Superhero RPG

[Jim Hague]

The what? I've not heard of this thing- linky, linky?



Yep!

Here you go for the Excel sheet:
http://www.elyzium.net/mnm/

It hasn't been updated in some time. However, there's also an open Office sheet that's current:

http://www.westguard.org/index.php?title=Help:MnM2e_Character_Builder

 

[Umbran]

(But for the record: I'm right. )

For the record, your generalization is insulting. Someone has asked you politely to back off. Continuing to assert it does not help matters. Please stop.

Remember that many folks around and about hide behind smilies as a defense for being insulting - as if they can claim it was a joke when it wasn't. So, to many, the smilie really is no defense at all. Don't expect folks to take anything you say with a smilie as humor.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Huh...thanks Jim!

As it turns out, I'm a member of that group...apparently I missed that somehow.

 

[Jim Hague]

No worries - I use those spreadhseets for my own campaign and books, so I tend to keep up with 'em.

 

[Thotas]

Steve C, I agree with "Many people like the system, but I've found that it doesn't make for a satisfying combat. Any attack that can injure someone at all, has an all too high probability of effectively taking them out of the fight in one blow."

So, if I ever run an M&M game, I'll be using the High-Low rolls option on page 10 of the Mastermind's Manual. With the scaling implied by a single rank increase of a stat, I think the resulting bell curve makes much more sense. Though, as the text points out, it drasticly reduces the chances of a critical hit. So my house rule on top of that, to make crits still a rare-but-not-almost-gone element of the game, is to designate one of the dice as the "threat die"; if it results in a roll in the threat range and the determinate die rates a hit, it confirms the crit.

That's one of the great features of M&M that gets overlooked a lot -- that it's also pretty easy to tweak the things that aren't to your particular taste.

 

[Krolik]

Steve C, I agree with "Many people like the system, but I've found that it doesn't make for a satisfying combat. Any attack that can injure someone at all, has an all too high probability of effectively taking them out of the fight in one blow."

Technically speaking, against equal opponents, a first-punch knockout is an impossibility in 2e. If someone with damage +10 hits someone with toughness +10 it's impossible to miss by 15 or more to get the knockout. Even if the defender took 4 bruises they'd only have a 20% chance of being knocked out on the 5th hit. The best someone could hope for in that situation would be 2 staggered results in a row, which would then result in a knockout. So there is no way to take out an opponent in a "single blow" if the combatants are equals. Of course if you have the Powerhouse hitting the Costumed Adventurer that mismatch is going to possibly result in a one-hit knockout. Batman's not designed to take a full-force blow from the Hulk without some luck saving his butt.

Part of the beauty of M&M's damage system is that lesser threats are still valid against a foe even if they can't result in a fast knockout. The agents with the +5 blaster pistol can possibly get some bruise damage on a target who doesn't have impervious toughness. That's a big advantage over many other games.

 

[Umbran]

Technically speaking, against equal opponents, a first-punch knockout is an impossibility in 2e. If someone with damage +10 hits someone with toughness +10 it's impossible to miss by 15 or more to get the knockout.

I'm not fully up on the system, but I note that your example is terribly specific. The question comes to mind - how often are the opponents actually so equal, and how quickly does this protection against quickly being taken out of combat fall off with difference?

That's a big advantage over many other games.

It is a big difference. Whether that difference is an advantage depends on your desire for that feature. Often enough, the genre has supers pretty imprevious to lesser threats. Captain America takes on a bunch of thugs and comes out without a scratch - they aren't a real threat, and so on.

 

[SteveC]

Technically speaking, against equal opponents, a first-punch knockout is an impossibility in 2e. If someone with damage +10 hits someone with toughness +10 it's impossible to miss by 15 or more to get the knockout. Even if the defender took 4 bruises they'd only have a 20% chance of being knocked out on the 5th hit. The best someone could hope for in that situation would be 2 staggered results in a row, which would then result in a knockout. So there is no way to take out an opponent in a "single blow" if the combatants are equals. Of course if you have the Powerhouse hitting the Costumed Adventurer that mismatch is going to possibly result in a one-hit knockout. Batman's not designed to take a full-force blow from the Hulk without some luck saving his butt.

Part of the beauty of M&M's damage system is that lesser threats are still valid against a foe even if they can't result in a fast knockout. The agents with the +5 blaster pistol can possibly get some bruise damage on a target who doesn't have impervious toughness. That's a big advantage over many other games.

The real problem with being taken out in a battle isn't the KOd issue, but rather the "stun lock" problem. If you fail by 5 or more, you're stunned for the next round. Once that happens, it is likely that you won't ever get to act again. The character I'm playing right now is at PL 8, and he has actually gotten to act in only one out of the last three combats due to the fact that he was constantly being stunned. Assuming you're at the same power level in terms of attack and defenses, the odds look like:

30% Defender takes no damage
20% Defender takes a bruise
25% Defender is stunned
25% Defender is stunned plus staggered

Those numbers are just too harsh for me. If you're the GM running an opponent, there's basically a 50% chance he's not going to be able to do anything for the next round every time he's hit. Now as a player I have the chance to spend a Hero Point to shrug off being stunned like that, but Hero Points are a relatively rare commodity. As a villain, the only thing the GM can do is invoke GM fiat in order to give his character an action, which awards the characters a Hero Point.

So that's my take on it, and why I'm ultimately becoming less a fan of the system. Of course the game I'm playing in is amazingly fun, so I don't groan about it too much. I can see the GM's frustration on the other side of the screen, however, as once we decide to team up on one of his villains, he's going down, and there's nothing much he can do about it.

--Steve

 

[Krolik]

I'm not fully up on the system, but I note that your example is terribly specific. The question comes to mind - how often are the opponents actually so equal, and how quickly does this protection against quickly being taken out of combat fall off with difference?

In a PL 10 game the average damage is 10 and the average toughness is 10. You can trade up and down but that is generally the way PL works. Looking at the Archetype examples you see Battlesuit with +12 damage and +12 toughness. Same for Paragon, Energy Projector, Mystic, Gadgeteer, etc. The game is specific when it comes to PL. It's all part of an equation.

It is a big difference. Whether that difference is an advantage depends on your desire for that feature. Often enough, the genre has supers pretty imprevious to lesser threats. Captain America takes on a bunch of thugs and comes out without a scratch - they aren't a real threat, and so on.

Cap isn't impervious to lesser threats. He just doesn't get hit oftens; which is the same for Spider-man. A Cap who can't avoid getting hit will fall fairly quickly. Tie him to a chair and see how many blows from thugs he can take then.

 

[Krolik]

The real problem with being taken out in a battle isn't the KOd issue, but rather the "stun lock" problem. If you fail by 5 or more, you're stunned for the next round. Once that happens, it is likely that you won't ever get to act again. The character I'm playing right now is at PL 8, and he has actually gotten to act in only one out of the last three combats due to the fact that he was constantly being stunned. Assuming you're at the same power level in terms of attack and defenses, the odds look like:

I guess I'm not seeing the problem considering you can immediately spend a Hero Point and shake off a stunned result. If you're not taking actions it's because you're rolling poorly and/or you're not using your Hero Points to your advantage, IMO. You have a 50% chance of taking a bruise or no damage. You have a 50% chance of being stunned or worse. It really just depends on which way the linear die flops.

Let's put it into Champions terms: Nighthawk, someone I'd consider around PL 8, has an 18 pd. If he gets hit by the average 12d6 punch he can do he will take 42 stun. 42-18=24. He has a con of 20. Guess what? He's stunned. A 10d6 energy attack will stun him if the damage roll is 2 stun over average. So in Champions you have a Nighthawk who will stun himself with each hit and knock himself out after 2 hits. In M&M if you a Nighthawk who has a 50% chance of being stunned or worse and a 50% chance of taking no or minimal damage. In general I'd say Nighthawk has a better chance of surviving a fight with his "evil self" in M&M then in Champions.