PDA

View Full Version : Some Questions about Mutants and Masterminds



Jerthanis
2007-06-26, 10:13 PM
I recently picked up M&M 2nd edition and have been thoroughly impressed with the book overall. I can't wait to try it out, but before I do, I'd like to become really familiar with the rules, and that means working through some problems interpreting the wording so far. Most of these problems come from the limitations of Power Level.

My first and most glaring problem comes from the fact that Toughness saves seem defined differently on different pages. On page 33 it says, "You can only increase Toughness saving throw bonus above your base constitution bonus with feats and powers." which seems to say that you start with no toughness bonus, and have to buy each point of toughness save up to a hard maximum of your constitution bonus. This would imply that if you had a PL 10 character, and you were considering the constitution score, and for whatever reason you decided to spend 30 points on it to attain the maximum value of 40, you would have a potential of a +15 toughness save (as long as your defense score was +5 or less), but you'd have to spend additional points to reach that according to the table on page 24. Of course, on page 28, when listing the effects of Constitution, it doesn't differentiate between Con's affect on Toughness saves versus its effect on Fort saves, and additionally, on page 152, it says, "Apply your constitution modifier to your toughness saving throws" which seems to imply that, like Fort saves, you buy a base number and add the appropriate stat modifier to get the total (up to the campaign's power level cap)... however this doesn't seem right looking at the example characters, who each have a base toughness score exactly equal to their Con Bonus. Somehow, somewhere there seems to be a misprint... which is it supposed to be?

Another problem I have is the idea of maximum power ranks. I understand that there isn't really a cap on how high you can buy a power, as long as you have the points. However, if you buy a power which causes its targets to make a saving throw, are you limited by the maximum saving throw value for your Power Level in how many ranks you can take? So you could take 20 or 30 ranks in Blast, and do +20 to +30 damage, but you can't take Mind Control above rank 10? (without lowering your maximum attack bonus by a similar amount) Am I right about that?

Also, on Page 24 in the section where it's talking about Attack bonus vs Save difficulty and how you can trade off between them, it mentions that for these purposes, Strength bonus counts as an "Attack", thus limiting your strength bonus to your maximum total attack bonus, thus if you made a PL 10 character with 40 strength, he'd automatically have a max Attack bonus/save DC bonus of +15/+5? So you also gave him Mind Control, you could only purchase 5 ranks, or only buy up to +5 DC? Is this correct?

Finally, am I misreading the purposes of the Enhanced Stat power? Because as I read it it's not at all more cost effective than simply raising your character's natural stats, and it becomes nullifyable in the process. The power mentions that the stat becomes elligible for Extra Effort, but none of the options discussed under the Extra effort section on page 120 are at all more efficient or useful for increasing a power than for increasing a stat roll it seems. Is it supposed to represent a flavorful "Your stats are the way they were from before you became a superhero, Enhanced Ability represents your post-power stat boosts", or am I just missing something entirely?

I'd appreciate a little clarification on these points from those who have experience with the system.