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Saitox
2011-07-31, 08:31 PM
I have a question for the forum goers that has confused me for the past weeked. I have taken a look through the 2nd edition Mutants and Masterminds and while looking at the character archetypes I saw that some of the characters powers go above the power level. I am wondering if someone can explain to me how can a power be Blast 12 in a PL 10 campaign? Unless I am not understanding powers correctly. As well as the battlesuit having Device 19, that has confused me as well. Another question I have is does applying the Impervious modifier to Toughness directly also limited by the PL?

crazyhedgewizrd
2011-07-31, 08:46 PM
the reason way the device power can go above Power Level, is that it has no restrictions applied to it since it is a collection powers. The individual powers in the group still has to follow the power level restriction.

ExtravagantEvil
2011-07-31, 09:14 PM
The reason Blast 12 could be done was probably due to the trade off system
Attack/Def = Damage/Toughness.
You can trade them off on 1/1 basis at the GM's call for limits.
So they could Trade away the Accuracy of it, and pump the damage of the Blast if I can recall the rules correctly.

crazyhedgewizrd
2011-07-31, 09:41 PM
thats right, but the limit for trade off is up to 5

kpenguin
2011-07-31, 10:23 PM
There is no actual official limit for trade-offs as far as I'm aware of.

Ivellius
2011-08-01, 04:34 AM
You can (RAW) trade off an amount up to the power level, I believe, but it'd be pretty weird to let you trade off to get negative modifiers. From what I remember on the official forums, the designer recommended that you not allow tradeoffs to be more than half of the characters PL (or 5, in this case). That said, the Powerhouse archetype breaks that suggestion.

Impervious Toughness can be bought up to whatever your Toughness save is. Again, a recommendation is that you limit it somewhat to avoid invincible characters, but it's always up to you.

Nerd-o-rama
2011-08-02, 02:26 PM
1) The archetypes in the core book are badly proofread and contain a few math errors
1a) You can trade off attack cap for damage cap, as many have said, and the same with defense and toughness. For instance, with GM permission, you could have an attack cap of 8 and damage cap of 12 in a PL 10 campaign (a +2/-2 tradeoff).

2) Only certain things are limited by Power Level. Power Rank is not - the maximum damage/save for a power is, but that's not applicable to Device since it's just a container. Other things not limited by PL are things like movement powers, Super-Senses, and Immunity. These can be limited by the GM individually, or just by your total power points.

3) Impervious is an Extra, so you can't have more ranks in it than you can in the save you're modifying. You can't have more Impervious ranks than you have total Toughness, and since Toughness is limited by PL, Impervious is likewise.

Kyuu Himura
2011-08-02, 06:28 PM
The examples on the manual are kinda messy, as others have pointed out, you can decrease your attack cap to increase your damage cap, like you were Iron Man (http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?p=251869#p251869), or the oppposite, as if you were playing someone like Daredevil (http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?p=256855#p256855), the same thing can be done with toughness and defense, and it is visible in the builds above.

Hope that helps

Crusader808
2011-08-04, 04:49 PM
There is no actual official limit for trade-offs as far as I'm aware of.

They do leave it up to the GM, which can be messy if the GM hasn't run an MnM game before.

In 3rd edition they suggest you cap it at half PL but don't put any official limit on it.

KnightDisciple
2011-08-04, 05:09 PM
They do leave it up to the GM, which can be messy if the GM hasn't run an MnM game before.

In 3rd edition they suggest you cap it at half PL but don't put any official limit on it.The PbP site I play M&M on caps it at 5 no matter the PL (with a house-rule you can do any trade-off feats up to 2). 5 seems like a decent way to keep it from getting too crazy.

Ivellius
2011-08-04, 05:23 PM
I suppose I could also mention that a set of four feats (Accurate Attack, All-out Attack, Defensive Attack, and Power Attack) probably let you mess with the caps even further. A PL 10 character who had traded off his Defense to +20 and his Attack to +20 should be able to use All-out Attack to get a +40 to-hit modifier.

You're a goner if they fight back, however. Or have any kind of Toughness save at all.