Every now and then, someone asks on the RPG.net forums…
What’s the best supers game?
and every time the Mutants and Masterminds people come out of the woodwork to tell us that M&M is not a d20 game. It doesn’t have levels, hit points or attacks of opportunity. Now…this last one is a D&D specific thing but Levels and Hit points are a staple of D&D games.
Mutants and Masterminds has ‘Power Level’ which affects the following:
- Attack Bonus
- Defense Bonus
- Save Difficulty
- Toughness Save
- Fortitude, Reflex and Will Saves
- Skill Rank
- Ability Scores
It also tells you how many points you can spend on powers.
Also, on page 25…
As the heroes earn additional power points through adventuring, the GM
may wish to increase the campaign’s power level, allowing players to spend
some of their earned power points to improve traits already at the cam-
paign’s limit. Not raising the power level forces player characters to diversify,
improving their less powerful or effective traits, and acquiring new ones,
but it can make the players feel constrained and the heroes to start looking
the same if it isn’t raised occasionally. Increasing power level by one for
every 15 earned power points is a good rule of thumb, depending on how
quickly the GM wants the player characters to improve in overall power.
Hm, so it has levels, but they’re not used in the traditional way. You start out at a certain level and ideally fight foes of a similar level. It’s a bit like starting out making D&D characters at a certain level so you can play a particular scenario and then never really bothering about the XP thing. I dislike XP systems a lot.
As for Hit Points. It seems it’s true. There’s no Hit Points. There are ‘saves’ against damage ad things called ‘Damage Conditions’ but without buying the book, I’m unlikely to find out what they really mean.
I’m still not struck on the Feats but it has improved since M&M1e. For my money, however, I’m going to stick to trying to use Wild Talents.