Thread 96266494

In the 2010s, I played and GMed Mutants & Masterminds 3e on an on-and-off basis. None of those games lasted long. It was not a system for me.

I paid 15 USD for the playtest PDF of M&M 4e. It is an iteration of 3e. If you like 3e and want a more polished version, you will probably like 4e. If 3e was not a system for you, then 4e is unlikely to appeal to you, because it is mostly more of the same.

The primary selling point is still character customization. M&M 4e has involved and intricate character creation mechanics that reward system mastery. This comes at the cost of everything else:

• Ease of GMing. Enemies use mostly the same mechanics as PCs; even minions have full-fledged character sheets. There is no easy villain creation mechanic, unlike in, say, Sentinel Comics.

• Incentive to mix up combat options. D&D 4e has 1/encounter, 1/day, and recharge powers for PCs and enemies. Draw Steel has a gradual buildup of Heroic Resources and malice for PCs and enemies. Sentinel Comics has the GYR mechanic, which unlocks stronger powers for PCs and enemies as the fight goes along. M&M 4e has no such mechanic, so PCs and enemies alike simply spam whichever attacks are strongest and most applicable.

• Ease of integrating objectives or noncombat challenges into combat. Draw Steel has comprehensive rules for integrating objectives into battle. Sentinel Comics assumes, by default, that PCs are multitasking during a fight, and often have to save civilians; there are dedicated mechanics for this. M&M 4e, conversely, has run-of-the-mill combat mechanics, with minimal thought given to auxiliary objectives.

• Game balance. As a canary in the metaphorical coal mine, this is an RPG wherein Investigation (which includes gathering and analyzing evidence and gathering information from people), Perception, Stealth, and Technology (all technology, including computers, craftsmanship, and security systems) ranks cost as much as Performance (wind instruments) ranks.

(Continued.)

The game does not care about internal balance between character options. It heavily rewards system mastery, in a way I find unpalatable.

In many cases, the game describes a mechanic, and then says something like: "By the way, this can unbalance the game, so the GM should take care to set limits and balance this." Entire mechanics and powers are labeled with an icon that indicates this. If you are the kind of GM who prefers that the game be reasonably balanced out-of-the-box, M&M 4e is not for you.

Major offenders include all of the ways in which characters can "cheat" their power points and get more bang for their buck. A classic example, returning from 3e, is arrays. For +1 point (the standard number of starting points is 150), you can create an alternate effect for a power, but you can use only one version of the power at a time. It is thus optimal to stuff most of your active powers into an array, including noncombat ability/skill enhancers. "The GM should balance this," as usual.

Summon (Heroic) gets you an extra, full-fledged PC to control. 20 points earns you a 150-point PC! "The GM should be cautious about this."

The Variable power lets you access "any effect within a given set of parameters," subject to the GM balancing it.

Morph (Metamorph) for 6 points gives you an alternate character sheet with all your points reallocated, which you can swap to 1/round as a free action. This does not even come with the "GM should balance this" warning

Time Travel is no longer a core power, but Precognition, at 1 point per rank, allows you to rewind the game to an earlier point 1/adventure/rank. This likewise does not have a "GM should balance this" disclaimer.

All of the above is just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. M&M 4e is a dream for anyone who wants to spend days meticulously customizing and optimizing their character to their exact specifications, subject to the GM manually balancing everything. It is not for me.

Maybe it is for you. What do you think?

Yes, this game is in playtest. But given that they are already selling the playtest PDF for 15 USD, and that the playtest period runs only during this month and next month, it seems unlikely that the authors will overhaul the game into a new direction.

They know their target audience: people who really, really want to customize and optimize their characters and express system mastery that way. They have written 4e to continue catering to that target audience. I can respect that, at least.

>>96266510

>Summon (Heroic) gets you an extra, full-fledged PC to control. 20 points earns you a 150-point PC!
Correction: 30 points for a 150-point PC.

>>96266510

>Summon (Heroic) gets you an extra, full-fledged PC to control. 20 points earns you a 150-point PC!
Correction: 30 points for a 150-point, non-minion NPC.

To me, the game feels... archaic. It comes across as a generic, early 2000s, d20 OGL game (because it is) with a very loose superhero-themed coat of paint. I think that other superhero RPGs, such as Sentinel Comics and Outgunned: Superheroes, overtake it with modern design patterns. For example, Sentinel Comics has easy villain creation mechanics, unlocks stronger powers for PCs and enemies as a fight goes along, and integrates noncombat challenges (e.g. saving civilians) into battles by default. Mutants & Masterminds 4e, meanwhile, focuses the bulk of its appeal on the character creation phase, while leaving turn-to-turn gameplay simplistic and uninspired.

>>96266635

In fact, Summon (Heroic) is actually cheaper than before, at 3 points per rank rather than at 4 points per rank. You can pay 4 points per rank regardless if you want a Continuous duration rather than a Sustained duration. Your heroic summon gets rank × 15 points to spend, so a 10-ranker has 150 points: equal to a default starting PC. I have no idea why Summon (Heroic) was made cheaper.

>>96266494 (OP)
Is it basically just a paper-thin reprint of 3e, or does the game have any sort of significant mechanical change apart from power point values?

>>96267090

It is mostly the same game: probably ~70-80% a carryover. There are refinements here and there, such as an overhaul to damage rolls and more codified D&D-4e-style skill challenges, but it is still the same system in essence: a playground for building and optimizing characters and expressing system mastery with a vaguely superhero-themed coat of paint.

Then again, they made Summon (Heroic) cheaper, and while they removed Time Travel, the super-cheap Precognition is only slightly less egregious.

I feel like there isn't really a medium-crunch option for superhero games, it's either Masks or Mutants and Masterminds. Nothing in between.

>>96267365

I like Sentinel Comics and Outgunned: Superheroes, as I have mentioned in >>96266825.

>>96266510

I would like to stress that Precognition being 1 point per rank, and allowing an automatic rewind to an earlier point 1/adventure/rank, is rather nutty (and a nightmare for the GM to handle).

"This fight is going badly for us, so let me rewind to a point before the combat. In fact, why stop there? Why not go a little further back..."

>>96266494 (OP)
All these things you're saying, have been true of at least the previous two editions.

>>96267591

So if M&M 4e is only a minor improvement, and I am not interested in hyper-crunchy character customization, why bother, really?

>>96266825
>>96267389
How's Outgunned: Superheroes run?

>>96267637
good question
most wouldn't need to write out a whole novel to come this conclusion

>>96268212

You can give the free quickstart a look for yourself: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/518136/outgunned-superheroes-quickstart

>>96266825
You mean it comes across as a PnP rpg from the age of when things were fun? Sign me the fuck up!

>>96266494 (OP)
Sounds neat. Run me through character creation? I tend to find that the character creation process gives me a good idea of how the game is actually going to run.

>>96266494 (OP)
Wait, there's an M&M 4E now? I thought Green Ronin wrote the game off.

>>96268257
NTA and I looked at it, but it doesn't really give me a reason to take it over, well, anything else.
It looks like a PbtA game with some expansions and a new coat of paint. Even the main resolution mechanic seems to be cribbed from ORE
>but it uses six-sided dice!
I'm going to be honest, it looks like this game was designed as a heartbreaker for a couple of different systems the designer liked, and that doesn't bode well for me.
I say that because people make different systems for different reasons. Grafting aspects of different systems causes issues to naturally emerge because the systems weren't designed to interact with each other.
I also have to look at how they resolve X-kind because my instinct is that that is gonna be a clusterfuck in practice.

>>96269218

Sure. If you are fine with this school of game design, then you might like Mutants & Masterminds 4e.

>>96269229

Character creation is almost entirely point-buy. You have a pool of points: 150, by default. You spend them to purchase virtually everything on your character sheet, within the limits set by the campaign's starting Power Level.

>>96271636

I would say that Outgunned is distant from PbtA. It is not quite a fiction-first game. Combat is relatively structured, with turns and codified results and such.

>X-kind
I do not know what this is.

>>96270925
Apparently not, they previewed the new edition at GenCon.

>>96270925
>>96271714

Yes, they are selling the playtest PDF for 15 USD. The playtest PDF + softcover is going for 45 USD.

https://greenroninstore.com/products/mutants-masterminds-heros-handbook-4th-edition-playtest-origin-edition

I do not see anything in the FAQ about receiving the full game for free on release.

Selling your fucking playtest as a product should be fuckin' illegal.

>>96271711
>>X-kind
>I do not know what this is.
Sorry, I miswrote X-of-a-kind.
In my little playtesting/design experience, D6 wide by tall (e.g. 4 sixes) are either dangerously swingy or horribly predictable. At 7 dice, you are guaranteed to have pairs of two and usually far more, which limits the amount of granularity in terms of plus or minus dice you can add before the game just shatters. The problem with adding more dice to a matching dice pool like that is that it scales exponentially in a way that makes every additional die more valuable than the last until it becomes practically meaningless.
You don't really have marginal control like you might have with 3d6+ or 1d20+ systems. The difference between 6 dice and 7 dice is the difference between 19 and 20 Skill in Pendragon, for instance.
That limits the number of ways you can progress mechanically, because characters top out really quickly if you just add one die per advancement.

>>96272910

Dice pools in Outgunned are somewhat constrained. Almost all rolls are attribute + skill. All attributes are either 2 or, if the character is good at the attribute, 3. Skills range from 0 to 3. So from attribute + skill alone, dice pools range from 2 to 6.

The absolute highest anyone can ever roll, by stacking miscellaneous bonuses, is 9 dice. The full core rulebook, p. 61, even points this out:
>All things considered, you can never roll less than 2 or more than 9 dice.

Characters have a number of benefits going for them. They have rerolls, and they can combine pairs.

For example, 3 two-of-a-kind can be combined to count as 1 three-of-a-kind, and 1 three-of-a-kind can be broken up to count as 3 two-of-a-kind.

>>96267591
and before that, it was true of Champions, which M and M shamelessly ripped off and welded to a twenty sided die.

>>96271933
yeah, when starfinder did it i was definitely rubbed the wrong way

>>96274320
Starfinder 2e playtest was free.

>>96274402
the five preset play sections and rulebook pdf was free, they're still charging $47+ to print it even with the full release

Where is the link for the playtest?

>>96277310
newvola for now

>>96277634
Thanks for replying, But Vola used to be changing all the time and I didn't keep up with it..

>>96278156
it's a
rebrand<DoT>ly/
link

If I'm a relatively new GM looking for a medium crunch option for a supers one shot around the tone/grit level of Invincible or Worm, what are my options? So far I'm looking at either Sentinetls or P&P but Ive heard SCRPG doesn't play well with that kind of tone. Thoughts?

>>96266494 (OP)
>As a canary in the metaphorical coal mine, this is an RPG wherein Investigation (which includes gathering and analyzing evidence and gathering information from people), Perception, Stealth, and Technology (all technology, including computers, craftsmanship, and security systems) ranks cost as much as Performance (wind instruments) ranks
This has singlehandedly convinced me the game is shit.

>Time Travel is no longer a core power, but Precognition, at 1 point per rank, allows you to rewind the game to an earlier point 1/adventure/rank. This likewise does not have a "GM should balance this" disclaimer.
This as well, but at least it fits some superhero concepts thematically. Still sounds completely nightmarish to actually implement for everyone involved.

I tried to convert a character I made some time ago just to see the differences. The defense change ended up costing me one extra point for what is functionally the exact same, but the combat advantages being made into basic maneuvers saved me a few that I was able to put in other places.

>>96267090
The Deflect power got a complete overhaul.

>>96273903
>4e has Attack and Defense scores so it's more like OCV/DCV from Hero System 6e (2009)
>that'll be $15 + tax + tip for a pdf of the rough draft

>>96266494 (OP)
As far as I can tell the Attack and Defense change is just a negative. The only difference that it actually makes is that a player can no longer choose to save a couple of points by making Parry worse than Dodge or vice-versa.
I don't really see a reason to not just take the minor changes to various powers and advantages and just apply them to 3e.

OP, is the new edition of Mutants and Masterminds woke?

>>96267389
I've heard good things about Sentinel Comics, but not often. How do you like it?

>>96301030

It is a decent attempt at a superhero-themed tactical combat RPG. It does not use a grid, but it has many of the trappings of a 4e-inspired RPG, such as discrete combat abilities. Stronger combat abilities are locked off until the fight progresses further on, or until the character drops below certain health, whichever comes first.

Uniquely, a default assumption is that heroes are multitasking during combat, and are simultaneously trying to address other threats. Having to save civilians mid-combat is the usual example. Thus, noncombat challenges are often integrated into a fight.

It has its share of balance issues. On the whole, they are not too bad:
https://forums.greaterthangames.com/t/mindwanderers-character-creation-tips/19799
Well, aside from the Wild Card's Break the 4th. As the thread linked above points out, it is far too strong.

>>96298105
It's a series that from the start was so.. Pretty much 100% that the new one will be too.

>>96266510
>A classic example, returning from 3e, is arrays. For +1 point (the standard number of starting points is 150), you can create an alternate effect for a power, but you can use only one version of the power at a time. It is thus optimal to stuff most of your active powers into an array, including noncombat ability/skill enhancers. "The GM should balance this," as usual.
There is an inbuilt balance point actually - power negators gonna fuck you up if you put all of your options into a single power array. Which is basically inevitable in any comics themed game. Either you meet a straight up negator or some of your recurring enemies create a specific counter to your power and if you have nothing else you are fucked.

Similar to how you can get straight up immortality out of the gates. It's useful but if you think it's gonna be enough on its own I have a bridge to sell you while local hunter villain drags into his den wrapped with a net.

You are looking at it from a point of view of someone playing D&D style games or even some less bullshit fantasy romps while M&M is built from the ground up to support comic book tropes and expects that they would be widely used in the game.

>>96267090
>or does the game have any sort of significant mechanical change apart from power point values?
Pretty significant reworks and clarifications to many powers like Creation, Move Object, Healing, Affliction, Regeneration, and Impervious
Changes to damage and DC scaling, damage no longer starts at 15+effect instead of 10+effect and a host of changes related to this new scaling. Impervious is now full rank instead of half, there's a new modifier called Hardened that is roll twice and take the better for attacks that don't exceed your hardened ranks in a given defense for a less binary all/no damage option.
Instead of reactions being infinite but few ways to trigger them, you now get one reaction per round but there's many more ways to use it and more interactivity, things that would be infinite reactions before like a damage aura now simply happen no action needed.
Buffs to Presence and a new class of advantages called Command that are limited by how high your presence is in how many you can take, a new Impress action that allows for other skills besides Deception to be used in combat and to inflict various conditions on enemies or talk no jutsu them in capeshit fashion. Fighting is no longer an Attribute (it was terrible and not worth buying to begin with so good riddance), now there's generic Attack and Defense combat attributes instead. Attack gives you universal bonus to all melee and ranged attacks regardless of style plus is used for some maneuvers, Defense is bonuses to close and ranged defense and also raises your Dodge rating. They're fine, you will actually put points into these on some characters as opposed to Fighting which was basically never worth buying on its own

What's currently out is definitely worthy of an edition change, it's not total night and day like D&D 3E vs 4e but most games aren't that way. I'm a fan of M&M 3E and like most of the changes, especially the Advantage ones and dropping Fighting

>>96305939
Dropping Fighting does literally nothing.
Fighting applied to Parry and Close Combat.
Now you've got Attack, which only applies to Ranged Attack and Close Attack, both of which you can buy into individually with Advantages.
Fighting just needed a single extra skill to justify its existence, not to be removed. Same with Stamina, which hasn't changed at all.

>>96292306
>that a player can no longer choose to save a couple of points by making Parry worse than Dodge or vice-versa.
You can still buy ranks in Defenses directly. You could do the exact same thing in 3E. You never had to buy ranks in any Attribute if you don't want to.

The only Defense that cannot be raised directly with points is Toughness because it's what is used to resist Damage and you need some superheroic reason to be bullet-proof, so you have to raise Toughness by buying Stamina as an attribute, ranks in the Defensive Roll advantage (which is basically the Batman cope for how he fights Darkseid, he rolls with the punches), ranks in the Protection power, or wear Equipment providing additional toughness.

Fighting was awful because it was 2 points per attribute point but you could literally just buy a point in close combat and a point in parry for the exact same cost so it was pointless to exist. I'm assuming you were under the misconception you had to raise things by buying attributes but that's not true and never has been except for Toughness (which still had other sources), basically everything in mutants and masterminds has a straight up power point cost you can simply pay, it's not D&D where attributes are your main thing

>>96305985
>Same with Stamina, which hasn't changed at all.
You can't raise Toughness directly unlike other defenses and Protection powers can be nullified or power loss'd, plus Stamina Debilitation is extremely deadly to the point it's one of few things in the system that actually just straight up fucking kills you directly when most damage and effects are assumed nonlethal. Every point of Stamina you buy is worth its weight in gold because in addition to the 2pp value of raising Fortitude and Protection, you're also getting it as a bonus to any raw Stamina rolls (there are no skills associated with Stamina, so straight ability checks for it are more common than something like Presence where you're pretty much always rolling a specific social skill to lie/intimidate/persuade), and it protects you from Debilitation. Raw attributes aren't powers and can't be shut off or taken away in any way besides straight up stat-draining attacks, saying Stamina is bad is like saying you should dump Constitution in D&D, it's ridiculous

>>96305652
>power negators gonna fuck you up
You can take extras to make power negators not work.

>>96306002
>You can still buy ranks in Defenses directly. You could do the exact same thing in 3E. You never had to buy ranks in any Attribute if you don't want to.
Did you even read my post?

>>96306078
"Innate" needs to be an absolutely intrinsic part of your basic nature to the point it would be like trying to Nullify and Elephant's increased size, you can't actually put it on whatever you want (even being an alien doesn't mean all your powers are uncounterable, look at the official star locks for Superman and Martian Manhunter)
Plus even an Innate power can be countered as a complication, whereas attributes aren't powers period.

ALSO, Innate only protects against NULLIFY, it does not protect against COUNTERS because nothing does, all effects in the game have Descriptors and an appropriate Descriptor can always counter if appropriate. You don't get to pay 1 power point and claim "I'm Squirtle, my water gun is a natural and Innate part of my biology, you can't counter it with fire!"; Nullify as a power just lets you counter regardless of Descriptors or limited to a specific broad category (like a Sentinel that can counter everybody with X-Gene mutant powers)

>>96306117
Yeah it seems like you literally didn't read the book at all. >>96292306
>The only difference that it actually makes is that a player can no longer choose to save a couple of points by making Parry worse than Dodge or vice-versa.
You can still make your Parry worse than Dodge if you want to, since you can still directly buy Defenses with power points in addition to purchasing Attributes like old-Fighting or New-Defense. But anyways it's not even true that that's all that changes since Defense also ties in to stuff like the new Deflect.

>>96306137
>You can still make your Parry worse than Dodge if you want to
4e doesn't even have Parry, you troglodyte. Both close and ranged attacks are defended with Defense.

>>96306146
it still has parry, you just call it Close Defense in 4e instead of Parry. Dodge is now Ranged Defense and "Dodge" is a separate thing. Dodge/Parry and Close/Ranged Defense are still functionally identical between 3E and 4E as your "armor class", the only reason Parry and Dodge were split on 3E to begin with despite being identical values 99% of the time and both being capped against the same tradeoff number of Toughness was because 3E was trying to get away from its OGL D20/3rd Edition dungeons and dragons spinoff roots, so instead of one AC you had two virtually identical ones for melee and ranged attacks.

In 4th edition, just like in 3rd, you can still buy a lower Dodge(Ranged Defense) than Parry (Close Defense) to save a few points if you want, that didn't change. Now there's Close Defense, Ranged Defense, and then Dodge(unrelated to 3E dodge, it's now a different thing)/Fort/Will/Toughness as Defenses. In 3E there were various non-attacks that were still rolled against Dodge as basically a fourth defense on top of it serving as AC, 4E just makes it so Dodge is a new defense and Melee/Ranged Defense is JUST for Attack rolls.

The main point of this change is to prevent somebody rolling the same stat twice to defend against something, in 3E a Snare with Alternate Resistance Dodge is targeting somebody's Dodge with the Attack roll, and then is Resisted by Dodge on top. That was weird so now in 4E you target their Ranged Defense and they Resist with Dodge (it also let you cheese shit by reducing dodge/parry with things that reduce armor class but then attacking with something Resisted by Dodge, basically debilitating for free)
>Troglodyte
lol settle down Timmy no need to be grumpy when people correct you