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

[pawsplay]

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.

I would just like to point out that you said, "No, it is not," then said a number of things I know and don't disagree with. It is one thing to disagree with my interpretation, another to actually disprove it. I wonder if it might not have been more productive to say, "This is how I see things," and then provided some points to support your point of view. As it is, you have simply restated that in M&M and RM both, you receive a number of points per level to spend, which is my point. RM does not have optional rules to increase or decrease those points, of course.

 

[ValhallaGH]

M&M defaults to PL x 10 cp, making M&M levels discrete.

... Where the hell did you find that? Because it's not in the base book.
The PL is whatever the GM sets it at. It changes when the GM says it changes, no earlier and no later. A character's PL could change every time the relevant player said the word "cool". That's as valid a method of PL advancement as the 10 power point method you've proposed.

.I'm a min/maxer. I try to get the best advantage possible. When it comes to M&M I try to max out my saves. There are four saves, Toughness, Reflex, Fortitude, and Willpower. The maximum save for Toughness is equal to PL, and the maximum saves for the other three are PL plus 5. So, at PL 10 that's 10 + 15 + 15 +15 for a total of 55 points which leaves 95 points to buy everything else. That's a lot of points. I'd rather spend these points on powers or skills.

Dude, you so very badly need to reread the character build rules. All of them. Because you do not understand them. You have missed key information and need to read the book again in great detail.
Once you do that, I'll be happy to discuss your issues further.

Oh, and to min/max M&M don't aim for your PL cap. Aim for saves equal to your PL. Ability scores are the single cheapest way to get there.
Using a Container to get Enhanced Abilities is the cheapest way I've found to get awesome ability scores. I've got a PC I'm playing that gets a 2:10 return on his ability scores; every 2 actual power points I invest gets him a +10 to a single ability score.
For 24 power points, a similar build could have 30 in all six ability scores. +10 to all saves, skills, and recovery checks. For 24 power points. If you want to, you could then spend 15 power points to get all your saves to your PL 10 caps and spend 40 points to get your Combat to your caps. 79 power points and you've capped most of your character, leaving 71 power points for feats and skills.

The saves situation is a mess in M&M. It is basically inevitible that saves will trail behind attack DCs.

You say that like it was a bad thing. Like it somehow ruined the fun of the game.

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

No rounding. Do the math for a strength 64 character and you'll have the correct loads.
Heavy Load: 89.6 tons. Call it 90 for game play.
If you're lazy (and many folks are) simply round to the nearest "five" increment. 64 is closer to 65 than it is to 60, so they rounded to 65.

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

Superman is not a PL 10 character. He hasn't been one since the early golden age, back before he could fly.
At his weakest powered depiction, Superman is a bad ass PL 12. At the level most people think of him as, he's PL 15 to 18 (varies with depiction).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Superman is not a PL 10 character. He hasn't been one since the early golden age, back before he could fly.
At his weakest powered depiction, Superman is a bad ass PL 12. At the level most people think of him as, he's PL 15 to 18 (varies with depiction).

Or more- don't forget, he has been known to move planets and dive into stars in some incarnations.

And some of the heroes modeled after him have been similarly powerful...at least for short times.

Besides that, there are other characters that are just as powerful, if not moreso- Green Lantern springs immediately to mind in DC, and Marvel is full of them.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Or more- don't forget, he has been known to move planets and dive into stars in some incarnations.

I can build a (very high point) PL 0 that can move planets around and dive into stars. Immunities are cheap for what they do, and super-strength is not capped by your PL.

Besides that, there are other characters that are just as powerful, if not moreso- Green Lantern springs immediately to mind in DC, and Marvel is full of them.

GL is impressive as all get out, but none of them are as absolutely powerful as Superman (barring those crazy avatar-spirit things like Ion). What they have going for them is an extremely flexible power set and creativity; which is 99% of what you need to be an amazing hero. 90% of the lantern corps is PL 9-10, with a couple of the most powerful members reaching towards PL 11 or 12. The Guardians are probably PL 15-16, when they aren't PL X characters (which they were for a very long time).

Other than the Plot characters (who are villains of one sort or another), the only Marvel guys I can think of to rival Supes are Thor, Sentry, and Hulk (whose strength is a plot device, though a carefully regulated one). All the others that come close are some kind of plot-device villain when they could rival the Man of Steel (Silver Surfer, Galactus, Thanos, etc.).

 

[Quantum]

GL is impressive as all get out, but none of them are as absolutely powerful as Superman (barring those crazy avatar-spirit things like Ion).

Except that in First Flight, he moves two moons to smash the ultimate weapon that is destroying OA. This is the Hal Jordan GL. But he did so only after merging with the core energy in the main power battery somehow.

Dude, you so very badly need to reread the character build rules. All of them. Because you do not understand them. You have missed key information and need to read the book again in great detail.
Once you do that, I'll be happy to discuss your issues further.

If you ever want to have a non hostile discussion in a non combative way, don't ever ing tell me what I do and not not understand. Keep it friendly, and telling me I do not understand something only sets me in a combative mood and I am not open to new information when in a combative mood. Telling someone this is just not friendly, it sets a hostile tone.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

For me, and this is how I interpret M&M, it is level based to me. I can see why some people would say its not, and that's fine, but to me, it is. I crack that book and see a standard, d20, leveling progression chart with the benchmarks and level maximums allowed, the only difference between M&M and other d20 games is that the character gets points each level instead of preset and predefined abilities.

That's it...so it is both. But, to me, M&M is most definately a Level Based game. Everything in that entire game is defined by the Power LEVEL in which the game is set. It uses Levels as a benchmark for everything. In a way, M&M is more defined by its Level than other d20 games.

It's a level based game disguised as a point based game. This is my opinion, I am not wrong, and don't say I am wrong for my interpretation of the game. If it is not level based to any of you, then you are not wrong, its just how you interpret the game.

For me, PL = Level.
For some of you, PL != Level.

We are both right, in our own worlds.

 

[Aus_Snow]

(sigh) No. Just no.

But never mind an explanation. It's self-evident, when the book is read and taken as is. So I really can't be bothered.

Cool, it's a 'level-based' game to, what, two (maybe three!) people on the interwebs. Fine by me. Aaaand, I'll be leaving this topic right there. For good.

 

[Piratecat]

Hey, everyone! Time to take a step back. Please discuss, don't bicker - and don't tell other people what they do or do not know.

 

[pawsplay]

... Where the hell did you find that? Because it's not in the base book.
The PL is whatever the GM sets it at. It changes when the GM says it changes, no earlier and no later. A character's PL could change every time the relevant player said the word "cool". That's as valid a method of PL advancement as the 10 power point method you've proposed.

Sorry, I meant 15.

p. 14

3. Power Level
Your GM sets the starting power level for the series. Generally this is 10th level, but it may range anywhere from around 5th level to 20th level or more. All characters begin play at the same power level, which determines their starting power points and where you can spend them.

p.24

The campaign's power level provides a guideline for how many power points you get to create your character (15 points per power level), as shown on the Starting Power Poitns table. The Gamemaster can vary the starting power poitns as desired to suit the campaign.

... Power level is an overall measure of effectiveness and power, primarily combat ability, but also generally what sorts of tasks a character can be expected to accomplish on a regular basis...

So as you can see, Power Level corresponds to a number of power points (at least initially) and exactly corresponds to trait limits. It is a scalable, graduated trait with explicit capabilities for each level. Do I need to point out that it's called Power Level? Saying that a Power Level-based game is not a level-based system sounds like quite a contradiction to me.

 

[Thanee]

Well, it certainly is "level-based" in a broad sense of the term, much like HERO is also "level-based" in a broad sense (as explained above).

The problem here is simply a different perception of the term "level-based".

Bye
Thanee