[Mutants & Masterminds] Weapons And Armor vs. Supers

[mmu1]

And if a hero with Con 14 and Toughness (a net Damage save of +4) handles the DC 27 Damage Save and is only Disabled, then it means that he dove out of the way or under something (or that it blew up nearby and he was cushioned by something and got knocked clear of the blast by freak chance). If you say "No, he gets hit in the chest, and then he's just badly injured and not even unconscious," that's not the game mechanics screwing up. That's you using the wrong flavor text, no different from telling a fighter with 237 hit points that the axe hit for 7 points of damage was a direct full-on hit to his unarmored chest that nearly cut his arm off.

If making the damage save involves diving for cover, or getting lucky and having the blast be stopped by a terrain feature, then what does Defense do, and why does Evasion (which really represents diving for cover, according to the flavor text) specfically say (in the Errata) that it doesn't let you save vs. area attacks?

 

[swrushing]

Now, I'm not arguing that this guy will be serious threat to a PL 10 super (unless the character gets careless and lets him get in a really lucky shot), but the way power seems to drain out of weapons as soon as a superpowered character picks them up drives me up the wall - mainly because I'll have players giving me funny looks when they happen to pick up a huge weapon, or get in a position to hit an enemy with a car, and I tell them that their damage is capped by their power level - but hey, it's really cool to hit someone with a car...

First off, one of my sayings is that MnM is a game of yeards, not inches. Its never intended to be precise in many ways, with the system getting bogged down into a ton of details, but is intended to get you close enough for the Gm to handle the flavor bits.

So first off, let me point out that you are having an aesthetic reaction, right? it bothers you that it works this way, as opposed to it being something thats causing mechanical or play issues in a game.

Now moving along, MNM has a balance feature built in called PL. Like any balance tool its there to help you, or other "new gm types", balance their game and avoid having "ohmygod" blowouts occuring by surprise.

If its not helping you, this "balance tool" called "stacking limits" then just drop it. Do so understanding that you openb the door for some potential problems of the more IMPACt variety, but hey, you also get rid of the pesky aesthetic issues you have with not having already-maxed-for-the-campaign-supers gain ad hoc bonuses above campaign limits.

However, just as an aside, which genre are you running? i ask this vecause, if your group won't be satisfied UNLESS already-maxed-supers can gain freely ad hoc bonuses above campaign limits, then you will likely see a lot of "grab anything i can hit him with" shenanigans. You should keep in mind that the "average attack" may no longer be PL, but PL+2 to Pl+4 once they grab whatever beating terrain there is.

Note that, its likely this will affect the PCs too. Certainly, your typical dr doom type will not hesitate to brab the park bench for that extra BANG-POWER and save his photonic-dissembler-cannon for the lightweight mooks, for which it was designed (since the park bench allows him to exceed his Pl cap on damage, whereas the PDC doesn't.)

Now, of course, some people would find the notion of Doom preferring to use the park bench over his PD cannon since the park bench does lets him do more damage similarly aesthetically displeasing, but there is no pleasing everyone.

ASIDE: One thing i have done in other campaigns shoehorned into MNM would be:
PROTECTION: Protection bounced mundane attacks of Pl less than its PROT pl. So a guy with prot-8 is immune from a mundane attck of +7. Against "super" attacks, anything bought with points say, PROT only bounces stuff that is Pl HALF the prot level.

 

[swrushing]

And I strongly disagree with the idea that the difference between a +13 and +14 is any different than between +1 and +2 when it comes to combat - it's enough to look at the numbers to see that's not the case, the scaling of damage power is completely linear. (unlike that of lifting strength or superspeed) Neither is +13 really anywhere near a battleship's gun in power - a super not much tougher than a normal human, with Con 14, the Toughness feat and no powers that mitigate damage has a 35% chance of merely being disabled rather than killed after such a hit. That's not exactly what you'd expect from a hit equivalent to the explosion of hundreds of pounds of TNT at point blank range...

You must remember, MnM damage save numbers are intended to represent comic book four color levels of lethality, not "realistic" damage. How many times in comics do you see explosions akin to what you would expect leave the innocents in a heap under debris with the super rushing over to pull them out, alive, while the bad guy runs away?

When i have used the damage save mechanic in more normals level games, such as stargate, i found tweaking the damage save up by as little as 4-5 more made the levels of lethality move much more in line with non-super-heroic levels. if i read your numbers right, that would turn the odds of "not instant death" to around 1 in 10 for your example.

 

[mmu1]

However, just as an aside, which genre are you running? i ask this vecause, if your group won't be satisfied UNLESS already-maxed-supers can gain freely ad hoc bonuses above campaign limits, then you will likely see a lot of "grab anything i can hit him with" shenanigans. You should keep in mind that the "average attack" may no longer be PL, but PL+2 to Pl+4 once they grab whatever beating terrain there is.

I was actually planning on using it in a post-WWII / WWIII setting with a "powers" arms race replacing the nuclear arms race, so how much damage a soldier with a rifle or a tank gun can do actually matters (and I am not comfortable with pegging a tank shell at +10).

 

[swrushing]

I was actually planning on using it in a post-WWII / WWIII setting with a "powers" arms race replacing the nuclear arms race, so how much damage a soldier with a rifle or a tank gun can do actually matters (and I am not comfortable with pegging a tank shell at +10).

Then my suggestion is that you sit down and come up with the damage values and save DCs that suit your specific campaign needs or your tastes. You will also probably want to look at what PL you want. What you are describing is well out of the realm of the four color supers "precision light" MnM was built for, so wanting more detail and precision on guns, that DnP has to come from you.

I know ehen i used the mechanics for my stargate and my post-apocalyptic "new mutants" style campaigns, i had to do this as well and it worked just fine for those.

The core numbers are set for one style and genre, but with a different set of numbers you provide, the mechanics can work for a much wider scope, IMX.

EDIT: oh and another thing, i found for grittier flavor i wanted more than just OK, stunned and out as my damage levels. So, for stargate for instance, i would up with damage levels of 1. OK (-2 UFC penalty for being hit) on made save.
2. Hit (lose 1/2 action) on fail by 1-4
3. Dazed (lose full action) on fail by 5-8
4. Stunned (lose full, fall down, stunned) on fail by 9-12
5. Scene KO (out for scene at least, maybe dying) on fail by 13-16 "unlucky 13"
6. Mission kill (out for mission, wake up in hospital)

This, combined with low saves and higer base DCs, produced a very good tactical gritty feel, where most of the time getting shot is serious business.

of course, this may be grittier than you would like for supers, but it might serve to give you a far point.

 

[Bretbo]

A few things:

The tank write-up in the book could be interupted as an "average" example from today. A WWII era tank might be a little weaker; where a main battle tank today might be a little bit stronger. I wouldn't recommend changing them much, though.

And a +10 attack is nothing to sneeze at. Thats a 25 DC save that most characters would have a difficult time making. A character with a +5 save ( which, without powers and feats, is based on a 20 Con) would have to roll a 20 to take no damage what-so-ever. If they roll much lower than a 15 their in serious trouble.

And remember our friend Hero Points. The system is designed to favor players with number of Hero Points available and they really do make a difference.

No system is perfect and M&M certainly not everyones cup of tea. But you'll be hard pressed to find a super-powered based game that matches its' flexibility and ease of play.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Yea. M&M is nice, but there's a massive element of having to let it do what it's going to do and shrug the rest away. As it stands, it's a 4-Color Comic Superhero game. People take tank blasts on the chin and then rip the tank apart with their bare hands. Captain Girthythews just doesn't pick up a knife, he headbutts the brick wall and it crumbles to dust.

It's not a problem with the system because the system is doing what it was designed to do.

Personally, if you want a WWII supers game I'd suggest looking for a copy of GODLIKE at your FLGS. My wife picked me up a copy for XMas and it was brilliant. Very interesting, pretty lethal, and the rules are specialized for WWII war era play.

Another option would be Blood And Vigiliance by RPGObjects and D20 Modern.

M&M as it is written is bigger than life. It's quite alot of fun, and one of my group's favorite systems, but when we tried to adapt it out for other uses we found there were quite a few ground level assumptions the system made that needed to be changed.

--fje

 

[takyris]

If making the damage save involves diving for cover, or getting lucky and having the blast be stopped by a terrain feature, then what does Defense do, and why does Evasion (which really represents diving for cover, according to the flavor text) specfically say (in the Errata) that it doesn't let you save vs. area attacks?

Yeah, see, here's the thing. Making the damage save involves mitigating or ignoring the damage. Having a high defense involves ignoring the damage. So at some point, there's going to be an overlap.

And if you're such the rationalist that this stuff really bugs you, then this is not the right game for you. That's not a slam on you, seriously. But while you say that there are rule problems that are trying to be covered up, I'm seeing you trying to put your version of realism on top of a system that was designed to emulate an inherently unrealistic genre.

Making the damage save could mean that you are tough enough to take an attack and keep going (Wolverine). It could mean that you avoided the attack at the last moment, albeit at a closer level than if you'd avoided the attack by Defense (Spiderman or Batman). It could mean that you threw up some kind of shield to knock it away at the last second, albeit at a closer range than if you'd used Deflection (Green Lantern or Captain America). You can put just about any kind of flavor text on "Making a Damage Save", and you can vary that flavor text for it to work with what's happening.

If you're looking to do a supers game in a realistic war setting, then I think that M&M may not be right for you. You might be better off with something like d20 Modern and super-powered feats and talents -- I know that Chuck did one that was well-reviewed. But as swrushing said, M&M is a game of yards, not inches. You're complaining about inches, and then you're asking (in essence) why Superman can't hit harder while wearing brass knuckles.

 

[billd91]

Hmm... Let me give you an example of what I have a problem with. (assuming I understand how things work, if I'm wrong, I'd appreciate a correction)

A very strong (but not super-strong - let's say Str 16, there plenty of thugs around like that thanks to prison weight rooms) minion picks up a battle-axe and the power of his attack is +9, despite the fact that he's a PL 1 character. A superhero with 16 Str and 10 levels of super-strength picks up the axe, and... he's still got an attack power of +13, just as if he didn't even pick up a weapon.

Now, I'm not arguing that this guy will be serious threat to a PL 10 super (unless the character gets careless and lets him get in a really lucky shot), but the way power seems to drain out of weapons as soon as a superpowered character picks them up drives me up the wall - mainly because I'll have players giving me funny looks when they happen to pick up a huge weapon, or get in a position to hit an enemy with a car, and I tell them that their damage is capped by their power level - but hey, it's really cool to hit someone with a car...

A mook with a +7 weapon is probably already over his PL cap (battle axe in M&M p112 is listed as a +6L weapon), so one rule is already being bent as a GM fiat. It's therefore quite reasonable to not let him exceed that PL cap of his by another +3 from his strength. The thing with mook weapons, since most mooks are under PL 3-5, is that it's generally OK to exceed their PL caps in favor of tailoring the right feel and challenge for the PCs. This is an area where the expectations in the rules is different for GM characters than it is for PCs.

Now, in the case of the PC picking up the same weapon, he's supposed to be capped at his PL because that's a feature designed to keep the PCs balanced, or at least not out of control. The weapon can add to the PC's attack up to the PL cap depending on a couple of other factors including the hardness of the weapon's material. So your PC with 10 ranks of super strength and a strength of 16 might well go above +13, but only if he has a PL higher than 13 to begin with. And from a flavor standpoint, as stated before, when the super-strong character can hit as hard as a tank, the weapon probably brings little to the party. So hitting someone with a car doesn't do any more damage than your fists. It does however allow you to use your super strength at range, and that's not bad. You could also argue that it would also help keep the damage modifier up there if the character ever suffers strength drain, fatigure, exhaustion, or any other effect that would reduce his strength score.

The other thing is genre and flavor conventions. M&M handles larger-than-life superheroes pretty well. It's not designed to be anything more than a comic book reality simulator with improbable survivability and durability all over the place.

 

[mmu1]

It's not a problem with the system because the system is doing what it was designed to do.

Personally, if you want a WWII supers game I'd suggest looking for a copy of GODLIKE at your FLGS. My wife picked me up a copy for XMas and it was brilliant. Very interesting, pretty lethal, and the rules are specialized for WWII war era play.

I have Godlike, and I like the idea behind it (in fact, it's one of the reasons I first started thinking of a game like this), but I found the system itself just godawful... (pun mostly unintended)

I like M&M beacause it's a simple and clean system, and while it might not have been designed specifically for the kind of game I have in mind, the issue here really aren't the core mechanics, but the arbitrary limitations imposed by the Power Level system, which, while ostensibly keeping things simpler and balanced, are conterintuitive and bad for maintaining immersion. (IMO)

Intuitively, you expect to be able to pick up a weapon, and strike harder than unarmed. Or take a trophy weapon from an enemy, and expect to have it around next adventure, without sacrificing your personal develpment. Or actually be able to find and spend money on buying a vehicle or building a lair... I'm sure I'll eventually find some happy medium, even if you people are being no help.