M&M - Cataclysm City [OOC]

WELCOME TO CATACLYSM CITY
This is a Mutants & Masterminds game using the 3rd edition rules.

Based on this "interest" thread, I am starting this OOC thread for character creation and for all out-of-character discussions for the game.

THE SETTING
Cataclysm City is not the original name of this city, but a name it has come to earn due to the many recent damage laid upon the city through a series of recent super-powered battles. Cataclysm City is one of several cities throughout the world that have seen a population spike in super-powered beings. Together with Chicago and Los Angeles in the United States, London in the UK, Cairo in Egypt, Hong Kong and Shanghai in China, Tokyo in Japan, and a few others, Cataclysm City has, within the past year, seen the "birth" of many super-powered entities.

Structurally, the world is much the same as the one we know. Of course, with the rise of super-powered beings, the world has changed. Organizations dedicated to the regulation or training of super-powered beings have risen to prominence, as well as many groups for or against the presence of super-powered beings in the world.

The appearance of super-powered beings in the world strangely coincided with the arrival of aliens from outer space. The people of Earth were obviously taken by surprise by these events and it took more than a year for people to start to come to grips with the changes to their world.

The aliens have taken a back seat to the stories about super-powered beings. In fact, aside from a few representatives the aliens left behind, they have left, supposedly returning to their home star system.

We will continue exploring the setting as we craft characters and run the game.

Feel free to ask questions about the setting.

CHARACTER CREATION
We will being character creation with PL5 characters. That means that you have 75pp to spend. These will be your characters as they stand prior to gaining powers / special equipment / etc. You can, if you choose, suggest or plan out what powers you want for later. You will eventually have super powers, but we will go through the process of how you gained those powers in the story.

EDIT: You can choose to spend LESS than the 75pp on your starting character. I'd like a minimum of 30pp, though.

Reserved for GM stuff

Annnnnnnnnnnnd here we go. I am not going to win awards for originality with this, but if Dr Strange taught us anything (reiterating here that this is not a direct result of having seen that movie...AT ALL), it's that classics and cliches are just a breath apart, and both exist for good reasons.

So! Sandra Connor is a post-college millennial still living at home while she gets her life and priorities sorted out. She's dragged out her studies as long as humanly possible, and has an impressive educational resume, but is absolutely petrified at the thought of setting foot unsheltered in the world outside academia. She does have a job...at a library! Hah! Welcome to the "real world!"

And that's where she is at the prologue. I do have a sample scenario for how to introduce her powers, and their catalyst sidekick. It's flexible though, to meet whatever narrative needs this particular game has.

Enter the Thing That Will Change Everything Forever. This one time at the library, Sandra keeps thinking she hears something. All day long she hears this thing like a voice that she can't quite hear clearly...but no one else ever seems to notice it. She volunteers to do closing, a lonely shift, and as the lights go dim she can finally work out where it seems to be coming from. Down. The junior librarian heads down into the archives and finds in the special collections a small crate that hasn't yet been unpacked.

The voice is coming from within. It's...humming a little tune.

Unable to just walk away from this, Sandra does the forbidden and gets a crowbar and opens the crate. Inside, packed in straw, is a book of black leather binding and gold trim. Ornately embossed and set with occasional stones that look like gems, it wouldn't look out of place as a prop in some kind of movie. And it's humming. Quite audibly. As she stared at it, completely gobsmacked, the large round pearly gem on the center of the cover clarified, and a recognizable image took shape within it. The shape of an eye.

That is how Sandra made the acquaintance of the Grimoire; an actual book of actual magic, inhabited by some kind of entity that claimed to be the soul of a magus who'd made the book his phylactery a long, long time ago. Though his anachronistic outlook and veritable obsession with magic made him sometimes hard to get along with, he was eager to communicate after such a long time. It seemed few could 'hear' his in this state...and 'few' had really meant 'none' for century upon century. It seemed our young librarian had some hidden gifts after all...

[sblock=Sandra Connor]PL: 5 (75)
Hero Points: 1
Exp: 0

ABILITIES: (26pp)
Strength 0
Stamina 0
Agility 2
Dexterity 2
Fighting 0
Intellect 4
Awareness 4
Presence 1

Defenses 20
Dodge 8 (2 base + 6)
Fortitude 5 (0 base + 5)
Parry 3 (0 base + 3)
Toughness 8 (0 base)
Will 10 (4 base + 6)

Initiative +4

Skills 40 (20)
-----------------
Expertise: Science +10 (6)
Expertise: History +8 (4)
Investigation +10 (6)
Perception +10 (6)
Insight +8 (4)
Treatment +8 (4)
Sleight of Hand +5 (3)
Stealth +5 (3)
Technology +8 (4)

Kindofbutnotreallypowers
-------------------------
Mystically Sensitive - Super Sense (Mental - Magic Awareness, Extended 1) 2pp

Advantages
-----------
None!

COSTS
Attributes 26
Defenses 20
Skills 20
Advantages 0
Powers (?) 2
Total: 68

Complications:
Working on these[/sblock]


[sblock=Super Self!]Real Name: Sandra Connor
Supername: Grimoire
PL 10 (150)
Hero Points: 1
Exp: 0

Abilities 26
Strength 0
Stamina 0
Agility 2
Dexterity 2
Fighting 0
Intellect 4
Awareness 4
Presence 1

Defenses 20
Dodge 8 (2 base + 6)
Fortitude 5 (0 base + 5)
Parry 3 (0 base + 3)
Toughness 8 (0 base)
Will 10 (4 base + 6)

Initiative +4

Skills 44 (22)
-----------------
Expertise: Magic +8 (4)
Expertise: Science +10 (6)
Expertise: History +8 (4)
Investigation +10 (6)
Perception +10 (6)
Insight +8 (4)
Treatment +8 (4)
Sleight of Hand +5 (3)
Stealth +5 (3)
Technology +8 (4)

Powers
----------
Soul Spells (32pp)
- Magnus Warding - Create (Selective, Affects Insubstantial 2, Subtle 2) +9
- Soul Hand - Move Object (Perception, Subtle 2, Precise 1) +9
- Manifest Soul (all powers are Sustained)
Enhanced Trait: Strength 7 (14)
Enhanced Trait: Fighting 5 (10)
Enhanced Trait: Dodge 2 (2)
Enhanced Trait: Fortitude (4)

Book Spells (Easily Removeable -12pp) 21pp (35pp)
- One Hundred Ways to Die - Damage (Ranged, Multiattack, PF Variable (Magic) 2, PF Accurate 3) +9, 32pp
- Hexat - Affliction (Rng vs Will, Ext Condition, PF Rvrsble, PF Acc 3; Impaired-Vuln/Disabled-Defenseless/Controlled-Unaware) +9
- Disjoin - Nullify (Broad (magic), Perception, Simultaneous) +8
- Thunder Road - Teleport (Accurate, Extended, Easy, Limited to Extended, PF Change Dir, PF Change Vel, PF Inc Mass +2) +7 (+8 from extended)

Enduring Effects
Barrier Warding - Protection 8, 8pts
Glamour - Morph 2 (humanoids of roughly the same size and gender), 11pp
- PF: Invisibility (Concealment +4: All Vision, PF Precise)
Mystically Sensitive - Super Sense (Mental - Magic Awareness, Extended 1) 2pp

Advantages
---------------
Artificer, 1
Ritualist, 1
Ranged Attack +2, 2
Sidekick: The Grimoire (20pts), 4

Totals:
Attributes: 26
Defenses:20
Skills: 22
Advantages: 8
Powers: 74
150

Complications


Sidekick: The Grymoiyre!
Sentient Construct

Attributes (10)
Dexterity 0
Fighting 0
Intellect 5
Awareness 0
Presence 0

Skills 6 (3)
Expertise: Magic +11 (6)

Advantages (2)
Artificer
Ritualist

Abilities (35)
Protection 5
Immunity to Fortitude Effects 30

Flaws (-30)
Lack 3 Attributes -30

RP Quirk - "Magic is the solution to every problem!"[/sblock]

Okay, so I'm mulling over two characters in my mind.

1. First idea is perhaps Sandra's "nemesis". I've been watching too much Smallville and Buffy lately, so I'm thinking a ditzy blonde cheerleader type mashed with a slowly emerging Clark Kent. I'd start with a bit above average physical skills, try and superhigh her presence, leave her intelligence and awareness rather low. Eventually she'd start getting superstrength, speed, flight, etc, kind of using the Paragon example from the book. If she's post-college like Sandra, maybe she's a pharmaceutical sales rep and rubs it in Sandra's face? (They never got along in high school and college? Popular girl/nerdy girl?)

2. Tobias Walker. A bit more original, though less sure how to build. Energy controller, I think. Controls radio frequencies. Mute. Bit of an electronics tinker/mechanic. Texas cowboy gentleman. Eventually RF blasts, build little radios to talk through, maybe little RC drones.

I have a couple other oddball characters I've worked in writing games in the past, though not sure how well they would work in MM. A computer geek with a Deadpool-esque healing ability but no combat skills, or maybe someone with invulnerability, but not superstrength, and maybe also no combat training.

Thoughts?

I'm still considering the college kid turned into a plant monster. Just need to figure out how to build him. Tough and strong, but not smart or agile at all under his permanent transformation. Should be able to knock it out today.

As I think I've mentioned, I've never played M&M before, so please take a look at my character and let me know if my calculations are correct and/or any suggestions. The basic concept is a brainy college botany student who was transformed into a strong and very tough plant-based hero do to a nefarious industrial accident in a nearby forest or swamp. The closest corollary would probably be Man-Thing. The transformation reduced his mental faculties significantly and he is unable to communicate normally (I was actually looking for an emotive power that he would use, but wasn't sure what would work. Possibly something with communication? Maybe area and limited, except the limit would be a limit on what could be projected rather than the target audience? I wasn't sure if there was some kind of flaw for being mute that I could take to balance it out. No big deal if not, I can grab four points from Immortality.

One of the big things I am not sure about is the Attack & Effect mod limitation. I have a single rank 10 affliction power, but I am not exactly sure what is added to it to determine the limit.

I grabbed your formatting @Shayuri, hope you don't mind.

Name: Herman Hasslebeck

​

The Horrendous Heap

Kahless, the nemesis idea is really funny/cool, and I'd be more than happy to work with you on a shared antagonistic background.

Forged, the character as-is isn't permanently in his transformed state, though it wouldn't be hard to make him so...and that would also give you summore points to spend.

The way the tradeoffs work is that Dodge and Toughness are considered to be on a kind of balancing fulcrum. If both are equal, their maximums are the same as your Power Level. In our cases, that's 10. If you reduce one maximum, the other maximum goes up. So if your Dodge is maxed out at 8 (ie - you can never have more than that), then your Toughness is maxed at 12.

Similarly your attack bonus and your effect rank is that kind of a scale. So your Affliction 10 means you can have an attack bonus of 10 with that attack as well.

There IS a limit on how many points you can 'swing' the arms of this balance. And in general you will not want to hose Dodge TOO much, or you become easy meat for things like Multiattack and Power Attack and so on. Your Impervious is really good at 9 ranks, but that still only blocks damage ranks of 5 or lower. You're bulletproof, but most super-level attacks will go right through that.

Thanks Shayuri!

I definitely will want him permanently transformed, but I couldn't find the flaw or whatever it would be that would make it so.

Since the affliction attack is grab based, does that mean having a +12 to Grab would put him over the 20 limit (12+10=22)? I'm still working out the terms. I may just take the Advantage that allows him to choke people out and just flavor it. Then I could change the affliction to its original short range attack so he has a ranged attack. Maybe choking spores or something?

I may need to play around with things. What I really wanted was a super tough character, but it seems that putting too much in Toughness necessarily limits your hand-to-hand capabilities due to Parry being based on fighting and the two are a balanced pair. I guess I could boost his Protection/Impervious more by not increasing his FTG, but just dumping a bunch of levels in Close Combat skills to make up for it. I basically just want him to be a really, really tough hombre with just enough ability to punch someone or choke them out to make him not be ignored as a target. I'd actually rather take the hits and be able to shrug them off than go the other way with it. Let me play with it a bit more.

Check out some of the combat Advantages. There's a few that let you dynamically swap attack ranks and damage ranks as you see fit, like Accurate Attack and Power Attack.

If you have those, you can freely choose how to 'allocate' your attack and damage tradeoffs during a fight.

High Toughness is workable, but you're not allowed by PL to have enough Impervious to deal with most equal-PL attacks... You're doing it right though, pairing high Toughness with Regeneration. With high Toughness you will be getting hurt occasionally, but not usually getting hurt a LOT (compared to a high Defense build, which typically doesn't take damage often, but when hit is hit -hard-). This means you'll often be able to regenerate damage as fast as you're taking it.

That said, hosing Defense by a LOT means you are very vulnerable to area attacks and Multiattack. Multiattack in particular is extremely dangerous if it can hit reliably with high margins of success.

For example, if Grimoire casts 100 Ways to Die on you, you're eating a multiattack damage rank 9 effect. A damage rank 9 is DC24 toughness, which is generally not a big issue for you. You avoid damage entirely on a 9 or better. But! Because your Dodge is so low, she's almost sure to get a high margin of success, which can boost the effect damage by 5! Now it's damage rank 14, DC 29, and you are probably taking damage. Your regen will let you keep pace with that, but you can see how you'd really rather not have to rely on that, on a turn by turn basis.

Similarly, going TOO light on defenses like Will can be a problem. I realize in this case it's probably a deliberate design decision, and I certainly don't always PL-max every defense, but it's good to bring up. Afflictions have staged effects, and if an enemy can reliably beat your Will by 15 or more (which a Will of 5 probably can be), then you may spend a lot of fights not doing a whole lot. As another example, consider Grimoire's Hexat spell. +10 to hit, targets Will, and will either destroy your attack bonus and/or defenses...or completely render you insensate and under her control. Against most equal-PL foes it's just a handy debuff. Against someone with Will Defense 5, it's a fight-ender.

This is not to say you can't or shouldn't keep things the way they are; just do it with understanding of the potential consequences.

Gotcha! Interesting, I didn't see anything about staging up the damage of the attack based on the margin of success; I must have missed that in the SRD. I did see where it explains that a critical hit can stage the damage effect up by +5 and that the degree of failure of the resistance check indicates how badly a character is injured.

I've made a few modifications to the original, mostly making him tougher. Like you guessed, the low Will save is based on the approach to character design. I figure it would be a liability and I think I'm okay with that, I just want to test the system out and see how it works since I've never played it. Hopefully we'll be going up against less impressive foes on our first few outings.