Renaissance Mutants and Masterminds

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

We're doing a campaign based on 1602 for Mutants and Masterminds, does anyone have any suggestions for appropriate mods to the rules?

Myself, I've been trying to make Renaissance Nick Fury and Renaissance Black Widow characters and the lack of skill points in M & M is wrecking havoc with those concepts.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to handle that issue beyond simply buying super attributes for those characters that apply only to skill checks I'd love to hear them. For myseld I'm considering asking the DM to lower the cost of skill points to two skill points per power point or maybe even four.

For those who don't know, 1602 was a bried Marvel run headed by Neal Gaiman in which the classic Marvel superheroes and villains were set in the year 1602 in Europe.

Nick Fury agent of Shield became Nick Fury agent to the Queen, Magneto was a Grand Inquisitor tasked with hunting down witchbreeds.

I love the concept for the setting, but am finding it difficult to pick up good characters from it. Mostly, I admit, because I love skill based characters so much.

 

[Marius Delphus]

Picked up the 1602 collected edition and loved it even more than I thought I might upon hearing of the premise around the time it was published.

A sidebar in the [edit] Second Printing [/edit] M&M book (pg. ?? IDHTBIFOM) suggests basically what you are thinking: offering 2 or 3 skill points per power point in a skills-heavy setting. [edit] See also the M&M errata file. [/edit] If that seems too generous to your GM, perhaps characters need to buy that capability as a feat.

You could split the difference: propose a power called Super-Training (or something) at 2 PP/rank that grants 5 skill points per rank (the power would have no other effect). I think this is essentially how Four-Color to Fantasy does it.

 

[The_Universe]

The Murdock/Daredevil character was fantastic - and heavily skills based, I would imagine. And then there's the "Beast" character from the Xmen - he has some powers, but his strengths are also (generally) in the skills.

As for how to make them in M&M, just do as the book suggests and offer 2-3 skill points/power point spent in order to make buying skills more viable.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Thanks guys the edition I have was missing all of those frilly revisions.

 

[The_Universe]

Thanks guys the edition I have was missing all of those frilly revisions.

Well, it's not a revision, exactly - just a side bar suggesting a possible alternate rule for GMs that might want a game focused more on skills (or wants to focus more on powers, but still ensure that the PCs have a wide variety of skills to draw from).

 

[threshel]

Thanks guys the edition I have was missing all of those frilly revisions.

For those of us with the first printing (white lettering on spine), here's the errata.

J

 

[SWBaxter]

Myself, I've been trying to make Renaissance Nick Fury and Renaissance Black Widow characters and the lack of skill points in M & M is wrecking havoc with those concepts.

If anyone has any suggestions for how to handle that issue beyond simply buying super attributes for those characters that apply only to skill checks I'd love to hear them.

Actually putting lots of points into skills is generally the third or fourth best option for high skill scores in M&M, with the first three being attributes, super-attributes, and feats. It seems to me that Nick Fury and the Black Widow should both work fine with some super-attributes, and it's not that hard to justify them. But if you want to go the house rules route, what I personally would do is collapse the skill list to about 1/3rd of its current size by grouping related skills together; superheroes tend to be broadly competent, not highly specialized. You don't usually see anybody who's great at jumping and tumbling but not climbing, for example, so put those all into one skill (Athletics or whatever), repeat as needed for the rest of the list.