M&M 2e Fashionmancer

[Kid Jake]

So I've got a new Mutants and Masterminds game coming up soon and a player has expressed interest in playing a man who controls cloth, fabric and other such things; allowing him to strangle, tie up, trip and otherwise hamper people with their own clothes. That part seems fairly straight forward.

Since he can reshape and abuse clothing thread by thread, he intends to wear a bigass pimp coat that is both fashionable, and allows him to use his abilities against people that for whatever reason run around in the nude. I'm not exactly sure how to stat that up.

My first thought was as a device that allows him to boost his abilities, removing the (Limited: Must Wear Clothes) drawback, but fading in effectiveness each time he uses it; but I'm not super convinced...

Any ideas Playground?

[Reversefigure4]

I'm not sure how much "Must wear clothes" is a Limit. A limit is about half effectiveness. Are half his opponents nude? I could see animals or robots, but most supervillains will have clothes on (depending on what sort of game you're playing). If you remove the limit, and stipulate the character has on a giant cape, so he can either entangle people in their own fabric or the fabric he carries around with him (and with that powerset, why wouldn't you carry fabric with you?), then the problem solves itself.

[Kid Jake]

It's more of one than you might think; a good chunk of his opponents will be demons, spirits, elementals, constructs or disasters that won't have any use for clothing.

I was just wondering how other people would stat a completely mundane item that gives a specific character an advantage without having any innate power of its own, because he really likes the idea of having Pimp Coat as a device on his sheet, but I think I've got it figured out now. Came to me last night out of the blue.

[EternalPrime]

I'm not sure how wearing a coat would "give an advantage."
As I see it, his power is a limited form of telekinesis that only affects cloth.
Wearing a coat would be more of a fail-safe than an advantage, like a pyromancer who can control fire but can't create fire from nothing, so carries a lighter or a box of matches to always ensure he has a source of fire to control.

Personally, I would have gone for a long flowing cape that can wrap around me (shield) and several scarves whipping in the wind that lash out at enemies (snare or strike), kinda like a cloth version of Doctor Octopus

But I know how some players can get hung up on a feature of their character which really has no bearing on their statistics because it's "kewl," so if you must stat out his coat, I'd suggest making it the focus of the Accurate power feat, granting him a +2 bonus on checks involving manipulating his coat as opposed to other clothing. This is balanced by A) limited surface area: you can't strangle more than two targets because you only have two sleeves; B) limited range: you can't strangle anyone beyond the length of your sleeves; and C) assuming that the coat can be taken from him through grappling.

[Thundersteel]

Oh man, check out Unknown Armies. There's a character archetype (the Vestomancer, I believe) who is built entirely around this concept. If I'm not mistaken, one of their abilities was to be able to turn into someone else - personality, memories, and everything - by donning their clothing.
Super fun and weird. The Mythcreants did a three episode play podcast of it.

[ElFi]

I remember the Heroes Rise series having a similar character named Weaver who could control and create all kinds of wacky, borderline-supernatural fabrics. He worked in the superhero fashion industry, naturally.

As for the concept we've got here... hmm, here's my spit-take attempt. The first part of the power (controlling people's clothing to grapple/trip/strangle) would be a pretty standard power array, with the Limited: Target Must Wear Clothes drawback. That might be abuseable depending on the content of the campaign's enemies, but apparently a significant portion of those will be nonhumans with no need for clothing, so moving past that for now.

I would say build the pimp coat as a Device with the Boost power (removes Limited: Target Must Wear Clothes drawback from target trait, sustained duration, personal only, maybe use the Action extra a few times so it doesn't disrupt the action economy) and the Fades flaw. Visualize it as your character spindling off pieces of his coat to power his abilities- shoot off a sleeve to blind someone, or tear off the collar to create an improvised garrote! That way, the coat gradually degrades over time, and needs to be mended/repaired before it can be used again if too much fabric is torn away.

I loved the Sidekick M&M campaign you did a while back, Kid Jake. Looking forward to seeing more of this one!

[Kid Jake]

I loved the Sidekick M&M campaign you did a while back, Kid Jake. Looking forward to seeing more of this one!

Thankya, I hope we get to it soon!

McCrow's player volunteered to help me get my gf into tabletop(this is actually his character), but Fanboy probably won't be joining us, so we'll be using a different setting than Ventnor since it'd feel weird to leave either of them out of the next chapter.

Your suggestion is basically what I went with by the by. The coat allows him to access an alternate power list that originates from him and fades in effectiveness each time it's used until he repairs it.