All Those Marvelous Toys: Devices

From blaster rifles to anti-gravity belts, teleportation rings, and battlesuits, heroes and villains develop all manner of gadgets. Villains are forever coming up with doomsday machines and fiendish deathtraps while heroes use devices to aid them in their fight for justice.

Mutants & Masterminds 2e offers players plenty of new toys. Chapter 7 of the book is all about various devices and equipment. In this preview, we take a look at devices, which characters acquire through the Device power:

Device

Type: General
Action: Reaction
Range: Personal
Duration: Permanent (Innate)
Cost: 3-4 points per rank

You have a device—an item giving you certain powers. The device might be a piece of super-science technology, a magical artifact, or a focus of cosmic power. Each rank gives you 5 power points you can use to purchase the device's powers. So long as you have the device, you have access to its powers. You cannot use points from a Device to buy another Device. Although the Device itself is permanent and innate, the powers granted by the Device may or may not be, depending on their duration.

The cost of a Device depends on how easily you can lose it. For 4 points per rank, the device is hard to lose: it can only be taken away from you while you are helpless. For 3 points per rank, the device is easy to lose: it can be taken away from you with a successful Disarm action. An item that cannot be taken away from you at all isn't a Device, just a power descriptor. For example, a bionic arm may grant you Super-Strength, but since it can't be taken away, it doesn't count as a Device.

With the GM's permission, you can split power points from this power into several different devices, so long as they can all be taken away from you in the same manner. It's harder to take away all of your devices, but easier to take away their benefits one-by-one.

When you acquire a device choose whether strain of extra effort applies to you or the device. If it applies to you, follow the normal extra effort rules. If it applies to the device, using extra effort to enhance the device's traits places stress on its construction or systems. A "fatigued" device suffers a –1 modifier to all power ranks. An "exhausted" device suffers a –3 modifier to all power ranks, and a device pushed beyond exhausted stops working altogether. The modifiers last until the device is repaired.

Power Feats

• Restricted: Only certain people can use your Device. It might only work for members of a particular bloodline, people with extraordinary (20+) Strength or Wisdom, only women, and so forth. For everyone else, the Device has no powers at all. If you apply this feat twice, only you—and no one else—can use your device. It can be taken away, but not used against you.

Devices

While devices are typically creations of advanced science, they don't have to be. Many heroes and villains have magical devices such as enchanted weapons and armor, magical talismans, wands and staves of power, and so forth. Some devices are products of alien technology so advanced they might as well be magical, or focuses of cosmic power beyond the understanding of both magic and science. All devices work the same way in game terms, regardless of their origin or descriptors.

Just like other powers, devices cost power points. Characters who want to have and use a device on a regular basis have to pay power points to have it, just like having any other power. The device becomes a part of the character's abilities. If the device is lost, stolen, or destroyed, the character can replace it, given time, since the device is considered a permanent part of the character. Only a re-allocation of the character's power points will change this, and Gamemasters should allow characters to re-allocate power points spent on a Device if it is somehow permanently lost.

In other cases, characters may make temporary use of a device. Most devices are usable by anyone able to operate them, in which case characters may loan devices to each other, or may pick up and use someone else's device (or even steal a device away from someone in order to use it against them). The key concept here is the use of the device is temporary, something that happens during a single encounter or, at most, a single adventure. If the character wants to continue using the device beyond that, he must pay power points to make the device part of his regular abilities. Otherwise the GM can simply rule that the device is lost, reclaimed by its owner, runs out of power, breaks down, or whatever, and is therefore no longer accessible. Characters with the Inventor and Artificer feats can also create temporary devices for use in an adventure.

Gamemasters may require characters to spend a hero point to make temporary use of a device that doesn't belong to them. This helps to limit the loaning and temporary use of devices.

Under the Hood: Devices vs. Equipment

There's a fine line between devices and equipment. The primary differences are devices are part of the character's abilities, they grant traits beyond the capabilities of normal equipment, and they're only ever lost or taken away temporarily. If an item is integral to the character's concept or abilities, it's probably a device. Equipment, on the other hand, is limited to fairly "mundane" things, can be taken away or even destroyed with impunity, and merely supplements the character's traits. Equipment doesn't grant "powers" per se (although equipment does provide certain effects similar to powers). Here are some examples of devices vs. equipment:

• A high-tech suit of powered armor. Device.
• A utility belt full of items like grapple lines, handcuffs, pepper spray, and throwing weapons. Equipment.
• A sword or other mundane melee weapon. Equipment.
• A magical weapon able to slice through tank armor. Device.
• The character can summon weapons out of thin air. These weapons never run out of ammo and vanish when taken away from the character, who can summon another weapon as a free action. Neither. This is just a descriptor for various attack effect powers. Since the "weapons" can't really be taken away, they're not Devices or Equipment.
• The character wears a cape allowing him to glide on air currents. Device.
• The character has a commlink installed in her costume. Equipment.
• The character has an implant allowing him to "hear" radio waves. Neither. Although it has a technological descriptor, the implant can't be removed without surgery, so it isn't a Device or Equipment. The same is true of devices like bionic claws or other implants.

Ultimately, it is up to the Gamemaster whether or not a particular item is considered a device or equipment, depending on the nature of the campaign and the characters.

Next: We go from super-devices to all the various kinds of equipment Mutants & Masterminds characters may have.