Ten Ways to Start Playing Mutants & Masterminds Second Edition Right Now

Can't wait for the release of the second edition of the World's Greatest Superhero RPG in September? Neither can we! Unfortunately, since we're still working on the power to control space and time to speed up the process of getting the book finished, printed, and shipped to you, we're going to provide some previews to help tide you over. These previews are going to look at what Mutants & Masterminds Second Edition has to offer as well as the process of designing and producing it.

We're kicking things off with a list of ten things you can include in your Mutants & Masterminds games right now to start getting ready for all the improvements coming in the Second Edition.

1. Power Level

Make power level independent of total power points. The recommended starting power points for player character heroes remain the same: PL x 15. The key difference is your total number of power points doesn't determine what power level you are (and vice versa). Instead, the Gamemaster sets the power level for the game and chooses when to increase it.

Players are still awarded power points for character advancement, but must spend them within the game's power level limit. Increase the power level limit slowly to encourage players to spend their power points to diversify their heroes. Raise it quickly to encourage fast growth in the heroes' main areas of interest. You can even choose to keep it the same throughout the series or ignore the limits altogether!

The power level for villains is determined in reverse: based on where their traits fall in relation to the campaign's power level limits, not how many points they're built on. This gives a truer idea of a villain's power level than point total alone. So you can have PL10 characters with 150 points, as before, but also PL8 characters with 160 points, or PL12 characters with only 120 points (but focused and powerful in particular areas).

2. Attack & Defense

Change the cost of attack and defense bonus to 2 points per +1 and remove all ability score modifiers to them. Strength and Dexterity don't add to attack, and Dexterity doesn't add to defense. Now high abilities don't necessarily equal greater combat skill (although they can, if you choose to buy up your attack and defense in proportion with your hero's abilities). So now it's possible to have a very strong character who isn't all that accurate, or an otherwise normal person with incredible levels of combat skill without superhuman ability scores.

3. Skills

Change skill cost to 1 power point for 4 skill ranks. Maximum skill rank is limited to PL +5 (incorporating the benefits of taking the Skill Focus and Talented feats, which are removed). Now you don't need feats and high ability scores to be skilled, just skills!

The skill list is also simplified. The benefits of the Balance skill are folded into Acrobatics, Forgery becomes a part of Craft, Innuendo a part of Bluff and Sense Motive, Repair a part of Craft, and Science a part of Knowledge. Listen and Spot are combined into Notice and Hide and Move Silently combine into Stealth. M&M 2e has a list of 29 skills rather than 40, although with plenty of sub-skills and specialties to customize your hero.

4. Toughness Saves

Change "Damage Saves" to “Toughness Saves.” This is more in line with the other saving throws, which describe the quality you use to save: your Fortitude resists disease, your Reflexes avoid danger, your Will fends off mental effects, likewise your Toughness reduces damage.

Replace the Evasion feat with a new feat called Defensive Roll. It gives you a +1 bonus on your Toughness save per power point you put into it (did we mention you can buy some feats in multiple ranks now?). The drawback is this Toughness bonus comes from your ability to "roll" with the attack, so you lose it if you're ever unable to move freely to dodge. (The Evasion feat now works like it does in various other d20 games: reducing the effects of hazards where you get a Reflex save.)

5. Abilities

Eliminate super-abilities and add twice their rank to the character's ability scores (which can exceed 20) to get the Second Edition ability score. So Int 20 and Super-Intelligence 8 becomes (8 x 2 + 20) or Int 36. Abilities all cost the same (1 point per +1 ability score point) regardless of how high they are, although you generally can't have an ability bonus higher than PL +5.

An additional benefit of this is ability scores in M&M are the same as in other d20 products (facilitating conversion and allowing you to use other game materials with M&M more easily).

Some high ability scores are Enhanced Abilities, powers rather than natural or innate abilities. We'll take a look at the difference between enhanced and innate abilities in a future column.

6. Super-Feats

Eliminate Super-Feats and make all existing Super-Feats into powers costing 1 point per rank. Now feats are feats and powers are powers.

7. Powers

Eliminate powers as extras of other powers. All powers must be bought independently with their own extras, flaws, and power feats. Mutants & Masterminds also greatly expands and refines powers, as we'll see in an upcoming column.

8. Power Stunts

Change "power stunts" to "power feats." The term "power stunt" is reserved for a power feat performed using extra effort (that is, a true stunt, and not a capability a character normally has).

9. Extra Effort

You can't add extras to powers using extra effort. You can, however, still do power stunts, including an alternate version of a power with an extra added to it. So, while you can't add the Area extra to your Energy Blast power any more, you can do a power stunt that's Energy Blast with the Area extra. Since power stunts have to be the same cost as the base power, your Area Energy Blast will have a lower rank than your normal Energy Blast, but you can still do it.

You can use extra effort to get a new saving throw against an ongoing effect like Mind Control. We call these "lasting effects," a new type of power duration, which we'll talk about in a future column.

You can use extra effort to get an extra action, before or after your normal actions. (This replaces the Heroic Surge feat, which basically becomes something everyone can do by spending a hero point.)

10. Hero Points

If a re-roll from a hero point is 10 or less, add 10 to the result, and use the better of the two rolls. So if you roll a 17, spend a hero point to re-roll and roll a 9, add 10 to it for a result of 19. On the other hand, if you'd rolled a 14 on your second roll, you wouldn't add anything and you could still use the 17.

You can spend a hero point to perform a heroic feat: one use of any feat you don't normally have. This opens up a tremendous range of "maneuvers" for heroes, one-time tricks and stunts they can pull off at the cost of a hero point.

Heroes start out with 1 hero point each at the beginning of a game. Use the system for awarding hero points in the M&M Annual #1 to give players additional hero points as their heroes face and overcome challenges, deal with complications, and generally play well during the adventure. Toward the climax of the adventure, they'll have the hero points they need to trounce the villain.

Next: We create our first Mutants & Masterminds 2e hero. Drop by for the Secret Origin of... the Sentinel!