Four-color, starting at high street level (PL 8) and moving to super-powered (PL 10). The PCs are all brought together by a religious event and are led to fight organized crime, drug dealers, and the like in Freedom City, but soon start coming up against supervillains and become major players in the superhero community.
You will start at PL 8 (120 PP). You should target having about 3/5 of your character's Power Points (90) in superpowers and 2/5 (60) in everything else when you hit PL 10. You should use at least 1/10 of your PP on skills unless you have some very convincing reason why not. Please note that anyone deliberately neglecting any certain area to min-max will certainly feel the bite of it in later gameplay - in my games, all ability scores are equally important, there's ample need to use skills, etc.
Try to diversify some and not max everything out. I'll have questions if all your powers are rank=PL, for example - you should generally have one power at your PL and others should be lower. See the sample hero archetypes at http://www.mutantsandmasterminds.com/files/heroarchetypes.pdf for guidance on what you should be generally looking at expenditure-wise.
All official errata and FAQ clarifications from the Web site (http://www.mutantsandmasterminds.com) will be used.
Here's the chart to replace Table 1-2 (p.21) in the book:
| Attribute | Cost | Base | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attack | 3 PP/+1 | 0 | PL-3 |
| Defense | 2 PP/+1 | 10 | 10+PL-3 |
| Abilities | 1 PP/+1 | 10 | 20 |
| Skills | 1 PP/+2 | 0 | PL |
| Feats | 2 PP each | - | None |
| Superpowers | PP cost varies | 0 | PL |
Q: Why the lower maximums?
A: For good or ill, every published super in M&M products doesn't have their stats min-maxed. No one has attack or defense equal to their PL. In addition, M&M is balanced very strongly around PL 10 - it starts to have trouble at much higher or lower levels. It'll also lower the "mook chewing factor" at PL 8.
If your character has a single very clear specialty where it makes sense to exceed these maximums (e.g. "I am the SkillMaster!"), we can discuss it.
Q: Why the lower skill point cost?
A: Skills were too expensive in core M&M (1 PP/1SP). Some people use 1PP/3SP, but that's a little much IMO so I split the difference.
I will review all flaws on powers. Questionable cases will not be allowed (like Full Effect Only on an Energy Blast). It has to be a real flaw that will hinder use of the power as much as an extra enhances it. Flaws will be used in-game - the Device flaw isn't a freebie, your stuff will get busted up. If you want something to never be lost, don't Device flaw it, just make it a super-science superpower. It can look exactly the same to the eye of the beholder. Don't overuse flaws - if every power you have has a flaw, I will review your character closely and disallow any cheese-weaseling. The same goes x10 for Weaknesses. If you have a Weakness, it will be used in nearly every game session, maybe every other one. Don't plan on more than one Weakness; I'll consider more on a case by case basis but will discourage it.
Rapid Shot, Multifire, Autofire, and Multishot extras and feats are all eliminated (see http://www.greenronin.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4310 for why). In their place is the following extra.
Extra Attack
This extra allows you to one extra attack per a round with the power to which it's applied, at a total penalty of -2 to hit per attack on all the attacks. You may take this extra multiple times on a given power. For example, if you have 3 Extra Attack extras on an attack power, you can make up to 4 attacks at -8 to hit on each attack in a round.
The Endurance feat is changed.
Endurance
This feat causes a single heroic effort taken by a character to not automatically cause them to become fatigued. This ability may only be used once per game session.
The Penetrating Attack feat is changed.
Penetrating Attack
When an attack with Penetrating Attack is used on a target with Protection, the Protection still reduces the damage save DC as usual, but the target has to make the damage save regardless of the damage bonus of the attack.
The Protection ability is changed.
Protection
This only makes a character totally immune to attacks with a damage bonus 3+ points less than the character's rank in Protection. So Protection 6 makes a character invulnerable to standard assault rifle fire (+3 damage bonus).
The campaign will be set in Freedom City - here's a super quick overview and timeline. Freedom City is a large city on the northern Atlantic coast of the US. In general this M&M campaign world is equal parts classic DC and Marvel. You will note many things in Freedom City that have direct analogues to those milieus. It's very four color, and is essentially a cross between Metropolis and Marvel's NYC.
The first costumed heroes appeared during American Revolutionary times - a mysterious young woman known as Lady Liberty and some others. The first real "superhero," however, was the Centurion, whose life pod arrived on Earth in 1918 (Superman). During the '20s and '30s others sprung up - the Bowman (Batman/Green Arrow), Midnight, the Freedom Eagle, and Johnny Rocket (Flash).
When WWII broke out, a strange man named Doctor Tomorrow appeared from the future with warnings of the Axis threat. A group called the Liberty League (Justice Society) was formed to fight the war on the side of the Allies. A new Lady Liberty arose during this time, but this one was more properly super-powered (Wonder Woman), along with the Patriot (Captain America) and Siren (a female Sub-Mariner/Aquaman). The Crime League, the first supervillain group, was founded.
Over the next two decades ('50's-'60's) many superheroes retired and McCarthyist activites forced the Liberty League to break up (as happened to the Justice Society). In 1960, Hades (yes, the god) and an army of undead invaded Freedom City, requiring a number of old LL members and some new, including Daedalus (Irom Man), the Raven (Batman), and a second Bowman, to repel them. They then formed the Freedom League (Justice League), the LL technically still being illegal. The Atom family (Fantastic Four) showed up, bought a building, and started being, well, Fantastic Four-ish. The interstellar Grue Empire then causes them trouble (Skrulls). The government formed AEGIS (S.H.I.E.L.D.) as an anti-superhuman force.
Then, in the '70's and '80's, things got much grittier; Bowman and Arrow (like Batman and Robin with a side dish of Green Arrow) retire and/or die from alcohol and drug abuse, Lady Liberty and the Raven got old and retired. New heroes fought a gritty vigilante war, sometimes using lethal force, against organized crime, serial killers, and Satanic cults. As a result in 1984 Franklin Moore was elected mayor on a platform of zero tolerance for vigilatism, and supers were made illegal. Most went underground or left (Centurion moved to another city and the FL disbanded). The third Arrow became Archer (Nightwing) and started a group of sometimes-brutal young heroes called FORCE Ops (Teen Titans) to combat crime and the major's crooked politics.
In 1992, Michael O'Connor is elected mayor; he's a good guy that begins to rebuild the people's faith in their leaders. A year later, Omega (Darkseid/Doomsday), overlord of the Terminus (alternate plane), invades Earth via Freedom City, resulting in a massive battle during which Centurion sacrifices his life to defeat Omega and send him back to the Terminus. Many other heroes are lost, and the remaining bits of FORCE Ops disbands. A strange figure known as Doctor Metropolis appears in the aftermath (Vision?) Anyway, the Moore Act is repealed and a new Freedom League is formed. The Atom Family and FL settle down into a Fantastic Four/Avengers type of relationship, both have their HQs destroyed by various threats (Factor Four, the Crime League). The Next-Gen (New Mutants) are formed from students of the Claremont Academy (School for Mutants). Everyone fights Atlanteans, monsters, and Grue, leading us to the present day of late 2002.
Consists of Captain Thunder (Captain Marvel), Daedalus (Iron Man), Dr. Metropolis (Vision), Johnny Rocket (Flash), Lady Liberty (Wonder Woman), The Raven (Batwoman), and Siren (Sub-Mariner).
The FL serves as the primary ass-kicker of evil for both Freedom City and the Earth; they're getting busy enough with international/interstellar/interdimensional antics that they don't do too much breaking up of bank robberies any more.
Most of the originals are dead or otherwise weird - Dr. Atom (Mr. Fantastic) died but uploaded his brain into a computer at the Atom Building. Currently they're all kids - Maximus, age 18 (Goliath), Tess, age 17, Victoria, age 15, and Chase, age 13. And who can forget Cosmo the Moon Monkey (Gleep), their friend. And Jack Wolf, legal guardian of the 3 young ones. The Atom Family is currently serving more of a smartypants advisor role and is into space and dimensional travel.
Consists of Bowman (the fourth one), Megastar (Colossus), Nereid (the Little Mermaid), Seven (Scarlet Witch), and Sonic (a hip-hop Banshee). They're students at the Claremont Academy and aren't totally supposed to be out there battling evil yet, but do anyway.
There's a a smaller number of common indie heroes, like Eldrich (Doctor Strange) and Foreshadow (mysterious crime-fighter). Superheroes aren't as common as they are in the DC/Marvel universes, but there's still a good number of them.
A supervillain group that is the archenemy of the Freedom League.
The superpowerful villain from an alternate plane called the Terminus who nearly destroyed Earth and who Centurion died smacking back on his last visit.