Hero System Vs. Mutants & Masterminds. Which is the better super-hero game?

[Thanee]

No, not at all.

Can you give an example?

Actually, they are quite different. In Hero, your starting points have no relation to the trait limits, ...

Of course, they do. You can put no more than all your points into one trait.

Besides, HERO has discreet limits depening on the power level. There are ranges given for charactersitics, CVs, DCs, skill rolls, active points, etc.

6E1p35

Even then, the categories aren't graduated, so they don't count as levels. You can't say, "Let's increase the caps in Hero by one level." There is no set progression.

Yes, there is.

"standard heroic", "powerful heroic", "standard superheroic", etc.

If a character starts out as "standard heroic" and gains 50 Experience, the character is no longer "standard heroic" but "powerful heroic" and has "advanced a level".


BUT... that won't allow the character to go beyond the limits of a "standard heroic" character, unless the GM advances the campaign to "powerful heroic" eventually.

And that's the same with the PLs in M&M. The PL is fixed, unless the campaign variables change. The character advancement has no influence there. It's an arbitrary decision not directly related to the characters.

Note also that NPCs have their own PL (M&M, p.25). Power level is a character trait; the overall PL for PCs is a campaign trait.

The difference to me is, that PL is not a trait of the character, but it is a layer above the character. Of course, you can say the character is of Power Level X, because the character is in that category. But that's the whole point, PL categorizes characters, it's not something the character has. One important aspect here is, that the character has no choice about the power level. Pretty much anything else can be chosen during character creation, but PL is set before the character is even created.

It's not a level, it's a category. So to say.

And HERO has exactly the same thing (a bit more loosely organized) with the heroic and superheroic categories.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

One more thing...

If the campaign framework specifies a specific level, obviously.

Another difference between these two is...

If the character advances a level, the character becomes more powerful.

If the campaign level is increased (i.e. the PL in M&M), the character can now potentially become more powerful, but doesn't immediately gain power.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Quantum]

That a PL 10 character can have Fort/Ref/Will all at +15 is something of a problem with M&M's design. A character should be able to have one of these saves at +15, but a good rule of thumb is that if your average F/R/W save is over +10, they're too high. It's simply too hard to hurt a character with maxed FRW saves, even though individual characters can justify one particularly high saves (e.g., Speedster's Reflex or Psionic's Will). Average among the core book archetypes is ~+23 between FRW combined, which is a good benchmark to shoot for.


Well, except for exceptions like Superman, the archetypes in the book seem to bear this out.



You buy stats starting from 10 (which costs 0 points). See the first page of Chapter 1, "Hero Creation"

Yeah, I must have missed that, thanks.

 

[pawsplay]

The saves situation is a mess in M&M. It is basically inevitible that saves will trail behind attack DCs. If you look at the sample characters, any of them with a lower Will save will fail versus mind control from another PL 10 character nearly three times in four (+5 or +6 Will versus DC 20 attack). In theory, more powerful abilities should be lower since they are more points per level, but in practice, characters usually max out their main attack and then build the rest as alternate powers or at lower levels. You can protest, "Well, that's PC design" but not much guidance is given on how to build NPCs, and the example NPCs do typically have maxed out abilities. Further, it is suggested that heroic archetypes can be be used as NPCs, and they definitely have maxed out attacks in almost all cases. In my experience, M&M combat is more about using hero points as a sort of currency than about the modifiers or advanced tactics.

 

[pawsplay]

If a character starts out as "standard heroic" and gains 50 Experience, the character is no longer "standard heroic" but "powerful heroic" and has "advanced a level".

BUT... that won't allow the character to go beyond the limits of a "standard heroic" character, unless the GM advances the campaign to "powerful heroic" eventually.

I suppose broadly you could consider Hero to be a leveled game in which there are three levels. However, because each level has a "suggested range" rather than a specific cap, the levels aren't discrete. Thus, I would not consider it a leveled game (apart from the questionable utility of defining a game with three huge levels - what are you comparing to what, again?).

That's different from M&M, where each level has a defined cap. That levels work differently in M&M than in D&D is noteworthy, but it doesn't make M&M not level-based. Levels work differently in Rolemaster, too.

Not level-based games would be:
DC Heroes: Traits completely independent.
Hero System: Traits mostly independent, graduated caps not defined for different levels.
Runequest/BRP: Skills are percentiles, attributes are independent.
GURPS: Traits are mostly independent, graduated caps not defined, traits not interchangeable for comparison.

Semi-level based games:
Most Fudge games give each character one or more traits at a specific cap, although other traits are likely independent.

 

[Greg K]

That's different from M&M, where each level has a defined cap. That levels work differently in M&M than in D&D is noteworthy, but it doesn't make M&M not level-based. Levels work differently in Rolemaster, too.

Levels in Rolemaster and DND both share something in common- character improvement occurs in broad chunks at very discrete intervals determined by the accumulation of XP the character has earned to reach a new level. The only difference is that RM provides you a handful of points each level to spend improving the various aspects of your character (excluding saves) whereas in D&D all or some of those aspects are improved for you by the system depending upon the version of D&D.

 

[pawsplay]

Levels in Rolemaster and DND both share something in common- character improvement occurs in broad chunks at very discrete intervals determined by the accumulation of XP the character has earned to reach a new level. The only difference is that RM provides you a handful of points each level to spend improving the various aspects of your character (excluding saves) whereas in D&D all or some of those aspects are improved for you by the system depending upon the version of D&D.

The only difference between the RM approach and the M&M approach is that in M&M, you get the points first, whereas in RM you get the level first and then the points, and that level advancement is not automatic, it requires GM permission in M&M.

 

[Greg K]

The only difference between the RM approach and the M&M approach is that in M&M, you get the points first, whereas in RM you get the level first and then the points, and that level advancement is not automatic, it requires GM permission in M&M.

No, its not.

The default assumption of Rolemaster is that your character starts off as a zero and will automatically grow in power as you level albeit slowly.

In M&M, the assumption is that you set the power level based upon the type of campaign you want to run (e.g., street (6), New Mutants (6-8), X-men (10-12), Avenger (12), Cosmic). Despite min-maxers that ignore it and try to max everything at the PL, the power level of the M&M campaign, is still designed to allow you to have a diversity of power levels among the individual characters from the start. Furthermore, the starting points per power level in M&M are suggestions. The GM is given permission to provide more or less starting points than the recommended depending upon how experienced the starting characters are for their power level. Newbie heroes in a PL 10 campaign may have the starting points recommended for PL 6 or 8 while experienced heroes in a PL 6 campaign might have the starting points recommended for PL 8.

 

[Elric]

Well, except for exceptions like Superman, the archetypes in the book seem to bear this out.

The Paragon archetype has +26 combined FRW saves. The average is +23. Some archetypes are above the average and some are below it. Note that the highest combined FRW saves is +27 on the Martial Artist and the lowest is +17 on the Battlesuit.

 

[Quantum]

Except the pattern for the Paragon saves are:

Toughness & Fortitude: +12
Reflex: +6
Willpower: +8


Which bears out his basic point that generally you have a higher save than all the rest. Willpower is pretty high, but still much lower than his highest saves. So I don't get your point. When looking at the archetypes in the M&M rulebook, you can see this pattern as well.

The exception to this is the Mimic with her three saves at 7 each and Toughness at +1.

ADDED:

I just found out that there's a mistake with the Paragon's Heavy Load for the power of Super Strength.

The Paragon has Super Strength at 6. For every rank in Super Strength you get to add +5 to your Strength score for purposes of lifting on the Carrying Capacity table. It says his Heavy load is 100 tons, which is at 65 on the table.

His initial Strength was 14. He has Enhanced Strength at 20. That makes his normal Strength 34.

6 times 5 is 30. 30 plus 34 is 64.

I believe you round down so that would make the lifting score a 60. With which the Heavy Load is 50 tons.

Unless you round up.

That Carrying Capacity table begins on page 36 of the main rule book.