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Superheroine Peril / Mutants and Masterminds

experimenter73

Super-Earth
Joined
Dec 27, 2021
Location
Maine, United States
Basic Concept:

The players would be between 2-4 female college students in a world where superheroes and supervillains are real. They become the newest targets of a strange villain who is infecting people with a serum that gives them strange superpowers. The news coverage of these infecrted people has shown them going crazy and attacking innocent people around them. For some reason, it is different with these heroines.

Despite this, they find themselves hunted by both the government, who fears them, and the villain, who wants to study them.

Themes and Important Elements:

Bondage, Peril, Torture, Torment, Death traps, and wicked predicaments will be the name of this particular game. Their likely failures when faced with the odds stacked against them will see them suffer at the hands of vile people who will delight at their tears and ignore their pleas.

Mutants and Masterminds, 3rd Edition:

Previous knowledge of the game is unimportant. You don't need to own any of the materials. This will not be a game that rewards power-gaming and point maximization. The game itself plays very smoothly and allows for fun super-heroic action. The only challenging part to the learning curve, really, is character creation.

If you've never made a M&M character, then you can just let me know the sort of character you'd like to make and I can do the creation for you and then go over what it all means.

The Heroines:

Your character will be created in two steps. First, you'll need to decide who you were as a regular student on campus. What were you studying? What are your hobbies? How do you dress? What makes you who you are? After all of the characters are created, you can decide if any of you know each other and whether you're friends.

Then, we will create your character's heroic profile. For this, you basically just need to describe what sort of powers you want your character to have. For game purposes, they will be Power Level 7, which is the typical power level of side-kick-type characters. The initial powers should be a little erratic and challenging, but there will be room for these heroines to grow into their potential!

Logistics:

Right now, I am thinking this will be run in a play-by-post system. I am thinking we'll set up two or three days per week to work as deadlines for everyone to post what they will do. That will give us time to contact eachother with questions or coordination between those times. It will make for a slower paced story, but if we each put in a good amount of story with each post, I think it will move forward at a reasonable pace.

But, I'm open to other ideas on that front as well! If we all decide to play live once a week on Discord or something, that could work, too.

Interested?

If you're interested, drop a comment here to let me know your thoughts on how it would run... and, more importantly, let me know about the chracter you would like to play... both as a regular college student and a heroine to be.
 
My power is versatile, I can easily go down the internal chemistry aspect first, I don't have to go brick, I am looking more to body modification rather than human shapeshifter. I just thought with the right application of the body modification I could get to shapeshifter a long way down the road. I do see immunity to poison coming very quickly though, as she could just isolate the compound within herself and change it or purge it. I want the Prehensile hair.
Okay, so here is what I came up with for Becca! I should mention that I am not a prolific character-builder in M&M. For that reason, I'll recommend getting @Evendur 's thoughts on the way I produced the build. I am much more inclined to create the character as I feel it should be, rather than aiming for point perfection, and I can assure you this character would be effective and fun to play as created. But I thought a second opinion might be in order for you!

Becca Harrigan10241024_1.jpg Becca Harrigan10241024_2.jpg
 
I'm about to head to bed, but, I don't think that Chokehold and Improved Grab would work with Affliction. You'd need Additional/Extra Limb to make it it's own limb so it can actually make grab attacks. Otherwise those points could go elsewhere, unless they're from background stuff.

Also, if you can fit it, Cumulative extra can really help with Affliction, as rarely will other supers fail by 3 degrees. At least on my own experience, but that could be confirmation bias.

If you don't expect to need to use Morph and Combat powers at the same time, could Alternate effect it off a more expensive power. That would let you grab cumulative and alternate effect on your Affliction for the Morph. Could represent not being experienced enough to maintain both at once?
 
I'm about to head to bed, but, I don't think that Chokehold and Improved Grab would work with Affliction. You'd need Additional/Extra Limb to make it it's own limb so it can actually make grab attacks. Otherwise those points could go elsewhere, unless they're from background stuff.

Also, if you can fit it, Cumulative extra can really help with Affliction, as rarely will other supers fail by 3 degrees.

If you don't expect to need to use Morph and Combat powers at the same time, could Alternate effect it off a more expensive power. That would let you grab cumulative and alternate effect on your Affliction for the Morph. Could represent not being experienced enough to maintain both at once?
No, the chokehold and improved grab were not meant to work with the affliction. They were there based on the character background as a shipboard wrestler.

All great advice overall! Thank you for sharing and good night!
 
I've got a baseline for a sheet here. I didn't want to put it in the character creation stuff since this is still a baseline, and while I have spent points (maybe?) correctly and to their fullest, I'm probably going to have to lower things nonetheless. This is basically to confirm whether or not I've done things correctly, and if I have things right. Also as a baseline for suggestions. As I said before, I don't intend to play a combat-heavy character, but one suited to skills and infiltration and the like.

In any case, any advice in general is all good, since this is my first time putting stuff together. And as a note, I have costs next to just about everything in parentheses.

And if it helps, my character is meant to be a more standoffish sort of college student, going through the motions of schooling to please her family. Rumors have probably gone out about her because of this standoffishness, but she is generally around in social events, and generally gets invited to more. She does not have a group that she hangs around. She is known to be exceedingly capable in school, and does well in athletic events, though she often doesn't show it off, due to a lack of extra-curricular activity on her part.

Afterwards, she gained the ability to slip through objects, which she has done her best to hide, but stressful situations for her make the power a bit wonky, either making it active, or not work quite as intended. She has been thorough with her testing of the power in secret, and has gained a steadily good use of it through her testing.
Sorry for the delay! I went over your character, and you're right on track with everything except for a couple small corrections.

1. You had 1 point spent on Insight to bring it to level 10 when it should be either level 9 or 1.5 points spent for level 10. Easily fixed!

2. Your Will and Dodge were both at 8. The maximum for PL 7 characters is 7.

3. Your power cost came out different from mine, but I bet I can guess why that is. You probably have more advantages/flaws on your Insubstantial skill that I can't see on the sheet you shared. It only shows as far as Precise.

All in all, well done! I don't think I've seen anyone absorb character creation in this game from scratch so well!

I think you have the character in a great place for starting out, with a lot of fun opportunity for growth ahead!\

Sorry about the delay! Yesterday turned into a busy day for me.

Here's the version I came up with:
 

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2. Your Will and Dodge were both at 8. The maximum for PL 7 characters is 7.

Actually, there's a shared cap of PL x 2 for Fort and Will. Dodge/Parry share one with Toughness. Since they have Fort 6 and Will 8, they are not breaking PL limits. Same with Dodge 8 and Toughness 4.

Core Rulebook, pg 25

Fortitude & Will: The total of your hero's Fortitude and Will defenses cannot exceed twice the series power level.

Dodge & Toughness: The total of your hero's Dodge and Toughness defenses cannot exceed twice the series power level.

Parry & Toughness: The total of your hero's Parry and Toughness defenses cannot exceed twice the series power level.


This is how you get someone like the Hulk, who is super easy to hit, but dang impossible to damage. Same with like Quicksilver, who's super hard to hit, but if you actually land you'll crumple him.
 
Actually, there's a shared cap of PL x 2 for Fort and Will. Dodge/Parry share one with Toughness. Since they have Fort 6 and Will 8, they are not breaking PL limits. Same with Dodge 8 and Toughness 4.

Core Rulebook, pg 25

Fortitude & Will: The total of your hero's Fortitude and Will defenses cannot exceed twice the series power level.

Dodge & Toughness: The total of your hero's Dodge and Toughness defenses cannot exceed twice the series power level.

Parry & Toughness: The total of your hero's Parry and Toughness defenses cannot exceed twice the series power level.


This is how you get someone like the Hulk, who is super easy to hit, but dang impossible to damage. Same with like Quicksilver, who's super hard to hit, but if you actually land you'll crumple him.
Haha! And that is why I’ve never claimed to be an expert on the topic. Thanks for the clarification!
 
No worries. I do agree that the powers look off from what we can see, Since Continuous Insubstantial 4 should only cost 24pp, and with the other powers, 29pp total. So, there's another extra we're missing. Possibly Selective.
 
So, I decided to throw my own mock up for together for "The Harbinger", just to give a different take on it. I wasn't sure if "looking like an animal" would fall under "physical traits possessed by animals" so, I added an alternate effect of Morph 3 on the Animal Mimicry power. I used the Check Required flaw as I figured, you could use a hero point to make it succeed automatically if needed, (min result on a re-roll would be 19), and as it's -1pp/point of DC, would be easy to slowly buy off over time, indicating a growing familiarity with the power. You could even make the check harder if you wanted to start, and give yourself more points for stuff. I left it as being a 50/50 shot on the dice normally.

The book and I do recommend that if you're going to use Variable, to have a few standard sets of powers already written up when playing to save time (which I could help with if needed). One of them could be defaulting to mimic-ing an octopus or squid to have prehensile hair. So you'd have that, but also have the ability to mimic other things on the fly.

Hair would probably look like:

Octopus Hair
Extra Limbs (1pp/rank) 8 (8pp) - Prehensile Hair
-Extra: Sustained (+0pp/rank)
Enhanced Strength 4 (8pp)
Elongation 1 (1pp)
Movement 1 (2pp)
-Swinging
Affliction (Impaired, Disabled, Unaware; 1pp/rank) 6 (6pp) - Ink Blot
-Extra: Alternate Save (Dodge) (+0pp/rank)
-Extra: Cumulative (+1pp/rank)
-Flaw: Limited to Visual Senses (-1pp/rank)

Name: Becca "The Harbinger" Harrigan
PL 7 (105pp)

Abilities (46pp)
Strength3
Stamina7
Agility3
Dexterity1
Fighting4
Intellect0
Awareness3
Presence2

Skills (20pp)
Expertise [Biology] (Int)+88
Expertise [Fishing] (Int)+88
Expertise [Mathematics] (Int)+88
Expertise [Prosthetics] (Int)+88
Vehicles (Dex)+98

Advantages (12pp)
Chokehold, Close Attack 3, Connected, Diehard, Great Endurance, Improved Grab, Instant Up, Jack of All Trades, Power Attack, Weapon Bind

Powers
Variable (Physical Traits; 7pp/rank) 5 (21pp) – Animal Mimicry
Gives a pool of 5 x rank to spend on powers. Standard Action to change powers.
-Alternate Effect: Morph 3 (Animals) (1pp)
-Flaw: Limited (Only traits possessed by animals) (-1pp/rank)
-Flaw: Check Required (DC 18 Expertise [Biology] Check) (-9pp)

Combat
Attack +0 (Melee +7, Ranged +3); Initiative: +3; Hero Points 1

Defenses (1pp/rank)
Dodge (Ranged Defense): +5 (2pp), Parry (Melee Defense): +7 (3pp), Fortitude: +7, Willpower: +6 (3pp), Toughness: +7

Complications
Family Criminal Background
Religious Code
Motivation (?)

Cost
Abilities 43 + Skills 20 + Advantages 12 + Powers 22 + Defenses 8 = 105
 
Yeah, I had Reaction on Insubstantial, as well as Continuous and Subtle 2, but I think that was still the wrong cost. Reaction wouldn't make sense for someone who just gained their power, so I was going to be taking that away. I think Subtle and Continuous would be reasonable to keep as hangers-on. This would bring it up to 27 PP

I put another PP into skills for both the Insight error, and to bump Sleight of Hand up to +10

I might put those defenses down anyway since there'd be no particular reason my character should be especially good at fights. It would make more sense for them to be lower, especially since combat is both not where she excels, nor wants necessarily to be a part of.

Putting those back to Dodge 6 (-2) and Will 7 (-1) puts me at 101 PP. I was thinking of taking Quickness for Mental tasks only, but I'm not sure how the cost for that works. It's 1 PP per rank, but limiting it to only mental reduces it by 1 PP per rank. I assume this doesn't mean I can just go infinite on it, but I don't know what my upper limit is.

In either case, thanks for the look over! I edited that first sheet I posted with the changes I've listed here.
 
And, with that, I've edited the sheet to account for the rest of my PP. I edited the powers section to make it easily readable, and increased senses, since I think it's likely she'll need to be sneaking around in dark places. I would have picked Quickness for mental activities, but it seemed a bit out of the wheelhouse. I'll be putting the Sheet and Non-Heroic Character info in the Character Thread as well.
 
Looking at everyone else's sheets I figured out I was doing something wrong with Sublime, so I reworked some things to get closer to what I had actually been planning.

Basically dropped the 16 pt Ice Aura that I had completely misunderstood; spent about 5 fixing the Lightning Powers to actually be ranged and not melee attacks; spent another 4 to add Flight and the rest on a handful of skills, the Fascinate(Dance) advantage and improving the critical on the lightning blast.

Maybe I can restore the cold aura later, but it seems very expensive in this system to do anything worthwhile with auras.
 
In my experience, Auras are a mixed bag. They are neat, but unless they are Subtle, everyone can see you wreathed in energy and just use ranged attacks on you instead.

Unless you happen to fight a lot of people that simply don't have ranged attacks, you're better just linking a Damage (Cold) effect to your Unarmed or melee weapon attacks. So that you hit both for weapon damage and cold damage if you want that, since a lot of the time, that's all the Energy Aura equates to anyways.
 
Well we are pretty low level starter heroes, we may grow into having things like the auras. I know I have plans for what Addison/Crimson Claw develops as she goes on.
 
Yeah, when I got the numbers right I realized to actually make an aura that required respect even from Minions (and didn't hurt my friends) I'd need to go 40 points in, and like you said, then they could just shoot instead.

Since Sublime already has range of her own, I figured flight was a much better way of keeping minions from melee than the aura. And it only costs 4 ;) The extra points let me go Penetrating 6 and improve the crit range to 18-20 on the lighting blast, which tied in more with what I was trying to do anyhow: I wanted cold to weaken/debuff and lightning to pierce.

Besides she still has Environment Control for making the area cold. And yes, she remembered Selective. 🥶
 
Well, I was saying Auras aren't really worth it, in general. I do have plans for Flexibelle as well, though, most of it is just spending points to meet caps. Not sure what new things I might add, if any occur.

That's one way to give someone the cold shoulder, lol.
 
I’m considering taking a minion power or advantage as time goes on. Battle mount seems like a fun thing to have. But that’s for the future. Planning to have her imbue her pet with power and it turns into a big armored version of itself much like she does. Lol
 
I did find range to be a bit amusing, it's so over-the-top or nothing. 1 point/rank in increased range and my attack shifts from melee to as much as 700 feet (granted with a -5, but still). I'm not really sure I can see my targets at 700 feet. Maybe if it's an invading alien spaceship or something.
 
I did find range to be a bit amusing, it's so over-the-top or nothing. 1 point/rank in increased range and my attack shifts from melee to as much as 700 feet (granted with a -5, but still). I'm not really sure I can see my targets at 700 feet. Maybe if it's an invading alien spaceship or something.
Yes, that’s why it’s coming to take range to make an attack ranged and then multiple ranks of reduced range to bring it back down.
 
So, I decided to throw my own mock up for together for "The Harbinger", just to give a different take on it. I wasn't sure if "looking like an animal" would fall under "physical traits possessed by animals" so, I added an alternate effect of Morph 3 on the Animal Mimicry power. I used the Check Required flaw as I figured, you could use a hero point to make it succeed automatically if needed, (min result on a re-roll would be 19), and as it's -1pp/point of DC, would be easy to slowly buy off over time, indicating a growing familiarity with the power. You could even make the check harder if you wanted to start, and give yourself more points for stuff. I left it as being a 50/50 shot on the dice normally.

The book and I do recommend that if you're going to use Variable, to have a few standard sets of powers already written up when playing to save time (which I could help with if needed). One of them could be defaulting to mimic-ing an octopus or squid to have prehensile hair. So you'd have that, but also have the ability to mimic other things on the fly.

Hair would probably look like:

Octopus Hair
Extra Limbs (1pp/rank) 8 (8pp) - Prehensile Hair
-Extra: Sustained (+0pp/rank)
Enhanced Strength 4 (8pp)
Elongation 1 (1pp)
Movement 1 (2pp)
-Swinging
Affliction (Impaired, Disabled, Unaware; 1pp/rank) 6 (6pp) - Ink Blot
-Extra: Alternate Save (Dodge) (+0pp/rank)
-Extra: Cumulative (+1pp/rank)
-Flaw: Limited to Visual Senses (-1pp/rank)

Name: Becca "The Harbinger" Harrigan
PL 7 (105pp)

Abilities (46pp)
Strength3
Stamina7
Agility3
Dexterity1
Fighting4
Intellect0
Awareness3
Presence2

Skills (20pp)
Expertise [Biology] (Int)+88
Expertise [Fishing] (Int)+88
Expertise [Mathematics] (Int)+88
Expertise [Prosthetics] (Int)+88
Vehicles (Dex)+98

Advantages (12pp)
Chokehold, Close Attack 3, Connected, Diehard, Great Endurance, Improved Grab, Instant Up, Jack of All Trades, Power Attack, Weapon Bind

Powers
Variable (Physical Traits; 7pp/rank) 5 (21pp) – Animal Mimicry
Gives a pool of 5 x rank to spend on powers. Standard Action to change powers.
-Alternate Effect: Morph 3 (Animals) (1pp)
-Flaw: Limited (Only traits possessed by animals) (-1pp/rank)
-Flaw: Check Required (DC 18 Expertise [Biology] Check) (-9pp)

Combat
Attack +0 (Melee +7, Ranged +3); Initiative: +3; Hero Points 1

Defenses (1pp/rank)
Dodge (Ranged Defense): +5 (2pp), Parry (Melee Defense): +7 (3pp), Fortitude: +7, Willpower: +6 (3pp), Toughness: +7

Complications
Family Criminal Background
Religious Code
Motivation (?)

Cost
Abilities 43 + Skills 20 + Advantages 12 + Powers 22 + Defenses 8 = 105
I feel this is a bit closer to the idea, though I see a definite foundation from the one built by Experimenter73. Though I want the hair continuous and separate, Please.

I want to give a better understanding of the prehensile hair idea. Her discovery of her hair power is going to be as she rushes to get ready for some important event, she dashes into the shower and as she dresses afterwards, she has to brush her teeth and do her makeup, fix her hair and adjust her blouse, and she freezes as she sees herself in the mirror, her hands adjusting her blouse, a thick band of hair working a toothbrush, while another strand of her hair is putting on eyeshadow and another lipstick, the towel is being hung up by yet another strand, while the rest is working itself into an intricate braid. Or something like that. I think precise, multiple actions is more where I was going with this, though being able to elongate and strengthen it to grapple would be a nice add on later if I can't start with it. Mobility was never a thought, though I like the idea and if we can keep the points to make it happen great. This could be her only power to start with or some strength enhancements or such.

Variable sounds closer to what I was thinking, and yeah mostly chitin armor, scorpion tail, cat's claws. Running on all fours like a cheetah for extreme bursts of speed, mimicking a flea's leg structure for jumping several stories vertically. I really see things like wings needing to grow to, that is actually adding limbs, not adjusting them. As I don't see her giving up her hands to make wings of her primary arms. Perhaps a limiter that I can only make 2 mods at a time, like ant strength and armor. One that I can buy off at a later date.
 
I feel this is a bit closer to the idea, though I see a definite foundation from the one built by Experimenter73. Though I want the hair continuous and separate, Please.

I want to give a better understanding of the prehensile hair idea. Her discovery of her hair power is going to be as she rushes to get ready for some important event, she dashes into the shower and as she dresses afterwards, she has to brush her teeth and do her makeup, fix her hair and adjust her blouse, and she freezes as she sees herself in the mirror, her hands adjusting her blouse, a thick band of hair working a toothbrush, while another strand of her hair is putting on eyeshadow and another lipstick, the towel is being hung up by yet another strand, while the rest is working itself into an intricate braid. Or something like that. I think precise, multiple actions is more where I was going with this, though being able to elongate and strengthen it to grapple would be a nice add on later if I can't start with it. Mobility was never a thought, though I like the idea and if we can keep the points to make it happen great. This could be her only power to start with or some strength enhancements or such.

Variable sounds closer to what I was thinking, and yeah mostly chitin armor, scorpion tail, cat's claws. Running on all fours like a cheetah for extreme bursts of speed, mimicking a flea's leg structure for jumping several stories vertically. I really see things like wings needing to grow to, that is actually adding limbs, not adjusting them. As I don't see her giving up her hands to make wings of her primary arms. Perhaps a limiter that I can only make 2 mods at a time, like ant strength and armor. One that I can buy off at a later date.

Yeah, I kept experiementer73's main build and just adjusted a few things. Like, giving Close attack instead of the Close Combat skill, since CC (Unarmed) wouldn't apply to attacks with Tiger Claws, or a Shark's Bite for example.

We can try that, though, we'll likely have to take points away from Variable. We'd have to see if @experimenter73 thinks that flaw is enough of a flaw for a drawback. If I have to pull a rank out of Variable, you'll only have 20pp anyways.

How many limbs do you want to be able to make from your hair? If you want them to be Continuous, it costs 2pp/limb. Taking 1 rank from Variable power would let you buy 3 of them.
 
Yeah, I kept experiementer73's main build and just adjusted a few things. Like, giving Close attack instead of the Close Combat skill, since CC (Unarmed) wouldn't apply to attacks with Tiger Claws, or a Shark's Bite for example.

We can try that, though, we'll likely have to take points away from Variable. We'd have to see if @experimenter73 thinks that flaw is enough of a flaw for a drawback. If I have to pull a rank out of Variable, you'll only have 20pp anyways.

How many limbs do you want to be able to make from your hair? If you want them to be Continuous, it costs 2pp/limb. Taking 1 rank from Variable power would let you buy 3 of them.
Three sounds great, would each count as a hand as far as precision work, i.e. could two type on a keyboard while the other applied lipstick? Would I need something extra to do multiple actions at once, as in apply lipstick, turn pages, work a wrench, while my hands did something else?
 
The GM may require you to add the precise extra, not sure.

Not really, as that would all be RP stuff. Extra limbs doesn't grant extra actions in combat.
 
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