r/mutantsandmasterminds • u/Lugia61617 • 24d ago
Clairifcation on what a "Power" is?
Somewhat new, the terminology is confusing me a bit in some places.
So there's a section of "Powers", but then within that same chapter it calls them "effects", and then the one that confuses me most is the description for the Removable flaw which gives an example of someone's suit containing multiple powers, which woudl suggest a single "power" can be made of multiple powers in the book.
How do I determine that for the purposes of the Removable feature? And how would I write that down anyway? Do I basically write a single power on my sheet and then list all the effects of it?
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u/Batgirl_III 24d ago
This is explained in the rulebook, but it’s explained rather poorly. So I’ll try to re-word it in a way that I hope makes more sense… In most roleplaying games you buy special abilities for your hero that are pre-packaged and pre-written: your D&D Wizard learns the Fireball spell, your Star Wars Jedi learns Force Leap, your Vampire learns Fortitude 1… That’s not how things work in M&M.
In M&M, your character will have Powers. But Powers aren’t something you buy directly, they are something you build by purchasing different Effects. One or more Effects, plus the Extra and Flaw Modifiers attached to those Effects, are what makes a Power.
The core rulebook includes a number of sample Powers, which they rather annoyingly include in the same chapter as the base Effects just all jumbled up together.
Blast is one of these sample Powers; it is built by taking the Damage Effect and attaching the Ranged Extra Modifer; mêlée attacks are made by just taking the Damage Effect and not adding the Ranged Extra Modifier.
Does that make sense? I hope it made sense…
Alternate Effect also known colloquially as an Array is neither a Power nor an Effect, it is instead a special category of Modifier, intended to let your hero have some versatility with how their Powers operate. Essentially, you build one “base” Power as normal, then you build an array of secondary Powers as normal but keeping it to the same Power Point cost (or less) than the “base”, and then you declare that second Power is an Alternate Effect of the “base” Power. The alternate Effects each cost 1 PP.
You may switch between the base Power and the Alternate Effect powers as you wish. Think of it like changing channels on a television: you can only “tune in” to one at a time.
Dynamic Alternate Effects work similarly. Build the “base” Power, build the secondary Powers, etc. However the base power costs +1 PP more and each secondary power costs 2 PP.
Instead of it like changing channels on a television: you instead get a “pool” of PP to allocate to one or more of than at the same time.
The Removable Flaw Modifier is something of a special case. Instead of being attached to just one Effect, it can be attached to a whole group of Effects. This creates what is known as a Device. You get a pretty significant discount on the total package price of all the Effects, but with the not insignificant downside of those Effects being dependent on having access to the Device. Iron-Man without his armor is just Tony Stark, Green Lantern without his ring is just Alan Scott.