Mutants and Masterminds/Supers General?

Didn't see a thread for this on here, and I'll be joining my first game in the near future. I've got some questions that need answering, but I guess this can also be a catch-all thread for MnM/Superhero roleplaying.

So the game I'm joining is PL8, based on a 'hero school' like the X-Men or My Hero Academia. I've decided to play a gravity-controlling heroine, but don't know enough about the system to say for certain if I'm doing things right.

Specifically for this girl, she has an array of gravity powers that allow her to manipulate the force in an area around herself. She can create an area of supergravity, effectively grabbing people by causing them to collapse under their own weight, or create an area of null-gravity, causing them to float helplessly (both from Power Profiles, so these are pretty cut and dry). She can also focus her field on one target, crushing it (supergravity, minus the area effecct, plus range and damage). I'm considering giving her the ability to fling some jackass into the sky by reversing their personal gravity, but I'm not sure how to do it, or how it would be resisted. I was initially thinking using an attack-modified leap power, but leap specifies that they take no damage when they land, so I dunno.

Also, this being my first time with the system, I'm not sure what I should be shooting for as far as numbers. Optimization is less a thing than it is in DnD, but it's still there, and I've got the 'tism just enough to enjoy doing it. I've maxed out the resistance checks on my gravity field (no attack rolls, so they're maxed at 8), but I'm not sure what I should go for as far as defenses. Should I push for the max (in one or two at least, as maxing all defenses is unfeasible with the amount I spent on attack powers) or go for an all-around decent setup?

For throwing people around making grab or trip actions through Move Object is the usual way.

Most people assume you'll take things that are important to you to their Power Level limits. Defenses are important! Be sure you're aware of the implications of whatever tradeoffs you choose. Maybe your Toughness is way up there with kinetic defense fields or something, but you'll be easier to hit (and non-Damage effects will be easier to use on you). There's nothing wrong with keeping Will and Fort equal, but I usually let comics guide me. If I'm a physically normal person with gravity powers, I'd probably make my Will higher. Leaving a purposefully chosen weakness for yourself to play around is appropriate, and might get you some sweet hero points.

My toughness was going to be higher than human average since exposure to gravity has made the character super-dense (5'6 girl looks physically average but weighs 500 lb), but her main defense was, again, her gravity field bending attacks away and causing projectiles to drop out of the air (Enhanced Dodge and Parry). Will was actually her weak point.

For completeness sake, her other powers include:
-the aforementioned gravity 'shield'
-ranged damage by causing objects to 'fall' sideways at her target (currently simply a ranged damage ability but I might rework it as move object)
-the above as an area by causing debris and such to fall sideways into an unfortunate shlub (ranged cloud area damage, as per power profiles)
-walking on walls by changing her personal gravity
-low-gravity jumping and slow-falling
-effective super strength for lifting by lowering gravity on whatever she's lifting

It seems like you've got things in order and have a relatively believeable character.

How do I make the most unkillable character

I want my superpower to basically just be "doesn't die"

Immortality, Immunity, and Impervious toughness.

Immortality. That's it. Now if you are talking about that in a more literal sense which the character does not die at all, then I would go with Regeneration or Reaction Healing.

If you want to be an asshole about it, you could also use Reaction Teleport. Maybe even make yourself fully Insubstantial.

Remember that Move Object needs to have Damaging if you want to hurt things directly with it.

Immunity to Lethal Physical and Energy damage

It's a large chunk but it makes it impossible to actually kill you, only knock you out. If you also grab immunity to nonlethal of both types you just can't be harmed in any way.

How bad of an idea is having 5 PL10 characters go up against Superman level stats?

Not too terribly bad, depending on how overfluffed the not-Superman is.

You can still throw things at people with Move Object even without Damaging.

How bad would a PL16 that targets Will Defenses be then?

Do one vs one fights against two full characters always last long or is it just the fact I gave the enemy really high toughness/reaction attacks?

If the PL 16 one is throwing around DC 26+ attacks, how long can the PC's survive? If they have a +10 Will, that's pretty good odds of two degrees of failure. If you let this character hit multiple people at once, it could stun-lock the party. As long as it picks one target at a time, it won't be as overwhelming.

What kind of reaction attacks? Those should hardly be the norm. As for length, five rounds is about what I expect if they are just trading hits. If there's Healing or Regeneration, it gets slower. Really high Toughness also slows things down.

Since high Toughness means a tradeoff that makes them easier to hit, being able to hit Fort or Will can make it a faster fight.

Hmm, I see, thanks for the pointers. That explains why the first arena fight I did went so slow.

I should have mentioned that if you're just slugging it out with somebody easy to hit but hard to hurt, you should be using Power Attack. It works whether you're going after Toughness or not, and it can get you over the limit imposed by Impervious.

>it can get you over the limit imposed by Impervious

Hold up, you serious? Impervious is niche enough as is for a playerm that would make not only penetrating pointless, but also Impervious itself.

RAW, yes. I think it is pretty common to house rule that it doesn't. Impervious got nerfed hard going from 2e to 3e, but it could be abused very cheaply. Say your PL 10 hero takes a tradeoff of +5 Toughness and -5 Defense. If that 15 Toughness is also Impervious, nothing ranked 14 or less could affect it. That's pretty cheap for near Immunity to Damage. In 3e, such a build is only immune to effects with rank 8 and below.

I love mutants, my favorite is Toad.

I looked through the book myself, and it says nothing about that outright. I'm not sure that is RAW, as it doesn't say that power attack adds ranks rather than just a bonus.

Here's how Impervious works: "Any effect with a resistance difficulty modifier equal to or less than half the Impervious rank (rounded up) has no effect."

You aren't comparing ranks to ranks, but final difficulty to ranks. So the attacker can power attack, use a team attack, and use extra effort to increase the difficulty to get through Impervious.

Sounds more like a miswording rather than an actual ruling. I mean, Multiattack states that it's plus to damage doesn't overcome impervious, why would power attack's?

To be fair, the book says you can just make an invention as routine, but the gadget Guide I've heard erratas that. There's also a lot of stuff that says through the different books "If it shits up the game, don't allow it", so I guess it doesn't really matter too much.

>Multiattack states that it's plus to damage doesn't overcome impervious, why would power attack's?
Because Multiattack is just that, multiple attacks. Power attack is one attack hitting harder, and "hit harder" is how you overcome Impervious.

Yeahhhhh but swinging your fist harder won't do much against someone who's immune to it entirely in former circumstances, whether you swing it hard or swing it harder.

Except that's exactly how it works. If you've got a rank 10 punch attach and you upgrade it to rank 11 your punch hasn't gained some magical new property, you're just punching harder.

I think you can fluff it however you like. Power Attack can be hitting more good just as much as it is (not) Called Shot.

The latter is correct, to my interpretation. If I have move object 8, I can pick up and throw things as if I had strength 8, including throwing them into people. If I wanted to crush something with my mind, like the supergravity crush in the OP, then I'd need a damaging move object.

Posting in case anybody here finds it useful.

saved, danke.

Either way, interpreting Power Attack that way, even if it's technically hinted, does not give Impervious much purpose, it's half the rank already a little bit too situational as is for the cost it can add up to (although full rank would be just broken, which is why I just use one of the alternate options in the Power Profiles, makes it useful in a broader range without making it gamebreaking).