First Time M&M Player! Tips and Optimization?

[HelplessPeasant]

Alright so I'm a first time Mutants and Masterminds player and I have some grasp on the rules, but I'd like some tips from actual experienced players. As far as I know, the edition we're playing is the latest one. Now I'd like to make a sentient robot character, but from what I understand, the Construct pre-built character in the book doesn't suit my fancy. I want to be a Tank character with a dependable ranged and melee attack. Any tips and tricks/things to avoid when designing a character, or playing for that matter? Any feedback would be appreciated.

[JustIgnoreMe]

M&M is easy to break, so players and GMs have to come to an agreement not to break it. Otherwise it's really boring.

3.5 D&D style optimisation isn't needed.

Make sure your attacks and defences are at (not under) the appropriate rank for the Power Level the GM sets for the game, and you're set. Building in a weakness is fine, just remember to balance it with a strength.

A PL 10 campaign character with 10s in all 4 Defences, a 10 attack skill and a 10 power blast is perfectly playable.

As a tank, you'll probably be sacrificing your Reflex and Will saves in order to raise the other two. Don't set them to zero, but having 5s so the others can be 15s is fine. Look at the example Tank builds in the book and see what they have.

[Anonymouswizard]

Hello.

I'm currently playing a sentient robot character in M&M (Autocop, my previous character's creation), and it depends on what you want (my character is a techbot and a bit of a skillmonkey, my defences are a tad below the PL because my character's primary purpose in combat is 'save civilians and keep infrastructure together', and because I don't have the points to buy more Protection right now). Also decide how you want the processing to work world-wise, my character runs the majority of his processes on his body but sends a backup to our base every few minutes.

To start with, going by 3e (the current edition), you need:
-No Stamina, make sure there's someone with Technology in the party to heal you (my character does it himself).
-Immunity to Fortitude Effects, it makes you immune to all diseases and the like. I also personally have Immunity to sleep and Immunity (Life Support), but depending on your game the latter might be included.

Things that you might want:
-Quickness (limited to mental actions): robots think faster, one to four ranks of this will allow you to maths fast and outthink anybody in a board game. Depending on the GM this might also extend to hacking or the like.
-Protection: armour plating. In general it's best to take ranks of this over Dodge and Parry, about 12-16 should be sufficient for PL10.
-Regeneration: you don't heal naturally, so take this if you want to be self-repairing. Come up with a good justification.
-Senses: you're a robot, why limit yourself to human senses? Infravision and Ultravision are always useful, as is telescopic vision, and you can nab some of the more weird ones (Radio has made me able to listen into opponent's conversations and justified built-in WiFi).
-Features: want a piece of basic technology built in? It's one PP per equipment point, so you can have a built-in phone, computer, camera, or lock release gun.
-Immortality: you're a program in a physical body, right? Well you can backup your program and keep spares for your physical body. Check with your GM, because they might not like it if your software and hardware are linked, or you might be able to get points back if someone else has to activate it.
-Alternate Effects: if you want you can link all of your powers for your physical body together. Then take a 1 point alternate effect and congratulations, you have two bodies you can hop between. Repeat at one point per body. Check with your GM, as they might not like the bookkeeping or the potential abuse.

An outline of my character, I'll post the full build when I've got access to the sheet.

Spoiler: Autocop

Show

Real Name: ART ('Artificially Reasonable Technology')
No Stamina

Immortality (requires activation by another person)

Robot Body: Immunity (Fortitude Effects, Sleep, Life Support), Senses 11 (Infravision, Ultravision, low light vision, telescopic vision, radio, direction sense, distance sense, and a few others), Protection 12, Features (computer, commlink, internet connection, built-in printer), Speed 5
Glorious PC Gaming Master Base* (Alternate Effect): no Strength, no Agility, a bunch more features to represent base capabilities, the same immunities and senses as the robot body. No protection as I'm a separate entity to the base game-wise and can be attacked independently.

Equipment: police siren with strap.

* Don't ask about the name.

For dependable melee and ranged attacks by up either the Fighting and Dexterity stats or the Close Attack and Ranged Attack advantages. To tank buy up lots of Protection (but remember, Toughness+(Parry or dodge) cannot exceed twice the PL, so your maximum Protection is PL*2-(higher of Agility and Fighting), assuming you put no points in defences). Decide if you want hard hitting attacks or accurate attacks, but look at the Power Attack and Accurate Attack advantages so you can alter them.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My usual suggestion for a robot-type character: ignore everything the book says about absent Stamina; it just winds up creating more weird problems than it solves. Instead, buy Immunity (Biological Effects) for... maybe 10-20 points, depending on your GM. Ta-da, you're a robot, you're immune to robot things.

[Anonymouswizard]

My usual suggestion for a robot-type character: ignore everything the book says about absent Stamina; it just winds up creating more weird problems than it solves. Instead, buy Immunity (Biological Effects) for... maybe 10-20 points, depending on your GM. Ta-da, you're a robot, you're immune to robot things.

It depends, if normal healing is handwaved between sessions it's basically a free 10 points. There's so few Stamina rolls that it has never come up for me (there's no skills based on it, and rolls to resist stuff are generally a Fortitude save).

Immunity (Biological Effects) is an interesting way to do it though, although depending on how much it covers it might conceivably be 30+ points. There's also a lot of things that, depending on the GM can be either required or encouraged (my GM highly encouraged me to take mental quickness), being a robot can easily get into 40+ points depending on purpose and complexity before you get into extras.

At this point I feel like I should mention that there is a difference between playing a robot and playing an AI. I am very much playing a sentient Artificial Intelligence, and so have a handful of extra requirements to show that I'm theoretically able to operate on any sufficiently advanced computer. Playing a robot can be as simple as buying Immunity to Biological Effects (or no Stamina and Immunity (Fortitude Effects)), because in theory destroying your current body will get rid of you for good. Playing an AI requires you to decide if you can body-hop, if your body is remote controlled or not, whether or not you keep backups (and if not why not), and how this all works.

[HelplessPeasant]

Alright, so this is my full build here, tell me about anything unbalanced, underpowered, or just plain dumb I'm doing.


Stats

Str: 12
Agi: 5
Figh: 7
Awa: 2
Sta:-
Int: 3
Pre: 0
Dex: 4

Stats: 66

Powers

Protection-14/14
Regen-5 (Persistent)/10
Flight-5/10
Damage/Ranged 7, Accurate 4 – 18
Senses-5
-Darkvision/2
-Infravision/1
-Radio/1
-Ultra-Hearing/1
Speed-8
Immortality-5/10

Powers: 75


Advantages

Improved Critical-4
Fearless
Diehard
Defensive Roll – 3

Advantages - 9

Points: 150

[Elderand]

This....is not good.

First off, ability total comes up to 56, not 66, you get -10 points for having absent stamina
You have absent stamina but you don't have immunity (fortitude effect)

Your dodge/parry and toughness break PL.
Your parry is at 7 due to fighting and your toughness total is 17. That totals to 24, it can't be higher than 20
Your dodge is 5 for a total of 22, again, can't be higher than 20
Will save is only 2, huge glaring hole.

No skills whatsoever

No attack that reach PL.
Unarmed +7 and damage 12 total 19/20
Ranged is +12 and damage 7 total 19/20

Flight and speed should be arrayed to save points.

[HelplessPeasant]

This....is not good.

First off, ability total comes up to 56, not 66, you get -10 points for having absent stamina
You have absent stamina but you don't have immunity (fortitude effect)

Your dodge/parry and toughness break PL.
Your parry is at 7 due to fighting and your toughness total is 17. That totals to 24, it can't be higher than 20
Your dodge is 5 for a total of 22, again, can't be higher than 20
Will save is only 2, huge glaring hole.

No skills whatsoever

No attack that reach PL.
Unarmed +7 and damage 12 total 19/20
Ranged is +12 and damage 7 total 19/20

Flight and speed should be arrayed to save points.

Alright I'll make a list

1. My GM just kinda houserules that absent stamina from being a construct gives immunity to fortitude and biological stuff. Kinda OP, but it's a trade-off for the -10 points.
2. Thanks for the info about the dodge/parry/toughness defenses all counting together for PL, I kinda....forgot about that.
3. How exactly do I array flight and speed? I'm not even sure what that means and I've only heard it mentioned briefly before.
4. Is the lack of skills completely crippling to a character?
5. Is there a way to raise a will-save, barring immunity, without raising awareness? My character in fluff would not have a high awareness stat.

[Fri]

what version of MnM do you play? I only have experience in 2e, but you can increase any stats and substats independently. You can raise toughness without raising con, no need to raise wisdom to get high will defense, etc.

Arraying is basically just putting powers as alternate to each others. So for example, you make a 10 point flight power. You can fly now. Then, you slap one point of "dynamic array" there, that means you can have another power as alternate use of that power that cost 10 (usually there's limitation of the alternate power has to makes sense, but it's purely fluff/depending on your agreement with your gm). So you put 10 points of speed now. So now you can run fast on the ground. The only limitation is that you can't use both powers at the same time.

Another example is, let's say you want to have lightning gun that alternately deal damage or stun people.

You build a blast power with (electric) type that cost 10 points. Then, you slap dynamic array. Then you build a stun power that cost 10 points as alternate of that blast. So now you can either blast people for damage, or stun people.

If you want the gun to both deal damage and stun people at the same time, you can't array though. You have to buy both blast and stun at the same time for that power, so say 10 points of blast and 10 points of stun that cost 20.

[Elderand]

3. How exactly do I array flight and speed? I'm not even sure what that means and I've only heard it mentioned briefly before.

Fri is wrong on how alternate powers work. But only a smidge wrong.

Let's take flight, you have flight 5 ranks. that cost 10 points.
You can have an alternate power of flight as long as that alternate power doesn't cost more than the base one. So basicly you could use either flight or the other power one at a time. Instead of paying the cost for the alternate power you instead pay just one point.

Flight 5 (10)
Ap: Speed 10 (1)

Total cost 11 instead of 20 for byuing them separatly. the drawback is you can't have both active at the same time.
However in this case it's not an issue, you can't fly and run at the same time anyway.
In fact, you don't need to buy speed at all. it doesn't offer anything that flight doesn't.

Dynamic arrays let you reallocate points between the different powers, so you can have them active at the same time but at reduced effectiveness. Dynamic also cost more. You pay one point on the base power to make it dynamic and then every dynamic alternate power cost 2 points.
So if you made a dynamic array of flight and speed you'd end up paying 13 points total instead of 11 for a simple alternate array.

4. Is the lack of skills completely crippling to a character?

Lack of skills is crippling, not having any leave you extremely vulnerable to opposed skill checks.

5. Is there a way to raise a will-save, barring immunity, without raising awareness? My character in fluff would not have a high awareness stat.

Will save can be bought directly.

[HelplessPeasant]

Fri is wrong on how alternate powers work. But only a smidge wrong.

Let's take flight, you have flight 5 ranks. that cost 10 points.
You can have an alternate power of flight as long as that alternate power doesn't cost more than the base one. So basicly you could use either flight or the other power one at a time. Instead of paying the cost for the alternate power you instead pay just one point.

Flight 5 (10)
Ap: Speed 10 (1)

Total cost 11 instead of 20 for byuing them separatly. the drawback is you can't have both active at the same time.
However in this case it's not an issue, you can't fly and run at the same time anyway.
In fact, you don't need to buy speed at all. it doesn't offer anything that flight doesn't.


Dynamic arrays let you reallocate points between the different powers, so you can have them active at the same time but at reduced effectiveness. Dynamic also cost more. You pay one point on the base power to make it dynamic and then every dynamic alternate power cost 2 points.
So if you made a dynamic array of flight and speed you'd end up paying 13 points total instead of 11 for a simple alternate array.



Lack of skills is crippling, not having any leave you extremely vulnerable to opposed skill checks.



Will save can be bought directly.

1. I'm buying speed as a means of moving quickly, as speed 10 is much faster than flight 5. Flight will mainly serve as a means of movement in places like zero-g of freefall that don't allow for controlled running.
2. Any recommendations for common skills that I'd need to oppose often? With adjustments made I have 6 points left over for skills. My character is very high power/low skill so only 12 ranks makes sense.
EDIT: Would Athletics 3, Tech 6, and Investigation 3 be good? Feels right for my character fluff/crunch-wise.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Opposed skill rolls aren't a big deal, in my experience. I wouldn't worry too much about that. Your proposed skill totals are decent; you'd be very athletic, decently good at tech, and a dabbler at investigation. I'd recommend some Perception, given how many points you dumped into sensory effects, though.

Optimization-wise...

• Regeneration is decent but not the most useful power-- it's being staggered that kills you, and that's the last thing Regeneration heals. At the very least I'd probably take off Persistent; Incurable damage is usually pretty rare.
• The Fighting ability is crap, and is never worth it unless you've got two separate melee attack types that you somehow can't combine in one skill or cover via arrays. Put points in Parry directly, and buy the appropriate Close Combat skill. Your points in Dex are even worse, as you apparently don't care about any of the skills it boosts.
• Your ranged attack is... kind of a big ol' pile of wasted points right now. A high-Strength character has a built-in ranged attack-- it's called throwing things, and its range is just as high as a normal ranged attack power. I'd toss it and spend the points elsewhere if you want to be a primary melee type, or else use Alternate Effects* to build a sort of weapons array and get back a bit of versatility. (Note that it's probably legitimate to put Enhanced Strength in a weapons array like that; you're directing power away from lasers to servomotors, say)
• I don't like allowing four ranks of Improved Critical on already high-damage powers (by the way, they have to apply to a specific attack), but that's just me. Ask your GM.

*The game basically runs on Alternate Effects; they're the only way to get a really good versatile character. Open your book to the "Modifiers" section of the Powers chapter and read the entry on "Alternate Effect." Think of them as a quiverful of trick arrows, or different spells in Skyrim-- the sort of thing where you have lots of options, but can only use one at a time. It can also be one overarching power ("Fire Control") that can be used in ways different enough to require different sets of Effects and Modifiers. The guideline is that your Alternate Effects have to have one unifying theme; you can't just pick a bunch of random powers and only pay full price for one. So a bunch of different missile types is okay, or different ways to focus your magnetic powers, but probably not a generic "superpowers" or "magic spells" grouping.

You can apply the Alternate Effect modifier to any non-permanent duration power, each time costing you one power point. Each time you add the modifier, you get one new alternate power, which must be build using the same total number of points as the base power. So if you have a power "Fireball-- Ranged Damage 10, Area" you could spend 1 pp to get an alternate effect worth up to 30pp. You can apply the modifier multiple times, getting multiple different Alternate Effects-- the set of your base power and all the alternate effects is known as an Array. (Note that there is a point of diminishing returns, thanks to the existence of power stunts, which may or may not be where the GM smacks you-- my guideline is usually 5 distinct powers).

The trick is you can only have one Alternate Effect "equipped" at a time, which is almost, but not quite, the same as saying you can only use one power in an array per turn. You have one power active at a time, and you can change that as a free action once per turn.

[Anonymouswizard]

Notes:

Regen isn't that useful in-combat. I mean, I have a character planned for some later game who has high ranks of regeneration, but that's just for fluff (he also has shockingly low defences, but comes back to life once per round). I'd say take one rank if you want to be self-healing but no more, especially if the group has someone with Technology or the self-healing power.

As others have said, you can save seven points by making your speed an alternate effect of your flight, as you likely won't be using both at the same time. This can be justified easily, your flight takes up a lot of power that you could otherwise route to your tracks/wheels/legs. Also, zero-g situations should be rare enough that spending more than a point on them is as useful as buying a chocolate orange and not scoffing the entire thing.

Why both Defensive Roll and Protection? They do the same thing, increase your Toughness, and although I see the potential benefit of having a source that can't be nullified Nullify Armour Plating should be rare enough to not be worth considering (seriously, that's all the descriptor you need for it).

You don't strictly need the ranged attack, I can see two ways to save points while having it work the same:
-Take the ranged damage power Strength gives you, and apply four ranks of accurate to it.
-Take your Strength score and add an alternate effect to it's damage effect (yes, your Strength score officially includes a damage effect that you can add modifiers to, so RAW you can give it an alternate effect, check with your GM), but remember that you won't be able to punch and shoot at the same time.

Fighting is rarely worth more than one or two points. My current character generally fights unarmed but occasionally, and even I have barely any points in it.

Now I'll say that Alternate Effects aren't quite as important as Grod_The_Giant makes them out to be, but they're the best modifier in the game by far (except dynamic arrays, I'd just use Variable instead of messing with a dynamic array). My current character competes without them, but really the only optimisation advice we follow is 'defences and attacks at PL limits' (and even then my character's defences are a tad low, I contribute mostly by having spent a fifth of my points on skills*), but it's a concept which gets a ton of millage out of being able to use a couple of skills insanely suited to our setting (mainly Technology with a hint of athletics).

On that note, skills are awesome. By my calculation you can save an extra 4 points by dropping the fighting to 0, taking 8 ranks in Close Combat (Unarmed), and raising your Parry to 6 with points. On that note we can get back another 3 points by getting rid of either Defensive Roll, 3 points of protection, or 3 points of Parry, and be legal, so that's 7 points. If you want more points make the ranged attack an alternate effect of something and drop the points in Dex (actually just drop the Dex and buy a Ranged Combat skill at 4 for 2 points, that's another shiny 6 points). If you drop the regen to 1 and lose the persistant modifier it's another 9 points.

So I make it up to 14 points you can spend on skills, or 28 ranks. Of course you might want some of those points for appending alternate effects to things, so pick some skills you like and lump 2-6 ranks in each. Perception is incredibly useful, do not be the person who doesn't notice the party is in the red light district (yes, that has actually happened in my group), and compare with your group so you don't have two people with +17 to Technology or Expertise (Pink Elephants).

* about 30-40 points, when everyone else in the group has less than 20. I rule at investigation, although my low Presence and lack of social skills means I can't deal with people.

[HelplessPeasant]

At this point I just wanna say thanks to everyone for helping me iron out this character, you're being a great help and I appreciate it a ton. I'll make some changes and post the updated build here later and see what everyone thinks.
EDIT: Also, I'm scrapping the ranged damage attack, would making my toughness impervious be worth it, or is that ineffectual/a waste?

[Grod_The_Giant]

At this point I just wanna say thanks to everyone for helping me iron out this character, you're being a great help and I appreciate it a ton. I'll make some changes and post the updated build here later and see what everyone thinks.
EDIT: Also, I'm scrapping the ranged damage attack, would making my toughness impervious be worth it, or is that ineffectual/a waste?

Ehh... it depends. Generally I'd say no; anyone swinging at you with damage less than ~half your power level is unlikely to be a threat. You'd be better off picking up something like Immunity 10 (Bullets and Blades), though your GM might quibble on pricing. On the other hand, it sure is fun when it works.

[HelplessPeasant]

Alright so I shifted some stuff around, made a few big changes, and I'm pretty sure everything is even and PL-legal. Might be one or two mistakes, as adding up all these point totals can get a bit confusing. Correct or advise me on anything dumb or wrong.

Stats

Str: 14
Agi: 5
Figh: 0
Awa: 2
Sta:-
Int: 3
Pre: 0
Dex: 0

Stats: 48

Powers

Protection-15
Regen- 1
Movement Array - 11
-Flight-5/10
-Speed 10
Senses-5
-Darkvision/2
-Infravision/1
-Radio/1
-Ultra-Hearing/1
Immortality-5/10
Parry – 5
Immunity (Will Save) - 30
Powers: 77

Advantages

Improved Critical-4
Fearless
Diehard
Eidetic Memory
Fast Grab

Advantages - 8

Skills

Tech – 6
Athletics – 4
Investigation – 4
Perception – 8
Close Attack (Unarmed)- 6
Ranged Attack (Throwing) - 6

Skills – 17

Points - 150

[Anonymouswizard]

At this point I just wanna say thanks to everyone for helping me iron out this character, you're being a great help and I appreciate it a ton. I'll make some changes and post the updated build here later and see what everyone thinks.
EDIT: Also, I'm scrapping the ranged damage attack, would making my toughness impervious be worth it, or is that ineffectual/a waste?

Doing it maths-wise, you'd have Impervious Toughness 14 (because I don't think you can make Defensive Roll can be made Impervious). So, as you have to save against a DC equal to 15+Damage Rank, I'm going to quickly run the numbers and see how it affects it.
Damage 1: 5% chance of taking any negative effects.
Damage 2: 10% chance of taking any negative effects.
Damage 3: 15% chance of taking any negative effects.
Damage 4: 20% chance of taking any negative effects.
Damage 5: 25% chance of taking any negative effects, 5% chance of taking any actual problematic effects (how my GM runs it, might be different for you).
Damage 6: 30% chance of taking any negative effects, 10% chance of taking any actual problematic effects.
Damage 7: 35% chance of taking any negative effects, 15% chance of taking any actual problematic effects.

Note that these chances get higher as you take more damage, but I once had my effective Toughness halved (from 12 to 6) by various traps and being shot at by the moat full of sharks, and I still didn't encounter significant problems. So Impervious Toughness is useful, but falls into that problem territory of 'anything it would work against likely only takes an action to take down', and even if your GM throws 50 mooks at you a couple of ranks of Takedown or a power stunted Area power will deal with them (seriously, our team's Powerhouse has Takedown 2 and it lets him deal with 6+ mooks per round). That, and you can become completely immune to bladed weapons for 10PP (bludgeoning and bullets only cost another 10PP apiece). On the other hand I've always wanted to take Impervious Toughness 20 and wade through hordes of mooks, almost as much as I've wanted to take Penetrating Damage 5 with Improved Critical and cherry-tap anybody stupid enough to fight me with Impervious Toughness.