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A few of my players have expressed a like of Mutants and Masterminds, and one of them has loaned me his PDF CD so I could read the rules. To be honest, I'm not feeling the love, but I don't quite know why. At the core I think the default expectation of the rules (as with many rule sets) that the heroes are all equally powerful is too rigidly enforced. It's one thing in Champions where everyone has 350 points to buy powers and there are lots of various complex ways one character can be more powerful than another (from ideal point designs to clever synergies to the rules mis-pointing the utility of a particular power to one player not being good at builds). But this M&M is very clear in exactly what you need to do to keep your character evenly balanced, and it's pretty clear from the rules that deviation will hose you.
I might be reading too much into this, and maybe it's not having a physical copy of the rulebook to flip through, but it's been hard for me to create our new V&V heroes in Mutants & Masterminds. Not in a "How do we model their powers" way, but a "Atlas' Growth lets him grow to 20', which is huge size, and would give him a 35 Str, right on line with a Powerhouse character. But when he grows he also gets a better chance to hit because of the deceptive nature of his gravity fueled growth, and not only does M&M growth force a reduced chance to hit due to d20 size modifiers, but his attack bonus has to drop below the because his +13 effect mod is out of line with a power level 10 hero. So I could raise the power level, no one else in the team can even come close to Atlas' damage potential when grown (Calypso maxes out at 2d8, Atlas maxes out at 4d10). Maybe Calypso and Titania, who both favor stunning and entangling attacks, have campaign levels in those attacks and Calypso has below campaign levels in her water control and super-strength.
I just don't have enough feel of the system, but the idea of "everyone should start with the same scores in these key numbers and then apply +/- balancing to them, and we differentiate by how you justify those scores" just doesn't sit well with me. Can anyone who's played it offer another insight?
I might be reading too much into this, and maybe it's not having a physical copy of the rulebook to flip through, but it's been hard for me to create our new V&V heroes in Mutants & Masterminds. Not in a "How do we model their powers" way, but a "Atlas' Growth lets him grow to 20', which is huge size, and would give him a 35 Str, right on line with a Powerhouse character. But when he grows he also gets a better chance to hit because of the deceptive nature of his gravity fueled growth, and not only does M&M growth force a reduced chance to hit due to d20 size modifiers, but his attack bonus has to drop below the because his +13 effect mod is out of line with a power level 10 hero. So I could raise the power level, no one else in the team can even come close to Atlas' damage potential when grown (Calypso maxes out at 2d8, Atlas maxes out at 4d10). Maybe Calypso and Titania, who both favor stunning and entangling attacks, have campaign levels in those attacks and Calypso has below campaign levels in her water control and super-strength.
I just don't have enough feel of the system, but the idea of "everyone should start with the same scores in these key numbers and then apply +/- balancing to them, and we differentiate by how you justify those scores" just doesn't sit well with me. Can anyone who's played it offer another insight?
