Mission Rewards

So you've gotten to the end of the mission. How do you reward your players without just giving them power points? Is everything about getting that next ability? Here are some suggestions for how to reward your players without handing out the PP.

Equipment Points- Maybe it's a bag of reward money, but by handing out equipment points, you allow the character to buy weapons, items, cars, and property. Wealth is easily given out in other games, why not in mutants?

Power Components- Maybe it's a consumable item that emulates extra effort, maybe it's a focus that treats one special power as one level higher, but this way you can give out special one time items as a reward.

Artifacts- Call it a device, an artifact, or whatever, but pass out a permanent magical item to the players. Maybe it's Excalibur, maybe the Shield of Captain America- but it's basically a specific power that a given hero can hold on to as needed.

Benefits- Like the benefit feat. Maybe they gain special security clearance, or some kind of special contact or friends to help them overcome challenges in the future.

Fame/Infamy- Just being known in the field for your good or evil actions. Maybe it helps in future intimidate or diplomacy checks if you are super famous.

Skills- Maybe the character has learned something in his adventures that translated directly into skill points rather than just base power points. Maybe they gained some special knowledge of arcana or technology.

Unlocking Character Options- Maybe they are now allowed to take special blood magic powers, or wild magic, or they are now allowed to purchase extra powers when they previously were not able to.

Alternate Rule: Power Lock

POWER LOCK

 

In comics, sometimes two powers collide in a brilliant display of energy. This, is power lock.

This is an alternate rule which can be used in place of countering powers. Two parties on the same initiative that attack each other with a powers that could realistically counter each other. Fire and ice, even fire and fire. The two collide and the people are in power lock.

Each Round you are in power lock, you can move as normal, but only in 5 feet increments. You can strafe, go backwards, or go forwards (usually in an attempt to find cover). If you get behind cover, the power lock ends and the opponant's power hits the cover, which takes damage as normal from the effect.

As a standard action, you can attempt to overpower your opponent. Make an opposed power level check between your two powers. Victory means your opponent gets a -1 to his power's power level for the duration of the power lock, or you get +1 (up to double the original value). Falure means that the opponent gets either +1 to his PL or -1 to your PL. One one of the powers reach zero, the loser takes the full force of the modified power level attack (automatically hits), which could be up to double the original power level. A natural 1 by either player automatically lowers their PL by 1 (in additional). A natural 20 by either player automatically lowers their opponent's PL by 1 (additional). So if you roll nat 1 and your opponent rolls nat 20, your PL is -2, and then they win, so they can apply an additional -1 to you or +1 to themselves.

You can instead, as a standard action, withdraw from the contest, taking the full force of the opponent's power, which automatically hits.

This can be used with ranged powers or perception powers.

Perception powers can go in power lock also.

Extra effort can be used to increase your PL by 2 for the duration of the combat, and may be used multiple times (once per round), just as hero points can allow for a reroll of the opposed power check. You may want to allow for knockback rules for the defeated opponent for added flavor.

50 Mission Ideas

1. A villain is stealing the powers from other Supers
2. A man has the power to create special power-nullifying drugs and the government wants him to help create a "cure"
3. The Christian apocalypse happens precisely as described in the book of revelations.
4. Special religious artifacts must be taken from the vaults in the catacombs below the Vatican.
5. Mutant terrorists take over a small third world country, and the PCs must support their hostile take over and legitimize it by getting other nations to officially recognize them or else risk a horrible PR catastrophe.
6. Morpheous the god of dreams is hijacked causing nightmares everywhere. The heroes must enter the dream world to save the god of dreams.
7. Villains seek the Necronomican so they can raise an undead army.
8. The PCs must battle the jabberwocky beneath the Tum-Tum tree, and battle the Bandersnatch and the Jub Jub Bird.
9. The hatian solendon is one of few venomus mammals on the earth. It's bite can nullify powers. The heroes must either liberate the creatures from a government lab or get some for further testing.
10. A Jurassic park is opened. The PCs must capture a live T-rex so it can have a medical procedure done.
11. A genetic engineering company is trying to create the perfect mimic.
12. A company creates a precognitive device and starts murdering other precogs to prevent their meddling in its version of the future.
13. The PCs must fight ancient clockwork robots constructed by Ben Franklin as the unravel a mystery surrounding the American revolution.
14. People are dying in strange circumstances, like in Final Destination. Can the PCs defeat a force of nature?
15. A corporation becomes self aware, like a malevolent presence, and controls its board members by causing mysterious accidents or suicide.
16. A brain in a jar is taking control of people's minds so that it can take multiple mental actions per round and become undefeatable.
17. An alchemist creates a homunculus using the universal solvent, but it goes berserk and is melting everything.
18. PCs must go into deep space to prevent genocide on a distant planet
19. The party must deliver a subpoena to a genie charged of twisting the wishes in a malevolent fashion.
20. A helicopter transporting dangerous chemicals crashed over a zoo causing mutated animals to escape and wreak havoc
21. A bomb goes of at a precog convention- why didn't they see it coming?
22. The heroes are shrunk by superintelligent roaches for being in their territory, can they get back to their size before the house is sprayed with deadly chemicals?
23. An angry telekinetic with road rage is throwing cars around haphazardly while driving
24. A villain sends the PCs into books, causing them to skip into worlds based on other roleplaying systems, such as D&D or shadowrun or call of cthulhu
25. A giant space monster is going to crash into the world. Only cthulhu can defeat it, but it will then eat the people of the world.
26. The party is present at a bank when people try to rob it
27. A goth band is causing teen suicide with its music. A huge concern threatens all the teens in the city. Only a cosmic battle of the bands with happy pop star music can weaken them.
28. Someone is stealing beauty from models
29. A group of scientologists attempt to resurrect L Ron Hubbard
30. Mormans gain powers after a meteor strikes Utah
31. Heroes are brought to internet world after an AI becomes self aware
32. Terrorists try to blow up the swiss particle accelerator
33. The yakuza are searching for Pandora's box, a box which can trap anything inside
34. The devil is trading super powers in exchange for people's souls
35. The PCs are hired to be security at a girls birthday party- where a supervillain attacks
36. A precog is listening to the future and stealing songs as his own.
37. PCs have their memory wiped and don't know what happened
38. The PCs are cloned and the clones are sent to a slave camp off-world. Can their clones escape? If so- they find their true selves at home!
39. The heroes have to help deliver baby dragon eggs over the ocean- but must pass through a dangerous area of mists where pirates frequent.
40. Psychos seize santa's workshop, and only the heroes can save Christmas
41. The mad geologist puts a bowl of stone around the city while the mad meteorologist causes rains to flood the entire city. Can the heros stop them.
42. A league of evil mad scientist exists, with a villain from every field of study (the mad paleontologist, the mad botanist, etc). Their henchmen are mad grad students and mad lab assistants. Each has powers based on his field.
43. A time portal to exactly 300 years in the past exists in a remote area, where a local hunter accidentially affects history so that native americans defeat white settlers. He constantly visits the anomaly causing further changes until the PCs can find a way to collapse the time portal.
44. A medicine man is hunting dragons and using their parts as medicine. An enraged dragon seeks to kill him. Which side to the heroes take?
45. A young magician gets an intelligent book of magic that tricks him into casting spells that get continually more evil.
46. The king of atlantis is able to project himself astrally into the future, and possess those of atlantean bloodline. How can the party kill someone who has already been dead for centuries?
47. Classic movie monsters team up to turn every day into Halloween.
48. An animated house eats those who go inside.
49. Vampires, Gremlins, or similar creatures attempt to put out the sun.
50. Aliens from a planet with no advertising restrictions cripple earth's communication systems as they spam various advertisements and crooked deals into all of our computer systems. How can we get them to stop short of genocide?

Extras and Flaws

There are some extras and flaws not included in base M&M- that really should have been.
Here are some below.


Flaws:

Material Component: The power relies on material components that are consumed in the using of the power. Perhaps you need to sacrifice a great diamond to bring a soul back from the dead, or you need to crush opals to raise zombies. This is a 1 point per rank flaw for a power that requires 1 EP of materials to use. For each +1 to the flaw, double the existing cost (-2/rank for 2 EP, -3/rank for 4 EP, -4/rank for 8 EP, etc).  Create objects powers cannot create suitable components.

Material Focus: This power relies on a material component which is not consumed in the use of the power. Perhaps a scrying power can be used with any very expensive silver mirror worth $10,000 or more. Perhaps you require a magic wand to use your powers (any magic wand- not a specific one). For a 1 point flaw (not 1 per rank) it requires a focus worth 1 EP. For each extra point of the flaw, go up one step on the time/value progression table in the value of the component. If the material is broken or stolen, it must be repurchased. Create object powers can't create suitable foci.

Charge Time: Once used, this power cannot be used for 1 round. This is worth a 1 point/rank flaw. For each extra step on the time/value progression table (1 min, 5 min, 10 min) it's worth an extra point/rank.


Extra:

Charging: This power can be "charged up" with a full round action. The power is visibly charging in some way. A standard action "powers" it further, and a move action maintains it, so if you move and charge, you gain no further charge, but don't lose the power. If you are unable to take move actions you lose all charge. You can charge it up to 50% more than the power level, at a bonus of 1 per standard action spent "charging". So if you have a PL 10 blast power, you can charge for 1 round, then blast the next making it PL 11. If you charge for 5 full rounds (5 full round actions), then blast on the 6th, it will be at PL 15 (max). This is an extra costing 1 power point per rank. The GM may want to limit this only to combat powers as powers like nullify, boost, or healing might be too powerful since they can be charged when time is not a factor, or he may say that each bonus to PL requires 1 step on the time/value progression table for such powers (allowing a healing that takes 1 hour to cast heal better than it does in combat for example).

Power Component: This power can be made more powerful by utilizing rare oils, magical power components (such as a healing spell boosted using troll's blood), or similar. The power is treated as +1 PL if 1 EP worth of equipment is used to empower it. For every increase to PL it costs a number of EP 1 step higher on the time/value progression table. (2, 5, 10, 25 etc). This would not stack with extra effort.

Sympathetic: This power is more effective when you have a piece of your target. If you have a personal item, likeness, or picture of your target, they get a -2 on their saving throw to resist your power. If you have a vial of blood, clippings of nails or hair, or other body parts, they get -5 to resist your power. Do not count your ability to see them in person or touch them as part of delivery of the spell as part of this, though if they are completely bound and/or helpless it may apply. +1/rank.

Impervious vs Penetrating, Incurable vs Persistant.

Penetrating (Extra) vs Impervious (extra)
Incurable (power feat) vs Persistant (power feat)

So these two powers kind of make me laugh.

For one, I've never seen somoene take healing WITHOUT persistant, and I've never seen anyone take INCURABLE.


On top of that, I've rarely seen anyone take PENETRATING despite seeing people take IMPERVIOUS.

I'll tell you why: They're a waste of points!
Let's start with Incurable and Persistant

Incurable stops the damage from being healed through normal means. It's a power feat- which means if I'm ever battling a healer and it's relevant, I can use extra effort to gain the feat as needed. The enemy, on the other hand, can use extra effort when he heals anyway- so why bother to worry about it? This was obviously a design flaw with little thought given.

If it were me, I'd require that persistant be an extra only gainable through hero points to add dramateic tension when incurable comes up- and make incurable only takeable with power points, not with extra effort.


PENETRATING vs IMPERVIOUS

Here's another odd combo. Impervious only works when purchased in advance. First, it only blocks attacks LESS than the power level. All things being equal- you'll probably have an attack at the same level as the protection. Even if you don't. you can boost your attack damage with tradeoffs, extra effort, team attacks, power attack, and similar means- without reverting to penetrating?

But what if PENTRATING is the only way? Penetrating only reduces the impervious, so even if you have it, it might not be enough. But even if it is- you can just extra effort, take an alternate power with penetrating, add an equal value flaw (like distracting or something) and be ready to go.

The ease of getting penetrating makes impervious useless.

This can be avoided by not allowing alternate powers though extra effort, though nothing bypasses the point that impervious is usually fairly easy to get around. Given the fact that enemies will usually be of higher PL than the party- impervious is useless when a PC takes it (most of the time).

Besides, impervious can be gotten around other ways- perhaps with nullify, drain, or by boosting penetrate into your powers.

It's one of the things that has no easy answer- except perhaps to just ignore these powers. It's not a problem, so you need not worry about it, but more of a warning when making characters.

Drain

Drain- an often overlooked power.

First, let's compare it to nullfiy. Nullfy, when targeting a person, uses the GREATER of their power level of the power or their will save. Drain affects fort save (though with alt save the type of save is irrelevant).

Drain can be used to drop that pesky will save down and be used in conjunction with nullify, or to reduce regeneration or nullify (which due to the number of ranks might not be POSSIBLE to nullify!) and effectively make it usesless.

Drain isn't permanent like nullify can be- and it isn't used to turn off power effects on people, but when it comes to just combat uses, drain can be just as useful, if not moreso. Besides, if you drain the will save and the powers, it's that much easier to nullify the powers!

Again, you can use alternate powers to really get a lot out of this power, rather than spending all your points getting it to 5 points per rank. 2 points per rank is enough to break most things. Besides, you don't need to REMOVE the power- you only need to drain it down to the point where you'll always be making your opposed check (attack roll, saving throw, power level check, etc).

Also, drain doesn't have to be big to be useful. You can boost up the DC (perhaps with powers such as all out attack) and have even a low rank drain be useful. Pull out those alternate power feats! Pull away an extra from a power. Immunity can become quickly useless if it goes from rank 30 to rank 29- depending on how the points were spent!

Not a huge power, certainly doesn't have the SAVE OR DIE issues with powers like transform, and it doesn't affect innate powers, but it's not a bad one on its own.

Boost

Boost- one of the most breakable and horrible powers of all!

For 3 points per rank, it can be used to charge up all your skills to max ranks! (Take 1 rank of each skill and now you're a master!). Or it can push all your stats to full.

Discount Spending
Of course, the best use is to buy out your powers with a bunch of extras, then 3 point boost to power them all up at once, and get a huge discount on your powers. Sure, they can be nullified, but it's still cheaper to use boost this way.

Minions
Have a minion who's a PL below you? Not if you boost him up!
Have a bunch of normals or minions? Now they're attacking at YOUR power level!

Break Limits: Extra effort with boost to break power level limits. There's a problem!

Extras: Boost gives extra power points to use- so you can boost your normal powers to just gain extras or power feats AS NEEDED.

Power God: For 2 power points per rank you can effectively use boost to grant any person any power!

Immunity- I have rank 1 immunity to critical hits. Now, thanks to boost (3 points per rank) I am immune to whatever I need to be!

Alternate Power- I'll use 3 point per rank boost to max out my skills (slow fade), then alternate power to the one that maxes out my powers (1 more rank for alt power), then switch over to the one that maxes my stats. Then I'll just switch to my 2 point per rank that gives me whatever powers I need whenever. I'm awesome! Because it's a fades power it doesn't turn off automatically when you switch to an alternate power!

Flawless- You can boost to remove flaws rather than gain extras or PL. Got a power that only works on women? Not anymore! What's more- you only need to boost 1 point to give the alternate power feat to switch the power to one with a different flaw at identical cost. Now it only works on men! Yay!

My Power Level- not yours!- So you can boost someone based on your power level. Did that guy trade off attack rolls for more damage? Here comes BOOSTER to pull his attack power right back to where it belongs. You've turned a tradeoff into just a damage increase! Hell, your sidekick could be the booster and this would be perfectly fine.

Of course, everyone knows how horrible boost is already- but I thought I'd just mention these things.Why would you ever buy 5 point per rank boost, when you can buy 3 points per ranks and use alternate powers to switch to other versions to fully boost up.

Then of course, there's

TURBO BOOST: Buy boost at rank 1. I boost the boost- now it's rank 2. I boost my boost to rank 3 (1 + 2), then to rank 4 (1+3), and so forth until my boost is at max power level- then I boost my other powers with the boost. Huzzah!

Anatomic Separation

Here's an often overlooked ability. Anatomic separation. Let's look at the ways we can use and abuse this power.

First the power- 2 points per rank, each rank allows you to take off a specific body part (like a head or hand). With the variable split extra (+1/rank) you can change what parts get deattached each time.

Let's look at this by istelf:

Spying- You can remove an eye or ear and leave it somewhere where you want to see or hear things. (Great for places that nullify remote viewing!). Joined with flight each piece can move itself. (or with teleport!).

Communicating- You can remove your mouth/head to give conversation elsewhere, or remove a hand for mose code or sign language. So if your buddy is carrying around your hand, you can see something and give him a sign language message, he could respond Hellen Keller like by giving you messages in braille or by signing into your hand.

Squeezing- Good for getting into tight spots, reaching that lever outside of the jail bars, etc- Your head can't fit through the bars? Leave it behind and go get the key! The candi stuck in the machine? Put the hand in by itself and have it crawl up there to get it!

Swimming- Can't breathe water? Can't breathe in space? Leave your head somewhere with oxygen so it can do the breathing for you!

Item Slots- Can I borrow your magic ring? How do I know you'll bring it back? Well, I'll leave my hand here- it will wear the ring, and I'll come back for the hand- the ring never leaves your possession! Except for how damage is tracked, removed parts are fully functional, so a hand can wear a ring, or a glove, etc.

Can I touch you?- Here is where it gets good! Remove your fingers from your left hand. Have your companions wear the fingers (as a necklace, in a pocket) and you can deliver touch spells through the fingers- effectively giving you unlimted range on a touch attack! You can throw a hand at an enemy turning any touch attack into instant ranged-touch. Ally teleported away and you don't know where they are? Teleport them back!

Attack! Ah, the attack extra. Turns a power like the ability to remove your head into the ability to remove your ENEMY's head! Regenerator giving you trouble? Sure you could encase him in cement, but then one day someone digs him up. Why not pull him into pieces (fully functional pieces so they don't regenerate back!) and leave him in multiple areas. Need him alive? He won't be using perception powers without those eyes! He can't very well attack you if you only interrogate his head! A prisoner can't escape wtihout his legs!

Teamwork! What if one of your arms was put on a teammate? Or one of your eyes? Now you can close see two places at once, and so can he, if you each have the power (or you can do it to both of you!). Put your arm on him, and you can attack once, then he can attack once! Now you have a PC (or enemy!) with seemingly multiple attacks when it's really a group of people with an assembled body! Run and full attack at the same time by putting your legs on someone else! (Sure, you'll need a way to SEE, but there's workarounds for that!). Teammate knocked down but still running or clawing away? Disconcerting and LEGAL!

I'm everywhere! My flying fingers encircle my teammates- then they use deflect/redirect to send enemy attacks backwards. (Or they'll simply get in the way of attacks since they only become disabled). Or they allow me to cast my touch spells at a range!

One of us has to stay behind! - But the bomb doors are only controlled from here and the base is about to blow. That means... one of us has to stay behind! No longer can only the teleporter, the summoner, the duplicator, the regnerator, the guy who busts through walls, or the animator bypass this scenario. Just leave a hand behind. You can go back and get it once it's disabled.

Feign Death- I ready an action to fall apart when hit with an attack. Chances are the enemy's not worried about you just yet. For that matter you can be packed away in pieces to travel better. Hard to sneak someone into Grigots Bank, but easy to slip a series of limbs into Gringots, each in a seperate package.

The Heartless Giant- Ever hear the story of the giant who took out his own heart so that he couldn't be killed or feel emotions? The power itslef is very vague as to what constitutes your "core". Each seperated part can only be disabled, not destroyed or killed, and it's implied that the torso is he main part (perhaps the heart?). Why not just remove the parts that give you trouble? Would remove your vital organs render you immune to critical hits at the very least? Probably. Take away the core and the enemy either has to go find it (where it's helpless) or attack and disable each of your limbs seperately (though what's holding them together- I don't know).

Unusual Shapes- Keep in mind, in M&M you may not be playig as a humanoid. A robot, a multi-tentacled alien, a 4 armed person, there may be all kinds of goofy limbs you can remove. If you have 2 heads, you can leave one with a firend for communication. If you have 4 arms you're at no real disadvantage when you take them off. What if you had wings you could just take off and put away when you needed a disguise? A robot might have treads instead of legs, or use a body part to connect a circuit.

Partal Immunity- Kind of hard to hear that siren song or see the medusa when you've left your eyes and ears at home. Good way to avoid sense dependant powers when you know you'll be running into them. (Sure you could cover your ears and close your eyes, but this is kind of cooler!)

Stowaway- Can't catch the bad guy? Leave a finger or hand in his trunk, briefcase, etc, and follow him that way. Sure, you don't necessarily know where you are, but an eye can provide a teleport description (or spy with x-ray vision). Or you might have a seperate power to locate your body parts for just such an emergency.

Switch- What better time to use mind switch than when you're all over the place? Break yourself apart, and let him take the time putting yourself back together again!

Types of Missions

Most "adventures" "missions" "sessions" involve a short story that can (hopefully) be completed within one session. Sometimes they're episodic like watching Futurama, sometimes there are over-arcing plot threads, like Lost, and sometimes they are continuous adventuring like True Blood.

Today, let's look at the basic types of missions and how they relate to your superhero campaign.


Stealth- This is a problem in every system. The stealth mission relies on the party infiltrating an area without getting caught, and usually (but not always) requires them to complete some objective without anyone being aware that they were there. More often, stealth is used to get in to a location, and combat blazing on the way out is not a big deal.

The problem with stealth missions in all game systems is that it's very weakest link oriented. In combat, the barbarian can carry the rest of the group. In negotiations, the charismatic character can speak for everyone. With stealth, the worst stealth roll can ruin it for everybody, unless the mission is very carefully orchestrated or planned. Otherwise you end up forcing the stealth character to solo large parts (or all) of the mission.

Mutants and masterminds offers additional challenges. First, it's easy to make a character nigh undetectable with concealment effects. The only way to beat those effects is with detection powers which effectively makes stealth impossible. Then there's esp and teleportation which makes sneaking around almost useless anyway.

So where does stealth fit into your campaign?

- The Party must aid another hero without him realizing it.
        This option allows broken stealth to be just fine while providing a level of challenge also as they must be unobtrusive with their success as well as their failures.
- The party must perform counter-stealth guard duty
         This way you can use stealth on the enemies and let the party try to find him. They either find him or they don't and have appropriate consequences.
- The party must use stealth while guarding NPCs
          This way the NPC can be the "weakest link" and the party must help them sneak away. Maybe they can be spotted, maybe they can't, but they must make sure the NPC escapes, which they are less likely to have the special powers already on hand to make this easy.

Negoitiation- The "chatty" role playing option. In this scenario the party must talk to the NPCs. Maybe they must negotiate a peace treaty, maybe they must learn secret information, or get the NPC to give away their computer password or room key, maybe they're trying to discover plot exposition.

In most games, this scenario has some problems. For one, it can sometimes be boring, for two it can (and is) usually soloed by one PC while the others standby and watch. For three, sometimes the "odder" PCs "ruin it" and we need some suspension of disbelief to move forward. (So Bob the orc is still wearing his belt of decapitated human heads while Dave addresses the king?).

Mutants and masterminds offers more challenges. Mind reading, mind control, emotion control, precognition, postcogition, object creation- there are so many powers that can bypass the need to communicate with NPCs. (Copy the key with create object, technopath the computer so you don't need the password, mind read the plot exposition). Perhaps you can argue that circumventing the diplomacy is just as valid a way to complete the mission- and you'd probably be right, but those are things you need to keep in mind if you're going to have a lying grand vizier or corrupt government official going up against a mind reader.

So here are some "negotiation" alternatives

- The party can do it, but isn't sure what to do:
     An example I used- a man is killing dragons to use their body parts for medicine. A dragon wants to locate him and kill him. The man, if he learns there are more dragons, will effectively become a dragon serial-killer. The party must decide who to side with and whether to negotiate peace or not. The challenge here is DECIDING the course of action, not taking it.
- The party must negotiate over the phone or on TV or something
   This way they can't use the mind reading, mind control, or other such powers.


Investigative- These are the missions where the party comes upon a scene and must decide what happened, and then figure out who the bad guy is before going to apprehend him. Most missions start out with some kind of investigative issue.

In most systems this involves some uses of Search, Tracking, Urban Tracking, Gather Information, Knowledge Checks, or reserach.

In mutants and masterminds, it's often as easy as Postcognition, Mind Reading, Esp-searching, and powered-tracking. It's often not so easy to conceal what happened. (You can see my previous posts on these powers if you want to outright nerf these powers).

Here are some "investigative" alternatives

- The party must create a false trail to throw off other investigators, perhaps leading them into a trap.
- The party is involved with other investigators and must corrupt the investigation in some way
- What you see throug postcognition is deceptive (such as the killer having been mindcontrolled or imitated by a shapeshifter creating false clues).

Combat- Most adventures have heavy combat pieces and most gamebooks of all types of games have very detailed combat rules, feats, and weapon details, and mutants and masterminds is no exceptions. Rather than go into too much detail, since combat is probably the most balanced part of the mutants and masterminds system, I'll just refer you to the breaking power level post, the minion tactics, and the combat complication posts to make combat more interesting.

Broken Tactics

So you want to build a character that's not fair? Or you are afraid your PC might? Here are some broken tactics that I've seen employed in play to watch out for.


Perception Power + ESP- So you can blast people from anywhere? How about perception+attack teleport- you just start teleporting item directly to you from anywhere. You can sit home in the saftey of your bathtub closing your eyes and blasting supervillains.

How to Defeat:Well there's obscurement, that's a big one. You can counter the esp if you're aware of it. The nasty guys will look back through your esp and target you back, or you can be a medusa or something where viewing your face causes the viewer to turn to stone.

Superspeed+Move by attack: I move 500 miles, attack the villain, and continue to move 500 miles away. I am the speedster and I can totally do something crazy like that.

How to defeat: Ready an action to attack/trip/grapple/blast/dodge, or throw down some entangling glue.

Invisible- Not just invisible, invisible to all senses, even smell, ultrasound, hearing, infrared vision, etc. Add incoporeal for extra pain. Now you can spam them and they can't do anything about it.

How to defeat: Detect powers mainly. for non-incoporeal there's smoke, sprinkler systems, and other ways to detect the invisible, or you can just obscure the area and put you on equal footing.

Teleporter- I teleport to (home/another dimension) and heal myself, then teleport back into battle. I teleport in- blast, then extra effort to teleport out again. Another pain in the ass.

How to defeat: readied actions, teleport nullifys, or just leaving the area while the guy's gone so he doesn't know where you went. Some ability to trace teleport is nice too, so they can just follow you.

Ricochet + Range- I literally had a PC who shot the pope by ricocheting his blast off the moon. He targetted using a television showing the pope's speech. 50% miss chance? worth it. for the record- the party still almost lost that fight

How to defeat: redirect, a good dodge roll. or just hiding.

Hide in the Wall- With incoporeal or phasing the PC hides in the wall/floor/ceiling/desk and attacks the enemy while wearing a shield of object to protect him.

How to defeat: a high strengh guy who smashes the item out of the way, a similar power to phase in and get him, flying away from objects you can hide in, or readied actions, or nullify him so he's stuck in there.

Super-regenerator- A quite common one, the PC regenerates all damage, even "incurable" at a rate so quickly that he is indestructable- even regenerates from death in one round. They can usually stand from prone as a free action.

How to defeat: Entomb them in a created object, drown them, grapple/snare them, transform them into something else (like a rock), remove his limbs with attack anotomical separation.

Effort Battery- Use empathic healing to heal the fatigue of your team members- but make it an area effect. While each PC is fatigued or exhaused, you can heal 5 people at once, gain 10 fatigue conditions (which is the same as taking 3 fatigue conditions) and pass out. Then with a DC 20 heal check you can be woken back up to do it again. How will you wake back up? Well, one guy can use extra effort to get to you and heal you, while the rest of the party takes double extra effort actions.

How to defeat: Kill that man, keep him away from the party, use a fatigue power on him so he passes out early. Power use to force him to use it on you instead.

Not Here- I'm always astral, I'm in another dimension looking in, or whatever, but I can still blast you, or possess you or whatever, while being completely inperceptable and undefeatable by you. If you defeat me, I just go back to my body and come back next round.

How to defeat Find the prime body, trap him in a body if he's possessing, shoot him back with interdimensional power (extra effort!), have someone walk into his home dimension.

The Magic Device: I have a wand(device) or ring (device). For 4 power points I gain 5 in talents. I purchase with it the Magic power (costs 2 points, grants 2 points worth of powers). Then I buy down the device with flaws and the magic with flaws.
So I have a magic wand (costs 3 points) with the flaw (uses somatic componants) and distracting (lose dodge to AC) So I get 5 points worth of powers for every 1 point I spend.
I buy the power MAGIC with the flaw (with the limited, only works when I speak). So for every 1 point of MAGIC I buy, I get 2 points worth of powers.

I spend 5 points on my device. This gives my 25 points to spend.
25 on the magic power, which gives me 50 points worth of powers.
I then put flaws on those powers to make them even cheaper.

This allows you to break the maximum of 1 rank : 5 ranks with flaws, down to 1 rank : 5 for device (which gives you 25 via the device power) to 1:5 with magic (which gives you 2 per rank, so 1:10) and then each power inside 1:5.

1 rank of device here gives 25 points to spend on magic, 125 points to spend on powers within magic, and 625 ranks worth of powers inside it.

Then you can just buy alternate powers if you want too.

How to defeat: Disarm that guy, break his device, have it taken, or tell him to make a new character.

Nested Alternate Powers: Another one like magic device.

I have mind control costing me a total of 50 points.
I have an alternate power (costing me one point). I buy a 48 point power with 1 point of alternate power. I then get a 47 point power with 1 point to alternate power, I then get a 46 point power with 1 point of alternate power).
You end up with a very specific power array that ends up being very cheap, since you only actually pay for the alternate power feat once, as each other alternate power feat is paid with the auto points from the new power you got cheaper.

How to defeat: You really can't- it's a cheap way to save points on buying alterate powers. Sure, each one must be 1 point cheaper, but you start adding flaws (or making it cheap powers like super senses) and it won't matter.

Megaboost: Do you know it's cheaper to buy boost-all traits and have it up all the time with fades than it is to buy all the skills and stats? In fact, if you buy your stats DOWN to 1, you can boost them up even cheaper with those bonus build points you got. Nullify got you down? Make it innate!

How about this one- buy a rank 1 power with all the fun extras, then boost it up with a cheap, low duration boost. Now you've got powers you can't possibly afford, all the time.

How to defeat: "Evil Boost" the enemy boosts the hero with power feat "innate", or boosts just one trait to the limit so the PC is not a valid target for his own boost. Take that hard power level limits!

Nested Mimic: So you can only mimic 5 people's powers at once? Easy. Make your mimic "affects others", give 5 people that power, then mimic it back from them. Now your 5 "slots" are used with 5 mimic abilities, each which can hold 5 people's powers- 25 total people's powers. (see where this is going?)

Or boost your power to "affects others". Let your ally mimic all your powers as one set, then mimic it back to turn 5 people's power into 1 person's powers! (There's always a loophole)

How to defeat: Kill that mimic. Mimic him back. Nullify the mimic so he loses all nested powers and has to start all over again. See my troublesome power entry.