What I meant was that that rule would never even come into play if the bonus disappeared when you dropped the bubble. Adding your bendalloy rating to an action taken against someone outside the bubble would be a complete hypothetical, thus making the rule entirely moot, in which case it should be deleted. I get the feeling that wasn't their intention, though.
I'm not following this line of thought. I can see lots of examples where Bendalloy could come into play. Do you see Bendalloy as only useful in combat? Or that it should provide a bonus for offensive actions through the bubble? Is there a certain example from the source material where the heroes successfully attack from within a Bendalloy bubble?
Not including Wax's "Robin Hood" shots targeting that koloss-blooded pewterarm, as I feel that had a lot more to do with Wax's crazy skill than any advantage provided by Bendalloy directly.
Not from within a bubble, but the way Wayne consistently defeats multiple enemies who not only outnumber him but have the luxury of shooting at range while he is constrained to fight in melee, seems to indicate that it's worth a little more than half of a Circumstance die. But, I suppose we can just chalk that up to his relatively awesome Physique score, since he can rely on Bendalloy to give him free Defense Dice, his Gold Feruchemy allowing him to shrug off most injuries, and the fact that he only ever fights Extras, so they go down quickly. Fair enough.
Ah, yes, there are out-of-combat applications, so it's not purely a hypothetical. As written, though, the rule indicates that those taking social
actions against those outside the bubble would also get the bonus, but that's ridiculous.
Edit: I would rule that Sliders can move to superior positioning, and then take the time to aim, accruing two positive circumstances, thus gaining an extra die, before they drop the bubble. Thus, they still get some benefit to their attacks, and can put the bubble back up at the end of their turn, giving them extra Defense Dice. The lucky few who get past all that extra Defense are those who get to him before the bubble gets up, though that's somewhat unintuitive because it's possible for someone else
to attack and use up several Defense Dice before the second one attacks, which hits, but theoretically hit him before
the first attacker. Oh, well. Maybe they hit him after the bubble went down out of sheer dumb luck.