How to make an area shield effect power?

Question

This is the first time I am playing M&M 3e, and I am trying to create what is basically a combination of a Force Field and Deflect. I am not sure if this is possible without DM intervention (and I would prefer building within the rules before trying to get something house ruled).

My vision for this character is basically a big magic-powered cyborg who can stop magic from happening in an area (perhaps selectively, but that's not a requirement), absorb magical energy to power himself (which I don't think should be part of the Shield power, but for more traditional personal-range attacks), and have some minor blasty powers. This character is a tanker/defender kind of character, protecting others. I am probably going to have the blasty powers be removeable, and also have some kind of Inventor or Artificer trait, depending on how "magical" the character ends up being.

I am very early in designing this character, and appreciate the advice, particularly in how to mechanically create an area of effect anti-magic shield.

Answer 1

The easiest way to provide an anti-magic field is probably Nullify. Take a Range flaw to make it touch range, then Area to make it go off over an area. There, for 1 PP / Rank, you can emit a field that causes magic effects to switch off. You will have to buy Selective if you want to be able to avoid hitting everyone in the area, enemy, ally, and bystander with magic pacemaker alike, but it satisfies your criteria. You could also use it to Counter incoming effects, although as a GM, I'd look a little askance due to the whole area thing.

The part which gets a little more tricky is having it go off over a longer period of time than an Instant, since it sounds like you'd prefer to have it go over a larger area. The game does not explicitly allow for increasing the duration for an area attack to remain in place, affecting anyone who enters into. Some GMs will let you buy up Duration in this manner, essentially trading off between being able to maintain the effect while the target is in the area and being able to maintain it on them when they are no longer in the area. The other, more rules-correct, option is to change this into a Reaction power to automatically go off when magic enters the area (which would require picking up the accompanying Sense) or using Triggered to set up the ability to do the same some number of times. It's more expensive, but essentially having the ability to counter all incoming magic is a pretty powerful thing.