Super-Vision #7: Nuts & Bolts

Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to the first Super-Vision of 2005.

From the mean streets of Noir to the shining towers of tomorrow, we kick off 2005 with Gimmick's Guide to Gadgets, 118 pages jam-packed with all sorts of new toys for your M&M games, brought to you by well-known d20 author Mike Mearls.

With Gadgets in layout, it's time for some previews! Here's what the Introduction of the book has to tell us:

Gimmick's Guide to Gadgets opens up a new world of flashing diodes, clanking robots, and super-science for your Mutants & Masterminds game. Whether you're a player or Gamemaster, this book is a supermarket of technology just waiting for you to cruise in with a turbocharged shopping cart. However, Gimmick's Guide is more than just a catalog of new devices. Mutants & Masterminds makes designing your own devices a simple process and Gimmick's Guide presents new options and details to give more depth and flexibility to your gadgets.

Chapter One: Characters and Gadgets builds the foundation for creating heroes and villains who use gadgets and devices. It introduces two new powers (Scientific Genius and Spontaneous Inventor), feats for constructs, and expanded options for comic book genius powers like Super-Intelligence and skills such as Knowledge.

Chapter Two: Designing Devices and Gadgets focuses on options unique to devices. Tech templates break devices down into categories, while tech levels allow you to account for the historical era or campaign setting your adventures take place in.

Chapter Three: Technology and the Campaign takes a detailed look at how technology can alter your game and its setting. It gives advice and guidelines for giving the heroes access to technology without overshadowing their powers.

Chapter Four: Gadgets and Gear is the core of Gimmick's Guide. It breaks technology down into a few categories, such as ranged weapons or armor, and gives new powers, extras, power stunts, and other options for them. Each category also lists sample devices to use in your campaigns. Finally, every power from the core Mutants & Masterminds rulebook receives at least one sample device. These devices include background information that shows you how such technology can be used in your game and provides adventure ideas.

Here's a look at the additional options for Super-Intelligence the book offers:

Super-Intelligence

The Super-Intelligence power is a perfect choice for gadgeteers and others who excel at creating devices. These rules expand the scope of this power and give you more options to use it and expand the benefits it offers.

The following new extras and flaws allow you to expand on the options offered by the Super-Intelligence power.

Power Stunts

Extras

Flaws

And here's just a sample of the many new toys you'll find:

Ares Model VII Assassin Robot (Advanced Tech, Construct)

The Ares Model VII robot poses a difficult problem to the world's governments. Over the past few years, several of these constructs have struck at key figures to disrupt efforts to bring about peace and stability in different parts of the world. In South America, a leading reformer who managed to bring the right-wing government and leftist guerrillas to the bargaining table was killed by his trusted lieutenant. In the subsequent investigation, his aide was discovered to be a robot in disguise. The resulting battle leveled several square blocks of the city, and only the timely arrival of the superhero El Caballero prevented widespread destruction. Destroyed in the melee, the robot left behind few clues as to its identity and purpose. A little more than a year later, a similar strike left several American diplomats assigned to Saudi Arabia dead. Again, the killers were revealed as robots and only defeated when local heroes became involved.

Thus far, clues to this robot's manufacturer have been difficult to unearth. Working from the wreckage left behind, the authorities have managed to read some of their programming and determine that the robots are apparently seventh-generation assassin androids from the Ares series. Unfortunately, much of the evidence from both instances was destroyed or stolen soon after it was gathered. Officials suspect that a rogue corporation, a single determined inventor, or perhaps even alien invaders, might gain from fomenting unrest and instability across the planet through the judicious use of these deadly killers.

The Ares Model VII is a top-of-the-line killer. Even in a high tech or science fiction campaign it has unparalleled cognitive and social abilities for an android. Though still beholden to its master, it can operate for extended periods of time without contact. A group with the resources and technical proficiency needed to use an Ares can point it towards its target, sit back, and wait for it to complete its mission. By carefully doctoring the Ares' databanks, its user can ensure that it holds nothing that could trace its origin.

The Ares is impossible to spot by sight. A layer of organic skin, complete with hair, teeth, and eyes, disguises its outer hull. As an intelligent machine, it is capable of observing a target, learning its tendencies, and replacing it for a short period of time. The Ares' preferred method of operations is to insert itself into its target's trusted circle of friends and advisors. Usually, its victim has extensive security measures, but such protections rarely extend to advisors, secretaries, and even bodyguards.

The Ares Model VII incorporates highly advanced servomotors, artificial fibrous muscles, and dense titanium bones that allow it to punch through steel and absorb tremendous punishment. In addition to its combat adaptations, it also incorporates a sophisticated array of movable dermal plates, skin and hair dye dispensers, and configurable eye and voice modules to help it mimic a target. It can even adjust its height to match its target, though its weight remains constant despite its outer appearance. These abilities make it a particularly competent infiltrator and assassin.

Ares Model VII Assassin Robot

PL 14 construct (robot); Init +5 (Dex); Defense 21 (+6 base, +5 Dex); Spd 30 ft.; Atk +8 melee (+10 S/L/5' reach/crit 20, strike); SV Dmg +5, Fort —, Ref +5, Will +1; Str 14, Dex 20, Con —, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 16.

Skills: Bluff +4, Disguise +10, Move Silently +4, Open Lock +4.

Feats: Immunities (due to robot construct–aging, critical hits, disease, energy (cold, heat), exhaustion, poison, pressure, starvation, suffocation), Improved Initiative, Organic Façade.

Powers: Hardness +5 [Source: Super-Science; Cost: 1 pp; Total: 5 pp], Super-Skill (Disguise) +12 [Source: Super-Science; Cost: 1 pp; Total: 12 pp], Super-Strength +8 [Extras: Leaping, Protection; Power Stunts: Lethal; Source: Super-Science; Cost: 6 pp; Total: 50 pp].

Totals: Abilities 87 + Skills 22 + Feats 4 + Powers 62 = Total 175 pp.

The Convention By the Bay

I'm going to be at DunDraCon in sunny San Ramon, California, February 17–20, which will be a pleasant change from all the snow we've gotten here in "sunny" New Hampshire! In addition to wandering around and causing trouble, I'll be giving a "What's New With Green Ronin" seminar Saturday morning and taking part in a couple panel discussions, including how to be a successful RPG freelancer Sunday afternoon. If you're going to be at the con, feel free to drop by and say hello!

Product Update

After Gimmick's Guide to Gadgets comes Lockdown, our super-prison sourcebook by Lucien Soulban. It is through development and we're starting to see concept art, including a great cover sketch by Ramon Perez (of Freedom City and Foes of Freedom fame, among others). We'll have more information and previews coming soon.

Superlink Spotlight: Church and State

This month, the Superlink Spotlight shines on Church and State, an M&M Superlink adventure from Brand's Brand Publications , available in PDF format on RPGNow. Pitting the PCs against the mob, a Marxist revolutionary, crooked lawyers, and the Archangel Mikhael, Church and State is a massive Bronze Age adventure that tears events from the headlines and recasts them into Four Color spectacle. Church and State combines pavement-pounding combat, hard-boiled investigation, and gritty politics in a scenario sure to test the mettle, the morals, and the moxie of your heroes! This adventure is designed to be run in a generic city setting, and will fit into any urban-based campaign. Church and State includes:

• A full-length adventure with a flexible structure that allows PC actions to determine the course of play while still giving ample support to the GM.
• Full-color maps for all-important scenes and locations, including detailed benchmarks for common items found in super-human combat.
• Over 50 new NPCs, including 2 antagonistic heroes, 5 super villains, mobsters, lawyers, and celebrities. Also includes 20 new Supporting Cast archetypes that can be used in any urban adventure.
• A system of Genre Points to give your games a more comic book feel, whether it's Bronze, Silver, or Golden Age.
• A system for Investigation Montages that lets super-investigators strut their stuff with as much detail as they want.

And all this is available in PDF format for only $8.00 at RPGNow.com!