Tell Me and my Son about Mutants & Masterminds

[Asha'man]

What? Sure it does.

If you have Ultimate Power, you can use the Gadgets power (Rank 2-4 should do nicely, depending on how powerful you're willing to allow a "utility belt gadget" to be), and if you don't, you can put some ranks of flawed Adaption or Nemesis in a Hard to Lose Device for basically the same effect.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Can you explain this?

He mentioned elsewhere that while registering he somehow ended up tripping the site's 13 and under age requirement of "sending in a parent/guardian's signature to view the site."

It's possible that this could have happened if he created an account using one of his children's birth-dates. That is assuming that he didn't find a random bug.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Ah, okay, ouch. I was just worried this was another instance of the people on the site not treating others nicely. While I don't usually think that of them, I've read complaints about it once before.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Ah, okay, ouch. I was just worried this was another instance of the people on the site not treating others nicely. While I don't usually think that of them, I've read complaints about it once before.

I had an extended interaction with one knowledgeable poster over there, just last week. (I was working on NPCs for my M&M game, and I'm a novice GM in the system.) It was interesting, because he wasn't friendly but he was extremely helpful. Since I value directness and helpfulness over friendliness, I really appreciated the interaction and learned a lot.

That said, it is, IMO, a more intimidating forum than EN World, for example. It almost feels more like a technical forum than a hobby forum.

 

[WayneLigon]

Ordered the book and beginner's guide today. Should be in for the beginning of next week.

Also looks at Downloads - Mutants & Masterminds - EN World D&D / RPG News on these boards; the Marvel and DC files there are very nicely done PDFs that give you a good baseline idea on how to build characters in the comics.

 

[Dionysos]

Whoever made those Marvel and DC characters doesn't seem to think that your defense from dodge bonuses needs to have anything to do with the power level cap.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Whoever made those Marvel and DC characters doesn't seem to think that your defense from dodge bonuses needs to have anything to do with the power level cap.

True enough.

To be fair, I had a couple of issues with the caps, and I really thought I understood them. For example, in a PL 10 game:

You can have Attack +15, Stun 10 (Extras: Ranged, Range (Perception)) ...

... but not Attack +15, Stun 10 (Extras: Ranged), because for a power that has an attack roll, the power's save DC is the "damage" for cap purposes. So unless you make the power Perception Range, the best you can do in the second case is Stun 5.

Not only does that make little sense, IMO it's actively unintuitive. ("Wait ... if I have to roll to hit, risking a miss, my power has to be weaker? But if I hit automatically, my power can be stronger?")

Oh, and another one: the mods for size changes (e.g., Growth, Shrinking) apply to caps, which makes sense ... but only if they're Permanent. ("Wait, what?")

So yeah, the more esoteric rules of caps can't be tricky. But the DC/Marvel PDF guy did a beautiful job with them, so it is a little odd to overlook something as basic as Dodge bonuses in the caps.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Also looks at Downloads - Mutants & Masterminds - EN World D&D / RPG News on these boards; the Marvel and DC files there are very nicely done PDFs that give you a good baseline idea on how to build characters in the comics.

Given the problems with those builds, I'll make another recommendation for Taliesin's builds, over on the Atomic Think Tank. Almost any comic hero or villain you could want, and Taliesin is one the ATT's rules gurus.

 

[Dionysos]

I will most definitely agree that the rulebook sometimes seems to go out of its way to make the issue of what does and does not apply to power level caps as murky as possible. A sidebar with itemized lists of the sorts of bonuses that do and do not apply to caps would have been a godsend. Maybe this would be a good thing to include in a future printing (removing one of the more superfluous "under the hood" sidebars to make room for it).

 

[Relique du Madde]

Also looks at Downloads - Mutants & Masterminds - EN World D&D / RPG News on these boards; the Marvel and DC files there are very nicely done PDFs that give you a good baseline idea on how to build characters in the comics.

Hmm.. I personally think some of those power levels are off... and well, out dated for many characters (particularly the X-verse characters). But thanks for the link.