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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmu1" data-source="post: 2215486" data-attributes="member: 319">I'm thinking of running my first M&M game, and the way mundane weapons and armor are handled is sort of bugging me.The first issue is that the decision to not allow bonuses to defense or damage save from armor and powers to stack is completely artificial and arbitrary - I can see its importance from a game balance standpoint, but it still doesn't sit well with me.  The second is that mundane armor and weapons are actually quite strong when compared to superpowers - a rifle with a power rating of +7 or a kevlar vest with a rating of +5 are nothing to sneeze at. It's clearly not as if a Rank 10 super with a damage save of +12 is so tough that he doesn't need to worry about a bullet. This ties in with the first problem, because if the weapons and armor weren't as effective, supers would have no motivation to use them, and there'd be no need for clunky and arbitrary no-stacking rules. If they were weaker, a super might still choose to wear armor - why not, after all, at least it won't tear as easily as spandex - but it would be a minor issue at best.I was thinking of several ways of dealing with this:1. Simply make the power of mundane armor and weapons lower across the board - after all, I only really care how they affect the superhero PCs, not what impact they have on the NPC minions who are meant to die after a single blow anyway.2. Declare that - for example - an attack made against a superhero PC with a mundane weapon with a power lower than the power level of the character does stun rather than lethal damage. Supers can still be hurt and disabled by a hail of gunfire - potentially - but they won't be killed and will recuperate quickly. Seems like it would work well, unless I wanted to go for a gritty feel.3. Increase the power level of the game enough that those mundane weapons - which top out at about +7 power - won't really be a threat to the characters. The problem here is that this tends to change the feel of the campaign greatly, since in addition to making the heroes more durable, it suddenly lets them lift aircraft carriers, fly at the speed of light, and do various other things that don't necessarily fit the feel of every supers campaign.Frankly, though, I'm not sure whether any of them would work well, and I'm not completely happy with any of them as a long-term solution.So I was wondering - has anyone here had similar problems, and if so, how did you deal with them? Those of you that started your games at a level higher than 10 - what do you feel were the key ways the feel of the game changed, if any, and in what ways did it stay the same? Are there any common house rules around (like the 3 skill points / 1 power point rule I've seen often) out there that address these issues?</blockquote>

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