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cameronpants
2013-09-03, 04:13 PM
Hello all! Cameronpants here, looking for some input, advice, suggestions, and critiques!

As many of us know (well, the few Playgrounders who have played in one of my various PbP games) how much I adore Grod_the_Giant's homebrew material. Huge fan, all that. Anyway, I've been checking out his thread on D&D in M&M (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=279503) for a while now. I made some hasty suggestions, juxtaposed on a few concepts, but inevitably I ended up further behind than I began- so I gave up.

Since then, I've been running and playing a plentiful number of Playground-based games. X-Crawl, a groundhog-day-esque game, Age of Worms, various gestalt and effective quad-stalt games...

And now, here I am, looking to run a game with the D&D in M&M material.

But it's not quite there for me yet. I don't want to run M&M in a fantasy setting; I don't want to run D&D without hit points. I want to run a hybrid, something that mixes the tone and feel of both systems.

Tall tasks, short order, all that. Here's a link to the M&M SRD (http://www.d20herosrd.com/).

So here is what I have so far. Please, make suggestions, comments, etc.

IDEAS

I made a chart (https://drive.google.com/?utm_source=en&utm_medium=button&utm_campaign=web&utm_content=gotodrive&utm_term=carousel&usp=ad_search#my-drive) for alternative scaling purposes- only the Mass and Distance are in use so far. The others were for me when I was toying with Lasting and Duration modifiers other than Sustained, Concentration, etc.
The mass chart follows D&D 3.5's strength-lifting chart, only adapted to Mutants and Masterminds amounts.

A reduced number of Types, Subtypes, and Descriptors:
{table=head] Types | Subtypes | Damage Descriptors | Spell Types | Spell Descriptors
Animal | [Alignment]1 | [Energy]2 | Arcane | [Energy]
Humanoid | [Energy]2 | Slashing | Divine | [Alignment]
Aberration | [Genus?]3 | Piercing | Psionic | [School]
Construct | Magical | Bludgeoning | Anima | [Discipline]
Undead | Psionic | | [Domain]
Plant | Divine | |
Outsider | Ooze | |
| Vermin | |
| Shapeshifter | |
[/table]
1: Lawful, Chaotic, Good, Evil
2: Fire, Cold, Electricity, Acid, Sonic, Radiant, Necrotic, Entropic, Force
3: Mammalian, Avian, Reptilian? Like, Hill Giants would be Humanoid (Mammal) just like human, whereas both a lizardfolk and a kobold would be Humanoid (Reptilian). Might need a couple more in here, otherwise some players using the Limited Increase rule would be able to affect everyone in an entire city.
The idea is to reduce the number of types and subtypes by a dramatic amount. That way the later idea of Limited Increases actually makes a difference. No more Human subtype, no more Magical Beast type.


Aberrations include magical beasts with spell-like or supernatural capabilities, or any creature with an Int score of -3 or higher.
Animals include all other Magical Beasts.
Oozes are now a subtype, and are usually Construct or Plant in Type.
All vermin are now Animals.
Humanoid covers all terrestrial humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and giants. Others, or high-innate-magic examples, should be Outsiders (Eldritch Giants and Titans spring to mind).

Quick blurb on descriptors:


Some you recognize; these do not change.
Radiant is the purging of all things but the core; this can cause things like iron and other minerals to be expelled from the body forcefully as an example. Associated with light and unhindered growth.
Necrotic is the dark energy that allows for decay, disease, and anguish; this can cause instantaneous development of cancer or other bacterial infections, as well as rotting limbs. Associated with undead and souls.
Entropic is the force of the universe that wants to rip things apart; being stuck in a vacuum or the Disintegrate spell would deal this damage. Associated with darkness and obliteration.
Force is the force of the universe that wants to keep things together; this can be from extreme pressure or hyper-dense materials; spheres of annihilation would have this descriptor.


The alignment system generally stays the same.



Alternate approach to Points:

PL Starts at 2, Limited Increase at +1.

{table=head]Level | Points Total | Points Gained
1 | 25 | 25
2 | 35 | 10
3 | 45 | 10
4 | 55 | 10
5 | 65 | 10
6 | 75 | 10
7 | 85 | 10
8 | 95 | 10
9 | 105 | 10
10 | 120 | 15
11 | 135 | 15
12 | 150 | 15
13 | 165 | 15
14 | 180 | 15
15 | 195 | 15
16 | 210 | 15
17 | 225 | 15
18 | 240 | 15
19 | 255 | 15
20 | 280 | 25
[/table]
I like this approach. I might modify it slightly later, but this one works for me. GMs who run games with this system should allow for between [CL] and [CLx3] points for GM-awarded equipment. Stuff like magic items that the player does not get to design. If they choose to sell the stuff, they can use the money to buy new GM-designed items. Maybe, later on, they can buy NPC-powered rituals to grant them between 2 and 5 power points, and must be spent on a GM-assigned descriptor or category (Like Strength-realted or 'Radiant' abilities). This would simulate Wish spells and Tomes, as well as Magical Locations.



Limited Increase: A boost, bonus, or other modifier can advance beyond Power Level norms by an amount up to the value shown on the chart below. For instance, a Barbarian could have '+2 damage when charging' and it can bring his damage over the PL limit. You cannot stack bonuses from multiple sources that bypass your PL; take only the highest. When building the power, you must place the 'Limited' drawback on the ability. Unlike normal, this does not reduce the cost of the power in any way. Further Limited drawbacks work as normal.

{table=head] Power Level | Maximum Increase
1-3 | +1
4-6 | +2
7-9 | +3
10-12 | +4
13-15 | +5
16-18 | +6
19-20 | +7
[/table]


More to come...