Awakening Power (fleshing out a d20/M&M game idea)

[Nick]

Oh don't worry. She's more Ivysaur than a Blood Knight.

[Agita]

She is seen as a strange child, always drawing pictures of flowers and gardens and her playing in them.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

You did click the link in the spoiler, right?

Yes. Your point?

[bearsarebrown]

My vote goes to PL 10. If we start low it'll be easy for us newbies to fall into Chargen traps and have useless supers.

[Agita]

My vote goes to PL 10. If we start low it'll be easy for us newbies to fall into Chargen traps and have useless supers.

There aren't really any big chargen traps in MnM. So long as you meet your combat caps (attack bonus, damage/attack power, defenses), you'll be fine. There are some choices that are mathematically superior regarding attack/damage and Dodge/Parry/Toughness tradeoffs, but none of them are anywhere near "Fireball is awesome" levels, much less Monk-style traps.

[VennDygrem]

@nick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klara_Prast

[Nick]

@nick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klara_Prast

Yup something like that.

[Nanshork]

My vote goes to PL 10. If we start low it'll be easy for us newbies to fall into Chargen traps and have useless supers.

There aren't really any big chargen traps in MnM. So long as you meet your combat caps (attack bonus, damage/attack power, defenses), you'll be fine. There are some choices that are mathematically superior regarding attack/damage and Dodge/Parry/Toughness tradeoffs, but none of them are anywhere near "Fireball is awesome" levels, much less Monk-style traps.

PL 10 also completely goes against "we just learned how to use our powers maybe a year ago" which is how Venn wants it.   

[Agita]

My vote goes to PL 10. If we start low it'll be easy for us newbies to fall into Chargen traps and have useless supers.

There aren't really any big chargen traps in MnM. So long as you meet your combat caps (attack bonus, damage/attack power, defenses), you'll be fine. There are some choices that are mathematically superior regarding attack/damage and Dodge/Parry/Toughness tradeoffs, but none of them are anywhere near "Fireball is awesome" levels, much less Monk-style traps.

PL 10 also completely goes against "we just learned how to use our powers maybe a year ago" which is how Venn wants it.   

Not necessarily, actually. To use a character I made as an example, the girl that found an elemental furnace buried in a mountain in China and got mystical fire powers is still PL 10 by virtue of sheer power, even though she's a rookie at actually using the Fwoosh.

Anyway, it's really up to Venn.

[bearsarebrown]

I'm going to be in and out over the next couple days. Just giving Venn a warning.

[Nick]

Wait wait...so how many have indicated their interest? I note only a Werewolf and my Plant Girl.

[Amechra]

I'm the crazy shy (literally, as in counts as a mental illness) Irish-phenotype Canadian lab reject with uncontrollable shapeshifting and mind reading.

Name of Dana o' Shea. Basically, I (by that, I mean she) spontaneously starts 'twinning' someone she finds more capable to handle the social situations she's in; doesn't help.

[bearsarebrown]

Im thinking magma based logos type. Unsubstantial Body and elemental stuff to blast and control stuff. There is no way to differentiate between Fire and Lava right? Id like some help spending points. Anyone got any ideas?

[VennDygrem]

Try not to get too far ahead of yourselves, but you've all got good starts on ideas. Try to come up with the character first, with personality and some background (though secrets are encouraged too). Your powers are based on your characters' personalities, or at least they advance based on the personalities.

As far as I can tell, the interested:
Nanshork
Amechra
Nick
bears
flay

And Prime keeps chiming in but hasn't expressed actual interest in playing. But there you go.

I ended up getting a bunch of shifts for work, and have some homework to catch up on, so I'll be a little slow progressing on all this, but you guys can keep using this time to develop background for your characters, figure out ideas you might have for them, etc.

By the way, what are you all thinking as far as power origins? Some people have mentioned being one of the "dreaming" while one or two seem to be generally magicless. Again, keep in mind that magicless and "dreamers" can Awaken later, which is especially useful if there's not a whole lot of room for advancement or variety.

[Nick]

Are personalities going to be the only determinative for powers?

[VennDygrem]

No, but they're a strong indicator of how powers develop. It's usually stronger in the case of spells as opposed to other types of powers. The main point is that role playing is important to character development in more than just a metaphorical sense.
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As for fleshing out your character, please be prepared to describe either how your character gained their abilities, or at least how they think they gained them. Certain plot points can be Ret-Conned to further explain the story behind them, so not everything needs to be laid out in fine detail. Also be prepared to describe how gaining this power has altered the character's daily life since gaining it. If you suddenly Awakened, what were the circumstances, and was someone there to give you your spellbook? If you are a shapeshifter who contracted lycanthropy, how and where did it happen?

Try to keep the obtaining of powers as recent as you can justify. You should, ideally, still be getting the hang of this. Most of you won't be aware of the broader Magic World at-large.

Also, do any of you know each other? How old is your character? Where are they from? Do they have friends? Family?

Just some basic questions to drive character development.

[veekie]

Im thinking magma based logos type. Unsubstantial Body and elemental stuff to blast and control stuff. There is no way to differentiate between Fire and Lava right? Id like some help spending points. Anyone got any ideas?

The trick I use is to outline what you are without your powers first, and fill out the stat minimums to match that concept. If you're a teenager, you shouldn't need a lot.

Then determine what powers you want to have, and which of them can be used simultaneously(this is important, alternate powers give you breadth).
Make a note of the Power level caps, and where you want to be shifted(high dodge/parry or high toughness or a balanced mix| high accuracy or high damage) for each power, assign extras and powers to put them where you want the caps to be(using an Accurate power in place of an innately high accuracy, etc).

It'd help if you list out what you can see yourself doing and the base concept.

[VennDygrem]

Ok guys, I realize you need power points in order to really start making your characters, so how about you have 115 pp to start off with? That's higher than PL 7 but not quite PL 8. Most of you ought to be teenagers, so I wouldn't expect incredibly high abilities, and you don't have a ton of Powers yet. I'm still getting the hang of the power points, but that seems roughly appropriate. You're not superheroes, you're more like normal people with a little oomph. That's going to be a lot more oomph as your characters get deeper-entrenched into Plot.

I hope the concept for the game isn't too limiting, especially when considering we're using M&M for the backbone. I know it's built with superheroes and comic books in mind, but think of this game as mimicking "Heroes" more than "X-Men."

[Nanshork]

Because of the way my powers work, are you okay with me just having three different character sheets for each of my forms?

[VennDygrem]

That's fine.

While we're at it, I'm not sure how we're going to handle character sheets. Mythweavers has M&M sheets, but they're for 2e. Do we want to just stick things into similar forms and hope it makes sense? Or perhaps you guys will just have to use textblock sheets for posting in the game forum?

Also, just so we're clear, the game is not set at PL 7 or 8. It's sort of a variable PL. Just try to stay reasonable. When the time comes, I'll take a look at your sheets and try to give feedback if something seems out of line. 115 might actually be a little higher than the intended level of balance I was going for, but we're going to try it out.

[Nick]

I'll be using Hero Lab to make my character. As for character sheet template we'll get to it when we get there.

Clarification. MnM 2ed or 3ed?