The Secret Origin of... Lux: Lady of Light!

One of the things you'll find in Mutants & Masterminds 2e is an example of hero creation--two of them, in fact. In this installment, we're going to get some additional insight into how a Second Edition hero is made.

Kelly wants to create an energy-controlling heroine for a power level 10 game that's starting up. Looking through the list of powers in the rulebook, she decides she likes the idea of Light Control and starts building a character around that concept. So she begins with her character's powers.

(This is one advantage of the freeform, point-based character creation in M&M: you can start your hero from any point, whether it's powers, skills, feats, combat abilities, or whatever you feel is most important to your concept of the character.)

Powers

Since Kelly wants her heroine to have fairly powerful offensive and defensive powers, she asks for and gets permission from the Gamemaster to lower her heroine's attack and defense limit for the game's power level by 2 points to +8 so she can raise her damage and Toughness limits by the same amount to +12. Based on that, she assigns a rank 0f 12 to her Light Control, for a cost of 24 power points.

Now, Light Control grants the ability to shed light over an area, but Kelly also wants her heroine to have some offensive capabilities. So she chooses some Alternate Powers as power feats of her Light Control. First, the Blast power for a "photon blast." Since Blast has the same cost (2 points per rank), it has the same rank as Light Control (12). She also picks Dazzle (visual) 12, and Dazzle (visual) 8 with the Area extra (costing 3 points per rank, so it has only 8 ranks, a total of 24 points, the same as the cost of her Light Control). The three power feats cost 1 point each, for a total of 3 power points.

Kelly wants to give her character a defensive power as well. Since she needs to be able to use her defenses and attack at the same time, she doesn’t want to make it part of her array of Light Control powers (Alternate Powers can't be used at the same time). She picks a Force Field, a glowing protective aura of light, and assigns it a rank of 12, since she chose to lower her character’s defense bonus limit a bit to raise her Toughness limit. She also applies the Impervious modifier to the Force Field, so it costs 2 points per rank rather than 1, or a total of 24. Kelly has now spent 51 of her 150 starting power points.

To finish off powers, she gives her character the ability to fly, paying 12 points for Flight at rank 6 (allowing her heroine to fly at a speed of 500 miles per hour), and gives her Immunity to light-based attacks and powers, requiring 5 ranks of the Immunity power, and costing another 5 points. That brings her total power cost to 68, leaving 82 power points remaining.

Abilities

Next, based on her heroine's power ranks, Kelly assigns a +8 bonus each to attack and defense, 2 less than their maximum value for power level 10, since she raised her limit on damage and Toughness by 2. That costs 2 points per +1 or a total of 32 points (16 for attack, 16 for defense). She has 50 power points left to spend on abilities, skills, feats, and saving throws.

Kelly goes back and looks at ability scores now. She decides her character has excellent Dexterity, being quite nimble and agile, and assigns a score of 18. She also assigns a Charisma of 16, since she wants her heroine to be a forceful and engaging personality. She puts a couple points each into Strength and Wisdom, putting them at 12, above average, but not extraordinary, and decides her character is of average Intelligence, leaving it at 10.

When she gets to Constitution, Kelly wants to make it better than average, since she sees her character as somewhat tough. The problem is an increase in Constitution will also increase her Toughness saving throw, which is already at its maximum bonus with her Force Field bonus, even with the trade-off from lowering defense bonus. So Kelly decides to lower her Force Field rank to 10, leaving room for a +2 Constitution bonus (a score of 14-15). She then puts the 4 power points she gets back from lowering the Force Field’s rank into Constitution, raising it to 14 (and bringing her Toughness save back up to +12, although now only 10 points of it is Impervious).

With 32 power points left, she looks at saving throws. Toughness is already maxed out. She raises Fortitude to +5 (3 points, plus her Constitution modifier of +2), Reflex and Will to +8 (4 points and 7 points, respectively, plus her Dexterity and Wisdom modifiers of +4 and +1) for a total of 14 power points. She could have raised her saves to as high as +15 each, but that would have left her nothing for skill and feats.

Skills

Kelly looks over the skill list, jotting down skills she thinks her heroine should have. Acrobatics is a must, since she sees her character as quite agile, graceful in the air or on the ground. She puts 8 ranks there. Concentration is another important skill, since it will allow her to maintain powers like her Flight and Force Field if she's stunned in combat. So she puts 10 ranks into it. She picks up 6 ranks of Notice, since it's a handy skill to have and her character is supposed to be perceptive. Bluff goes along with her good Charisma score, and Kelly likes the idea of her heroine being able think fast on her feet. She assigns it 10 ranks. Lastly, she puts 4 ranks in Profession to cover her character's day job in her secret identity.

Kelly adds up all the skill ranks and they come to only 38 total, so she assigns two more ranks to bring them up to an even 40, costing 10 power points. She assigns one more rank to Concentration (making it 11) and one more to Notice (making it 7). Then she notes the skill ranks and adds her character's ability modifiers to them to figure out her final bonuses: Acrobatics +12, Bluff +13, Concentration +12, Notice +8, and Profession +5.

Feats

Finally, Kelly picks out six feats to round out her character’s capabilities: Accurate Attack, All-Out Attack, and Power Attack provide her with plenty of options in combat. Precise Shot allows her to fire blasts into melee easily (ignoring the normal –4 penalty for doing so). Quick Change lets her get into costume (and into action) fast, while Taunt allows for some fun roleplaying as well as giving her an extra edge in a fight.

Final Touches

Adding things up, Kelly finds she has spent only 148 of her 150 power points. Looking things over, she decides to bump her character’s Fortitude save up by 2 to +7, costing 2 more points and bringing the total to 150, the starting total.

Kelly looks over the list of Drawbacks in the rulebook but decides none of them really suit her character. She picks Good as her heroine’s primary allegiance, seeing her as someone who always tries to do the right thing, and considers some suitable Complications for her, including a boyfriend who doesn't know about her double-life and a somewhat doddering scientist uncle who helps her out from time to time (but has a tendency to get himself into trouble as well). Those will help her to earn additional hero points during the game.

She gives her character the name "Lux, Lady of Light," and shows the character sheet and her sketch of Lux's costume to the Gamemaster for approval. She's now all ready to play Mutants & Masterminds and fight the forces of evil!

Lux, Lady of Light

Power Level: 10 (150 power points)

Abilities: Str 12, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 16

Skills: Acrobatics 8 (+12), Bluff 10 (+13), Concentration 11 (+12), Notice 7 (+8), Profession 4 (+5)

Feats: Accurate Attack, All-Out Attack, Power Attack, Precise Shot, Quick Change, Taunt

Powers: Light Control 12 (Power Feats: Alternate Powers — Blast 12, Dazzle [visual] 12, Dazzle 8 [visual, Area])

Flight 6 (500 MPH, alternately choose Burrowing 12 or Swimming 12)

Force Field 10 (Extras: Impervious)

Immunity 5 (light-based attacks)

Combat: Attack +8, Damage +12 (energy blast), Defense +8, Initiative +4

Saving Throws: Toughness +12 (+2 without Force Field), Fortitude +7, Reflex +8, Will +8

Abilities 22 + Skills 10 (40 ranks) + Feats 6 + Powers 64 + Combat 32 + Saves 16 = 150

Next: We look at the limits of a hero's power in M&M 2e with a preview of the applications of power level.