[BRAGGING] I got a copy of Ultimate Power!

[Relique du Madde]

That book served me in good stead during my days spent enmeshed in M&M, and I agree with quite a few other folks that if Green Ronin ever does a "Super Deluxe M&M Core Book," they should just replace the default Powers section with Ultimate Power, particularly the section on designing new powers.

I bet you the majority of M&M's players would happily sell of a portion of their soul, or someone else's to have that book be put into print.

 

[ValhallaGH]

I bet you the majority of M&M's players would happily sell of a portion of their soul, or someone else's to have that book be put into print.

You couldn't tell by me.
I always thought of Ultimate Power as a crutch for the unimaginative (no offense meant to anyone reading this, just stating my opinion). The only thing useful I found in there was the replacement for Alternate Form (Container), which I was halfway to house-ruling into existence, anyway.
As for problems, I've noticed that a lot of recent products have Ultimate Power alternate powers and power feats with no translation for folks that don't have that book. That makes the characters and power sets almost useless for many customers. This is especially egregious given that these abilities can be built using the core powers, flaws, and extras (with one or two new flaws or extras required), maximizing utility to all customers.

The entire green section is just examples of how to build powers. No mechanical benefit at all, just inspiration for people that haven't figured out the power building system yet.

Overall, I'm glad the silly thing is out of print. I wish it would stay there.

 

[Crothian]

I think you are looking at it the wrong way. It is a timesaver because even imaginitive people have jobs and families and can't always sit down and create what they need.

 

[Pramas]

I agree with quite a few other folks that if Green Ronin ever does a "Super Deluxe M&M Core Book," they should just replace the default Powers section with Ultimate Power, particularly the section on designing new powers.

We considered it, but combining those two books would give us a really big core book that we'd have to price at at least $50 and we weren't too keen on making the entry point for the game that much money.

 

[Greg K]

You couldn't tell by me.
I always thought of Ultimate Power as a crutch for the unimaginative (no offense meant to anyone reading this, just stating my opinion).

I don't understand that view. It still provides you mechanics for building your own powers and tailoring those in the book. Maybe, you should try looking at all those powers as an aid to speed up character generation.

 

[Greg K]

Congratulations, I guess.
I and another player in my group have had our copies. Plus, GR stated that they will be re-releasing it in a pocket guide format.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I always thought of Ultimate Power as a crutch for the unimaginative (no offense meant to anyone reading this, just stating my opinion).

*chuckles* Nooo, why would anyone take offence at that? But, by all means, you are entitled to your opinion of the book. Even if I happen to disagree completely with your analysis (if not vehemently; I just don't care enough for that).

Overall, I'm glad the silly thing is out of print. I wish it would stay there.

But how you got from there to here. . . does the book really offend your sensibilities so much that you would wish it out of existence (or further proliferation, anyway) when, well, it must be perfectly clear to you that many M&M GMs and players have had, and will most likely continue to have, good results from using it? Unless this was an elaborate jest/trolling, and I'm just missing the point. . .

*shrug* Oh well, either way, good score Jeff - the prices I've seen lately have been pretty horrific.

 

[ValhallaGH]

*chuckles* Nooo, why would anyone take offence at that?

I realized it was a bit inflammatory, and I'm not looking to start anything, but since I chose to state my opinion (it was the soul-selling comment that finally made me break silence) I wanted to state it as clearly and completely as I could. Which required that wording, and my desire not to start things required a caveat.

Now the real reason I chose to respond to your post.

But how you got from there to here. . . does the book really offend your sensibilities so much that you would wish it out of existence (or further proliferation, anyway) when, well, it must be perfectly clear to you that many M&M GMs and players have had, and will most likely continue to have, good results from using it?

By itself, no, it's not nearly enough of an issue to wish it out of existence. The problem comes with the wealth of products that (unnecessarily) use Ultimate Power notations and listings, making some of their best characters almost useless without that book, when they could use the core book alone to create the exact same powers.
Example: Melt is a surprisingly common alternate power (for fire characters) in recent products. When all you see is "Melt", and you don't have UP, that's both confusing and useless. When you see "Alternate Powers: Melt (Corrosion; Extra: Ranged; Flaw: Limited to Objects only)" you can read that and use it using only the core book. It takes a little bit more time and effort to type and print but the shift in usability to the customer is phenomenal.

It's that not-so-subtle pressure to "go forth and buy Ultimate Power if you want to get full utility from the book you just bought" that really gets to me. The fact that UP is out of print (and more than the core book when you can find it) just adds that last little touch of perfectly deplorable.
I'd rather that Ultimate Power had never been published in the first place.

 

[Dragonblade]

Ultimate Power is a cool book. A friend of mine at Gen Con the year it was released scored a copy for me and had Steve Kenson sign it for me. How cool is that!

 

[Elric]

As for problems, I've noticed that a lot of recent products have Ultimate Power alternate powers and power feats with no translation for folks that don't have that book. That makes the characters and power sets almost useless for many customers. This is especially egregious given that these abilities can be built using the core powers, flaws, and extras (with one or two new flaws or extras required), maximizing utility to all customers.

I agree with this criticism. Certainly, the pdf of Freedom's Most Wanted (which still hasn't been updated to correspond to the changes made in the printed version of the book) has this problem, and I believe Warriors and Warlocks has it as well.

However, it doesn't seem like this is GR's intention. It seems like some individual designers (FMW, for example, has a number of different designers) use UP too frequently when a core rules construct would be sufficient, and then this either doesn't get caught or gets caught but doesn't get corrected later.