Mutants and Masterminds d20 2nd Edition Thoughts

[tzor]

1194546136[/unixtime]]But who wants to play Aquaman traveling with Superman and Thor?

The problem with that is that Aquaman is already t3h suck to begin with, unless the adventure centers around oceans and the ability to call sea creatures he is useless as all get go. It's not a question of levels, he's a one trick pony.

Now on the other hand, The Flash, traveling with Superman and Thor might be different. The flash has the same low level weakness but he can adapt his one trick pony show to do a couple of different feats that would be difficult for Thor and possible Superman to duplicate.

Ideally you design the thing so that Superman can't clean up the mess. Oh sure they are low level mooks, but they are low level mooks made of kryptonite. So while Thor is taking on that Mr M fellow (remember that superman is also powerless with magic) and the Flash handles the K men. Superman can do his thing.

It's not just a question of levels but in effect a strength weakness cross matrix. This really happens with all games onlymost games use a set grouping of adventuring types so their strength weakness matrix are already taken into consideration. (Untill you throw a bard in the party and then it all goes to hell because you didn't figure in all of the bard suck and the complete lack of bard benefit.)

[angelfromanotherpin]

Okay, this is just for With Great Power... which is the game I'm most familiar with. I'm leaving out a lot of nuance, so keep that in mind.

Each character has a list of traits, which are either Assets (powers), Motivations, or Relationships. At the start of a story-arc, each player picks one of these traits, which is targeted by the Villain's plan. The plan requires that those targets be broken down and rebuilt to suit the villain. Each trait has a damage track, which starts at fine has a midpoint of 'broken' and an endpoint of 'rebuilt by the villain.'

So, let's say this is a classic World's Finest team-up, and we've got Superman (Aspect: Last Son of Krypton; Motivation: Truth, Justice, and the American Way; and Relationship: Lois Lane) and Batman (Aspect: World's Greatest Detective; Motivation: Survivor's Guilt; and Relationship: Commissioner Gordon). Those are totally arbitrary and simplistic versions for demo purposes, of course.

Supes' player chooses his Aspect to be targeted, so the plan will be going after his super-powers. Bats' player chooses his Motivation to be threatened, so the plan will be to change that. Let's say that Luthor's the villain, and his plan is to rule the world, and to accomplish that he has to remove (or steal) Superman's powers, and convince Batman to join him. Other heroes are irrelevant for these purposes, because they don't have players. The best use is to have them be defeated in background cameos to underscore how hardcore Luthor is.

Now, Luthor also has traits (Plan: Rule the World; Aspect: Evil Scientist; Minions: Criminal Empire), which can take damage as well, but the tracks are shorter than the Hero tracks, and once they reach what would be 'broken' on the hero track, they are narrated out of the story. This seems like he should be screwed, but the rules massively favor Luthor early in the game, and that mechanical advantage is only slowly whittled away.

Fights go like this.
1) Pick a fight: The GM says Luthor is going to start putting Kryptonite into the atmosphere. If no-one objects (and sometimes there are reasons not to) Superman's Aspect will be damaged. Let's say Superman's player chooses not to sit still for that nonsense.

2) Who's in?: Clearly the GM and Supes' player are in. Let's say Batman's player wants to be involved also. He says so, he's in. This is when the scene is set, so Superman is trying to take out the Kryptonite-spreading planes, and Batman has discovered a lead-shielded Luthor facility in Gotham.

3) Stakes: Each player chooses a narrative effect which happens if they win, the GM chooses a narrative effect if they lose. These stakes have no bearing on the mechanics, but they set up neat in-story consequences. For instance, Krypto isn't on Superman's sheet (though he could have been) maybe if Superman loses, Krypto gets sick or something.

4) Resources: The resource mechanic is cards. The more damage a player has taken to his traits, the more he draws. This is the Stan Lee story arc, where early in the story you get your ass handed to you, and then you develop a comeback surge. Luthor gets more cards the more heroes are in the fight.

5) Play it out: This is back-and-forth cardplay with narration. Luthor plays at Superman and describes a challenge, Superman counterplays and counter-narrates, then Luthor plays at Batman, Batman counters, etc.

GM: Superman, the radiation prevents you from approaching the planes.
Super-player: Okay, I heat vision their wings off from a distance.
GM: Nice move. Batman, there's no obvious entrance.
Bat-player: I kung-fu down a lackey, put on his outfit, and follow the crowd. They have to get in somehow.
GM: Indeed. Superman, your heat vision is intercepted by battlesuit-wearing minions, who are deploying from the planes to engage you. etc. etc.

6. Resolution: Eventually, someone can't make a counterplay, and there's a win or a loss. Keep in mind, that's a win or loss of the conflict, so Batman could lose by discovering that the facility he took out was only one of hundreds. Or he could win even after being beat down because whatever damage he caused on the way in is enough to render the facility null.

In any event, whoever wins the fight damages one of the loser's traits.

I hope that's clear enough. There's a lot more to it than that, but that's the bare-bones version.

[Jacob_Orlove]

That sounds pretty cool. I can't help but notice, though, that the solution to having Superman and Batman in the same "party" is to not actually have them in the same party.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The problem with that is that Aquaman is already t3h suck to begin with, unless the adventure centers around oceans and the ability to call sea creatures he is useless as all get go. It's not a question of levels, he's a one trick pony.

I don't understand the Aquaman hate. He's superhumanly strong and tough. He has enhanced senses. (Already we've described all of original Superman's powers) He's aquatically-adapted. His telepathy is mostly used to command aquatic animals, but he has used it to SoD a Martian and to puppeteer a Kryptonian. He is the dictator of the largest and most technologically advanced nation in the world, and he has deployed its armies and devices on League business. He is also hardcore enough to push an enemy off a boat, grab them and just swim down until they stop moving; or to set a pack of sharks on a regenerating foe.

Green Arrow gets by on showing up for work. Aquaman just has a bad PR agent.

[angelfromanotherpin]

1194558120[/unixtime]]That sounds pretty cool. I can't help but notice, though, that the solution to having Superman and Batman in the same "party" is to not actually have them in the same party.

It is easier to keep them split up, but it would be mechanically identical if Bats were in the Batplane in the skies alongside Superman, you just have to change the narration.

So, Superman is taking on far more planes than Batman, but Batman has found the single most important plane (one way or another). Superman's too busy fighting battlesuits to help Batman, but the battlesuit goons refuse to consider the Batman a threat while Superman is clearly right there. It still works out.

[Lago_AM3P]

I don't understand the Aquaman hate.

When people make fun of Aquaman, they're generally talking about the incredibly goofy Superfriends version who used a JET SKI to traverse the Atlantic Ocean.

4) Resources: The resource mechanic is cards. The more damage a player has taken to his traits, the more he draws. This is the Stan Lee story arc, where early in the story you get your ass handed to you, and then you develop a comeback surge. Luthor gets more cards the more heroes are in the fight.

5) Play it out: This is back-and-forth cardplay with narration. Luthor plays at Superman and describes a challenge, Superman counterplays and counter-narrates, then Luthor plays at Batman, Batman counters, etc.

GM: Superman, the radiation prevents you from approaching the planes.
Super-player: Okay, I heat vision their wings off from a distance.
GM: Nice move. Batman, there's no obvious entrance.
Bat-player: I kung-fu down a lackey, put on his outfit, and follow the crowd. They have to get in somehow.
GM: Indeed. Superman, your heat vision is intercepted by battlesuit-wearing minions, who are deploying from the planes to engage you. etc. etc.

That wasn't very clear at all.

The entire scenario you described could've been done in any gaming system. You're going to have to show me some combat resolution mechanics before I start criticizing them.

[Lago_AM3P]

So, Superman is taking on far more planes than Batman, but Batman has found the single most important plane (one way or another). Superman's too busy fighting battlesuits to help Batman, but the battlesuit goons refuse to consider the Batman a threat while Superman is clearly right there. It still works out.

That sounds like blatant GM fudging to me.

That's like how we balance monks in D&D by giving them artifacts that let them transform into Primal Elementals.

[Jacob_Orlove]

I don't know about GM fudging, but it still sounds like the characters are not in the same party, even if they are in the same scene. I can see how that would be a reasonable approach, but at the same time, it's really just a bunch of one player adventures run in parallel.

[virgil]

So you think the only way to play superhero RPGs is through overt magical tea parties? I stand by my position that you can still have a superhero team without one player standing over the rest like a god.

Yes, improved evasion's good for tanks, but area attacks are only really for use against mooks and high defense/low toughness targets anyway. And how extreme are you suggesting the trade-offs and dedication to feats that give defense/toughness?

The 'surprised' condition is hardly crap, especially since Concentration has nothing to do with stopping that, and it's not like you can't easily negate those anti-flatfooted abilities (look at Venom vs. Spiderman).

The reasons behind the build I chose was mainly for template purposes. Throwing on flaws any various aspects will give the DM more flaws to exploit, negating your intentions. Trying to wholly negate some of the flaws with cheap powers actually fits within the rule of "you don't get points if it's not a flaw", and if you get a DM that allows some of them anyway then you're going to be prepared for a bit of Power Negation.

It is still possible for players to make characters of equal points and PL to have a disparity in effectiveness. This is largely the fault of the players though, though failure on the DM's part at using his veto power comes into play as well.

I do agree that it's weird for shrinking/growth bonuses to not get reigned in by PL, and consider that a mistake on someone's part.

The deflection power is crap. You need to spend an unholy number of points for it to not be useless. While it can be good in that it's an extra layer of defense, the point cost is likely to negate that advantage.

It's a little hard to come up with powerful builds for the sole purpose of being powerful, to be honest. The presence of DM veto and the expectation for encounters to be tailored to my character make me not as motivated. As a result, all of my designs would be concept-first and have it be followed with designing the stats around such.

Now, probably the best advice I can give would be to go this site. Many DMs are inexperienced enough to not recognize these red flags for what they are, so getting them approved is easy if you're careful.

There are also the concepts that give people an advantage, and the mechanics don't negate this. Variable powers and telepaths are the biggest ones here, but the incorporeal do well too.

[angelfromanotherpin]

That sounds like blatant GM fudging to me.

That's like how we balance monks in D&D by giving them artifacts that let them transform into Primal Elementals.

It is blatant, but it's also explicit, and it in no way touches the mechanics. Yes, you have to narratively justify why Batman's player is as important as Superman's player. You also don't have to fiddle with numbers to actually make them equally important, because the mechanics don't care about anything but ability to affect the story, and in that respect the characters are identical to begin with.

Look, Aragorn is much more badass than Frodo. In D&D, that means that Aragorn's player has a much greater ability to affect the story, and you have to come up with all kinds of crap for Frodo to even matter, like an artifact that's harder to hold the higher level you are. In WGP, Aragorn's still much more badass than Frodo, but that's just a special effect, because the system inherently grants them equal ability to ruin Sauron's day. That Aragorn ruins Sauron's day by winning battle after battle, and Frodo ruins Sauron's day by not succumbing to the Ring is flavor text.

You're going to have to show me some combat resolution mechanics before I start criticizing them.

GM: Superman, the radiation prevents you from approaching the planes. 7 of Hearts.
Super-player: Okay, I heat vision their wings off from a distance. 9 of Hearts.
GM: Your heat vision is intercepted by battlesuit-wearing minions, who are deploying from the planes to engage you. King of Hearts.
Super-player: Can't beat that. I kick the battlesuits around, but I guess they buy enough time for the planes to complete their mission. Poor Krypto (sniff).

There's a lot of other stuff which keeps the cardplay from being War; suit-switching, damaging your less important traits for card-draw, discarding to heal your traits, etc.; and there's a lot of finesse in knowing how to build your hand, when to go for broke and when to fold, but the basic mechanic is play a higher card than the other guy and narrate.

[RandomCasualty]

1194560682[/unixtime]]I don't know about GM fudging, but it still sounds like the characters are not in the same party, even if they are in the same scene. I can see how that would be a reasonable approach, but at the same time, it's really just a bunch of one player adventures run in parallel.

Yeah, sounds like it's just a bunch of solo sessions with roughly the same theme.

Do the PCs actually get to interact with each other mechanically or is that just all flavor?

[angelfromanotherpin]

So you think the only way to play superhero RPGs is through overt magical tea parties? I stand by my position that you can still have a superhero team without one player standing over the rest like a god.

It's not the only way to play. It's not even the only way to simulate superhero teams, since teams like the original X-men and the Fantastic Four exist. At the same time, some teams are like the satellite-era JLA, and tactical wargames like Champions work poorly for that style of play.

Yeah, sounds like it's just a bunch of solo sessions with roughly the same theme.

Do the PCs actually get to interact with each other mechanically or is that just all flavor?

There is minimal mechanical interaction between players. Chiefly, when more than one player is in on a fight, they are both playing against the GMs single hand (which does grow if there are more players involved, but not by enough that it negates the other players), and it is possible to coordinate that play. There is also a sort of direct in-team conflict that can happen (so that Ultimate Captain America can kick Ultimate Giant Man around for beating on Wasp) but it's very low-impact mechanically and exists so that there is at least some weight to in-team strife or the classic 'meet-and-misunderstand' superhero fight, without compromising what is very much a team effort against the GM.

On the other hand, in the flavor level the characters may or may not interact with any frequency.

[Lago_AM3P]

ook, Aragorn is much more badass than Frodo. In D&D, that means that Aragorn's player has a much greater ability to affect the story, and you have to come up with all kinds of crap for Frodo to even matter, like an artifact that's harder to hold the higher level you are. In WGP, Aragorn's still much more badass than Frodo, but that's just a special effect, because the system inherently grants them equal ability to ruin Sauron's day. That Aragorn ruins Sauron's day by winning battle after battle, and Frodo ruins Sauron's day by not succumbing to the Ring is flavor text.

And that's precisely where this system falls apart.

This setup works in JLA and Lord of the Rings because one person decides what all of the characters do. If Aragorn's player, in defiance of the council, wanted to take the ring to Mount Doom himself after the party split up then what? What if all of the players in the party decided that someone who walked much faster than a hobbit and told Frodo to hand over the ring? What's Frodo supposed to do for the rest of the adventure? In your example, if Superman said 'screw this, I'm just going after the head honcho. I use my X-Ray vision to scan all of the ships, what do I see?', then what's Batman going to do?

[angelfromanotherpin]

And that's precisely where this system falls apart.

This setup works in JLA and Lord of the Rings because one person decides what all of the characters do. If Aragorn's player, in defiance of the council, wanted to take the ring to Mount Doom himself after the party split up then what? What if all of the players in the party decided that someone who walked much faster than a hobbit and told Frodo to hand over the ring? What's Frodo supposed to do for the rest of the adventure?

Except that in the WGP system the Ring only exists to corrupt Frodo. Aragorn doesn't care about it mechanically at all. So all you have to do is come up with an explanation for why Aragorn doesn't care about it in flavor, which could that he knows he'd be corrupted by it long before he got to Mount Doom, or that he respects Gandalf's support of Frodo's choice.

There are no other party members. In WGP, Frodo and Aragorn are the only PCs in LotR. I could make an argument for a third player who is both Merry and Pippin, but it's a weak argument.

In your example, if Superman said 'screw this, I'm just going after the head honcho. I use my X-Ray vision to scan all of the ships, what do I see?', then what's Batman going to do?

Mention dryly that of course Luthor had all the ships lead-lined and that only superior deductive reasoning can determine which is the key one?

That's not even important, though. The issue you are raising doesn't exist, because one player simply does not have the ability to squeeze out another player regardless of relative character power. The system doesn't allow it. The only issue is explaining why to all the players' satisfaction.

[Manxome]

It sounds to me like the game you're describing involves a mechanic that does not even attempt a sensical representation of the story and depends on the players moulding the story to accommodate the mechanics. In that respect, it sounds more like a simple card game (with an optional narrative attached) and less like a typical RPG.

The most distinctive quality of a typical paper-and-pencil RPG is that you can take actions--with potentially mechanical effects--that are not explicitly allowed by the rules. You can come up with creative solutions to problems that the game designer and/or GM didn't specifically anticipate. You can shoot a fireball at a forest or a lake instead of an orc, and expect something to happen. You can betray the NPC who you're supposed to be working for. You can make up a creative lie, exploit a disguise, etc. and expect this to make a difference in the way the game plays out.

In the system you're describing, you can still narrate all of that stuff, but it doesn't in any way affect the mechanics. The mechanical effect depends only on the card you play. Your mechanical options are not open-ended, they are drawn from a small, explicitly-enumerated set. Meanwhile, your narrative creativity and serious consideration of story elements and the nature of your fictional world means precisely nothing as far as the game's outcome is concerned.

It sounds like it could be an interesting game, and it's probably balanced and flexible, but achieves this only by making the mechanics paramount and simple and limited and subjugating the story to them. It has completely divorced narrative from power.

To say that solves the problem of unbalanced parties is kind of like saying that checkers solves every thematic issue with RPGs you could ever have, because you can narrate whatever story you want based on a game of checkers. What's actually going on (if I understand correctly) is that you're playing a simple non-role-playing game, and then playing magical tea party based on the results.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I haven't tried to describe the whole game so much as the mechanic which keeps players equal, which is the aspect relevant to the discussion at hand. There is a lot of the system I haven't presented here, which helps to regulate it further. There's a lot of stuff about narration rights, trait rewriting, resource development, etc.

Yes, it's nothing like a traditional RPG. It's not interesting tactically. I have always found it to create very positive play experiences and memorable anecdotes, which is all I ask from an RPG, but I'm aware that personal experience does not validate a system.

The system definitely has issues. Personally, I'd like it if there was a mechanic for stunting, and for players to assist each other more directly. The RAW also provide a very clumsy and prolonged endgame, which I've had to houserule away. It completely fails if you want a dynamic besides villain vs PCs. It also strongly enforces the get-knocked-down-get-back-up story arc.

It's a non-tactical game, which is not the same as a non-role-playing game. You still have characters, conflicts, and specific rules for resolving those conflicts. My understanding of the 'magical tea party term' is that it involves a total handwave of that sort of thing.

In any event, I'm not here to sell the system. Only to announce that it (and others like it) exist, mostly for the benefit of Hey_I_Can_Chan, back on page 1.

[tzor]

1194559406[/unixtime]]

I don't understand the Aquaman hate.

When people make fun of Aquaman, they're generally talking about the incredibly goofy Superfriends version who used a JET SKI to traverse the Atlantic Ocean.

Correct it's also a instinctive refex mechanism because Aquaman hate allows us to forget about those combining wonder twins.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

In any event, I'm not here to sell the system. Only to announce that it (and others like it) exist, mostly for the benefit of Hey_I_Can_Chan, back on page 1.

Okay, so I did 5 minutes of research on With Great Power, and I have to say it does sound like War + magical tea party = superhero game. I mean, really, when you get down to it, cool stuff only happens because you narrate it, and that means everyone's just as cool as everyone else--or just as boring--or totally unbalanced because one guy's got this spirited imagination who's playing Dr. Strange and another doesn't and he's playing the Thing, or, worse, vice versa.

So, yeah, while this ends character disparity, if you're playing in a group of mixed imaginations, you have player disparity wherein you can literally have someone leave the table and say afterward, "That was a stupid game because I'm stupid," and shoot himself.*

I do appreciate the attempt, but I'm pretty sure most people want their superhero games to be more simulationist. They want to know what "Last Son of Krypton" actually means in levels and d10s or whatever. Saying, "It means you have super-strength, -speed, -hypnosis, -senses, -breath, and -memory; are indestructible save vs. magic and Kryptonite; can fly, go FTL, and, obviously, survive in outer space; can fire energy blasts from your eyes that can cut a building in half; possess an Arctic fortress, a dog with identical abilities to yours, a bottled city from your home planet, and access to the vast ultra-technology of your home planet; and can conceal your secret identity from anyone with a pair of nerd glasses," and then saying, "Run with it!" without any real stats to back it besides a game of War just sounds absurd.

I mean, really, it sounds like, at that point, you should just LARP it instead.

And that scares the crap out of me.

_____
* This never actually happened.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

Oh, yeah, I don't get the Aquaman hate either. If all he could do were talk to fish, then he'd be stupid. But Aquaman, like any character who gets his own title, becomes more and more boss the more you leave him alone.

And, hell, nobody mocks Namor, and the Avenging Son (or whatever) can't even talk to fish!

[Lago_AM3P]

I'm still soliciting for min-max advice.

Unfortunately, in a way it's hard to do that in this game. You have to blatantly guess ahead of time what powers would peg your DM's BS-meter.

Right now, I'm thinking that Gadgets and Shapeshifting offer the best deal.

But I'm taking another look at alternate powers, especially dynamic alternate powers. There's gotta be a way to abuse this.

By the by, switching between alternate powers is a free action that can be done once a round. Is this done once a round period or if you have alternate powers attached to separate powers in the first place (such as flight being an alternate of teleport while deflection is an alternate of magic).

Also, I noticed that the personal nullification extra for nullify is crazy good. Like, there's no reason to not have it if your DM will let you.

[virgil]

There are ways to abuse the alternate power rules, and if you describe it as 'spells', then you can get away with alot more than normal.

Each array can only be switched once per round, so you can switch the flight & deflection seperately in the same round. Don't forget that power feats built into a power are converted as well when you use an alternate power, so those ranks of Accurate Attack (+2 with specific power) get converted easily. Also, an alternate power doesn't have to consist of a single power, you can have an entire suit of points at your disposal (perception blast APs into flight and strike).

Using low-ish ranks of Nemesis flawed to only give Immunity, described as an adaptation against your opponent, is actually a ridiculous arrangement; since immunity against specific attacks (or types) are MUCH cheaper than whole categories, the savings being due to you trying to bet on what you fight alot of (which is negated by variable pool powers).

Don't forget to take the Innate power feat on powers, because that makes the power immune to Nullify/Drain/Transfer. Of course, if your DM is paying attention, he'll probably nix its use on some stuff.

[Lago_AM3P]

Each array can only be switched once per round, so you can switch the flight & deflection seperately in the same round.

So imagine that you were going to juggle your powers like this.

You have Blast, with Flight and Deflect as alternate powers. Then you have Flight, with Blast and Deflect as alternate powers.

Here's the deal. You want to most of the time be flying. You want to have deflect between your turns and you want blast available for your turns.

Say you ran into combat with Blast and Flight. You took your attack and flipped Flight into Deflect and Blast into Flight. Your turn comes around again and then you flip Deflect into Blast, take your turn, land, and then flip Flight into Deflect.

What's stopping you from doing this? Is this cheesy in your opinion, or just good tactical management?

Using low-ish ranks of Nemesis flawed to only give Immunity, described as an adaptation against your opponent, is actually a ridiculous arrangement; since immunity against specific attacks (or types) are MUCH cheaper than whole categories, the savings being due to you trying to bet on what you fight alot of (which is negated by variable pool powers).

I thought about that but I'm afraid that this will sound the GM cheesemeter alarm.

Sigh... this is so hard.

[RandomCasualty]

1194621979[/unixtime]]
I do appreciate the attempt, but I'm pretty sure most people want their superhero games to be more simulationist. They want to know what "Last Son of Krypton" actually means in levels and d10s or whatever. Saying, "It means you have super-strength, -speed, -hypnosis, -senses, -breath, and -memory; are indestructible save vs. magic and Kryptonite; can fly, go FTL, and, obviously, survive in outer space; can fire energy blasts from your eyes that can cut a building in half; possess an Arctic fortress, a dog with identical abilities to yours, a bottled city from your home planet, and access to the vast ultra-technology of your home planet; and can conceal your secret identity from anyone with a pair of nerd glasses," and then saying, "Run with it!" without any real stats to back it besides a game of War just sounds absurd.

Yeah, I'm a bit divided on this.

The thing is that while I'd like simulationist based gaming, comic books don't tend to be simulationist like at all. Everything tends to fluctuate. It's pretty much a lot like Pro Wrestling where you've got wrestlers who are unbeatable for awhile and then when the crowd gets bored, they start getting their asses handed to em by the next big thing, or they just fade into mediocrity.

Comics tend to be much the same way, where nobody is really a sure thing. Superman in theory could beat a lot of guys, but he doesn't. He almost never uses super speed, even though he could, like pretty much whenever he wants. So from a simulationist standpoint superman would almost always win, but he doesn't in the comic books. Batman sometimes pulls off the perfect gadget from the bat belt or sometimes he doesn't. Comic books are filled with random plot devices and crazy mechanics that just sort of happen, seemingly for no reason other than to advance the plot. So the idea of losing a game of War and then some weird thing happens actually makes a bit of sense in a comic book scenario. In order to simulate this sort of thing, you almost need true randomness determining if you decide to go all out or not.

On the other hand, having a game where your character concept has no mechanical impact at all is pretty disheartening. Since you really don't have any special powers at all.

Of course, I've never been a fan of "determine outcome, then describe it" systems. It's one reason I hate social skills in D&D. The idea of just skipping all the dialogue and plugging in a nonsensical result seems like a pretty boring game to me. I like my actions on the micro scale to have some degree of effect, whether it's what spell or combat action I take, or what words my character says. The whole idea of doing some virtually unrelated or abstract mechanic that virtually ignores what you do in game, and then applying a narration to it is relatively unfun if you ask me.

[virgil]

There's technically nothing stopping you from doing that, and the only reason I'd see a problem with it would be explaining it to a DM, because that's a fairly complex arrangement.

I do have a slight different setup...Blast with Flight alternate, along with Deflect and Flight 1 (Flaw: Levitation). You stay hovering in your original position between rounds, spend the same number of points, and don't have to juggle powers like a circus performer.

Heh, I don't know if this is a good or bad aspect of the system, having explicit & assumed instructions to the DM to not allow overpowered tactics/powers (making true min/max work be outsmarting the DM). But for the game, it's awesome. I suppose it is a flaw for the system, because it requires that the DM be experienced, and at least as crafty as his best players. This means MnM works for me, because I'm leaps and bounds more experienced than almost all of my players. There is one player that is my equal, but I'm still much better than him at manipulating and predicting the others.

One thing I learned as a DM is that power permission can vary between players, as long as you know them well. Some powers I wouldn't let my smart player touch with a 10' pole, while I feel safe allowing them to another. Sometimes it's because they don't take the support powers to make it work at full capacity, other times they also leave themselves with a vast & gaping flaw (like not taking a movement power of any sort), and other times they're literally too stupid to even know how to abuse it and too stubborn to listen to the smarter player. While the dumber one can be manipulated, the smarter one I play with isn't crafty enough to be able to do that.

[Lago_AM3P]

virgileso, I hate to ask you do to this for me, but could you post me the most min-maxxed character you can come up with without it being unfair? No mimic, boost, duplication, or that stuff. Stuff that abuses the assumptions of the combat/encounter system (like the fades flaw) is a huge bonus. Stuff that abuses the tactical system (like having the move-by attack power and the ability to move through solid ground) is also a huge bonus.

Also, in your experience, what are the things/power arrays that usually hose parties not because they don't have the numbers to counter it but people rarely think of trying to cover that base in the first place? Such as someone with huge amounts of stealth.

Also, for the person seeking raw, sexy power, any books out there I should get?