Hi.
Please could I get some clarity on how Traits can be affected by Outwit and/or countering them.

As it stands, I always thought Traits could not be Outwitted but I've read that (1) if a standard power can be used or is possessed byou he Trait, it can be Outwitted.

Then there's (2) 'may use' and 'possess', which I believe can be outwitted if they possess the power but not if they could optionally choose to use it always seems to its not present.

Finally (3), if an SP can grant 3 standard powers, can it's Outwit just one or all 3 if I outwit the power by name?

Traits cannot be countered, that is correct. Outwit can only counter Powers that are possessed, not Powers that can only be used. The Classic example for this is The Atom and Hawkman from Brave and the Bold:

BIG TARGET OR LITTLE TARGET : (non-optional) The Atom and Hawkman possess Toughness. Before making an attack which would affect The Atom and Hawkman, the attacking player chooses Super Senses or Invulnerability. The Atom and Hawkman use the chosen power instead of Toughness for that attack.

Since the Toughness granted by the Power is possessed, it can be countered. This will only counter Toughness, not the rest of the Power.

Outwit:
The bolded line above contains the answer to your questions.

1. Traits cannot be countered by outwit as they are niether a power nor a combat ability. They are combat abilities.

2. Outwit can only counter powers or combat abilities that are possessed. Powers and abilities that a character "can use"/"may use" are not possessed and may therefore not be countered.

3. If you counter a special power then all effects of that power would be lost. It's as if the special power wasn't on the dial at all.

I think the outwitting traits rule is one of those quirks of the rules that could be done away with if as they say wizkids wants to streamline the rules. The bulk of powers in traits seem to fall into the can use category I would have struggled to come up with a possesses power as an example - Well done quebster.
Can anyone can think of an example where it would break a figure to change this because as it stands it seems like the only reason for this can use vs possess is to confuse new players. I can't see any reason not to make traits uncounterable altogether and leave it at that. (waits for really obvious reason he hasn't thought of ....)

On the question of outwitting special powers you outwit all the power even if you wanted to for some reason you can't chose just to outwit an element of the power as the figure doesn't actually have that specific power to outwit what it has is the full special power, if that makes sense. Though I imagine the bulk of times you're better off outwitting the full power anyway I'm sure there is probably an example out there where it might have been beneficial to outwit only part of a power but not possible.

To help clarify...

You can't Outwit a trait, but if a trait said a character "possessed" or "have" a power such as Super Strength then you could Outwit that Super Strength. I think the wording like this in the rule book is maybe a couple old figures having a possessed power in a trait instead of "can use" like we normally see.

Rulebook pg 18:

You can also Outwit improved movement and improved targeting, in which case the whole improvement is Outwitted.

As most combat symbols have innate abilities granted by those symbols, nearly any trait which grants a combat symbol leads to having abilities which can be countered.



You can counter her Swim ability if you wish.

This isn't comprehensively true. As with traits, if the power grants the possession of something which is able to be countered, then you can choose to only counter that portion.



Again, I can counter just the swim ability and leave him with Running Shot if I want.

Generally there's no benefit to doing that, but there are definitely times it would be nice. "Shemp also has and can use Battle Fury."
If I don't want Shemp to Swim, but I also don't want him making ranged attacks, so I'll just counter the Swim.
Those are just combat abilities, so they were already mentioned above.

My bad I never thought about the ones that include combat abilities.

Beyond what Harpua posted, there's another consideration: character balance/design.

Presumably, a character that can use a power via a trait is "better" than a character that can use the same power via its combat dial. This is because the traited character doesn't usually have to worry about that power being taken away from it. Barring odd corner cases like the Orange Power Battery and such, the power is safe. So, in game terms, a trait with a power could be considered more expensive, point-wise, than a dial full of a power.

But if the power or ability in the trait *CAN* be countered, it gives you options when designing characters. For example:



Here you can counter Drax's Charge and Willpower (there's even some reminder text to help you remember this). Presumably, then, this character's point value would have been more expensive if the Charge and Willpower were not possessed and, thus, not able to be countered.

That's a fair point as is what Harpua pointed out as well and I can't argue with anything that's been said. My point really was I just think that some where along the line if wizkids is going to streamline the rules and make it more accessible to new players as they have stated then some of these sometimes quite niche rule interactions that occur may need to go the way of the dodo, in the interests of simplicity. Whether that is good for the game or not will depend on how well the changes that come along are received by the player base, but I'm getting quite off topic for a thread about outwitting traits so I'll stop waffling on now.

Thanks again. Definitely some clarity provided.

glad you found what you were after, sorry if I derailed the thread a bit warborg it wasn't intentional.