M&M: Making Guns Interesting

[hobgoblin]

Mind Control: By shooting nearby ground or walls, the hero can force a target to get back inside, dance in humiliation, or tell him what the combination to the safe is. (This is an extra, but is not meant to be used at the same time as an attack -- it's just different enough that I thought it merited an Extra, not a Power Stunt.)

just a small correction about powers taken as a extra. you cant automaticly mix and match them. a power taken as a extra is in fact a extra effect (if you read the stuff about makeing a power). therefor you need stuff like trigger and similar to use more then one effect at the same action. still, a extra can be sustained while a diffrent power as extra (or the power itself) is used. a power as a power stunt on the other hand shuts down when the power its a stunt of is used.

this i learned after a lengthy session over on the m&m forum. the wording of the book i fear is messy. they should have more clearly seperated a normal extra and a effect taken as a extra, and allso a secondary effect power stunt and a normal power stunt. as its layed out right now you cant look at the power creation guidelines and the existing powers and just go aha as the descriptions of the existing powers dont cover what parts are secondary effects and what are effects written as extras.

as the book looks the power creation guidelines where written after the powers where written and the layout of those entrys was explained.

this however may have been cleaned up on the second printing...

 

[The Grackle]

j
... a extra can be sustained while a diffrent power as extra (or the power itself) is used. a power as a power stunt on the other hand shuts down when the power its a stunt of is used.

Yep. So a whip guy couldn't maintain a snare and then whip someone else. Makes sense. Trip, stun, and disarm can be power stunts b/c they're all attack powers. Mind control is a control effect, so it has to be purchased as an extra.

therefor you need stuff like trigger and similar to use more then one effect at the same action.

yep, again. So the "Heroic Blast" needs a trigger, b/c two effects are going off at once- one for damage and another for TK. Although, instead of TK you could give an extra called "increased knockback" as was mentioned on one of the other threads recently. Since really it's a very limited use of TK going off.

this however may have been cleaned up on the second printing...

Nope, not really. Maybe in M&M 1.5...

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

One of the reasons guns are kind of lame in M&M is many heroes can't even be hurt by them. AN assault rifle (in memory serves me) tops out at about 7+. If you have a protection level of 7 or higher then you just chuckle that blast off and continue to pound.

I believe there is some rule or power out there (maybe by a third party) that allows you - as a villain - to outfit your guys with weapons that are much more potent than standard rifles and guns.

 

[billd91]

One of the reasons guns are kind of lame in M&M is many heroes can't even be hurt by them. AN assault rifle (in memory serves me) tops out at about 7+. If you have a protection level of 7 or higher then you just chuckle that blast off and continue to pound.

I believe there is some rule or power out there (maybe by a third party) that allows you - as a villain - to outfit your guys with weapons that are much more potent than standard rifles and guns.

Actually, that's just part of the GM's fiat in any set of rules: giving weapons higher than the mook's PL for the good of the scenario. But even if you stick to PL limits and raise the level of the mook, a higher level mook, while he may have more points for skills and a few other things, is still a mook and will go down with the first failed damage save.
I think there's a good point to having bullet-proof characters if they spend enough on the protection/armor/forcefield/whatever. After all, there are plenty of bullet proof characters in the comics.

As far as coming up with interesting and varied guns, if that's the character's power, then yes, be as creative as you want. There's a big difference between the faceless mooks and the stars of the show.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

"Protection" is really a watch-out power, i've learned. You need to keep it reigned and often replace it with Amazing Save: DMG instead ... characters who aren't hurt by most attacks should be Amazing Save ... characters that most weapons bounce off of them ... Protection.

I give Protection more often to people who have an otherwise crappy DMG save .. it seems like that's what they did with the Battlesuit guy they built. People who DEPEND on their armor. So Con 20, +Toughness, +10 Protection is pretty painful. Con 13, Protection +10 is maybe more realistic.

Eh. ONe thing I like about Nocturnals is the flavor of the setting sort of frowns on maxed out big powers like Blast and Protection. It fits in a little better with games I've run in the past and makes me more comfortable with it. A zombie gunfighter with big Damage Save I know how to deal with for some reason ... where as running a game with Minotaur was problematic due to my lack of familiarity with the rules and that sort of comic (never was a big fan of 4-color hero comics).

--fje

 

[hobgoblin]

then just tone down the power level to say 5 or so (or maybe even lower) and play the game

thats one of the nice parts of the rules. you can tune the game to the powerlevel you want...

 

[takyris]

Definitely. Minmaxing is bad. It's easy, but it's not a race the players should get into with the GM.

On a minor quibble -- you need Protection 8 to ignore a +7L attack. It only ignores if it reduces damage BELOW 0. And if you give the rifle Penetrating Attack, then, under the errata, Protection is effectively turned into Amazing Saveamage (by the errata, Protection still works in terms of reducing incoming damage, but Penetrating Attack says that even if damage is reduced below 0, a Damage Save is required -- and most folks with Protection don't have a great damage save, so even a Damage Save of 13 is going to hurt them if you keep firing for a few rounds).

I wouldn't give mooks Penetrating Attack, though. As I said in a different thread, that's not what mooks are there for.

 

[VirgilCaine]

If I have one complaint about M&M, it's that guns become a little ... uninteresting. --fje

A normal person good with guns could probably easily take out an X-man (sniping with a typical hunting rifle) (well, not Wolverine, unless you want to go for the eyeball-shot-bullet-pinball-around-the-skull-cream-cheese-for-brains-thing) but not one of the Justice League--all those flying people, ya know.

At any rate, a double barreled wouldn't be a good choice for combat against normal people, much less mutants who can dodge bullets and punch through concrete walls.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, I'm working with a Nocturnals game right now, actually ... which is why the problem came up. Nocturnals REALLY focuses on firearms ... it's the major damaging form of attack in the genre. Not alot of blasts, not alot of "Big Ole Fist"s ... everybody's got a handgun (and usually an old-school .45, actually).

So flat, out the door ... think of it like everybody taking 1/2-2/3 rank Blast. EVERYBODY.

So I was looking for something to change it up a bit. Double-barrel, six-gun sorcery, stuff like that.

--fje

 

[ledded]

Well, I dont know if this is even appropriate, but here is something I did with BnV / d20 Modern for our WWII supers game.

I wanted the PC's to be able to fight against normally overwhelming odds, while still being leery of getting shot or blown up; I didnt want them to be able to totally ignore mundane firearms because it is a *huge* facet of our game.

First, we use d20 Modern as a base and the firearms in there have their damage die upped by one because we use VP/WP (so 2d6 goes to 3d6, 2d10 goes to 3d10, etc).

So we have a character that has enough PP in physical ranged absorption to be able to ignore 5 dice of damage (which is a lot of absorption, BTW). A bad guy takes a shot at him with a Kar 98 rifle, which does 3d10 points of damage. Even though he's very tough, I didnt want him to completely ignore it, because I also didnt want there to be a bunch of 'super guns' made just to nix somebody's schtick.

I do a quick conversion of 3d10 to d6's, 6d6. So if the shot hits, Mr Absorption rolls a save (if autofire/explosion, normal reflex, if a single shot, then a fort vs the attack roll) and applies the absorption (ignoring 5d6 on a successful save) as proscribed in the rules.

This way, Mr Absorption can shrug off small caliber gunshots/autofire most of the time with no effect, and still resist a good portion of high-powered rifle shots. However, a sniper with a very good attack and still mess up his day, and a Tiger tank firing its main gun at his position can still cause him a world of hurt.

In play, this has been really good. The main character who is the Brick/Meat Shield has taken tons of abuse, including being nearly shot with a tank's main gun, but his absorption has allowed him to draw a lot of fire while his quicker/less sturdy comrades rip the mooks to shreds (most of the time). He still messes up though, and has nearly been killed a couple times because of a couple bad rolls. And describing the absorption effect is a lot of fun for the GM too

To make it easier, I keep a small cross-reference sheet of the damage types they face in the nearest d6 equivalent so I can convert as fast as possible and it is seamless to the players (I dont make them sweat it).

It's grittier and more dangerous than a typical supers game, I'll admit, but we like our gaming that way for the most part.