Permanent and Energy Aura Bug?

[MistahFixIt]

Okay, so I was trying to stat up an Energy Controller for MnM 3e today, when I discovered a peculiar issue. As part of my character's Alternate Form array, I was trying to give them Energy Aura (aka Reaction Damage) as a 'permanent' effect of their Alt. Form.

However, when I add Permanent to the Power, it reports it as +0/rank (as it should, since going from a Sustained Effect to Permanent is both good and bad) but the overall cost of Energy Aura goes up 2pp/rank, to a total cost of 6pp/rank.

I tried to do it the clumsy way around too (Damage + Reaction + Permanent) but it did the same thing that time as well.

Considering this is the only bug I've encountered since starting to use HeroLab oh... two years ago, it's only a very mild nuisance. I'll just use a Custom Extra for the time being.

[JDRook]

(First off, Permanent and Reaction don't play well together, which I'll explain below.)

I believe the reason it's doing that is that while the Action of Energy Aura Damage is Reaction, it's still has Instant Duration. Making it Permanent means that HL is increasing Duration up to Continuous (+3) and then applying Permanent (-1), for a total of +2.

While this makes perfect sense mathwise for Permanent Reaction, the logic breaks down narratively: an Instant effect bought to Reaction seems to behave like a Continuous Duration (always occurs when the triggering effect happens unless the user specifically turns it off), but technically buying the Damage to Continuous would mean that when the Damage was inflicted it would continue to inflict the target every turn, even when they stop touching the aura. It would essentially burn forever, which I assume is not your intent.

Personally, I would recommend the "permanence" of the Aura to be a Complication of the form, particularly since as an Alternate Form it is not truly Permanent on your character and therefore not worth a Full Flaw. YMMV, but in any case, I wouldn't recommend applying the standard Permanent Flaw to this power.

[Batgirl III]

This is why I (a) avoid the "red box" powers and build everything from their base Powers, and (b) do my building by hand instead of HeroLab.

Damage is 1pp/rank base, Reaction is +3pp/rank, Permanent is +0pp/rank.