The Role Playing Public Radio Forums
General Category => RPGs => : Sean-o-tron March 25, 2010, 07:56:09 PM
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My group and I are starting our first Mutants & Masterminds campaign soon, but we hit a snag during character creation. How is Melee and Ranged Attack Bonus different from the standard Attack Bonus? Are they separate scores that you buy up, are they the base Attack Bonus but augmented by something, or what?
I might have many more questions in the near future.
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In 90% of cases you use the same number. Attack is attack is attack, regardless of range and they aren't directly altered by ability scores or high strength or dexterty doesn't make you a better shot.
However, some feats apply to one other the other in which case you'd add your feat derived bonus to your base attack bonus to figure your total.
If somebody puts 20 points into Base Attack so they get that +10, they get to use it for any attack they make: swords, fists, guns, whatever.
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the real answer is to switch to Wild Talents
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Would Wild Talents let me turn invisible and stumble around a police station trying to cover up my own crimes in an effort to do good and often harming people phyically or emotionally instead?
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hahahaha
oh Aaron
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I do have a copy of Wild Talents. I haven't put the effort into completely learning it since my group doesn't play new games hardly ever.
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the real answer is to switch to Wild Talents
I did find the Gencon Wild Talents Age of Masks game easier to follow from a mechanics standpoint, as opposed to the RPPR-gang playtest (was that M&M or GURPS?)
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The three parter Age of Masks was Mutants and Masterminds. I've said this before and I continue to say it: the mechanics in that game where weird.
Ross and the other dudes even say it during the game that things have become overly complex because their mixing powers and no-powers builds. And it doesn't help that the system of building a character is often foolishly complex.
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Ross, if I had the money for the physical book, I would. Character creation alone is turning into one big headache. I'm sure once we get moving and internalize some of the core mechanics we'll have a better time of it, but as of now... a resounding "meh," I suppose.
My friend had a really cool idea for a campaign from a dream he had, so he decided to run a game for the first time (ever) with M&M. Unfortunately, as we go along we're figuring out more and more how 3.5-d20-kludgey this system feels. And I heard the first edition was worse.
And it doesn't help that the system of building a character is often foolishly complex.
We are quickly discovering this. A lot of the wording in the book is pants-on-head retarded, as well as the concepts themselves. It's taken us the better part of two days for character creation.
More Questions! On the Attack workspace, the first box is the Attack Bonus you buy up, but are the next two (labeled "Melee" bonus and "Ranged" bonus, respectively) damage DCs for Toughness saving throws? Like, melee is 15+STR+weapon+other and ranged is 15+power rank/weapon+other or something like that? Am I making any sense at all?
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You got it.
The Toughness DC for a given attack is comprised of a base (15), the bonus from the weapon or power, and any outside bonuses (such as critical hits).
So, a hand gun with a +3 damage bonus would mean saving against 18 (15+3). If the guy attacking wih the gun got a critical than the save would be 23 (15+3+5).
Someone attacking with a Blast Power ranked 10 would force a save vs 25 (15+10).
Someone with a strength of 30 (+10 strength modifier) would generate a save of 25 (15+10).
It goes on like that.
By the way, Wild Talents costs $10.00 plus shipping. It's one of the least experience physical book RPGs out there. Unless you buy Second Edition, which is just coming out.
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Would Wild Talents let me turn invisible and stumble around a police station trying to cover up my own crimes in an effort to do good and often harming people physically or emotionally instead?
Not only is the answer a "yes", but you could turn that into a specific power. :)
"Be Aaron" 6d+2wd
Attack+2 - Capacity: Mass, Area +3, Engulf +3, focus (police station) -2, If/Then (must be trying to help) -1, if/then (must have committed a crime already) -1,
Useful (turn invisible): Capacity: Self, Self Only -3, if/then (must stumble) -1.
Did I miss anything?
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Yeah, they need to be Hard Dice. There's no wiggle room with Being Aaron, it's nothing or the firehose.
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Wild Talents: Essential Edition costs 10 bucks http://www.arcdream.com/store/product.php?id=2006
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Plus shipping, which was ri-fucking-diculous with Indie Press. $12 for shipping when I bought Candlewick and Wild Talents. They even came in an evelope, not a box.
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Hmm... next paycheck, then!
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Would Wild Talents let me turn invisible and stumble around a police station trying to cover up my own crimes in an effort to do good and often harming people physically or emotionally instead?
Not only is the answer a "yes", but you could turn that into a specific power. :)
"Be Aaron" 6d+2wd
Attack+2 - Capacity: Mass, Area +3, Engulf +3, focus (police station) -2, If/Then (must be trying to help) -1, if/then (must have committed a crime already) -1,
Useful (turn invisible): Capacity: Self, Self Only -3, if/then (must stumble) -1.
Did I miss anything?
Aaron should definitely add that to his character sheet resume (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XdP6Lp2ceqY/SuO8-yBdK1I/AAAAAAAAB50/SlAzarxI9rM/s1600-h/rpgresume.jpg).
And Godlike, which uses a similar system to Wild Talents, does have quick start rules (http://www.arcdream.com/godlike/).
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Haha, I just found out I over-drafted my account. Looks like this next paycheck will be spent buying up to zero dollars.
One more question, I think. The rulebook was incredibly vague as to how Alternate Powers work. Could you, Tad, our resident expert, walk me through that?
Please and thank you!
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Alternative Powers are a true path unto madness. They are also one of my favorite parts of the game. Once you have a base power, we'll call it Blast 10, than you can choose to get alternative versions of that power. These alternative powers are considered the same power for purposes of nullification and such but represent different uses of a single base ability.
So, let's assume that your Blast 10 power is representing a projected bolt of fire. That's all well and good for attacking at range but you want to be an awesome fire juggler or something like that. So you can either get a whole new power (probably cost a ton of points) or you can spend one point for the Alternative Power feat, apply it to Blast 10, and basically make your new power!
So, you get Alternative Power and now you are working with the same number of Power Points you invested in the base power to make the new one. Blast costs 2 PP a rank so you've got a little pool of 20 PP. Keeping things easy, we'll pick a new power that's also 2 PP per rank. So we use Create Object with no frills and get Create Object 10.
Now your character can use his fire to attack (Blast) or make things with it (Create Object) but he can't do both at the same time, he has to do one or the other each round. If no frills isn't how your character normally likes to go than you can mess around with the pools for the Alternative Power. For example, if you wanted to be able to move around your flame objects with sheer will than you could apply the Movable Extra, which adds 1 to the PP cost for each rank of the power. So, instead of 2PP you pay 3PP each rank. However, that means that you can only get to rank 6 with Create Object because the original dice pool for the power is 20 and 6 ranks at 3 per is 18 points. You can't buy another becuase you'd push the total cost up to 21 and you can't go over the origianl cost. This also leaves you with 2 PP floating around you'll need to do something with. Since you can't buy a full rank you decide to get some Feats to boost the power farther. In this case, we'll go with the Progression Feat, which greatly increases the volume of objecs that you can form. One rank of that (1 PP) and one rank of the Precise Feat which will let you make very detailed objects. Now we have a toal of 20, 6 ranks at 3 per with 2 PP in Feats. Congradulations, you haban Alternative Power.
You can do this as many times with th base power as you want BUT you can still only use one power in the Array at a time.
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Thank you! I thought that was how it worked, but I wasn't sure. You really helped clear all this mess up.
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That's cool... I'm buying this game.
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Thank you! I thought that was how it worked, but I wasn't sure. You really helped clear all this mess up.
But wait! You don't know about "Dynamic Alternative Powers" yet!
Suppose you need to be able to make a bridge out of fire with your powers while flying dudes attack you. You need to blast back at them but you can't drop the bridge. Well, your screwed.
Unless you've made your Alternative Powers Dynamic. By spending an extra point (basically taking the Alternative Power feat a second time for the same power) and spending one point on the base power you can choose how to use the total pool of point that make up your set of Altnerative Powers (here after your "array").
So, using the previous example we add 2 PP to the total cost (1 for each power involved). So, the base pool remains 20 Power Points.
Luckily for you, mister hero, the bridge only needs to be twenty feet long. With Progression as a feat, each rank of Create Object allows for 10cubed ft so you only need 2 ranks (6 PP from the pool) to form and sustain the bridge. The 14 you have left in the pool can be used for Blast and at 2 PP per rank that makes your attack a Blast 7.
So, while each power is weaker than it normally would be, your able to use them at the same time, allowing you to hold the bridge in place while also firing at the oncoming enemies.