Mod swapping in TB

So if I understand correctly, the effect of mods on power is only dependent on dots and level. Even so, I can imagine that many players may not have the mods to put on every single character in their roster, or at least don't want to spend the millions of credits it would take to level mods for all those characters.

So in TB, when you deploy a toon, is their power level locked towards the star count at deployment, or can the star bar go down if you take mods off? I'm wondering about a situation where someone deploys characters, takes the mods off them and puts them on toons without any, and then deploys those toons.