Mutants and Masterminds 3e

[Grod_The_Giant]

I have a question as to how Linked powers interact with other modifiers. Say I want to create a Disintegration Ray so I take Damage 10 and Link it to Weaken Toughness 10 when I add Ranged do I do it once for a total of 30 points or twice for a total of 40?

The effects are purchased entirely separately; modifiers applied to one don't apply to others. You need to buy Ranged for both Damage and Toughness in your example; if you applied Limited to Objects to the Weaken Toughness part, it wouldn't affect the Damage at all.

[Anonymouswizard]

I have a question as to how Linked powers interact with other modifiers. Say I want to create a Disintegration Ray so I take Damage 10 and Link it to Weaken Toughness 10 when I add Ranged do I do it once for a total of 30 points or twice for a total of 40?

Twice I believe, each Effect has it's own Range. So it would be Ranged Damage 10 linked to Ranged Weaken Toughness 10, not Ranged (Damage 10 linked to Weaken Toughness 10).

I like Linked Effects a lot, I have a character I want to play at some point who absorbs and gives life force. He has Weaken Strength 8 linked to Weaken Stamina 8 as well as Regeneration, immortality, and Healing. He tanks his defences to compensate, it's terribly suboptimal but it can be a devestating debuffing build. But the problem is that they get expensive fast, this character spends over one hundred points on powers (he has a lot of regeneration and immortality at the 'comes back once a round' level) and has one offensive option (later on he diversifies a bit with one technological enhancements and alternate effects).


Actually, this brings up something I was wondering earlier, what happens when you raise your Immortality rank above 20? (there's no limit on doing so if I remember correctly.) You're now at the point where you're coming back more than once a combat round if required, has anybody actually had to run with this?

[Spamotron]

I suspected that was the case for balance reasons the wording was just unclear to me.

[Beleriphon]

Actually, this brings up something I was wondering earlier, what happens when you raise your Immortality rank above 20? (there's no limit on doing so if I remember correctly.) You're now at the point where you're coming back more than once a combat round if required, has anybody actually had to run with this?

I haven't dealt with it, but at the same time what's the point? I can't see a character dying more than once per round.

[Anonymouswizard]

I haven't dealt with it, but at the same time what's the point? I can't see a character dying more than once per round.

Ultimate meat shield. Get a reaction ability to move in front of enemy attacks, soak up several attacks per round by dying and coming back.

I never said there was a decent point (if you don't have any Reaction powers it's almost literally useless), it's just something I noticed and was wondering if anybody had dealt with it.

[Spamotron]

Does anyone have any experience with an all Toughness defense build in actual play?

I have this idea for an ancient Stone Golem from a lost age of magic awakening in the modern day and seeking a purpose.

As a creature of heavy solid stone he has no agility to speak of but is incredibly difficult to hurt. Toughness 20 (Impervious) and Immunity (Life Support).

Edit: Here's what I have so far:

Stone Golem
Origin: Magical construct from a lost age Motivation: Acceptance Other Complications: Is a stone golem
PL 10
Abilities: Strength 13 Stamina 10 Dexterity 0 Agility 0 Fighting 0 Intellect 0 Awareness 10 Presence 0 Dodge 0 Toughness 10/20 (Impervious) Parry 0 Fortitude 10 Will 10 Initiative 0
Skills: Athletics 7, Close Combat (Unarmed) 7, Insight 10, Perception 10, Ranged Combat (Throwing) 7, Treatment 3
Advantages: Languages 2 (Ancient Sumerian, Ancient Etruscan, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Hittite, Arabic, English, Chinese, Spanish)
Powers: Mystic Stone Body (Immunity: Life Support; Protection 10, Impervious Toughness 20), One With Stone (Permeate 3, Limited to Earth and Stone; Vision Penetrates Concealment, Limited to Earth and Stone; Teleport 9, Medium: Earth and Stone), Self-Repair (Regeneration 6, Source: Earth and Stone)

Abilities: 66
Skills: 22
Advantages: 2
Powers: 60

[Grod_The_Giant]

Does anyone have any experience with an all Toughness defense build in actual play?

I've got four words for you: "Damage, Alternate Resistance (Dodge)." Or heck, "Affliction, resisted and overcome by Dodge." I'm not a fan of builds that tradeoff that hard; regardless of actual effectiveness, you're kind of putting the DM in a position where they either target your weakness (and splatter you) or avoid it (and leave you practically unaffected).

[Spamotron]

I've got four words for you: "Damage, Alternate Resistance (Dodge)." Or heck, "Affliction, resisted and overcome by Dodge." I'm not a fan of builds that tradeoff that hard; regardless of actual effectiveness, you're kind of putting the DM in a position where they either target your weakness (and splatter you) or avoid it (and leave you practically unaffected).

How is that much different then someone relying on a defensive power that makes them immune to most attacks like Insubstantial 4 (Incorporeal)? Just like that the build is still subject to anything with Sensory effects or things afflictions that target Fortitude or Will instead of Toughness no weird Alternate Resistance Modifiers necessary.

[JustIgnoreMe]

How is that much different then someone relying on a defensive power that makes them immune to most attacks like Insubstantial 4 (Incorporeal)? Just like that the build is still subject to anything with Sensory effects or things afflictions that target Fortitude or Will instead of Toughness no weird Alternate Resistance Modifiers necessary.

You shouldn't normally be relying on Insubstantial 4 for your defences. It's cheesy (although I'll admit it's a good way of replicating Superman-level invulnerability: Insubstantial 4, limited with Cannot Pass Through Solid Objects).

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Insubstantial 4, limited with Cannot Pass Through Solid Objects).

Somehow, I find this hilarious.

[JustIgnoreMe]

Somehow, I find this hilarious.

Me too :) Bargain Basement Invulnerability (actually in M&M you need to spend a load of points having your abilities still work while you're Insubstantial, so it's not so cheap).

[noob]

Me too :) Bargain Basement Invulnerability (actually in M&M you need to spend a load of points having your abilities still work while you're Insubstantial, so it's not so cheap).

I do not see why you would need loads of points to make your abilities keep working.
can you tell me which rules prevents using your superpowers normally(except for ones based on strength)

[JustIgnoreMe]

I do not see why you would need loads of points to make your abilities keep working.
can you tell me which rules prevents using your superpowers normally(except for ones based on strength)

Do you not need to buy powers with "Affects Substantial" to affect the substantial while insubstantial, the same way you need to buy "Affects Insubstantial" to affect the insubstantial while substantial?

[noob]

Do you not need to buy powers with "Affects Substantial" to affect the substantial while insubstantial, the same way you need to buy "Affects Insubstantial" to affect the insubstantial while substantial?

Where is it written?
I guess it is written somewhere but I would like to know where.
Ok found it: it is written in the affect insubstantial modifier and in the first paragraph of the rank 4
But for your superman like invulnerability I think that rank 3 insubstantial + immunity to energy would work better(since you would not have to pick a vulnerability to a common effect) but it would cost 35 power point which is kind of expensive.
15 more power points but you get to not need to add affect corporeal to all your powers.
So if you go above pl 15 it is saving points but below it is a waste.

[Spamotron]

Tabling the Stone Golem for the time being I started work on another character. I love the concept of Dimensional Travelers and explorers. So I started to make one then realized that unless I misunderstand something I made a really broken character by accident and that the Dimensional modifier is seriously undercosted.

World Walker
PL 10
Abilities: Strength 0 Stamina 10 Dexterity 0 Agility 3 Fighting 3 Intellect 0 Awareness 10 Presence 0 Dodge 10 Toughness 10 Parry 10 Fortitude 10 Will 10 Initiative 11
Skills: Insight 10, Perception 10
Advantages: Improved Initiative 2, Jack of All Trades, Languages 5
Powers: Immortal Body (Immunity: Life Support, Immortality 1, Regeneration 2), Seeker's Eyes (Extended Vision 2, Darkvision, Dimensional 3; Immunity Visual Sensory Afflictions), World Walker (Dimensional Travel 3, Increased Mass 3, Alternate Effect: Teleport 3, Accurate), Twist Space (Damage 10, Ranged Burst, Dimensional 3)

Abilities: 66
Skills: 10
Advantages: 8
Powers: 66

The concept was that I would create a character that could see between, travel and attack across dimensions. At first I thought nothing of it because if it was an issue I figured the Dimensional modifier wouldn't be so cheap (1-3 flat points on any power) if there were any issues because of how expensive things like affects substantial are. Then I thought about what this character would do in combat. First Move action use Seeker's Eyes and World Walk to travel to an adjacent dimension that is free of hazards or threats, Standard Action Twist Space to nuke the bad guys. Unless they have the dimensional modifier on their own attacks or there are hidden dangers in the dimension I've chosen I'm completely untouchable the rest of the combat and all the bad guys can do to defend themselves is try to hide from my sight. The only change I made to the above build after I realized this was add the Immunity Visual Sensory Afflictions for 2 points (Immunity to All sensory afflictions cost 5 so I figured one sense should cost 2) to make the character impossible to hurt by the one thing that wouldn't need the Dimensional modifier to affect me.

So there goes I fun character concept I'll never be allowed to play except at maybe a one-shot for OP characters.

[noob]

This builds is campaign specific.
You need to be in a campaign with multiple dimensions and to have a gm which is fine with you traveling across dimensions with ease.
Of course the gm probably says whenever he will allow dimensional travel in his campaign or not.
Dimensional travel is a powerful tool and so is time travel but both are stuff that depends heavily on setting.
Also even if there is multiple dimensions nothing says the other dimensions will be safe(example: there is three dimensions: the main dimension,heaven and hell. You probably do not want to go to hell and heavens is probably filled with angels that are angry at dimensional invaders so dimensional travel is not a way to get to a safe place but rather a way to adventure, meet dead people and try to beat up angels for fun)

[Recherché]

Trying to figure out where to start on building a power/ritual in Mutants and Masterminds to diagnose what is wrong with a magical spirit and why it has amnesia. It seems like sense should probably be the base power but I'm not sure where to go after that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Trying to figure out where to start on building a power/ritual in Mutants and Masterminds to diagnose what is wrong with a magical spirit and why it has amnesia. It seems like sense should probably be the base power but I'm not sure where to go after that.

Senses 2 (Detect Afflictions, Analytical)?

[Spamotron]

The way you create a Sense power is a little confusing to me so I'm walking through an example to see if I have it right. So the concept I that I have a powerful telekinetic and as part of his ability to control the movement of objects with his mind he has an innate sense for the position and motion of everything around him.

So to feel the position of objects and their movements around him is probably a Tactile sense which is by default already Accurate and Radius and I add Ranged to that and the Mental descriptor. I then add a couple ranks of extended to give it superior range. Ending up with Senses 3 for 3 points.

Any mistakes?

[Grek]

Nope, looks about right to me.

[JustIgnoreMe]

I seem to rememer perfect time sense and perfect distance sense are 1-pt features each, so 3 points for something that combines the two with a bit extra that doesn't rely on line-of-sight seems about right.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yeah, Ranged Touch is an amazing sense-power. You might want to throw Acute in there for an extra point, just so you can tell what you're sensing.

[Spamotron]

Thanks everyone. On a related note it's obvious that a Perception range Power and the Extended modifier on your senses can get really silly really fast. In practice what do you feel is the maximum number of ranks of Extended sense at PL 10 that feels fun and powerful but doesn't create too much of a headache for the GM?

[Grek]

It depends very much on the campaign your running. For example: I was playing with a new GM, and decided to play a character who's whole gimmick sound control and super hearing. It was PL 10, so I bought 10 ranks of acute, accurate super hearing. At which point I could reliably listen to a whispered conversation on the moon. One of my teammates had the ability to teleport to anywhere they had a good description of. We were playing as villains. Our first crime was to have the mutant hyena on the team get teleported into a bank, rip the bank vault out of the wall and then get teleported back to our hideout, all over the course of 12 seconds. The heroes started introducing teleportation blocking technology soon after.

[Beleriphon]

Thanks everyone. On a related note it's obvious that a Perception range Power and the Extended modifier on your senses can get really silly really fast. In practice what do you feel is the maximum number of ranks of Extended sense at PL 10 that feels fun and powerful but doesn't create too much of a headache for the GM?

Four ranks gets you 10,000 times the distance. That's about the max you need, I mean realistically it means a character with extended vision gets a -1 per 100,000 feet. That so insane there isn't a reason nto go above that unless you want to have character with cosmological levels of senses. Want to see what's happening in Pluto without a telescope? You can do that in M&M pretty easily. IF I recall correctly DCA's official Superman stats have 3 ranks of extended vision and 4 on hearing.