/tg/ - Traditional Games

>>50160586
How do I shot web?

On a more serious note. I am looking to run a magical girl game for some friends and one of the systems they suggested for running it was Mutants and Masterminds 3e.

Others were Exalted 3e, and scion 2e.

I'm still working out what kind of tone this game is going to have but as far as super systems go how adaptable is M&M?

>>50160642
My own experience with M&M is it works really well in PL 10 and up, while on other levels it's sort of... meh

It adapts pretty well to settings, too.

We don't need a general for this.

>>50160642
>as far as super systems go how adaptable is M&M?

Quite. You'll find powers easy enough to create, no matter what you want. You might have an issue with the way combat works - the no HP in favor of stacking penalties does emulate super hero comics well, but it leads to combat where nothing actually hits/works until one time it does and that's it.

>>50160642
It's obe of the most flexible because of how you build your powers and abilities. With an open minded group and a great DM, it could be used for most anything

>>50160715
>it works really well in PL 10 and up, while on other levels it's sort of... meh

Please explain.

>>50160729
>You might have an issue with the way combat works - the no HP in favor of stacking penalties does emulate super hero comics well, but it leads to combat where nothing actually hits/works until one time it does and that's it.

Does this make it harder to sell combat as dangerous? or is it more the danger closes in on you differently but is still there?

>>50160856
In lower PLs, it suffers more of a problem I noticed in D&D too... it relies _very_ much on the roll, if you hit or miss.
If you roll well during a few rounds of combat, you'll be in a really good spot, while if you roll average/bad, then you don't have a very high chance of hitting the enemy, you will probably even have problems with standard mooks.

In higher levels, mooks are not a problem anymore and you can hit more reliably, even with average rolls (12-15) if you have some good advantages like All-out attack or Aim and the sort. It helps if you boost your chance to hit and you don't have to completely rely on the roll, especially if you roll badly like me.

>>50160891

the laughter of thirsting dice gods.

>>50160891

So after a certain point mooks just can't harm you anymore?

or with good training and equipment can elite mundane mooks still be a problem?

I'm trying to figure out if mooks are a consistent danger in combat or if their main threat comes from the fact that they can be used to carry out tasks or harm non-supers when you are not around or aware of their activities.

>>50160903
Nuffle is not very pleased with me, apparently.

>>50160943
>So after a certain point mooks just can't harm you anymore?
It usually makes sense for heroes to get impervious toughness at a certain point. And when they do, conventional weaponry won't work so well anymore, you know? And with enough high toughness, you can generally save pretty good when they damage you.

With good training and advantages, mooks can be a threat, but they shouldn't be as strong as minor villains or supervillains of course.

>>50160586
That knee is going to hurt when it slams into that blue building.

>>50160729
>it leads to combat where nothing actually hits/works until one time it does and that's it.
Ah, the Exalted combat problem. Maybe some "how-well-do-you-do-in-the-combat" gauge can be homebrewed?

>>50160943
Depending on the level of mook, they are or they aren't. Keep in mind that, as bizarre as it may sound, it's okay for your players to feel legitimately powerful. It's not much of a superhero game if your players don't feel very super and/or heroic. Give them their close battles with villains, but also give them their steamroll victories so that they can feel just how strong they are compared to everyone else in the world. The game can be as gritty and difficult as you want it, but it shouldn't be challenging for no good reason.

>>50160642
Magical Burst maybe? There is also Wild Dice one

>>50161752
Wild Talents

So, I'm just getting into this game, and I have a really cool character concept, but I don't know how to convert it into a balanced character for this game. His name is Zephyr. Basically, he was an inventor, before his experimentation with an infinite energy device backfired, turning him into an entity of living electricity. He can shoot lightning, travel through electrical wires, control and even "enter" machinery and computers, etc. How do I make this balanced?

>>50162647
Also, I plan to give him other powers, such as limited magnetic control, through mechanical augments controlled by his mastery over machines.

>>50161109
For fuck's sake anon, now I can't unsee it.

>>50160642

M&M 3e is a perfectly cromulent system for running a magical girl game.

>>50160642
My group has used M&M for two different magical girl games. I can attest that it's quite flexible and works well for just about any "people with superpowers" genre. So if you want magical girl anime instead of four-color comics adventure, it still works just fine.

>>50162647
Well ,things will balance out in part by PL limits, and not having unlimited points to spend building your character. So, I'd say, start by figuring out how you want to make those powers, and what they'll likely cost. And remember that you also have the rest of your character to consider, too. Skills, attributes, and so-on.

>>50162647
>>50162647
There's a power based around turning into different states of matter/energy and one of the options is electricity.

>>50162647
>turning him into an entity of living electricity.
Insubstantial 3

>He can shoot lightning,
Ranged damage

>travel through electrical wires
Teleport with the medium flaw

>control and even "enter" machinery and computers
Comprehend to speak with machines, or maybe Mind Control with affects objects only. "Entering" machines can just be a quirk on the Mind Control power

>etc.
Alternate effects!

>How do I make this balanced?
Meet your PL caps. Insubstantial can be a pretty big defensive boost, but nothing you've mentioned so far sets off any major red flags.

>>50164421

Even if it's more Madoka than Sailor moon?

>>50167093
Yes. There are rules in the GM Handbook that cover "Iron Age" comics that also cover more lethal rules for combat.

Lethal Damage
The default Mutants & Masterminds rules don’t differentiate
between lethal and non-lethal damage; Damage is Damage, and it can all potentially kill, but killing a character is difficult. For those who want more an element of risk and realism in their damage, there is the option of categorizing
some Damage as Lethal. This is a +0 modifier by default, but is permanent like other modifiers, so once a Damage effect is lethal, it cannot be used for non-lethal damage. Instead, take the non-lethal version as an Alternate
Effect of the Lethal Damage. The key difference with Lethal Damage is that it inflicts additional conditions on a failed resistance check, as follows:
• Failure (three degrees): In addition to being staggered,
the target is disabled.
• Failure (four degrees): In addition to being incapacitated,
the target is dying.
193
Mutants & Masterminds Game Master’s Guide
Chapter 6: Options
All of the conditions from lethal damage also recover at a slower rate: one hour per condition rather than one minute. Effects like Healing and Regeneration speed this up normally.

>>50163243
>For fuck's sake anon, now I can't unsee it.

Maybe he's got the right powers so it won't matter.

I've been thinking of running a mech game on mutants and masterminds. Have the players create PL 3-4 dudes and then have the mechs function as PL10+ with most models and weapons in the game being pre-built and access to most of them outside the starter stuff being obtainable from adventuring (taking a dude's gun or entire mech, for instance)

I've been having a bit of trouble with two aspects of the game, mostly related to the thought that half the player character is literally disposable and how to manage the "lol points are equipment!" nonsense. Can I just toss out all the shit that deals with points to equipment conversion without issues? Has anyone run a mecha game on this system before? Any problems they had with it?

>>50168100
You do realize there's an entire Mecha (& Manga) supplement for 2e, right? It even covers most of your issues.

>>50168100

if you look closely, when the pilot goes super and busts out of it's armor all Big Guy's weapons do is pin it down long enough for Rusty to aim and fire, which destroys it. Also Rusty's shots seem to recoil hard enough to toss him around.

I guess that's what happens when you have an obsolescent warhorse and an imperfect super prototype working together.

>>50168154

that doesn't translate well to 3e though.

>>50168261
http://www.d20herosrd.com/7-gadgets-gear/mecha

Ahem.

>>50168154
>>50168306
It's useless garbage. All it does is say obvious shit like "You can refluff this junk as this other junk!". Might as well have nothing.

>>50168339
I mean, if you expected something with massive depth, you're looking at the wrong game here. The system is effect based - Superman's heat vision is Ranged Damage, as are Batman's batarangs; the only difference is description and rank.

To think that this wouldn't carry over into creating mecha is... kind of absurd, anon.

>>50160943
In superhero worlds it's fairly common for 'ordinary people' to have what's essentially a super power in the form of "training", an example of this is Batman or, more blatantly, Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) who is shown dancing between bullets, shattering steel reinforced concrete, bullet-resistant glass, and one-arming rather large men. Supposedly without having any actual powers.

There are, in fact, different grades of mook, some of them are street thugs, some of them are guys with super powered death lasers that can kill tanks and enough training to be able to hit most supers beneath a certain speed.

>>50168373
Champions has more depth to it, in a lot of regards. while still being relatively simple to run. Building a character in Champions is the hard part.

>>50167265

thank you very much for listing the book and page number sir.

>>50168373
No, I'm expecting answers to the questions I asked. Which, you have been incredibly good at deflecting.

I want to know shit like how to manage equipment points when the campaign is supposed to have flowing equipment that can and will change as the players play.

>>50160642
>On a more serious note. I am looking to run a magical girl game for some friends and one of the systems they suggested for running it was Mutants and Masterminds 3e.
>Others were Exalted 3e, and scion 2e.
>I'm still working out what kind of tone this game is going to have but as far as super systems go how adaptable is M&M?

>>50163869
>M&M 3e is a perfectly cromulent system for running a magical girl game.

>>50164421
>My group has used M&M for two different magical girl games. I can attest that it's quite flexible and works well for just about any "people with superpowers" genre. So if you want magical girl anime instead of four-color comics adventure, it still works just fine.


Yall mothafuckas need GURPS.

>>50168419
M&M is pretty much non-simulationist GURPS, dummy.

>>50168100

This sounds cool.
I have no idea how to help you make it work with M&M though.
Sorry.

>>50168419
GURPS supers is fucking trash.

>>50168410
That's covered in the Mecha & Manga supplement. And yes, it does in fact translate well enough to 3e. Things didn't change that drastically between editions, and there's even official conversion guides out there.

Maybe you should, I dunno, actually READ the thing before you start spouting nonsense about it?

The only real contention is the fact that 3e cut out the Device power and put the Removable flaw in its place, which makes things a bit more drastic.

>>50168399
Champions is a whole nother ball game, which admittedly I have very little (read, none whatsoever) experience with outside of the MMO - which is almost definitely nothing at all like the actual system.

>>50167093
One of those magical girl games I was in was very Madoka based. It'll work.

>>50168431
I know how to make most of it work, for the worst part.

For example, a weapon is just a power profile you can pick up and use. It's worth blah blah points and does whatever. Similarly, the mech itself is just a character with only the powers proper to it's onboard systems and it's worth blah blah points and has this and that stat.

What worries me is possible problems with the way the engine is balanced around spending point on points. So, I have these secondary characters who can be replaced by new characters with different point costs, and whose powers can change at any time for powers worth different costs. So, what do I do to get this aspect working withing the engine? It assumes permanence of your shit, so do I have my players spend whatever arbitrary amount of points on equipment and then limit what they can drive and equip based on that? Do I just wave this aspect off?

My players won't have a single signature mech that defines them and always has the same shit, they will be trading in stuff from adventure arc to adventure arc. More Front Mission than Gundam.

>>50168475
I have no idea what you just said, since none of that has ever been a problem with any of this.

>>50168475
It is indeed. There's a handful of similarities, but it doesn't suffer from the D20 'the die is more important than your stats' issue. It uses a similar rolling system to GURPS but the combat has more depth and you can't papercut the heroes to death. I'm talking literally, if a papercut registers as a single point of damage, it will never kill a Champions hero, but it will eventually wear down a GURPS hero. You can still be picked apart bit by bit, but it has to beat your defenses.


Superman does not get gunned down in a hail of fire in Champions.

>>50168510
Okay. So, in 2e you can build mecha in two ways.

1. With Equipment points, wherein they'd be built very similar to how you build vehicles. These are things that would be mass-produced. A good example would be things like the Zaku or 008 MS Team, cars, tanks, et cetera. These are a bit more replaceable.

Equipment can be taken away, but you should pretty much always have access to material equal in value to Equipment points that you have, even if it's not necessarily the same thing you bought originally.

2. You can build the mecha as its own separate character, gaining powers as appropriate and spending immunities as appropriate for a construct.

If you're doing it the second way, the mecha will at best be temporarily unavailable to you, but unless you're spending points to change up its abilities (which isn't really a common thing for the mecha genre anyway, least not the Super Robot stuff), it's not going to need to have constantly changing statlines. Upgrades for new stuff while keeping the old is done exactly like it is for regular superhero play.

A third way to build mecha would be something like how you make superheroes with power armor, and works exactly like how that works when building a regular superhero.

>>50168616
Now we're talking about the same thing. Fucking finally. The problem is that those rules don't exactly click for me. I'm not playing anime, your shit is going to change, you will find a rifle that has a grenade launcher attack attached to it and a rifle with a bonus to your accuracy with it and you will have to choose (Because they are fuckhuge and your mech has no storage). The rules treat equipment as permanently this amount, but I don't wish to use this. If the power cost on the found equipment is different from what they had, then that should be fine.

>>50168692
>not putting the grenade launcher on to the accurate rifle

>>50168692
Part of me wants to suggest the non-answer of just handwaving it. I do realize that is, indeed, not a very useful answer. But, if most things are in the equipment, and it changes often, maybe don't worry too much about if things are all 100% points-balanced, as long as the overall effect ranks are in proper limits. If mecha A switches out one of its weapons to one that changes its overall point value, that's just how it is.

Basically, the PCs are, purely, statted at PL for their characters on foot. Their mecha can be equipment or however you want to set them up, but they pay no points for them out of their own character resources. So if shit gets broken, or stolen, or swapped out or whatever? That just happens. Not like the player's deprived of resources they should have because they never paid for any of that in the first place.

>>50168692
Technically, it's perfectly legit to play without a point limit, but WITH a PL limit. It's even mentioned in the books, I believe, at least in 2e. Admittedly I'm not AS familiar with 3e as I am with 2e.

>>50168761
> they pay no points for them out of their own character resources

I believe that's even how it's supposed to be.

>>50168747
What I'm thinking of is that mecha equipment is not modular by default. Combining attributes from various rifles would be some ghetto "I take this rifle, slice it in half and super glue it to the other rifle's butt!" shit that would just make it underperform. Rather, the mech itself is modular. Think of a military vehicle, you can't just combine aspects from different guns and missiles, but you can load guns and missiles with different attributes.


>>50168761
>>50168789
I see.

>>50160943
Depends on how you or your GM want to run it. If you want to have a recurring villain throughout power levels, it's easy to have a villain who is designing tech and gives his mooks some devices he needs field tested on Supers. At one point or another, bullets will stop working. But depending on your players and how they build their characters. Even a PL4 Mind Control power can completely dominate a PL10 character if they haven't bothered with their Will defense.

>>50168838
>Depends on how you or your GM want to run it

I am the GM.

>it's easy to have a villain who is designing tech and gives his mooks some devices he needs field tested on Supers. At one point or another, bullets will stop working. But depending on your players and how they build their characters.
>Even a PL4 Mind Control power can completely dominate a PL10 character if they haven't bothered with their Will defense.

Please tell me more.

>>50168823
I double-checked, and it IS perfectly acceptable in the rules (via 2e's Mastermind's Manual) to have a game that does away with power point limits. However, it is something that really shouldn't be done unless your group is really experienced with the system, as it can lead to even greater imbalance than the system already has.

>>50168853
Mind Control works off of Will defense. Someone doesn't build it up (which not all concepts really need a high Will), then because of how swingy d20 can be, it's entirely possible for a PL10 character with a low Will Defense score to lose a power check against a character with Mind Control at rank 4.

>>50168761
>So if shit gets broken, or stolen, or swapped out or whatever? That just happens. Not like the player's deprived of resources they should have because they never paid for any of that in the first place.
Except they should be paying it, and that is what the Power Loss complication is for.

Mech Pilots are built to pilot Mechs. They take advantages and skills that would assist in that. Using either the Equipment or Sidekick advantage, you still have PLx10 to work with character development wise. It's not enough for a lot of attributes, yes. But isn't that why they're piloting Mechs to begin with? PLx10 leaves you plenty of room to make some full-body armor as a Device to cover the attribute loss, and add in some Easily Removable Devices for stuff like guns or other weaponry, in the off-chance the mech is disabled or destroyed.

So, one player has asked for his power to be "redirection". When I inquired as to what he redirects he said "everything". How would I stat out his power, how would I balance it without nerfing it to uselessness, and how much would it cost per rank?

>>50168975
Just use Deflect power with Reflect and then Redirect. Of course AoEs and other non attack roll powers would not be effected unless he also took a Variable Immunity with the two above modifiers as well (although that might end up a bit broken, although for him to actually use it against a power immediately, the variable would have a very high cost).

>>50168933

One of my players has played 2e before and hated it.

So if we are doing M&M it will be 3e.

Are you advising me based on 2e like you are the GM asking for advice related to running a mecha game?

>>50169083
No. And really, 2e and 3e aren't that far off in gameplay - if the player didn't like 2e, it's likely that they're not going to like 3e very much either.

3e's Gamemaster's Guide also has the unlimited power points rule, by the way, with all the same caveats as mentioned for 2e.

>>50169124
Depends on what they didn't like about 2e...

>>50169162

Not that other faggot but I don't know ANYONE who prefers 3e to 2e.

>>50169162
Honestly there's not THAT huge of a difference between the two. Most of the changes between editions were minor tweaks to costs, or the splitting of attack and defense to melee/ranged.

The official conversion guide is only 9 pages total, and that's INCLUDING all the comparisons between individual powers and skills and feats/advantages.

>>50160642
>magical girl game

Use the TriStat system, they even published a licensed Sailor Moon rpg

>>50169162
>>50169194

they said the thing they didn't like about 2e was that it had a lot of "baggage" from DnD and that 3e had less.

>>50162647

Why is he called Zephyr if he's an electricity monster? God damn I wish I could track you down and murder you.

>>50168934
It's perfectly feasible to use M&M to stat the different mech components and then completely throw out the rest of the character generation and advancement rules, if that makes more sense for the game.

Maybe players can build their pilots like regular, unpowered lower PL characters, but all the mech components are designed by the GM and are made available through purchasing or scavenging.

Then give each part some sort of slot requirement so you can't just throw on a million cheap pieces of armor and go to town.

>>50169219
It does have "less", in that "feats" are now renamed "Advantages" and it renamed several of the ability scores from the standard Intelligence (Intellect), Constitution (Stamina), Wisdom (Awareness), Charisma (Presence).

But it's still still a d20 system game at its heart. If he doesn't like 2e because it's too similar to D&D, then he's probably not going to like 3e either.

>>50169219

3e only appears to have less, it's actually very similar with some really stupid additions. For instance the stats in 3e are stripped down to just the modifier, so an average stat is a 0. But they work the same as in 2e or D&D, only without the need to calculate the modifier for your stats (because the modifier IS the stat)

>>50169194
Summon and Variable Power had completely, ridiculously broken PP costs and the 2E abilities were basically just imported from D&D, stupid score + modifier system and all.

Other than that and a couple power modifiers that didn't make the transition (we miss you, Independent), 3E is pretty much a tidier version of the same game.

>>50169245
If you wanted to do that, they can build their characters as constructs for the mechs and dump 3 points into Sidekick for the pilots.

>>50169270

What I really hated was the fighting stat. You already have stats for shit like agility and strength, and of course skills for fighting styles, so wtf does the fighting stat represent? It just seems to exist as a points sink for fighty type characters.

Power copiers:
>Good interpretations?
>Horrible interpretations?
>Ones you've seen at the table?

>>50169339
Fighting is kinda bad, yeah, since usually it's cheaper to buy your parry defense and a close combat skill separately. I honestly think Fighting/Parry only exist because otherwise giving it's roll to Dex or Agl would make them worth more than 2 PP per rank.

If you want to be simultaneously accurate with two kinds of melee attacks for some reason it breaks even, though, and for everyone else it's easy to just ignore it.

>>50169306
But then you're building the mechs with the default rules, which is explicitly not what we want to do if parts are going to be frequently blown up or upgraded, or if parts are going to be balanced against competitors in their slot instead of by overall point cost and PL.

>>50169436
Then have each limb of the mech be it's own separate device. External weaponry attached to the mech? Device. External weaponry that's wielded, like a big ass gun or giant power sword? Easily removable device. Just don't let them take indestructable.

>>50164910
It's a nice character concept. Powerful but you can see from the get go what things can be used to counter him.

>>50169473
That still puts the responsibility for designing each part with the player, and ties mech upgrades to regular character advancement, which are things we're explicitly trying to avoid.

It just seems way easier to separate the mechs from the characters, so without a compelling reason not to do it that way it's what I'd recommend.

>>50168479
>One of those magical girl games I was in was very Madoka based.

Please tell me more about this game you played.

aperture science supers

>>50160642
>Others were Exalted 3e, and scion 2e.
Scion system is pretty fucked up and exalted is a giant pain in the ass to adapt to anything that isn't exalted.

>>50160729
>but it leads to combat where nothing actually hits/works until one time it does and that's it.
That's a problem with descriptions. Every -1 is the character getting roughed up a little bit. They don't stand pristine and shiny after the end of the brawl.

>>50168853
>Please tell me more.
In order to one-shot mindfuck somebody, they need to fail the roll by over 1. Difficulty from PL4 mindfuck is 14, save is Will+1d20.
So if somebody has 1-2 Will and rolls 1-2 on the d20...

>>50170346
*by over 10
oops typo

>>50162647
Huh. This is eerie - madscientist turned living lightning is a concept I was thinking for some superhero games to join with.

Although I wasn't going for the control of machinery, just speed and quickness for inventing shit faster, with magnetic control assisting in assembly (mostly fluff).

And rather than travel through wires, I'd have her teleport through natural thunderstorms - bigger range, but I was going to ask for a bigger flaw discount.

>>50168373
>To think that this wouldn't carry over into creating mecha is... kind of absurd, anon.
Honestly the only advice needed for a mecha game is "make mechas like four-five PLs higher than on the ground characters", i.e. if they are already heroes that summon mechas on top (MMPR) then they are pl 8-10 and mecha are 12-15, if they're regular guys, then it's PL5 to PL10 in the robot.

And I don't know if the mechamanga book even has it.
2e's supplements were kinda shit.

>>50168100
>>50168510
Well yes you obviously discard the permanence. Or at least partially discard.

So it's like
>character starts with Mecha worth X points, wielding a Gun worth Y points, and himself has Z points.
>he loots gun worth Y+5. He equips it, putting the old gun out into the storage. His chartotal is now five points higher.
>if he loses the new gun, he can take out the old one. Or he can bring it back situationally if it's a different kind of gun.
>if they have some R&D department, maybe they can upgrade his old gun to Y+5 too
>if he can carry two guns, then you still limit him to using one at a time and the two guns are just Alternate Effect of each other, it costs as much as the best gun does plus 1 for AE.
>If a guy has shtick for carrying a lot of different guns, that's cheap for more AE points. If a guy wants to shoot two guns at once, that's a lot of points, you just double the cost of the base gun.

Same for the robots.
You can have them try to cannibalise systems from looted shit to upgrade their old stuff even when not just picking it up.

Mostly what you need to discard is the concept of strict point equality. It's okay to have a guy temporarily higher in points than others, you just need to plan to give them some upgrades in the next raid.

>>50168789
>>50168933
>Technically, it's perfectly legit to play without a point limit, but WITH a PL limit. It's even mentioned in the books, I believe, at least in 2e. Admittedly I'm not AS familiar with 3e as I am with 2e.
3e too. It's in somewhere in the GM section. It just urges you to be careful, but with the mecha guy, he will he handing out the powerblocks himself anyway

>>50169423
>Fighting is kinda bad, yeah, since usually it's cheaper to buy your parry defense and a close combat skill separately.
It's 1.5 pp per rank and you are limited to fighting with just your one things vs vs 2pp per rank and you can close combat slug out with anything you can get your hands on.

If you buy parry and close attack advantage, it's functionally identical to buying fighting and costs equal to it too.

I had an idea for a character with arms like this >>50160980
Except the arms were able to detach and levitate around to do things.
The 2e -> 3e conversion thing says anatomy separation is now a variation of summoning magic, but it takes a shit-ton of points to level.

Would it be better just to treat it as a variation of elongation?

>>50160642
>>50160856
>>50160980
>>50163869

If I want to GM a magical girl game with simulationist combat and powers that at least follow their own consistent logic what should I do?

>>50170862
>Would it be better just to treat it as a variation of elongation?
Sure, that works.

>>50171074
>a magical girl game with simulationist combat

Gives a whole new meaning to child soldiers.

>>50170536
It does have that advice, actually.

And I disagree with your opinion on the 2e supplements - they're actually pretty solid genre books. Not perfect by any means, but they generally give a solid overview for what they cover and some decent ideas for how to run games in those genres.

Quick, /tg/! The government is controlled by a secret demon-worshipping cult that rapes and ritualistically sacrifices children, and they're about to start a war with Russia, now that they've lost the election to an outsider, and are afraid of losing power and being put in prison!

What do your superheroes do?!

>>50171456
There is only one solution. The one every superhero plot falls back on in the end.

Punch everyone in the face.

>>50170862
Extra Limbs 2 with the projection extra, and then however many ranks of Elongation as you'd like limited to your extra limbs. Now you've got detachable robo-gloves.

If you don't want to have regular arms when the robo-arms are in action I'd still stat it using Extra Limbs and just add a quirk, since otherwise it's not clear what projection should modify or how many ranks you'd need. I can see a case for buying two ranks of projection as a strength effect (since each rank of projection should apply to one limb), but you'd need to argue your case with your GM.

>>50169423
Fighting is okay
Presence and Dexterity are fucked beyond recognition

>>50171593
Int is pretty crap too. Honesty Stamina, Agility, and Awareness are kind of the only stats worth buying. Even strength isn't that hot.

>>50171658
>Int is pretty crap too
How so? There's a ton of expertises that pull on it.

>>50171678
Do you often have characters with four or more expertise skills though?

You can also swing putting different expertise skills into an array with some character concepts (skillchips!), but the benefits from Sta, Agl, and Awe are all things you want to have simultaneously active.

If I want the power to project psychicc aoe fields that mimic the effects of various mind altering drugs. (hallucinogens, tranquilizers, stimulants, dissociatives, and so on)

and or the ability to shoot beams that cause the same effects and are variably effected by gravity.

How would I do that?

>>50171766
>If I want the power to project psychicc aoe fields that mimic the effects of various mind altering drugs. (hallucinogens, tranquilizers, stimulants, dissociatives, and so on)

>>50171766
Sounds like Affliction, I can definitely see those kinds of drugs leaving people impaired or vulnerable.

The field would be a close range area affliction, or possibly a reaction affliction if it's something that's always on instead of a field you take an action to project.

The beams would just be a ranged affliction effect. Add something like indirect, ricochet, or homing if 'variably affected by gravity' means they can turn in midair or hit from unexpected angles.

If you want different effects for different drugs, buy similar afflictions as alternate effects and just change the conditions they impose.

>>50171766

If I was your GM I would probably roll on a table to see how effective and what side effects you invoked on targets until you leveled up.

Still, done responsibly it seems like a power with both a lot of potential and a lot of drawbacks.


For instance trying to defuse a bank robbery turned hostage situation by putting everyone to sleep.

This could go wrong in so many different ways and also potentially be salvaged in may different ways.

>>50171766

your team mates are going to start pressuring you to help them take the edge off after stressful missions.

On the plus side you would be very valuable to help minimize the suffering of injured casualties.


If you developed a high degree of finesse you could truth serum people and also protect team mates from exposure to emotion manipulators or certain kinds of things that destroy sanity by being exposed to them.

blast them with anti-psychotics till there emotions are muted or silenced, and pushing them into a state of mind where seeing Cthulhu or having their view of the universe shattered is more mind expanding or funny than catastrophic.

You would also become a godsend to helping traumatized people come to terms with things in their past or impending future they otherwise could not come to terms with if recent psychological experiments with small doses of LSD and ecstasy are to be believed.


Of course if you don't go the route of subtle control you can just hammer peoples minds into mush for a few hours/months or drive them to self injury or suicide.

>>50171796
>>50171802
>>50171847

thanks for the build advice and the talk of ramifications.

If anyone else has more build advice it would be greatly appreciated.

>>50171074
>If I want to GM a magical girl game with simulationist combat and powers that at least follow their own consistent logic what should I do?


I'm not sure Mutants and Masterminds is for you then. This is a system that achieves adaptability by having mechanical consistency that eliminated the need for consistent in-world logic or details having a lot of mechanical ramifications.

So in that way it is the opposite of stimulationist.

I love technology style heroes like Iron Man, How would i go about building a technomorph/technopath tech hero? What kind of powers, perks etc would i need?

>>50171074
>If I want to GM a magical girl game with simulationist combat and powers that at least follow their own consistent logic what should I do?

GURPS? HERO?

>>50172234
In that case I'd lean more in favor of HERO than GURPS. But I'm telling you now, actually playing either of those systems isn't nearly as bad as some people would claim, but character creation (and GMs prepwork) is THICK AS SHIT

>>50168419
GURPS is good at simulating... however, can you really simulate superheroes with superpowers?

>>50172300
also a good point

So rules questions....

In the example for partial modifier ranks, the rules describe a ranged damage effect with partial ranks of area. According to the example, this lets you make an attack check against one primary target and even if you fail to hit that target still needs to make a dodge roll against the area damage.

Can I declare that a regular area damage effect works the same way? Just Ranged Area Damage 10, for example, except that I get to pick one target to make an attack roll against in addition to the area effect.

I know I won't damage that target twice, but two chances to force a resistance roll seems strictly better than a regular area damage effect.

I guess I can just buy ranged damage 9 with an extra level of area and then power attack it up to rank 10 for the same effect (it might even be cheaper since accuracy costs less than damage), but that seems like a kludge.

>>50172097
Variable Power all the way, Limited to Technology

>>50171678
> How so? There's a ton of expertises that pull on it.

And you are only going to use one or two, tops. Its don't affect anything beyond it and its better gets Skills Points.

>>50171658
Sometimes i wonder if not best throw the Attributes out the window...

>>50169270
>Summon and Variable Power had completely, ridiculously broken PP costs
Summon was how I built my Stand user.

Sure, he came out with a Summon that would break normal power point limits, but on the other hand, mental feedback plus the actual person being squishy as fuck made it dangerous enough that it worked.

>>50172723
Got to be honest here, I've never used the variable power before and neither has anyone else in the group , How does it work

>>50172776
You have a Point Pool to get new powers, go wild.

>>50172776
It's the baseline of Shapeshift.

Dangerous to let players have unless you're very, very careful about how to employ it, and set strict limits.

>>50172766
The problem is Horde and Progression in 2e, with a really small cost with can summon a literal army.

>>50172785
Its not so bad like you makes sounds, there things worse like... Summon.

>>50172822
Summon's not as bad as you make it sound, there are worse things like... Variable Summon

>>50172742
Well you'd need close range move object or a new lifting strength effect to cover carrying stuff, since that's exclusively a strength effect as is.

There's also a question of what you'd roll for checks that normally just call for an ability by itself. You could roll your saves instead since they're tied to stats pretty closely, or you could just let a player add the ranks of any single relevant effect on their sheet.

>>50172988
And its cost less than normal Variable Power... And can have Variable Horde Summon

>>50173021
Use skill tests instead? Make the Skills more versatile? Gives everything half-PL of bonus?

>>50171461

>>50171074
GURPS is great if you want to be simulationist. Honestly it's great for just about anything if you want to be simulationist.

>>50172097
Iron Man is literally a basic archetype in the GM kit, go wild.

Although it's not the Extremis Iron Man with all the funky technomagic shit.

>>50172689
>Can I declare that a regular area damage effect works the same way? Just Ranged Area Damage 10, for example, except that I get to pick one target to make an attack roll against in addition to the area effect.

>pay same points
>get two checks
That's not how point costs work son.

What edition is it anyway?

>>50168933
How about giving points for mecha not to characters but to their "Base". So there is characters that have their own points and there is a "Base" that has certain limit of points and PL depending on how good player characters deal with problems in game.

Finding new equipment can up PL for certain mecha aspects or open new powers. But you will still need to pay for it. So it may be necessary to scrap other equipment to install a new shiny gun.

On the other hand constantly loosing battles and getting your mecha shredded to pieces will put a strain on the base lowering it's ability to supply characters with new robots.

>>50170862
What about statting them as an Array with their levitating profile being a minion ?

>>50174612
Okay then, found it myself. In 3e.

>Example: Caliber’s micro-rockets are a Damage 7 effect. They also explode on impact, for a Burst Area Damage effect, but the Area Damage is only rank 4. So the first 4 ranks of the Caliber’s Damage effect have the Burst Area modifier, costing 1 point more (or 3 per rank). The remaining 3 ranks have their usual cost (2 per rank). Caliber makes a normal ranged attack check against the main target for his micro-rocket launcher; if he hits, the target has to resist Damage 7, and everyone within the area around the target resists Damage 4 (the Area Damage). Even if he misses, the main target has to resist the Area Damage 4, since the micro-rocket explodes close by! In Caliber’s business, it pays to cover your bases...

Alright so I'm going to say that yes your cheese works by the prescribed example, but it's cheese and you get slapped for it by the GM anyway.

>>50174744
Doesn't it go vs. clearly stated "no linked powers with same effect"? It's a case of heavy book to the player head happening.

>>50174791
It's not technically a linked effect (linked ranged damage+rangearea would cost 5pp/rank, this costs 3pp). It is extending a poorly worded example to the breaking point.

The example trying to portray a complex but situational power interaction without gouging the player for points and so it cheeses a bit. It's a small cheese that can be let to slide, or the GM can houserule it a bit to prevent it but making a little weird when looked at it in-universe.

But anon trying to turn that small wedge into a full wheel gets slapped off regardless.

>>50174791
>>50174744
I'm assuming what this modifier means is that if your character hits singular target, it counts as an Rank 7 AoE Damage, and if they miss its Damage 4 AoE Damage.

It should be still just one roll either way for the target's toughness, and doesn't count as two.

However, the question I wanna know is would trade offs be possible since of the attack roll? I am going to assume no because it is still a "AoE" effect overall.

I think it'd just be better to have an Extra (I think there is already called Targeted Area from somewhere) that affects the Dodge DC for an AoE effect depending how much your attack roll hits them by, like Multiattack.

Maybe if you miss by two or three degrees, it gives your target a +2 or +5 to avoid the attack. The attack rolls for this would still be limited by PL, and there'd be no tradeoff/maneuvers for it.

>>50174895
Well considering that a lot of M&M works on descriptors micro-rockets should not give any Area Affect damage if they miss their target. Unless attacker has high ground.

Cause in case of normal firefight they will fly somewhere far away on a miss.

So what descriptors does Anon's power has?

>>50175019
Nah. he describes a power that has direct attack level 7 damage effect.

With first 4 levels also having area effect. So on a hit intended target take 7 damage and all around it 4.

>>50175019
>it counts as an Rank 7 AoE Damage, and if they miss its Damage 4 AoE Damage.
Uh, no.

The aoe is always 4 Damage and applies to everybody around the target, which they roll Reflex against before Toughness. That part works fine.
The main target has his Dodge applied versus whatever-accuracy, and if it fails, he rolls save vs Damage 7. Still working fine.

The wobbly starts when you consider what happens if you miss the primary target. In-universe logic states that while primary missile impact missed him, he is still in the AOE and should save against it. It gives you extra chance to damage him at a discounted price, but it seems ok so far.

But that anon pulls the secondary damage to max too. And that's where the cheese shows in the seams. He tries to attach a free extra opportunity to deal damage on top of regular Ranged Area Damage with no mechanical cost, only by fluff description. THAT gets obviously slapped and calls attention to potential failure in the original example.

>>50171456
>What do your superheroes do?!

Summon some demons, obviously.

>why side with the lesser evil?

>>50173964
>>50171074

People always say this, but I don't think GURPS is especially Simulationist. It's a Gamist game, not to the degree D&D is, but it certainly doesn't simulate reality very well at all.

https://www.4shared.com/office/KTnVe8x-/Besm_-_Sailor_Moon_Rpg__Resour.htm

>>50174744
Just buying full ranks of area and declaring that it works the same way is definitely cheesy, but I think it's fair to ask what's the right way to build a full PL 'micro-rocket' effect.

If you wanted to be really cheesy you'd buy ranged damage 8 with ten ranks of area to get the micro-rocket effect and then power attack for two with a maneuver. That way you're spending 16 points for ranged damage, 10 for area, and 6 for the attack check instead of 20, 10, and 5 respectively. You get a better power and you save 2 points (or more if the ranged damage has any other mods like multiattack).

If someone wanted to buy full PL micro-rockets without paying the full 5PP/rank for ranged damage linked to ranged area damage what would be the fairest way to do it?

Can I make throwing attacks with close range move object limited to pushing things away from me?

That seems like a really cheap way to buy a ranged damage effect, but I can't find anything wrong with it according to RAW.

>>50177923
Technically, it's perfectly fine RAW.

As a GM I probably wouldn't allow that, though.

>>50177923
Strength already allows you to do throw objects as attacks by itself, so I don't see why it would be OP if you just had a Close Range Move Object.

With the Limited: Pushing Away flaw, you' also miss out on being able to grab and lift things as you would with just buying Strength or Move Object, so I'd say it's okay.

But you really could also just buy the Improvised Weapon advantage several times and get the same effect.

>>50177923
This is Ballistic's power from Worm, isn't it?

Travelers were a bunch of major power gamers.

Stat President Trump.

>>50171456
Christ, man, the election's over and Thanksgiving's around the corner. Can we cut the crackpot stuff for a while?

>>50175120
Actually how I would end up doing is that if the primary blast misses, I'd treat it as if he also succeeded on the save versus area damage. So in the book's example he'd be rolling Tougness vs 2 damage, and anon's 10rank would just work the same as a regular 10 rank ranged aoe.

>>50176135
If you want an attack that deals full equal damage to everything in the area, you just buy ranged area damage.

All this exercise is doing is trying to cheese into having extra chance at hitting the target.
Legitimate way of doing so would be a linked effect, but it's banned by the rules of the linked effect.
Ergo ANY way of reaching the goal would be trying to break the rules.
>GM's face immediately after sussing out your intentions

>>50180255
Or just buy fucking Perception on it.

That'll be just 4pp/rank, you hit primary with no contest and everybody around rolls versus area.

Just on the day I was looking for a thread. I've been trying to find a way to stat up the spell Domino from Dishonored 2. For those that haven't heard of it, what it does is, you mark two or more targets with it and anything you do to one of them, from kiting them into a stun mine to dropping them with a lethal, or even non-lethal, takedown, is inflicted on every target you marked. I'd like it for 2e, but I can probably work backwards from 3e and find a way to make it work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0URZ5J4C-x0
0:34-0:51 for video version of what it does.

>>50180841
Crap, that might be a challenge...statting it in 3e Herolab right now, and I'm going to tell you that a Variable power might be necessary to "adapt" to whatever damage you're doing to the initial target.

Basically what I did thought is had a variable that creates an Enhanced Extra for whatever power you're using (maybe enhanced extra could work by itself) that turns whatever effect you're using into Area Shapeable and Perception Range. Probably have the Limit that it only works if the initial target fails their save.

>>50180301
Actually you'd hit everybody, no contest. There doesn't seem to be a good way to distinguish between primary and secondary targets of an area attack except for the really suspect micro-rocket example from the book.

>>50180841
This sounds like a perfect case for 3E's triggered modifier, I'm pretty sure 2E has something like it too.

You take triggered damage where the trigger is damaging any other marked target. Mark a couple goons, punch out the last one, and everyone else also takes damage from the triggers. You could also do a triggered variable effect if you wanted to share more than damage between targets, but it would get really expensive.

>>50181035
Oh yeah, and take variable descriptor on the triggered damage so all the guys go down the same way. Why even bother burning a guy to death if his friends just fall down instead of spontaneously combusting?

>>50181020
>>50181035
So, Triggered Variable Attack fluffed to hit everyone else with whatever you hit one target with. Functions once and then must be re-cast, covered by Triggered. Variable Descriptor for having each target affected by the same effect, and always have it be the first in line for more points to upgrade it so that you always have at least enough points to mimic the most expensive effect you can use on others.

This is a lot simpler than I thought it would be, at least in 3e. Now I need to go check if it's possible in 2e. Ultimate Power might have something for me.

Thanks, guys.

>>50181035
Perception Range attacks hit without an attack roll. So that's the primary target. Everybody else gets to roll against the Burst Area centered on the target.

Hell I'm pretty sure it's an actual example in the books somewhere.

>>50181179
Although I guess a different reading of the modifiers order can get you "hits everybody in a burst area centered on you without giving them a roll"

>>50181179
That sounds like ranged area damage linked to perception damage, which is technically illegal since they're both damage effects.

Otherwise how are you costing increased range that only applies to the primary target, partial ranks of limited?

>>50181274
No linked, no partial limited or anything.

Perception Range = target gets hit, rolls toughess vs full damage
Area extra on Ranged attacks = everybody in the area around the target rolls dodge to halve the damage. But the primary already gets hit for full due to previous mod, so it doesn't apply to him.

>>50181313
That's... not how it works

>The area modifier interacts with different ranges as follows:
>Perception: A perception area effect can be placed anywhere the user can accurately perceive. Perception area effects neither require an attack check nor allow a Dodge resistance check, although targets still
get a normal resistance check against the effect.

Nobody rolls to dodge against a perception area effect

>>50181334
Huh, alright I misremembered.

So, 4pp/r is the top cost for area blasting.

>>50168975
Tell him to stop trying to insert his shitty Accelerator clone into the game

>>50160715
I'd say it works well PL 8-13 or so.

Strongly advise against using the official character builds, and instead going to the atomic think tank forums where there are well designed characters to choose from instead.

>>50175336
It simulates action movie reality, not real reality.

>>50181435
Weren't they shuttin those down over some drama?

>>50181463
If they did, I'd be using the way back machine to look for builds rather than use the grr books. The builds in the books are absolutely terrible. Batman can lift like 2 tons, and aquamarine can conjure orcas from the sky in the rain terrible.

>>50181488
Aquaman. Ducking autocollect

>>50181488
>Batman can lift like 2 tons
That's just Str 5, outright noted in the book as peak of non-super human. That's just the way system works.

>>50181518
No, Getting more specific, and giving characters more precise capabilities, is very possible, they just didn't bother in the official writeups.

The atomic think tank guys, on the other hand, did. Most of their batman builds are effective with only str 3, for instance. Some have str 4.

>>50181600
And why should they?

Bats is typically portrayed as peak human strength.
It's 5 in the system.

>>50181762
Because in the comics, bats can't lift the killer croc and toss him large distances.

The fact that str5 is peak human str by default in the system simply means the system definitions by default don't fit Marvel or DC.

>>50181762
>>50181790

Peak human is actually 7 in both 2e and 3e, by the way.

5 is the level of someone who is the top in their nation.

>>50181817
Then even more so. Because the things you're capable of at those numbers far surpasses what peak human characters in marvel and DC can do.

The official builds are a combination of sloppy, and not calibrated for the world they're set in. They're poor representations of the setting and it's characters.

The ones on the web site, on the other hand, are calibrated based on what the characters are seen doing in the comics.

Ergo I recommend them instead because of the higher quality mechanics

Mind if I throw my latest idea for a weird tank/masochist up?

>>50182295
Suure.

>>50181600
DCAdventures Batman has str 4.

>>50181762
>>50181790
>>50181817
>>50181846
Posted for the record. This is lifted straight from the deluce Hero's Handbook for M&M 3e.

>>50178284
>This is Ballistic's power from Worm, isn't it?

What is that?

>>50181762
> Bats is typically portrayed as peak human strength.

And people believe this fucking meme, Captain America is peak human too. And he can do lots of bullshit feats.

Bruce having only 3-4 Strength is totally fine.

>>50183424
Exactly what the power is, basically. Anything he touches, he can send it shooting away from himself with the velocity of a bullet.

He's pretty much a walking railgun, which actually makes him kind of reluctant to fight since using his power at all means escalating to lethal force.

>>50183424
Superhero web serial about a teenage girl who becomes a well-meaning supervillain.
https://parahumans.wordpress.com/

Does anyone know where I can find a PDF of 1e? My GM only wanted to run for an edition he could find a physical rulebook for, and apparently the only one he found for M&M was 1e, so we're stuck with that. Given that he doesn't know the rules very well and I'm personally having issues since I'm used to 3e, it'd help a lot to be able to reference rules in the week between each session.

Pic unrelated.

>>50183705
>>50183678

Thanks.

>>50184103
You can buy a physical copy of 3e online and have it shipped to you.

>>50160586
GM question.
How do you recommend statting or handling very large mobile things like aircraft carriers or floating cities?

>>50184349
Assuming you mean 1e - £15+ is a bit more than I'm willing to pay for a short-term convinience, especially given that I already have the 3e rulebook and if I ever run M&M again myself, I'd definately pick 3e over 1e. Was just working off of the folorn hope that somebody had scanned the 1e rulebook.

What do you need besides baller super strength and good athletics skill to achieve supersonic leaping speeds?

(You can't run that fast but you can leap and throw yourself around like THE HULK)

>>50184548
uh, the JUMPING POWER?

>>50184459

Wait why does your GM demand to play 1e but only if you can provide him/her with a print copy when you have a printed version of 3e you can loan him?

>>50184588
Clarification: He has a 1e rulebook, and because that's the only edition he owns a physical version of, we're doing that. I did offer to loan him my 3e book, but he refused.

The reason I'd like a 1e PDF is purely for my own reference, since I only see this guy once a week and he needs his book for preparing.

>>50184447
Most of the time as landscape. Unless characters is high enough PL that they can attack it directly.

If they are strong enough then use it's Material + 7 + Size x 3 as toughness for homogeneous objects such as islands or asteroids. Simple +Size doesn't work for big things. For example Earth should be somewhere around toughness 78. A one mile diameter asteroid is around 35-40 depending on material. And so on.

For ships, spaceships and so on simple +Size is okay because they have a lot of critical systems.

>>50184103
Its in the PDF archives
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/026war1l4oo42/Mutants_and_Masterminds

>>50184548
Athletics doesn't give you super jumping by itself.
You buy LEAPING power for that. It can move you up to Speed 7 (higher ranks mean longer distance in a single jump, but takes more time)

>>50185084
Oh, awesome - thanks much!

>>50182295
Orphaned into the church at a young age (probably because of the awakening of one of his parents powers (fire seems cliché, but fire) activates, Unknown to him or anyone else,

Once he's older and a Minster or whatever have his church and flock go up in flames due to whatever reason, he is the only survivor, again this time his secondary healing powers awaken, post coming to (being reborn) only its way too late to save any of his flock (the Rez extra is pretty small window if I read correctly)
Survivors guilt, tada! Penance is born

For powers I was thinking healing with like most of the extras
[Healing:
Area
Persistent
Selective
Stabilise
Empathic
Restorative
Resurrection]

>>50184548
>>50185110
Yeah, just to clarify what he's saying, usually if you want to get Leaping from Strength you have to buy it as an AE via Strength Effect.

so I've been thinking up a character for a game and I would like to hear what you guys think of his powers.
he basically can turn into a black house cat and can control just how his body turns, so if he needs to fight he can turn into a werecat and claw people up but he can also use it to mess with his facial structure, maybe give himself a mustache mess with his jaw line, that sort of stuff.
is this a neat way to use a shape shifting power?

>>50185964
Shapeshifting is usually Variable with a Metamorph power since the points represent what parts or form you're creating, but if your GM or you personally think that's OP you can always just get an Array with each power your want and powerstunt whatever ones you don't have or plan to use often.

>>50185964
Are you planning on just a couple forms or total freedom? You can just grab metamorph a couple ranks for limited forms, with extras it can let you basically redo the whole rest of the charsheet for different forms (although you don't have to go that far)

Or just AE the effects, for maximum cheap.

>>50185110
>>50185932

Thank you.

>>50187065
I'm figuring something along the ways of "as long as you could reasonably assume that would be a in-between state of man and cat he can do it."

>>50185110
>You buy LEAPING power for that. It can move you up to Speed 7 (higher ranks mean longer distance in a single jump, but takes more time)

>after speed seven you can get more distance and hang time without additional acceleration

Ok so that's a power that gives force=mass*accelleration the finger. That's fine and dandy that it exists but it is not the kind of power I'm looking for.

How would you calculate the discount for the flaw of: "friction, heat, shockwaves and other potentially dangerous or destructive effects of crazy speed are rendered realistically" as part of a characters flight power?

For instance they would destroy part of a city or forest if they flew past it at Mach 10.5 (flight 12).

>>50187563

Urge to make man-bear-pig, rising.

>>50187665
I don't wanna say it, but a complication might be best.

Then again, there's also Side Effect -1/r or -2/r depending if it happens on failure of a certain roll or it always happens.

Some of the effects you've mentioned seem like powers themselves though, and those said Linked powers might get the "Uncontrolled" modifier since you can't really control who is affected, how they're affected, or when it happens. Maybe side Effect onto those if you're also affected.

>>50185902
That's going to be a very expensive power, maybe buy some versions as alternate effects of others.

Also, Secondary Effect is a great extra for healing. Heal someone this turn, and they'll heal again next round while you help someone else.

Area regeneration is pretty cool for healers too. It's a little pricey with area and selective, but it doesn't consume your action each turn.

>>50187583
You're in a thread about a superhero RPG and you're complaining about abilities that violate the laws of physics?

>>50187583
Remember: the system works by you building powers from *effects*. Leaping is an effect you want from your strength, so link it to your super-strength power.

>>50161109
Why?

>>50160642

This seems to me like something better determined by GM for whatever the present circumstances then relegating it to the measurement conversion chart since searching an are is a complex task with a lot of environmental factors (searching a nearly empty warehouse is much easier then searching a packed one) the sort of thing that is being searched for, and the kind of mental resources, training, and sensory and organizational equipment the heros bring to the table.

However in games where you mostly skip such a complex tasks because it is not what you want to focus on, I can see it being useful.

What do you think about the searching function of investigation?


If as a GM you do find it desirable and appropriate that searching should be a more involved process with more "screentime" for roleplaying how do you still make the search function of the investigation skill powerful and relevant?

This seems to me like something better determined by GM for whatever the present circumstances then relegating it to the measurement conversion chart since searching an are is a complex task with a lot of environmental factors (searching a nearly empty warehouse is much easier then searching a packed one) the sort of thing that is being searched for, and the kind of mental resources, training, and sensory and organizational equipment the heros bring to the table.

However in games where you mostly skip such a complex tasks because it is not what you want to focus on, I can see it being useful.

What do you think about the searching function of investigation?


If as a GM you do find it desirable and appropriate that searching should be a more involved process with more "screentime" for roleplaying how do you still make the search function of the investigation skill powerful and relevant?

>>50187876

A new space marine chapter, one with all cheese and fluff that's mostly esoterica rather than insane curb stomping

>>50169261
>For instance the stats in 3e are stripped down to just the modifier, so an average stat is a 0.

How is this a downgrade?
It makes the mental math much simpler from my perspective.

Than again I don't play a lot of d20 systems so I am not comming at this game from the perspective of being used to other d20 systems.

>>50187583
>Ok so that's a power that gives force=mass*accelleration the finger.
ITS A FUCKING SUPERPOWER

>>50191476
It's a good change, for that exact reason; it eliminates the abstraction of the score. In d20 games, where you use the full score, the standard derivation to get the modifier is ([score-10]/2), rounded down.

So, you have two scores with the exact same modifier, in, in M&M's case, a system with no real reason for it; the usual reason is that the in-between score, the odd-numbered one, is often a prerequisite for a feat, and M&M has no feat prerequisites.

So, yeah, as long as each additional point of modifier is 2 PP, it's exactly the same thing.

>>50187583

>>50191774

Umm.
I don't really understand the math speak you just used but I have an idea what eliminating abstraction means (cutting steps out of getting the numbers you need to do something) so yeah that does sound good.

>>50192054
Basically, you take the score, subtract ten, divide it by two, and round it down. So, for 16:

>([16-10]/2)
>(6/2)
>3

The modifier for 16 is +3. But, because you round the number down, so is the modifier for 17.

And, like I said, usually in d20 stuff, those in-between numbers are prerequisites, but M&M doesn't use those. So it's simpler, and as long as each point of modifier is 2 PP a piece, it's the exact same, cost-wise.

>>50171593
>Fighting is okay
>Presence and Dexterity are fucked beyond recognition

What makes you say that?

How do you determine running speed in 3e? I found a rule that said you could roll athletics to "run faster" at the cost of exhaustion, but it's clearly not meant to be the only rule for running, or else a normal human would run 4mph. I can't find the ruling on this and I'd think this is something that would come up often.

>>50193046
By default you have Speed rank 0, which means traversing Distance 0 in Time 0.

30 feet in 6 seconds or one combat round.
2 miles an hour.

In combat you can spend your main action on move, to add 30 feet more. You can roll Athletics to double each of those actions again, bringing you up to the maximum of 120 feet in 6 seconds if you succeed on both rolls.

Yes the system does kinda miss out on applying it to long distance movement.

>>50190830
Just search the whole warehouse as a free action because someone is inevitably playing a super speedster with a dozen levels of quickness.

Honest answer, though, the GM is free to assign bonuses or penalties based on the environment and each player's skills and sensory abilities. It's not unreasonable to break larger areas up either, so different players are searching different parts of the warehouse. You also know what they searched first this way if something interrupts them.

And you should be interrupting a search if it's worth rolling for at all. If they've got all the time in the world you can look at their Investigation score and just give them whatever evidence they'd eventually find. Rolling to search should mean there's time pressure or a chance of finding something that's going to change the situation.

Maybe the police or other legitimate authorities come to quarantine the crime scene, for example, and need to be stalled. Or maybe you need to find a bomb before it detonates, evidence of corruption before a politician's big speech, or a macguffin and an escape route before some over-PLed murder machine wipes the party.

>>50192990
Fighting still useful, meanwhile... Dexterity And Presence don't. It's literally better get skill points.

>>50192990
Not that guy, but..

Fighting gets you a point of defense and a point of melee attack check. The defense is worth 1, and the attack check is technically worth 1 but it's more like 0.5 in practice since you can buy the close combat skill. So it's worth it on paper, and actually worth it in practice for a weapon user that doesn't want to be shit out of luck if they're disarmed.

Dexterity is also worth it's points on paper but its associated with pretty niche skills. The same caveat about buying attack bonus with skills applies, too (because really, how often does Cyclops need to fire a gun or throw a rock?) So it's more like 1 PP of effect for 2 PP of cost for most characters, but is maybe worth it for some particular builds.


Presence, finally, is worth 1.5 points of skills and costs 2 PP. Even the best case scenario where you want every function of the ability, it's still bad.

Even having your presence debilitated only makes you unaware compared to immobilized and defenseless or dying for most other abilities, and a totally unaware character might still have effects that can contribute to a fight.

>>50193608

how do i fix this?

I'm a GM who sucks at math and comprehending the crunch of systems deeply enough to find problems like that, let along work out solutions.

>>50194084
use the underutilized abilities for more things, at least for certain builds

for example, if someone has a skill in like expertise: performance, acting, or something similar, have them use Presence. It's not much but it helps.

>>50194084
Personally, I don't care much. There is going to be imbalance in the system, only thing you can do is to structure the play that the characters with less efficient builds still get their time in the sun by tailoring some stuff to do for them.

I was going to just bump, but captcha is gettin real desperate there

>>50194916

what does that mean?

>>50197228
It's Mexico for "Street".

>>50193608
>>50194084

I actually made a new Advantage just for this issue:

External Will: You may use your Presence in place of Awareness when it comes to adding to your Will Defense. This can either represent a character who's adapted to any mental tricks because of how often they use them or someone that has an unusual sense of "command" in their presence that isn't easily bent.

Intelligence's usefulness goes through the roof thanks to advantages like Jack of All Trades essentially giving your Expertise on dozens upon dozens of expertise skills and Speed of Thought adding to your Initiative via Intelligence even more so.

>>50160586
Okay, so I need some advice GMing a MnM 3e game for the first time.

Basically, the PCs in this campaign are all refugees that were the only ones strong enough to survive an attack of a cosmic horror on each of their planets. At the moment they're all in a mini pocket dimension a la Garden of Eden and learning to get along. But once they're time is up resting, they'll be in an unfamiliar city filled with advanced technology you'd find in, well, they only thing I can think of for an example is FF7. They'll all be in their own

Here are a few questions:
1. One of the PCs happens to be a nuclear dragon who is 20-30ft. What would be the best way the city could "adapt" to their more...larger fighters.
2. Since the PCs are out of the few able to fight the BBEG among other fiends outside the city, they're going to be "enlisted" into missions. How do I prevent issues of "my character doesn't want to do this"? I was thinking that the able fighters would be receiving the privileges of home/payment as motivation, but I'm not sure what to do if that offer is declined.
3. Some of the characters are going to be working with technology well beyond their home worlds, what would be necessary for dimensional refugees to adapt to it?

>>50200486
I did have another question, this time a general one:

Hoe should I go about it when I use Hero Point based things for Villains? The GM Guide says to give the Heroes a Point whenever a Villain use something requiring it, but what I guess what I'm really asking is how well does that work?

anyone here have some /tg/ approved build-your-own costume resources?

>>50200486

>2
If you haven't already, have a session 0 before you actually start playing where you go over the premise of the game and make sure everyone's on the same page.

It's completely legitimate, for example, to straight up ask everyone why their character has agreed to work for the city. Maybe they're in it for money, for revenge, because they want to do the right thing, or just because it sounds like fun. Making a character that doesn't want to participate is a counterproductive move as a player though.

>1
This will also let you work out any issues with 30 feet nuclear dragons. Is that player okay with being unable to enter most buildings and freaking out the regular citizenry, and if not what sort of compromises do they expect? They could take monstrous appearance as a complication, for example, so they'd have issues but at least get hero points from them when it really matters. They could buy a non-dragon alternate form (costs 1PP as an alternate effect of their growth power) if it fits their concept. If they don't want to do either of those things, then sure, the city's technology is perfectly capable of adapting to a huge dragon. All the buildings are bigger on the inside, the doorways are made of adjustable nanomaterials, and everyone's used to giant outlandish aliens. It's the future, why not?

>3
Again, this depends on how much the player wants that to matter. If they take it as a complication sometimes they'll waste a turn figuring out their flight harness or feel tired because they didn't trust the food served by their butlerbot, but they'll get a hero point for it. If they don't take it as a complication you can still describe them fumbling with unfamiliar tech, but for the most part they figure it out quickly and it shouldn't have serious mechanical consequences.

>>50181463
Not drama, no. Green Ronin just upgraded the shit on their native boards, and everyone moved there. The ATT stuff still is there, just google it.

>>50168518
Superman doesn't go down in a hail of bullets in M&M, either. Nigga's impervious 18, to use the basic book.

That means you need a full on tank weapon to even make him start to roll against damage.

So to even start to hope to do anything, you have to be slinging a D10, which is around a 120mm round. That base means a DC of 15+10, 25. He's got a +18 to the roll. So at the very worst, he has the wind knocked out of him for a moment if you roll a 1.

>>50169194
I hate 2e pretty solidly, and won't ever play it, but 3e is probably one of my favorite systems. Took a lot of the stupid D&Disms out back and shot them.

>>50168975
Not perfect, but this works decently for a PL10 build at 150.

http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39345&p=788453#p788453

>>50203351
Thank you very much! I feel I'll be using most of these ideas.

>>50201745
It works okay as long as you use it sparingly. Better to use it only for Villains running away to fight another day and similar things. Or delivering a couple of punches to the player character to create tension.

DO NOT use it to allow Viallin's plan to succeed. Ever.

>>50204218
Another Option I had was to cap the villain's points to 3, but they'd have 3 points they can spend for that encounter at the beginning. So if I use them all up by the end before the villain can escape, then that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

>>50200486

These we good questions.

>>50203344
>anyone here have some /tg/ approved build-your-own costume resources?

I wish I had something for you but I don't.
Nice dubs by the way.

>>50180841
Selective area attack.

>>50181463
Board owner got 'death threats' and 'rape threats' from 'Gamer Gate' Went into full freak the fuck out mode and told everyone that she was going to delete everything.

So yeah, that happened.

>>50204982
Citation or shut the fuck up with that horseshit.

>>50205137
I don't think I can link it, but if you go to the Ronin Army site and look in the Mutants and Masterminds General section, there's a pinned closed note of the owner saying her feefees were hurt and she's thinking about closing the site. Dig deeper and you can find out more about the incident, as the whole thing was erased.

How would you guys make Mountain Tim in Mutants and masterminds?
For reference he's a dude who can slide his body parts (and others) piece by piece quickly along a rope.

I think I'd write his movement as a teleport skill, with the Medium(rope) flaw. Some increased mass as an extra since he can move people. also the transit time flaw. I know teleportation isn't the best but I'm kinda bad at this, maybe one of you has a better idea.

Elongation for the times when he does things like split his arm up along the rope to use his hand at the end of it.

Resistance to bludgeoning/blast damage that's a toggle with the quirk flaw of rendering him prone and unable to attack, to match the time when he split his body into chunks and got thrown all over the place to survive a point blank explosion by moving with the force.

Is it worth spending anything on his ability to absorb liquids on the rope as he travels along it? Like that time he stopped dehydration by absorbing dew on the rope. If so, I have no idea how to do that.

Probably spend the rest of his points on his talents for lassos, animal handling and maybe some investigation.

how do i make timestop powers work and be available to my players without it making the playrs who'se characters who don't have that power feel shafted, and hte ones who do have not feel they've been nerfed too hard

>>50207836
Most time-stop powers can be modeled with speed/quickness ranks and multiattack or split attack.

>>50207836
3e has a Power Profile dedicated to time-related powers, by the way.

>>50203344
The City of Heroes Icon app is fairly good - it's the costume creator ripped from the defunct MMO. It's what I used to make the costumes in posts >>50185433 and >>50184613 as well as the one in this. Just google "City of Heroes Icon" and you should bea ble to find a download.

How about such a take on lightsabers attacks:
_________________________________________________
•Lightsaber - 7 pts/rank

Affliction (Impaired / Disabled / Transformed - Limb Loss)
Extras: Alternate Resistance - Agility (+1) , Increased Duration - Continuous (+2), Feature - Can remove multiple limbs (+1)

-linked

Damage
Extras: Alternate Resistance - Agility (+1)
__________________________________________________

So basically you slash at your enemy making him flinch due to shallow wounds and then you cut his hand or leg off. You also have a chance to kill him due to damage. It doesn't care much about armor unless it specifically protects vs. lightsabers.

>>50208692
I had no clue this existed. That's pretty cool. Thanks for letting me know about it.

>>50208831
Why not go with Weaken Toughness linked to Damage? That's what most 2e/3e lightsaber attack builds use.

>>50208922
That's more an AE to the effect that I statted. For then you want to break through walls. I don't see how Weaken Toughness is conductive to modelling how lightsaber combat proceeds.

What you get with weaken toughness vs characters is just better damage. A little. Because if you don't want your enemy to suddenly become really soft you'll need to limit its work to only one lightsaber attack.

>>50208987
Weaken Toughness works for combat because while not every strike is one that removes a limb, a lightsaber will ALWAYS (barring specific and rare materals plus shields/energy effects) cut right through any obstacle.

Removing a limb should come as a consequence of Damage, not a transform effect.

>>50209047
Won't alternate resistance work much better than weaken? Considering that you will anyway need to use it with weaken. If you want damage only to be affected you can always just use Alternate Resistance for it directly. All problems with armor disappear unless enemy has armor which specifically allows to block lightsabers. With weaken you still need to overcome it.

>>50209141
This modifier allows effects normally resisted by Fortitude
to work on non-living objects (those with no Stamina).
Generally, this extra applies to effects like Heal or Weaken,
allowing them to work on objects in the same way as they
do living creatures. If the effect Affects Only Objects,
working on objects but not on living creatures, it has a net
modifier of +0.
Objects do not get resistance checks; the effect works on
the targeted object at its maximum degree of success. At
the GM’s discretion, someone holding, carrying, or wearing
an object can make a Dodge resistance check against
the effect, representing pulling the object out of the way
at the last moment.

Affects Objects Weaken Toughness works automatically.

>>50209141
Weaken Toughness is a Fort save made after a successful attack check. After the Weaken Toughness check is made, the Damage check proceeds regardless of the results.

The way I posited is not just much simpler, it's much cheaper as well - what you did for 7 points per rank, I can do for less than half.

* Lightsaber
- (Weaken Toughness, 1pp/rank)
Linked to
- (Damage {plasma}, 1pp/rank (or 2pp/rank, if you want to add Penetrating))

The Hero's Handbook even says that serious, lasting injuries should be done through Complications (HH, pg 251).

>>50209265
I know that. What about characters or say villains (siths)?

How Weaken Toughness better for modelling lightsaber than Alternate Resistance (Agility) or something similar?

Let's say we have a sith in normal armor. And he is hit with lightsaber.

•In case of Weaken + Damage
If standard Weaken is used he resists it with Fortitude
If Alternate Resistance Weaken is used he anyway resists it with Agility or maybe Dodge

There is around 50-80% chance that he fails against weaken and after that he rolls remaining Toughness vs damage. It still can be a reasonable amount of toughness. So armor protects him.

•In case of Alternate Resistance Damage
There is only one roll and armor doesn't do anything.

•In case of my proposed Affliction + Damage
There is only one roll, armor doesn't protect and he has a small chance of limb loss and bigger chance of getting penalties that will slow him down.

>>50209326
I concede the point about injuries but still don't see how Weaken is better than Alternate Resistance.

It is simpler and cheaper. (Though let's be honest price depends on DM)

You can get your attack vs objects with Weaken as AE for 1 point.

>>50209374
>>50209412

His ability to move out of the way of the attack is already determined by his Defense; whether it's Affliction, Weaken, or Damage, they all rely on an attack roll first to hit - and being that this is a melee attack, the defender needs to roll Parry, not Dodge.

Agility isn't a save. Agility is an ability. You do not roll the ability scores to defend against attacks, that's covered by defenses, whether it's Dodge for ranged attacks, or Parry for melee - and before you complain about Parry, it's *explicitly* about being able to block AND dodge attacks in melee.

I can understand you want to just destroy limbs all over the place, but that's literally never what happens in either Star Wars or in comic books; limbs are only removed through plot specific times, or because the Minion failed its one attempt to defend against an attack.

You are seriously overcomplicating matters with your build (to say nothing of wording it wrong).

-Continuous Duration means that it can be saved against again.
- You seriously need to re-read Transformed again. It's for turning people into other things, not for simulating the removal of limbs. That's a Damage effect, and one determined by plot/the GM at that.
- Again, Agility isn't used as a Save. Agility is an Ability Score. The valid saves are Dodge, Parry, Fortitude, Toughness, and Will.

>>50209880
Note, Parry isn't rolled unless you're taking the Defense action.

>>50209880
Oh yeah I fucked up with agility. Whelp. Back to the drawing board.

>It's for turning people into other things, not for simulating the removal of limbs.
Well I think removing 1 limb is less dangerous than transforming someone into a newt. At least no one can step on you.

Here are some PCs I whipped up a while ago. I was planning on making a personal project of it, but had to stop to focus on schoolwork. Maybe some folks on /tg/ will like them.

has anybody stated pre-shadow-moses-incident Revolver Ocelot?

>>50210584
How'd you get it to look like that? Did you edit it yourself or did you have a template to work with?

It's made from scratch using tables in Microsoft Word and a couple of fonts I found online that matched what Green Ronin uses in their books.

>>50210584
>>50211265
It looks great.

I love the power names, but it bugs me a little that not everyone is save capped.

>>50209880
>- You seriously need to re-read Transformed again. It's for turning people into other things, not for simulating the removal of limbs. That's a Damage effect, and one determined by plot/the GM at that.
Transform is a general effect for turning things into other things. There are published characters that use tranform for stuff like brainwashing, breaking objects or even quickly building stuff.

"Transformed (into a version of itself with one fewer appendage)" is absolutely fine.