Mutants & Masterminds... for a high school setting?

That was actually indeed my plan - all NPCs would be custom designed.
This would make combat irksome without days of preparation but that's where the high school drama comes in. My campaigns tend to develop into massive chatfests, so.

Rules are free here
d20herosrd.com/

For NPCs you can search for Kreuz's thread on the roninarmy forums, thousand of characters made that you can just reskin.

Not that but vehicles and bases are entirely optional
All vehicles and bases are are a collection of stats that say how big it is, what it can do, and how tough it is

If you are going for a highschool setting you might want to check out the Hero High supplement for M&M since it covers teen heroes exclusively

post the pdfs

love super heroes when they aren't sjw bait

Yeah, as others have said vehicles and bases are optional.

More than anything, M&M is a system where you need to lay down the law and not be afraid to enforce it and make sure the GM and the players are on the same page. The first campaign I ran I thought I had made it clear what sort of theme and style I was going for... something somewhere between the classic superhero comics and the MCU in style.

What I got was Angsty Iron Man, Tree Elemental, Literally A God, Dude Tracer, Pyro, and The Ancient Evil Has Awakened.

Others have already told you what to get, so now: what other questions do you have?

What are some benchmarks for character creation? I'm joining a PL 8 high school game in the DCU. I just know that it's recommended that you hit all defense limits.

What are some reasons you get powers in the DCU? In Marvel you could just be a mutant.

That sounds pretty interesting, your original intent not withstanding. Got any stories, mate?

How viable is a grab and chokehold focused powerhouse at PL8?

Have you seen the RPG Masks? It might be something you'd be interested in

>In Marvel you could just be a mutant.
Which is why Marvel > DCU

DC's world building is retarded

Didn't last very long, unfortunately. Plus it was a play by post game. Only lasted about a single adventure before it all faded out. Mr. "An Ancient Evil Has Awakened" was a dude from another continent who decided that he was going to play the evil that brought Rome and other civilizations to their knees and was literally immortal; in function he was basically a duplicator with shapeshifting (Variable) powers.

Mutants technically exist in DC as well, though they're generally referred to as metahumans. Basically though, anything that you could think of that might give you powers (Marvel-specific items aside, of course) could give you powers.

For example - Jay Garrick, the original Flash, got his power through breathing in heavy water vapors - basically boiled deuterium and inhaled the steam and he got speed. Barry and Wally, the second and third Flashes, both got their powers through lab accidents (and then they introduced the Speed Force concept so things got weirder than they were already). Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, has powers from a thing called the Starheart, literally concentrated magic that was turned into a stone and ended up on Earth. All the other Green Lanterns have more technological origins, though there's ancient embodiment beings behind their powers as well though that's a relatively recent (as in, the past ~20 years or so) development.

Lots of alien devices or materials from different planets/space, lots of magic. Origins can be technological, alien, magical, Atlantean... it's pretty wide open.

>alien physiology(Superman,Starfire)
>you have a meta gene(mutants)(the Outsiders)
>Bang Baby(gang fight in Dakota, toxic explosion,people got powers)(Static)
>genetic experiment(Ravager,)
>found a magical artifact(
>some wizard/demon/God bestows their power onto you(Captain Marvel. Amazons in some iterations)
>alien weapon(Nth metal,lantern ring, a Scarab)
>science experiment gone wrong(Captain Atom,Flash)

There's plenty of options.

Don't forget just training really hard until you eventually gain superpowers.

>Energizing Healing
>Costs 2 points per rank if you have energizing only and 3 points per rank without the flaw, can fail unless you invest at least 10 ranks, and requires extra effort when you do to try again. Even if you do succeed, you have to take not just fatigue, but any amount of exhaustion you manage to heal.

>Luck Instant Recovery
>Removes Fatigue, Stunned, and Dazed conditions instantly on reaction
>Costs 1 point per guaranteed use up to half PL
>Profile Profiles also introduces Energizing Healing...that heals Self only, and other powers have a straight up Custom extra that's basically the same thing without the flaw.

I love this system but this always bothered me.

>I just know that it's recommended that you hit all defense limits
A lot of GMs will appreciate if you DON'T do this and actually build to what's appropriate to your character, within reason. There's no real reason for a magician to have maxed Parry, for instance

The only thing you really need to max is toughness, and there are plenty of ways of maxing that without buying Stamina

As someone who has done it before, it's a pretty solid option, if you build for it.

I'm trying to build a bruiser with some grabs and a strength-based coin flick ranged attack.

Two of the other three members have made a shaman and a arcane assassin, so I'm trying to avoid the mage type with a huge array.

If possible I want to add either some inventing, or some super-senses so she's not entirely useless outside of combat.

Any ideas on how to make a character versatile outside of combat? Advantages like beginners luck?

And then the GM starts throwing robots, vampires, and other baddies that don't need to breathe.

I was more grab and stuff, not just grab and choke. The grabbing and pinning ,etc. was pretty effective. But yeah, there ARE ways for a GM to really counter grappling. I'm GMing a game and most of the PCs have some form of grapple effect, so I'm already preparing nefarious things.

Minions that explode?
Robots that shock you when you touch them or shoot out spikes?
Villains that are literally entirely coated in poison?

Well, first, what exactly is the origin of your bruiser's powers? You could go Super-Senses and basically be a "Young Justice" Superboy, essentially a Powerhouse archetype with some supersenses.

Inventing really shouldn't be in the domain of the bruiser unless you give her some good intelligence to back that up.

If the GM is a dick, maybe. A GM who constantly uses enemies that are immune to a character's main gig, that's bad form. But it's easy to go from grab and chokehold to grab and smash. As a character who probably has Super Strength, it shouldn't be out of the purview of that character anyway.

Get some expertises and at least 1 decent interaction skill, that should be enough. Although it'd be useful if you told us more about your concept, as almost anything can be built in M&M

Oh, also connected/contacts/well-informed are all good ideas and are almost definitely going to matter down the line

Only origin I can think of that fits is a particle accelerator accident, I'm not exactly the creative type.

I plan on doing the whole tactile telekinesis thing, with the holding back advantage from Hero High where she goes full Jean Grey with a massive psychokinesis array.

How much intelligence and skill would I need for inventing to be viable. I was thinking perhaps I can do something like a the Beast (Hank McCoy).

>SUFFOCATION
Characters can hold their breath for ten rounds (one minute) plus a number of rounds equal to twice their Stamina. After that time they must make a Fortitude check (DC 10) each round to continue holding their breath. The DC increases by +1 for each previous success. Failure on the Fortitude check means the character becomes incapacitated . On the following round the character is dying. A dying character cannot stabilize until able to breathe again. Heroes with Immunity to Suffocation can go an unlimited time without air.

Would that mean you would have to choke them for 1 minute before they would have to make the resistance checks or do they just go straight into the saves with Chokehold? I assume it is the latter.

I searched online before on this.
It straight to saves from what I've read.

If you're going to go for inventing, you should really have at least a +5 Int bonus, preferably more, and at least 8 ranks in Craft (whatever you're specializing in). Skill ranks max out at 1.5x PL, if I remember right, but at +8 you're already better at Crafting than most adults are at their actual jobs, and you're still just a teen.

However, remember also that crafted items don't last. They're generally one-and-done. The only exception is if you spend points to keep them as equipment or as devices, at which point you're probably adding another power array to your character.

Not him, but Is this for 2e? In 3e all inventing is handled via having the Invention/ritualist advantage and either technology or expertise: magic. Skill ranks max at twice series power level

Both, but it's been a while since I've read either book so my numbers might reflect 2e over 3e.

Basically you need the Advantage to be able to do the crafting, but the skill to actually perform it.

Actually I think it's 10+PL, not twice PL for 3e

We are running 3e for my game.
I think that's the limit with the sum of skills, abilities, and circumstantial modifiers.

What's the difference between a Paragon and a Powerhouse?

Paragons fly and are more superman like? While Powerhouses are more like the Hulk or Thing?

As someone who is going to (hopefully) join a mutants and masterminds game, can you guys recommend some powers for a PL 5 in a setting likeOP describes? A high school for heroics and such. The GM is open to any sort of power within reason, and I'd like some suggestions that are a bit more unorthodox that your standard elemental manipulation, super strength/speed, etc type heroes.

Essentially, yeah. Paragons are your classic flying bricks, while Powerhouses are your classic bruisers - like I mentioned above, Young Justice's Superboy is a classic Powerhouse.

PL5 is ridiculously low - like, that's a lower PL than a SWAT officer according to the rules.

Well he said probably around 5, though I imagine it'll increase over time as the players git gud so to speak.

Saw a PL 5 build for Serval from Kemono Friends, so you can do that if you're a shameless weeb.

don't forget there is also:
>be a new god (Orion the forever people)
>be a new blood (Hitman, DC Hitman not the other one, better suited for compains set in the 90s)
>Amazo virus (a bunch of side characters got powers because of it in post nu52 DC)

Just make sure you have one of the teachers as a villain they have to take down and get an awkward reunion the next day because he's still your chemistry teacher and he's friends with the Superintendent so he gets away with everything as long as he doesn't kill any of the kids.

Also, OMAC, a transhuman from a future dystopia

Make a character who can "see the future" with Improved Initiative, Seize Initiative, Beginner's Luck, Second Chance, Defensive Roll, Uncanny Dodge, and Parry/Dodge as Enhanced Traits, but with a prominent power loss complication

You can try Senses: Precognition but that'd likely get turned down

Get stuff that's not limited to PL, like 20pts full insubstantial.

Not that user, but I prefer starting at PL5 rather than the recommended PL8 or PL10. Especially for a group of players who have never played the game. The game itself already overloads new players with it's many options. Having a limited pool to start with gives them a better base to focus their main set of powers before moving on to supplementary power sets that really don't make a whole lot of sense thematically for the character.

>Mutants & Masterminds
>high school setting
>post the pdfs
sendspace.com/filegroup/U0PbuHRSPX4RmKNSExXhpp7FmoiaXViSzzt9TSX2MQW27hNN2ua4wTEN6Pd3WxSqOMEBLzS82uDC/7FIBcqULQcZgzE/Z7z6cS3SMNkVFADcF9RywvP7UvolCZkEfcrbkZpPwzdTAIRczR0AWXybddqtgjKoM2UB

sendspace.com/filegroup/U0PbuHRSPX4RmKNSExXhpp7FmoiaXViSzzt9TSX2MQW27hNN2ua4wTEN6Pd3WxSqOMEBLzS82uDC/7FIBcqULQcZgzE/Z7z6cS3SMNkVFADcF9RywvP7UvolCZkEfcrbkZpPwzdTAIRczR0AWXybddqtgjKoM2UB

These two pdf boil down the most complex parts of M&M into something more easily understood at a glance. Hope they help.
They are fanmade by a 4channer, but I don't know if there are more in the set or not. If so, I home someone posts them.

Afflictions, how useful are they?
Any guidelines on making one?

Any tips on efficient use of points?
Such as using growth to get Str and Sta.

Afflictions are okay but less reliable than damage. You want them to be Linked to a damage effect or cumulative if your character's gimmick is an affliction. If you want to really dump a lot of points into it, Progressive also does the trick.

>Well he said probably around 5, though I imagine it'll increase over time as the players git gud so to speak.
Talk about a split PL. being young means being inexperienced, not being weak in powers. Like build for PL 4-6, including skill levels and attack rolls for powers, but a powers power level to be 8-10.

I've fucked some player shit with Afflictions at around their PL level too, Disabled and Stunned is a bitch.

You make me sad OP, because you reminded me of the awesome high school geist game i was in a few months back that died on the vine when the GM left us. I loved that game, i put a ton of work into roleplaying and developing npc contacts and it was great and now that it's dead i haven't been able to find a game since.

Good luck with your game though, i'm sure it won't peter out immaturely.

Yeah it's pretty great for what you want to do. Our group is doing this somewhat based on Hero Academia mixed with pockets of high fantasy. My group has this problem where our GM can't say no to op builds that break the game. Our stupid solution was to constantly lower the starting PL until we can't be OP. Our high school game has us starting at PL2 for teens with flawed powers. Which works so far. For perspective the normal is PL8 for masked street level guys who punch crime. Part of the issue is the amount of points you get at PL8 can still make a minor deity with how cheap immortality and space travel are when compared to damaging blasts or force fields. If you can tell your players NO on powers that will unbalance your game you should be fine.

The base and vehicles should not be too much of an issues as that is not required unless where they live has some game mechanic function. You could stat out the school like one, and give it super buses fairly easily. Seeing as not all students drive. That stats for those are a simple shopping list worth of math.

Space travel I get, but how do you run into problems with immunity, immunity toughness half effect?

mediafire.com/folder/026war1l4oo42/Mutants_and_Masterminds

Before anyone asks.

I have a few pointers for you OP. I played in a M&M highschool superpowers setting before and there were things that could have been done so much better.

Firstly, don't make the NPCs overpowered, especially if the grades of the characters are directly related to who the strongest character is.
Secondly, do not have the characters fight each other in a white box. It's a chore and it's not fun if all you're doing is throwing dice at each other until one side falls over unconscious.
Thirdly, have all the players involved in the fight at the same time. It is not fun if you are playing with only one of the players and the others are sitting there with their thumbs up their asses, waiting for you to be finished with combat against one character. No, not even if afterwards it's their turn to fight: they will tune/zone out and you'll have lost them for a good amount of time that you could have spent roleplaying instead of rolling dice with only one other person partecipating in said rolling.
Last but not least, remember that the less introverted players are also there and engage them with your NPCs. There are not as many heartbreaking things for me while I roleplay, as seeing one of the other players be a complete wallflower when their character is not a brooding, angsty asshole: they just need a little push so they can plunge into the roleplay pool aswell. Do it.

Joining a high school game that's set in the US, but I didn't go to high school there. Anything I should know about high schoolin' in the states? Driving at 16, AP classes, no fixed schedule?

Australian here, from what I hear on the news and through media. American HS was just drugs, sex, and getting drunk from vodka via your anus

This. The whole concept of Masks is teenage superheroes.

Watered-downed vodka, or you'll die from anal bleeding.

Yup. Plus it lets you build whatever powers you want, as long as you can describe it well.

Just read about Power Descriptors, and apparently Memes is one of them.

You can build a character that literally uses meme magic in this system.

Or build a character that's immune to memes.

d20herosrd.com/6-powers/descriptors/

School pride is a silly, stupid thing.

There's a general attitude of 'fuck those guys' kinds of rivalries even though school districts are usually just assigned by postal codes.

My high school had a 'long-standing rivalry' with the school in the next town. This meant that we play them every year on Thanksgiving, and that the seniors paint over each other's 'school rocks' in a lame attempt at pranking, just to have each school repaint their rock a few days later.

What is a school rock?

And SPORTS! rivalry especially?

Did you ever hear the tragedy of the man who was immune to memes?
I thought not. It's not a story the Meme Masters would tell you.

A rock at a school.

After Columbine there is at least one armed police officer just walking around. If someone beasts you up you both get in trouble, even if you don't fight back. If the average grade dip too low the school loses funding, so they shuffle classes around to mitigate that.

why is it important?

A very silly tradition that is as silly as it sounds.

A rock, usually the biggest one they found while constructing the school, that typically either sits somewhere near the sports fields, or the front of the school. Tradition will demand that the senior classmen of one of the sports teams have the sole priviledge of painting the rock that year.

It may not be an actual rock or boulder, some school have 'totems' that they paint.

Yes. Even if the school's pride team hasn't won a single game all season for the past 2 years, you bet your ass everyone turns up hyped and ready to win if a big game comes up. ESPECIALLY if its against a rival school.

>be me in high school
>be a super band geek, was drum-major (aka conductor) for the marching band junior and senior year (11th and 12th grade)
>school's footbal team won maybe a total of 4 home games in all 4 years I attended
>still have to be super upbeat and positive around the big games because part of being a drum-major is coordinating the band with the cheerleaders

There's a huge focus on your extra-curriculars. Especially if its something flashy that can get you sweet sweet scholarship money.

You're athletic? Great, do your best to become a pro-level athlete while being a teenager and you can get up to a completely free secondary education.

You're musically inclined? Your shots aren't great, but if you can find a college/university that invests heavily into their sports teams, marching band scholarships are right up your alley.

You're an artist/writer/photographer? If you're planning on going to art school you can probably get a few hundred bucks if you're either mainstream enough to allow for the public to get behind you, or avant-garde/post-modern enough that you can just claim 'you just don't understand ART' at your naysayers.

You're just intelligent with no discernable talent besides studying hard and getting good grades? Hope you know how to suck dick when you're up to your ears in debt and on your knees trying to get financial assistance.

Best bet in game is that the JLA will notice your superheroing and sponsor you?

>driving at 16

Depends on the state. Midwest and West will probably let you do this, especially in farming regions where you've probably been helping to drive a tractor since you were 14. New England means you can only drive if and only if a liscensed person is in the passenger seat. Of course, this rule gets broken a lot.

>AP classes
Only if you're particularly brainy, since they tend to count as college course credit, but they exist. The 70's/80's setup would be Remedial < Normal < Honors, but with the rise of standardized testing in the 80's and 90's, the scale now is Normal < Honors < AP

>No fixed schedule

Doubtful. Your schedule probably is tailored to your extra-curricular classes. The only freedom you might have is a 'Study Hall' period where the teacher is reduced to being a glorified babysitter while the students are supposed to be working. This means the teachers are using the time to catch up on work/have a little downtime, and the students are doing whatever they can get away with.

Like a few anons before me have mentioned, school spirit is everywhere, and just amounts to people shouting "OUR SCHOOL IS DA BEST!" a few times a year. Its not much more than tribalism, but given the US's stance on patriotism isn't too suprising.

Which reminds me; the Pledge of Allegiance will be recited at the start of each school day. Most schools will at least require you to stand, out of respect, but whether or not you say the pledge is up to you (though may earn you some disfavor depending on how patriotic the faculty/other students are).

Everything revolves around sports. Since college level sports are an enormous industry in the US, along with a great opportunity for scholarships in a country where education=debt, most high school students will be involved in at least one sport, even if its as pretentious as rowing. Athletes who can either perform very well in one sport, or perform adequately in multiple sports tend to be the most popular.

Something vital to add to this, from an aborted nightmare of a high school supers game I was in: Remember that this is high school SUPERS. If you want to do high school slice of life with superpowers then tell people that ahead of time, but unless that's what you sold them on you need some kind of superheroic things for the players to do.

I shouldn't have to say this. I thought I'd never have to say this. But apparently that's something which some GMs don't understand.

Maybe? I think a better approach would be that they just try to use their powers around 'mere mortals' to take advantage of the fact.

I mean, a superhero with athletically related superpowers might be tempted to use that advantage, even if it harms other players, because scholarship money is that damn good. If you can lift up a truck with one hand, you'll make an unstoppable defensive player on the football team. If you have super-speed, you don't have to outrun light itself, just the average athletic teenager, so you go join track-and-field. Mentalists can go join the debate team/Model UN (which again, wouldn't land you a full ride, but impressive results in those competitions would surely get you a few thousand dollars off the tuition at an Ivy League school).

In my graduating class, there were a few real, absolute morons who were getting 50-75% of their tuitions covered because they're good football/basketball players. Absolute meatheads otherwise, and they're majoring in 'Communication Studies' (which is an instant indicator of someone riding athletic ability into a university/college) because they can't keep up with anything academically involved.

Literally Boku no Hero Academia?

How would that work?

>Hey Mr. Admissions Man, I'm Corey Cliche
>Hello there young man. I see you have a scholarship of ... $50,000 from the ... from the Justice League.
>Uh, right!
>That's an odd scholarship to get. You wouldn't happen to be a superhero undercover, would you?

I think it would be more a scholarship from the Wayne Foundation or some shit.

Raven a shit
Starfire a best

This is the objective truth

That dude in the back is fucking jacked. no way is that guy in highschool.

It's a super high school

He's Sasquatch-kin.
They got them big bones.

I bet the half-elf with the sword is older.

If your not doing at least some slice of life stuff then the high school setting is pretty superfluous.

Of course, not everyone will be cut out for sports. If you're the artsy-fartsy type, there's theater and assorted arts-and-crafts deals like pottery. If you're a braniac or other leadership type, you've got a few options, the biggest being the National Honor Society (a collective of the most elite brains in the school just sitting around talking about stuff) and Model UN (a high-school mockup of the United Nations where people actually go to state/nation-wide events and represent their "nation").

Growth is expensive no matter what, unfortunately. But that's generally because most comic book characters that have Growth generally have only that - very few have powers besides Growth.

And of course, let us not forget the Student Council: a small elected body of students meant to serve as their overall mouthpiece. The difference is that unlike the idealized Japanese student councils you see in all those anime and manga, the American version doesn't have very much power in the grand scheme of things.

Well, yes. But if you're not doing at least some superheroic things then the supers setting is pretty superfluous.

See; Yeah, those things exist, but unless you're attending a very private school (which, granted, OP's scenario involves), they still aren't as career defining as sports.

Especially NHS, aka the Tautology Society.

Not if you light it to cauterise the wound.

You'll still get academic scholarships out of it. Just because you can't pull a career out of NHS alone doesn't mean you won't have marketable skills.

Do you/can you? I know some people in our model UN got what amounted to brownie points at their colleges for it, but nothing meaningful.

All our NHS (of which I was a member) did was some small-time charity work and some fundraising to cover the costs of our own induction ceremony. I've gotten more opportunities by mentioning helping with sound-engineering type stuff for the school jazz-band.

Like the other user said that stuff is totally optional. I'd say they already have a "base" in the school and you could just explain that "dude you're 16 and in training, you don't have the batmobile you have a used chevy van, but you can paint your logo on the side"