Timewaster's Guide Archive
Games => Role-Playing Games => Topic started by: Eagle Prince on August 25, 2005, 06:52:52 AM
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Since 42 was talking about doing a M&M game, I was checking out their website for ideas of what kind of superheroes to make and noticed they are coming out with a 2nd edition like next month. So maybe you will want to check that out.
Here are some of the changes I noticed. Power level and how many creation points you have are not related. So before a 210 point guy would be power level 14, well now you could have 210 points but only power level 8, or 150 points but power level 14. Lower power level but more points means you have PCs with wider range of stuff, etc.
No more super attributes, you just buy attributes like before and they can go over 20... usually limited to power level +5 on the abilitly bonus, ie Strength 30 limited to PL 5 or higher games, Strength 50 to PL 15 or higher games, etc.
Skills now cost 4 ranks per point, so having skills should be more common. Ranks are limited to PL +5, and lots of skills were combined, like Hide and Move Silently are combined into one skill Stealth.
Damage save was renamed Toughness save, Evasion feat renamed Defensive Roll, etc. And some feats you can buy multiple times to get more 'ranks', like the Minion feat you take multiple times depending on how powerful of minion(s) you want.
Strength is not added to Attack and Dexterity is not added to Defense.
You can no longer take another power as an extra of some other power, they are simply taken seperately.
Plus some other stuff that would probably make more sense if I knew the rules very well.
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I've started reading through the changes.
I'm not sure what to think of them right now. Somethings I like and other things I'm not sure how they will work.
I kind of disagree with Steve Kenson on what is balanced from time-to-time. It's probably just a difference in munchkin styles.
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I like the change to skill rank cost, because both characters I made had basically no skill ranks but now its worth getting them. I also like that how many points you have is not directly tied to power level.
I remember that promethus wanted to try out combining Spot/Listen and Hide/Move Silently, and they also combined some others like Balance/Tumble. So I know at least one person who would have liked that. But then the super-senses stresses so much the difference in vision, hearing, scent, etc so that is kind of wierd to then combine Spot and Listen skills.
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Save me some effort, how did they change skill costs?
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Sorry I don't know that much about the rules, as I don't own it and have only played it twice. But I think I got most of the changes in my post. For 1 point, you gain 4 ranks of skills, and lots of skills have been combined Ie hide and move silently are now one skill, Stealth. So it usually doesn't take as many skill ranks to be good at sneaking, for example. I think before skills cost 1 rank for 1 point, but I don't really know. I was just saying what the articles said.
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It kind of seems like hide and move silently as well as spot and listen were combined for convenience, not because they actually work better combined.
I can think of too many sitautions where only listen and move silently apply or where only hide and spot apply. And how would you distinguish between super-hearing and super-sight?
I guess this comes down to my only real complaint against the mutants and masterminds OGL system--it's just too simplified for some situations.
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Ah, the cheaper skill point cost was a variant rule. One that I've always thought should be used
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Well, the original variant gave you 2 skill ranks for evey 1 power point spent. 2nd edition touts giving 4 skill ranks for every 1 power point spent.
It seems like a lot of things have gotten less expensive.
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actually, the original variant was 2 or 3. 4 points is more, yeah, but let's face it, it takes a LOT of skills to make up for a superpower.
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Reading some more, Kenson has explained why he's made the changes. In his mind, 1-4 ranks in a skill makes you adept at that skill, 5-8 ranks makes you a professional, 9-12 makes you an experts, and more than that makes you a master.
Also, it now only costs 1 point to get a feat.
A lot of powers have been reworked. For example: super-senses now requires you to select more specifically what situations your super-senses apply. your ranks in super-senses could apply to darkvision and telescopic sight or they could be applied to being a more accurate shot.
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Yeah it looks like quite a few powers are like that, cause I was looking at regeneration and each rank of it you take, you then have to split up those ranks to find how exactly what your regeration does. Or like immunities, now instead of spending 2 points per feat for an immunity, you just put ranks into immunity and then have to allocate out all of those to the sub-categories to figure out exactly what you are immune to.