I've been really enjoying Mutants and Masterminds for a while now, but as much fun as character creation and roleplaying superheroes is, the combat is extremely swingy and easily exploited. So, I've been brainstorming on a few houserules.
1. Attack & DC/Damage and Defense/saving throw tradeoffs may not exceed 5.
2. Ranged attack rolls may not have an attack bonus greater than PL-4.
3. Ranged attack rolls while flying suffer a further -2 penalty.
5. Minions fall unconscious when they fail their toughness saving throw by 5 or more.
6. The cost to buy Reflex, Fort, or Will saves is .5 points. You must spend at least one point when buying these defenses.
7. Maximum power ranks are equal to 2xPL.
8. Autofire may only be applied as an extra once. The damage bonus from autofire is +1 for every 2 points you exceed the targets defense, to a maximum of +5 or the original damage bonus, whichever is lower.
9. Characters gain 4*(PL+3) skill points free.
10. Alternate Power costs 1 point the first time. Further ranks in the feat cost 1 plus half the total number of points used in the original power.
11. Fail a save of any type, you gain one bruise. This includes failed reflex, fortitude, or will saves. You take no further penalties for failing a save by 5 or 10. You fall unconscious/dying when a toughness saving throw fails by 15 or more, as normal.
12. Effects now have a threshold, based upon the damage saves. Any effect that takes a character out of combat--transform, mind control, dimensional pocket, etc--requires the target to fail their save by 15 or more. Minor effects, such as trip, require only that the target fail their saving throw. All others--blinding, stunning, snaring--fall somewhere between.
Thoughts on these so far?
Mutants and Masterminds Houserules
Moderator: Moderators
In my experience with the game, enemy design is more effective as far as dealing with 'abuses' for many characters. Some might consider it unfair, but the comic book genre holds much precedence for this (notice the lack of Superman v Joker fights).
1. An alright one, since it's usually a tactically bad idea to be too focused.
2. So you want ranged attackers to be very heavy hitters, since you're forcing them near the max in attack/damage tradeoff?
3. This seems kind of spiteful and unneeded, due to custom villain design.
4. Where'd it go?
5. The same thing as raising all minion Toughness values by 5 unless you're applying wound penalties, which negates the point of using minions.
6. Those three are already fairly good abilities, since their cap is PL+5 and the DC for abilities that target them are 10+rank instead of 15+; people who actually bother buying the saves are already at a decent advantage.
7. I think I know what you're trying to limit by putting that in place, but you're better off placing caps for the specific problem powers that you feel are stupid if they go past rank 20 (or whatever the PL is set for).
8. Autofire is only really a problem if it's used to exceed the PL damage cap; so this isn't that bad.
9. Meh, same as telling them to spend a portion of their PP allotment on skills; nothing really bad or good here.
10. Alternate powers suffer diminishing returns after the first three or four times you take the feat, so a mediocre house rule at best; especially since you can only have one power active at a time (and can only do two switches per round on your turn).
11. This one is a notable change the rules, and I'm having some trouble understanding how you intend this to function. Are webshooters bruising people who get entangled? It looks like it makes the non-damaging effects even better, which I suspect you don't want.
12. I already mentioned the low DCs for non-damage attacks and higher cap for non-Toughness saves. You would do better just lowering the rank for such powers to PL-10 or outright banning them you made them so bad. If you're beholden to such an idea, at least fold lesser effects into said powers so something happens between failing and failing by 15.
1. An alright one, since it's usually a tactically bad idea to be too focused.
2. So you want ranged attackers to be very heavy hitters, since you're forcing them near the max in attack/damage tradeoff?
3. This seems kind of spiteful and unneeded, due to custom villain design.
4. Where'd it go?
5. The same thing as raising all minion Toughness values by 5 unless you're applying wound penalties, which negates the point of using minions.
6. Those three are already fairly good abilities, since their cap is PL+5 and the DC for abilities that target them are 10+rank instead of 15+; people who actually bother buying the saves are already at a decent advantage.
7. I think I know what you're trying to limit by putting that in place, but you're better off placing caps for the specific problem powers that you feel are stupid if they go past rank 20 (or whatever the PL is set for).
8. Autofire is only really a problem if it's used to exceed the PL damage cap; so this isn't that bad.
9. Meh, same as telling them to spend a portion of their PP allotment on skills; nothing really bad or good here.
10. Alternate powers suffer diminishing returns after the first three or four times you take the feat, so a mediocre house rule at best; especially since you can only have one power active at a time (and can only do two switches per round on your turn).
11. This one is a notable change the rules, and I'm having some trouble understanding how you intend this to function. Are webshooters bruising people who get entangled? It looks like it makes the non-damaging effects even better, which I suspect you don't want.
12. I already mentioned the low DCs for non-damage attacks and higher cap for non-Toughness saves. You would do better just lowering the rank for such powers to PL-10 or outright banning them you made them so bad. If you're beholden to such an idea, at least fold lesser effects into said powers so something happens between failing and failing by 15.
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
EXPLOSIVE RUNES!
2 & 3: After some reconsideration, I think it'd be better to boost melee attacks than to penalize ranged. A lot simpler and a lot easier to swallow. So, for now, I was thinking of raising the cap on melee attack and saving by 2 each.
4. ...I have no idea. Oh, wait, found it. 4 was getting rid of being automatically stunned when you took between 5 and 14 damage.
5. I suppose it is. I might just be looking for a middleground between minions and standard npcs.
6. Point taken. Idea scrapped.
7. Yeah, this is pretty much put in point to reduce the amount of facepalming I have to do when I look at a player's character sheet.
8. Autofire is just really, really good at passing way over the damage cap though. Say, PL 10. Someone has an attack with autofire for +10 attack, +10 damage. They attack, then use the Accurate Attack feat to reduce their damage by 5, but increase their damage by 5. Assuming they hit with their +15 attack by a margin greater than 5, they get back all of that damage they penalized themselves for. Assuming they hit by less than 5, and they wouldn't have even hit in the first place otherwise.
9. Yeah, not too attached to this one, but I do feel that skills pale quite a bit before powers.
10. Put in place to limit the "magic" characters who spend all of their points on one power and then buy a dozen different powers. Might be a bit harsh, but I'd definitely like to do something about the feat.
11&12: These two are a pretty big change, and the goal is to make a power like Trip competitive with something like Transform. The way I see it, failing toughness by 15 knocks you out or sets you to dying, so something with an equivalent effect should be about as hard to accomplish. DnD 3.5 had the same sort of Save or Die abilities, but they were--in theory, not reality--balanced by the fact that you only had a limited amount every day. Most powers in MnM are can go off at will, as much as you like, so there is little incentive to use abilities with minor effects when you could target the same save at the same DC and take your opponent right out of the game.
With this, every failed save collects a bruise--though bruise is probably a bad name for it--that applies to all future saving throws. In flavor terms, a regular punch still causes a bruise as normal, a snare keeps them rooted so that they can't roll so well with the next punch, a mental assault may fail to turn them into a thrall, but still leaves them mentally fatigued, etc.
4. ...I have no idea. Oh, wait, found it. 4 was getting rid of being automatically stunned when you took between 5 and 14 damage.
5. I suppose it is. I might just be looking for a middleground between minions and standard npcs.
6. Point taken. Idea scrapped.
7. Yeah, this is pretty much put in point to reduce the amount of facepalming I have to do when I look at a player's character sheet.
8. Autofire is just really, really good at passing way over the damage cap though. Say, PL 10. Someone has an attack with autofire for +10 attack, +10 damage. They attack, then use the Accurate Attack feat to reduce their damage by 5, but increase their damage by 5. Assuming they hit with their +15 attack by a margin greater than 5, they get back all of that damage they penalized themselves for. Assuming they hit by less than 5, and they wouldn't have even hit in the first place otherwise.
9. Yeah, not too attached to this one, but I do feel that skills pale quite a bit before powers.
10. Put in place to limit the "magic" characters who spend all of their points on one power and then buy a dozen different powers. Might be a bit harsh, but I'd definitely like to do something about the feat.
11&12: These two are a pretty big change, and the goal is to make a power like Trip competitive with something like Transform. The way I see it, failing toughness by 15 knocks you out or sets you to dying, so something with an equivalent effect should be about as hard to accomplish. DnD 3.5 had the same sort of Save or Die abilities, but they were--in theory, not reality--balanced by the fact that you only had a limited amount every day. Most powers in MnM are can go off at will, as much as you like, so there is little incentive to use abilities with minor effects when you could target the same save at the same DC and take your opponent right out of the game.
With this, every failed save collects a bruise--though bruise is probably a bad name for it--that applies to all future saving throws. In flavor terms, a regular punch still causes a bruise as normal, a snare keeps them rooted so that they can't roll so well with the next punch, a mental assault may fail to turn them into a thrall, but still leaves them mentally fatigued, etc.
-
TavishArtair
- Knight-Baron
- Posts: 593
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
I would, instead of highlighting Alternate Power, highlight certain powers that are problematic when Alternate Power'd, instead. For instance, Healing is a power that's really easy to AP with, use (with the Total extra), and then switch to something else, and get a quite dramatic advantage on the person who didn't have a Healing AP, even though you only spent 1 AP differently. I generally ban people from including Healing APs in their attack arrays. Movement and attacks and pretty much most other things being in the same array is fine, however.
Last edited by TavishArtair on Mon Aug 24, 2009 1:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Mutants and Masterminds Houserules
Most online games I've been in have this as PL/2. The obvious abuse it provides for Impervious is the biggest problem, so you may want to consider limiting Imperviousness separately.Apalala wrote:1. Attack & DC/Damage and Defense/saving throw tradeoffs may not exceed 5.
Be careful with this. I know that a lot of folks seem to think Range is ultimate in the game, but travel powers are generally common enough that I've never really seen melee as a disadvantage.2. Raising melee attacks/damage
It depends a lot on how savvy the players are, since having a limited - only to travel towards known foe movement power called "Charge" as an Alternate Power on whatever you're using for movement is generally how I construct characters since it's cheaper than the +1 multiplier on all Ranged attacks.
Get stronger minions, I suppose. The example minions are all over the place for PLs but they're still minions.5. Minions fall unconscious when they fail their toughness saving throw by 5 or more.
By Ultimate Power, Autofire is already limited to max +5 damage. If you think otherwise, this is a good rule to institute since Autofire is a staple of over-the-PL damage attacks.8. Autofire may only be applied as an extra once. The damage bonus from autofire is +1 for every 2 points you exceed the targets defense, to a maximum of +5 or the original damage bonus, whichever is lower.
I generally combine it with Power Attack, Accurate Attack and All-Out Attacks in order to really hurdle over the PL for damage, though only with characters with reliable Concealment or an Ultimate save.
You may want to instead encourage them to purchase Variable Powers for their skills, with Limited: Schtick. Either way I agree that skills are overpriced for their benefit, at least in high-PL games.9. Characters gain 4*(PL+3) skill points free.
Alternate Power is screwed up, seriously. Arrays are applicable to Descriptors, which is shorthand for saying "whatever the player and GM agree on".10. Alternate Power costs 1 point the first time. Further ranks in the feat cost 1 plus half the total number of points used in the original power.
If you want to limit Magic, then consider genre conventions like all Magic is Distracting and has Check Required flaws, or Flaw: can't Power Stunt, or Side-Effect (fatigue, always occurs). I cribbed those from Warriors and Warlocks.
I don't think this is necessary. Trip may suck, but Snares and Paralyzes don't. Who takes Trip as a primary power anyway? Effects like those should be in Arrays of similarly-low-priced Linked powers that fire off of the larger main effects.11. Fail a save of any type, you gain one bruise. This includes failed reflex, fortitude, or will saves. You take no further penalties for failing a save by 5 or 10. You fall unconscious/dying when a toughness saving throw fails by 15 or more, as normal.
Interesting. Paralyze's "miss by 5 = helpless" is a notable example, though you may want this to be missing by 10? This would have to be playtested and I don't know how it would go, though I do note that you're addressing something that could otherwise be an abusive problem, especially with stuff like Secondary Effects.12. Effects now have a threshold, based upon the damage saves. Any effect that takes a character out of combat--transform, mind control, dimensional pocket, etc--requires the target to fail their save by 15 or more. Minor effects, such as trip, require only that the target fail their saving throw. All others--blinding, stunning, snaring--fall somewhere between.