M&M 3e question

[RagsTheGoat]

Coming from CoC and a few games of pre-constructed character D&D3.5  i have no real experience with D20. and though i have read the M&M 3e character creation material, I am having Poo-brain and none of it seems to be sticking.

is there a more simple breakdown of how to create a character? or an AP that has the RPPR guys playing M&M or another game similar?

thanks.

[Review Cultist]

I'm sure someone else more will be more helpful on the matter of explaining M&M at some point. But for now, the first play through of "Age of Masks": http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2009/07/actual-play/rppr-actual-play-mutants-and-masterminds-the-age-of-masks-1/

[Flawless P]

Although it bears mentioning that Age of Masks was written using M&M 2e.

As for the D20 mechanic its mindlessly simple. Roll a D20 add/subtract modifiers to meet or exceed target number.

[Review Cultist]

Just resurrecting this thread since I don't want to create a brand new topic for essentially the same topic.

For Mutants and Masteminds 2nd Ed. (looking at this system for my d20 oriented live group) and I'm trying to find a comparison chart or description of what power levels would represent in terms of super hero levels? Like what wild talents provides in its book. (150 points represents roughly this style of superhero game versus 250 and what have you). any guidance or suggestion as to that? (Still reading through the rules, but wasn't seeing a reference point).

[RadioactiveBeer]

Isn't that what the Power Level mechanic is for from 2e?

Like, a 'street level' hero (Punisher, Daredevil) with zero or low superhuman ability would be PL 4-6.
Most Iron Age are around PL8, I think. They have powers but still have the odd need to use guns etc.
PL 10 is your average A-list superhero.
Anything above, PL 12, is where you start really entering mythic ubermensch territory.
PL 15 is getting cosmic with it.

[Daegan]

There's 2 big ways power level effects characters in M&M - total power points and power caps.
The power caps are the big issues if you start going below PL 8. 

Basically - the PL number is the max offensive and defensive value your characters can have.  You can swap between them if you want to.  Example: a PL 8 character can have +8 to hit/ +8 damage, or +6 to hit/ +10 damage, or +4 to hit/ +12 damage, etc.  That's just attacking, there are skill caps, defense caps all over the place.  Gear is included in these caps.  This is to stop somebody from getting a damage 10 anti tank gun in your PL 6 cop game and insta killing everyone.

SWAT officers in the main book are PL 6, and random thugs are PL 4.  Heroes really ought to start at PL 8 and up so they have a better chance at survival vs random folks.

PL 8 - good for teen heroes (powered but inexperienced), and costumed vigilantes.  Think the Teen Titans, Hit-Girl, Ninja Turtles

PL 10 - standard starting point assumed in the book.  Established heroes. Think Spiderman, most of the X-Men, The Punisher, Daredevil, Catwoman.

PL 12 -  As 10 but moreso.  National level heroes and villains. I'd put most of the Avengers about here.  Also folks like Apocalypse.

PL 15 and above - Justice League A-Lister or cosmic beings.  Think Superman, Wonder Woman, Thor, Silver Surfer.

Outside of DC adventures I don't think they've ever released a list as exact as to point out specific character examples specifically.  You could always try the M&M forums over at roninarmy.com for better ideas for power level scaling.  There are some pretty detailed discussions on the matter there.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Actually Power Level doesn't limit total points. Normally you scale up PL every 15 points but you don't have to. The idea is characters can learn new things without increasing their total power, which is especially common for low level characters. In DC's official stats you'll find alot of the lower level heroes and villains actually have extra points for their power level (and sometimes less for people playing on a level they aren't really equipped for).

[Daegan]

Actually Power Level doesn't limit total points. Normally you scale up PL every 15 points but you don't have to.

True enough.  You could always have a street level game where the enforced caps are for PL8 but people get more points for buying more powers/skills/abilities/gadgets.  That'd be pretty good for "Batman year one" type games. 

[EndersLegend]

I played a game where we were PL 10 but the GM gave us 250 points to play with. It didn't come out completely broken which surprised me. It helped that we were fighting stuff up to PL 14.

[Daegan]

Biggest issues I see people having with M&M (and superhero games in general honestly) is character creation.  Doesn't surprise me that the first question from this thread from way back is on figuring out character creation.

Personally, my recommendation is to make liberal use of the example characters in the book and just reskin everything.  Don't try to build a character from scratch, start with one of the examples.  Once you've got an idea how to build powers, take one of the examples and just swap a power or two out. 

Been in a bunch of supers games that never got off the ground because folks couldn't figure out how to build their special snowflake character.  It's superheros, there's no shame in being derivative.  Don't bang your head against the wall trying to figure out how to build a quantum probability controller when there's a perfectly good psychic right there in the book that will work just fine.

[EndersLegend]

Biggest issues I see people having with M&M (and superhero games in general honestly) is character creation.  Doesn't surprise me that the first question from this thread from way back is on figuring out character creation.

Personally, my recommendation is to make liberal use of the example characters in the book and just reskin everything.  Don't try to build a character from scratch, start with one of the examples.  Once you've got an idea how to build powers, take one of the examples and just swap a power or two out. 

Been in a bunch of supers games that never got off the ground because folks couldn't figure out how to build their special snowflake character.  It's superheros, there's no shame in being derivative.  Don't bang your head against the wall trying to figure out how to build a quantum probability controller when there's a perfectly good psychic right there in the book that will work just fine.

I never had too much trouble with it, but I devour rpg books when I get them so after some trial and error I can usually get the idea of how character creation works. It helps that I also bought Hero Lab which simplifies character creation a lot.

Another thing I'd say check into if you're okay with spending a little more is the power profiles for 3rd Ed. They take various power ideas like Gravity, Fire, Magic, Alchemy, etc. and give examples of Feature, Utility, Defensive, and Offensive powers and give examples of little variations. They also did a weapons series for 3rd Ed. Probably one of the better things I've invested in that I let new people look at so they can get an idea of some of the powers they'd like to have.

Some of my favorites are the Teleport and Element (Periodic Table not Fire, Earth, Air, Water) profiles.

[Daegan]

Never bought hero lab.  Might have to look into it, keep hearing rave reviews.  I do agree about the power profiles book though.  It's pretty invaluable for figuring out how to build some stuff that's not super intuitive.

Possibly a bit boring, but my favorite entry was super strength; largely because it's a power that TONS of folks buy, and the whole thing is about the stuff you can do with it besides "hit people really hard."  Which is mostly what folks use it for.

[EndersLegend]

Never bought hero lab.  Might have to look into it, keep hearing rave reviews.  I do agree about the power profiles book though.  It's pretty invaluable for figuring out how to build some stuff that's not super intuitive.

I like it a lot for systems that a large amount of point buy or tons of options. It cuts down character creation time for things like Pathfinder, Shadowrun, and M&M. The only problem I have with it is that it's so damn expensive. You pay for the license to use it, licenses for the main book, and you pay anywhere from 10 to 20 dollars for extra material. It's not quite as bad with Pathfinder at times because you get 3 to 6 books for each additional content purchase, but shadowrun has each book bought separately for about 10 each. It's a better investment if you do a lot of it but I've gotten to where I mostly just use skype to play games so I usually only use it for creating NPCs, which is helpful because it makes that much faster and it allows you to track damage, status effects, and other things on your NPCs while playing.

So yeah, if you think you'll get a lot of use out of it, I definitely recommend it, but if you think you'll only use it sparingly, it's a pretty hefty investment.