What they Don't Tell you about Power Level

Ah Power Level. The system says that PL 3 is about the power level of normals, PL 5 is something like batman, while superman is closer to PL 15, right?

Well here's a well kept secret- Power Level is a punishment, not a reward!


We've been conditioned by games like Final Fantasy, and even Dungeons and Dragons to tell us that your character's level is a measurement of his progression.

The difference in Mutants and Masterminds is that power level is completely irrelevant! It affects saving throws and NOTHING ELSE!

When building a starting character, your starting PL controls the amount of power points you have, but only powers with saving throws are limited by power level. Teleport, Flight, Immunity, Regeneration, these are limited only by your power points, and with the ability to take flaws until you're paying 1 point for 5 ranks, Powre Level is mostly irrelevant.

Now, since you know your GM will be creating enemies that are geared to your challenge level, instead of referring to them by their power level, you can refer to them based on your own. The enemy isn't PL 8, it's PL is +1 (your PL 7, +1 to indicate he's a bit of a challenge). If you were PL 10 he would be PL 11, if you were PL 3, he'd be PL 4. The enemies real level is only relevant as far as how far away it is from your own.

When completing missions, the players are granted power points, which they can spend on any power, including new ones. So the player given 5 power points (who generally has already maxed out his blast power) is free to buy flight, or teleport, or whatever.

But when you give a power level to the players, they are forced to spend their power points increasing their existing powers. Basically, you're not levelling them up, you're levelling DOWN all their powers by 1 PL. Instead of buying new powers and abilities now they have to waste their points keeping their own powers up to date. If they DON'T level up their powers, they'll slowly become unable to harm the enemies, who are increasing their saving throws and blast powers as they become more powerful.

Oddly enough, the best way to halt player advancement (for a while) is to grant them a new power level. If you add a power level every 5 points instead of every 15 as the guide suggests, they won't be able to increase their powers fast enough to keep pace with the villains. If you do it every 20, they'll be gaining new powers while still being able to increase their existing ones.

Something to keep in mind!

On the other hand- there is one aspect where this is not true, and that's the Luck power. The luck power is limited by 1/2 the PL of the PCs, so they CAN get more hero points, which is just better at all levels. Still, they're trading a bunch of power points levelling up their existing powers, so it may be worth granting a free hero point now and then.

Now granted, PL 20 is generally considered the max, and if you use the static PLs of the enemies and "normals" then PL might be more relevant, but there's no reason you can't make "on the fly" enemies of any power level- so think of that next time you're deciding whether to level up the party using a power level.