute allows a sense to be fine enough you can "distinguish between and identity different subjects." Humans have Acute vision and hearing, since we can tell people apart by appearance and/or by the sound of their voices. Analytical gets even finer, letting you determine "chemical composition, exact dimensions or mass, frequency of sounds and energy wavelengths, and so forth."

My best guess is that, with just Acute, if you saw Feuermacher (der German pyrokinetic) for the first time, with absolutely no foreknowledge of who he was or what he could do, you could pick up on his Vulnerability to Cold-based attacks if you'd already fought & knew of the water elemental-bound-to-a-human Riptide's vulnerability to Cold-based attacks (recognizing something you've seen before).

With Acute but not Analytical, seeing Avenger would not let Ronin know of his "Not in Daylight" Flaw on some of his powers unless & until he'd seen some other Daywalker Vampire and saw evidence that that vamp had some "Only in Daylight" flaws on his powers.

[Warmonger]

Ok I was planning to add Analytical to Ronin anyway.

Also how about this then.

Drain Toughness 5 (Extra: Perception +2, Alternate Save: ATK opposed by DEF, Flaw: Self-Only, Immediate Recovery [PF])

Drain is limited by PL right. If not maybe some thing like Bluff.

[Dr Archeville]

Drain is limited the same way anything else is: if it's Perception Range or General Area, no more than you PL, otherwise it can benefit from Attack/Damage trade-offs.

Check the Roll Call thread on the ATT, see how folks have done the Inhuman Karnak's "find the sweet spot" deal.

[Avenger Assembled]

I'd be more comfortable if you bought something like "Penetrating on your unarmed damage". It seems less clunky and more balanced.

[N/A]

A Strike with Alternate Save (Fortitude) might also work, to represent an attack that truly bypasses any armor or physical toughness.