Kylara
First Post
I like many people loved the first edition of Mutants and Masterminds, its one of the best RPGs that I have ever played, and it really set the bar for me on the quality of an RPG book, at this point, I just can't play DnD without wishing that it was more like MnM, that it was point buy, level-less, had toughness saves, etc. When I heard that 2nd Edition for Mutants and masterminds was coming, I preodered, immediately, 1E was so good that my expectations for 2E were very high, and I expected to immediately want to change over in every game I played.
After getting and reading the book, I am left feeling a big old, "meh, could have been better". I try to model characters, and I keep running into holes in the rules, things that call for GM Fiat just in character creation that didn't call for it in 1E, arbitrary decisions that will change the costs of powers from game to game. In 2E costs have varying PP costs per rank, based on what they do, but there are leaps involved in each level of cost: For example, at 1PP/rank, Deflect allows you to block Slow Moving Projectiles, Fast Moving Projectiles, Energy Attacks, or Mental attacks. At 2pp/Rank you block everything but Mental attacks, but what happens when you fall between the cracks, when you don't want to block energy attacks. Your forced to get the GM to make an arbitrary ruling of how much a cost break not deflecting energy is worth.
In 1E building up the powers you want was pretty easy to do, you start with the base effect, and purchase extras to tailor it, buying only what you want. In 2E you buy an approximation, and then you have to rip it apart to try and get what you actually want, and then you guess at how much what you want is actually worth, and how much packaging you have torn out.
Another area of disapointment is the fact that power creation rules have been totally left out. If someone wants to do something that isn't in the book, you have to tell them sorry, you need to wait til the Mastermind's Manual is out I don't know how to create powers and handle the costing. Also there are a few powers that were just sort of left out, while redundant powers got included. Sorry, no need to have a shape matter power, we need to have entries for Hellfire control and Electricity control, etc, even though they are just the Blast power with different descriptors. It would have been much more helpful if they had consolidated all the control powers in one place, and then gave a quick line or two about each one then writing all of them up as individual powers. All the tables that the different powers use are like this, big jumps, but what do you do between the cracks?
Another nit to pick is movement, Movement does not provide that nice 5ft/round per power rank anymore (although its an often mentioned houserule), it gives you an MPH, and if you want to get a feet/action, you have to follow a formula. Granted, MPH * 10 isn't that hard, but the conversion should have been included on the chart. 1 rank of speed gets you 100feet/action, and things go up exponentially from there, within a few ranks. The movement system is a mess compared to 1st edition.
Overall, the 2E book is about 1/3rd longer then 1E, but it doesn't feel half as complete. Am I the only one that is feeling this way?
After getting and reading the book, I am left feeling a big old, "meh, could have been better". I try to model characters, and I keep running into holes in the rules, things that call for GM Fiat just in character creation that didn't call for it in 1E, arbitrary decisions that will change the costs of powers from game to game. In 2E costs have varying PP costs per rank, based on what they do, but there are leaps involved in each level of cost: For example, at 1PP/rank, Deflect allows you to block Slow Moving Projectiles, Fast Moving Projectiles, Energy Attacks, or Mental attacks. At 2pp/Rank you block everything but Mental attacks, but what happens when you fall between the cracks, when you don't want to block energy attacks. Your forced to get the GM to make an arbitrary ruling of how much a cost break not deflecting energy is worth.
In 1E building up the powers you want was pretty easy to do, you start with the base effect, and purchase extras to tailor it, buying only what you want. In 2E you buy an approximation, and then you have to rip it apart to try and get what you actually want, and then you guess at how much what you want is actually worth, and how much packaging you have torn out.
Another area of disapointment is the fact that power creation rules have been totally left out. If someone wants to do something that isn't in the book, you have to tell them sorry, you need to wait til the Mastermind's Manual is out I don't know how to create powers and handle the costing. Also there are a few powers that were just sort of left out, while redundant powers got included. Sorry, no need to have a shape matter power, we need to have entries for Hellfire control and Electricity control, etc, even though they are just the Blast power with different descriptors. It would have been much more helpful if they had consolidated all the control powers in one place, and then gave a quick line or two about each one then writing all of them up as individual powers. All the tables that the different powers use are like this, big jumps, but what do you do between the cracks?
Another nit to pick is movement, Movement does not provide that nice 5ft/round per power rank anymore (although its an often mentioned houserule), it gives you an MPH, and if you want to get a feet/action, you have to follow a formula. Granted, MPH * 10 isn't that hard, but the conversion should have been included on the chart. 1 rank of speed gets you 100feet/action, and things go up exponentially from there, within a few ranks. The movement system is a mess compared to 1st edition.
Overall, the 2E book is about 1/3rd longer then 1E, but it doesn't feel half as complete. Am I the only one that is feeling this way?
