Mutants & Masterminds - [Review] Power Profiles #4: Summoning Powers

[jameson (ST)]

Power Profiles #4: Summoning Powers

Vitals: Published By Green Ronin • 6 pages • $0.99 • full color PDF

By now you should either be familiar with the basic layout of the Power Profiles series (if you aren't please go here, or here to read my earlier reviews of the first two Power Profiles) so I'll dispense with the usual description and right into what was good and what was less so.

Descriptors, Features, and New Modifiers!

Yes, that's right, new modifiers! Two of them in fact, an Extra and a Flaw. Responsive makes it easier for your character to command his faithful legions of underlings while Self-Powered acts as a bridge between the Summon effect and the Minion Advantage. Without going into detail it should suffice to say that both add useful new dimension to the core effect.

Descriptors covers a lot of ground from cross dimensionally summoned minions to necromantically created undead to technological robots and the like. There's also a small section discussion how to deal with large groups of the same kind of minion (e.g. 10 identical skeletons). The goal is to speed up play without also making the extra bodies just count as extra bodies. It works, I've used methods similar to those discussed in the past and it keeps things reasonable without assuring that with enough peon level minions you will still score a few critical hits by rolling each attack on its own. Such play is both unfun for all but the summoner and slows the pace down.

Features is rather short, but then Summoning isn't a power set that tends to lend itself to a lot of itty bitty merits. The monitor feature is nice, allowing the PC to know how all his little guys are doing with but a thought (and implying that doing so is not otherwise automatic). Meanwhile the Servants Feature is a clever implementation of the old saying "many hands make short work".

Offensive Powers

The effects here pretty much cover the big variations of the summoning theme. You get an animate object power, a "construct" power for things like a minion made of fire or shadow, a duplication effect, among others. These range in cost from 3 pp per rank to a whopping 14 pp per rank, and really offer a good set of guidelines for potential players and GMs to see how summon effects ought to look. That said there's also nothing here that jumps out as a "why didn't I think of that" either.

Defensive Powers

Why have minions if you can't sacrifice them to save your own butt? I don't know either. That's what we get here though. It's a short section, with only 2 entries, one of which is a discussion of the merit of the Sacrifice extra added to your base Summon effect. Depending on your descriptors this could be a very villainous addition indeed. The second is called "Decoys" and makes use of the advice given in the "Minions as Descriptors" sidebar from the rule book. I approve.

Movement Powers

Summon Car! I'm already thinking that my next super high tech hero needs to have a summon vehicle effect with a removable "device", think the lightcycles from Tron. Yes indeed summon vehicle is an option, as is the similar Summon Steed (phantom horses and the like). The winner of this section though is the teleport based Castling power, which, if you play Chess, is probably already apparent based solely on the name. I love it, it's the kind of clever combat maneuvering power that isn't immediately obvious during char gen, but is almost immediately received as "cool."

Utility Powers

The kitchen sink of Summons covers three effects all of which are things which I have seen people ask how to do. Anatomic Separation, Gestalts, and Empowerments. All are based on the Summon effect and are given their due course, covering a little more than half a page between the three. The use of Limit and Side Effect flaws are especially interesting as they lead the player into new territory with regards to other "problem powers".

Complications

Nearly a full page here (99% of one) and this one actually jumps out as being done a little better than some of the prior Complication sections. Minions as potential relationship complications. Minions as a weakness (what happens to the hero when he can't call for aid as usual?), and how minions might effect one's reputation, among others, are detailed here. I especially enjoyed the brief discussion of the "reverse minion" that is the very powerful Summon controlled by the very mortal and normal summoner. It's not something you see very often, but it holds a lot of potential.

Closing Thoughts

Summoning Powers made me take a serious look at an effect that I often avoid, and not just as a Player but as a GM. It provides some sound advice for both in terms of how to build and play with effects without sending the game off the rails, while simultaneously providing some seriously clever new uses for the power and for other powers using the "Minions as Descriptors" method. If you have a Summoner in your group, or want to play as one, this one is a worthy purchase for only a buck.

Rating: 95%, This is one that floats up into the cream of the crop.

[SalmonMax]

Hm. May have to spring for this. I have a couple of characters that could use help with summoning effects...