There's a 3rd Edition Mutants & Masterminds?!

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:16 am

No more so than, say, D&D. If you get a monk and an optimized caster the game is essentially unplayable because your players are playing different games. Also optimized wizards break the game over their knee. In fact it's probably worse because to my recollection M&M rules do explicitly give the GM veto powers for shit that's out of line so there's no arguing that you can do something by raw.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 3:41 pm

Schleiermacher wrote:This thread is a very good illustration of the weakness of the M&M system. It's a very flexible system, but because of the lack of restrictions, character creation is completely unbalanced. It pretty much requires communal character generation with strong GM oversight, so everyone is on the same page, or the game will be virtually unplayable.

Dude, comic books invented the idea of unplayable parties.

Seriously, that's one dilemma of superhero RPGs: you can strive for balance or for simulating comic-book superheroes, but it's hard to do both.

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 9:22 am

Exactly.

And M&M, in my opionion, made the correct decision by prioritizing breadth of options. But that means optimizing your characters isn't really a fruitful endeavor. It's very easy, but it only makes the game less fun and playable. Because unlike D&D, there's no objective measurement of challenges that you need to compare yourself to.

Edit: Except for the case of the GM making villains to oppose the players' assembled heroes, I suppose, but he can have unlimited resources anyway, so...

Sir Aubergine · Post by **Sir Aubergine** » Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:03 am

My last superhero campaign was actually Hero System (5th). The campaign only lasted 3 or 4 sessions, but I thought Hero System was tighter mechanically and more agreeable in regards to the layout and presentation of the book itself.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 1:45 am

So... why did M&M get rid of attacks of opportunities anyway? What was their logic behind such a thing?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 2:43 am

I don't think they ever gave an official and explicit explanation for removing it. If I had to guess, it was probably to simplify the combat system. Another idea for what they're thinking is that it'd be easy to buy off vulnerability to AoOs; super-speed should remove the vulnerability, not provoking in melee with ranged attacks is usually a feat in most d20 systems, casting defensively is a 5' step or +TEXAS$ Concentration check away, etc. Once you can cheaply ignore the whole subsystem, I can see them feeling that the mechanic wasn't worth retaining to jigger with properly.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 3:50 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So... why did M&M get rid of attacks of opportunities anyway? What was their logic behind such a thing?

As noted, they didn't have them in the first place in the core rulebook; they're a later optional add-on.

Why remove them altogether? In my experience, games where the PCs have huge speeds or huge power ranges (e.g. Villain & Vigilantes) work poorly on a battle map, and without a battle map attacks of opportunity work poorly (again, in my experience).