Mutants & Masterminds - Mutants & Masterminds 3e GM Kit (review)

[jameson (ST)]

Mutants & Masterminds 3e GM Kit Review

The folks over at Green Ronin are charging ahead with their flagship game's newest edition. Since late December there has been the release of the M&M Third Edition Hero's Handbook (physical units shipping as I type this), the inception of the Threat Reports (a weekly NPC villain PDF release), and discussion of an adventure series called Emerald City Knights (a PDF product coming soon). Green Ronin just yesterday put out preorders and PDF copies of their newest product, the Third Edition GM's Kit.

[end_news_blurb]

The GM Kit contains two products; a GM Screen and a Quick "Random" Character Generation Booklet. This was a hard sell for me. I do some 90% of my gaming online via Play-by-Post games, and the other 10% is generally not at a table in the traditional format. As often than not I am sitting across a living room from somebody, rolling dice on a coffee table or even the floor. As a result the GM Screen is not a tool for hiding rolls and sheets in a good 5% of my game playing. Why then would I buy one? Two reasons jump to mind.

The first is that during those 5% of games I do like having something and this product is pretty nice. It's a 3-panel landscape format screen, which means its low enough to actually see over, but still does its job of hiding sheets and rolls from players. The material is hardbound, basically the same as a hardcover gaming book, which means it'll survive travel and use. The outside image is pretty nice too. Basically it promises to be a quality product. I can't speak more until I have my copy in hand, but it promises much.

The second reason is that I no longer have the near photographic memory for gaming related miscellanea that I used to. Rules, tables, and charts that I could have once memorized and called up in my head now need to be referenced and looked at. The PDF copy has the interior tabs, and so I was able to look at the layout and content of the screen. They managed to get just about everything I would ever need to reference on the three pages of the screen except for the powers and equipment themselves. Even if I'm sitting in a Lay-z-Boy and don't need a screen for privacy I expect that it will cut down on book references by a significant factor. That's a win in my book.

The second part of the kit is a booklet, 48 pages long, containing a "random" character generation system. I put quotes around "random" because it's not truly random, you won't end up with a battle-suit wearing druid who can talk to aliens and travel through dimensions and then have to struggle to put together a background for that mess. Instead it was designed to build 20 different achetypes ranging from the aforementioned Battle-suit, to Mystics, Paragons, Speedsters, and Martial artits, among others. You can go from a blank sheet to a balanced PL 10 character in a handful of rolls and perhaps an hour's worth of time transcribing from the book.

Each of the 20 archetypes is further broken down into 2 or 3 subtypes which determine starting Abilities/Attributes. Additional tables break down Skills, Feats/Advantages, and Powers, with powers often broken down further into offensive & defensive focus. Just for the Battle-suit archetype alone there are 3 subsets of abilities (based on background suggestions), 60 variations of Advantages/Feats, 9 different skill packages, over 1500 offensive power combos, and 5 different movement types. That's a lot of variation for 1 archetype. Further each player is encouraged to change the suggested descriptors to suit their particular concept. All of this requires a total of 10 rolls of a d20, or if you and your GM prefer and agree you can cherry pick what you want, or even roll some and choose others.

The best part is that 90% of the math is done for you. Occasionally you may need to stack skill ranks from different packages and you will need to factor your attributes and skills into your final attacks and defenses, but in general the process can be reduced from an hours (or even days) long process into and hour, and even less if you are cutting and pasting from the PDF to a word processor. I was able to produce a balanced Martial Artist in less than 30 minutes. I can see this getting a lot of use with players who want jump into the action without a lot of the work of chargen.

The physical product is priced at $19.95, the PDF version at $10. If you play a decent amount of M&M 3e the PDF version is worth it for certain. I can't speak to the value of the physical product just yet but the digital is worth what I paid without a shadow of a doubt, not only for helping new (and old) players produce quick PCs but also to help me build NPCs and Villains with a minimum of effort.

[jameson (ST)]

A random roll up from the GM Kit. He took me perhaps 15 minutes to put together and I'd play this guy in an appropriately dark/gothic setting without any hesitation.

Excorcist Mystic (Magical Heritage, Centered, Occult Investigator) - PL 10

Maddox Sanguine was born to a legacy of magical power. This family has been battling evil spirits for over 1000 years, preventing horrors from the Ghost Realm from wreaking havoc upon the Earth. He uses his power in his "spare time" job as a mystic private investigator, and the rest of the time battling the Raveners that seek to break through to earth to spread madness and death.

Abilities & Defenses

Code:

| STR | STA | AGL | DEX | FGT | INT | AWE | PRE |
|  0  |  0  |  1  |  3  |  4  |  2  |  7  |  4  | 

| DODGE | PARRY | FORTITUDE | TOUGHNESS | WILL | 
|   +8  |   +8  |     +6    |    +12    | +14  | 

Advantages

Equipment 3 (Headquarters), Ranged Attack 5, Trance, Fearless, Ultimate Effort (Will checks)

Headquarters—Size: Medium, Toughness: 10; Features: Concealed, Dual-size (Huge), Laboratory, Library, Living Space, Personnel, Sealed, Security System, Self-repairing, Workshop • 15 points

Skills

Expertise: Magic 10 (+12), Insight 6 (+13), Perception 4 (+11), Investigation 4 (+6), Sleight of Hand 4 (+7)

Powers

• Magic Spells: Array (24 points, plus 5 points of Alternate Effects)
  • Magical Blast: Ranged Damage 12 • 24 points
  • Ectoplasmic Constructs: Create 7, Continuous, Innate, Precise • 1 point
  • Ghostly Hands: Perception Move Object 7, Precise, Subtle 2 • 1 point
  • The Horror!: Ranged Damage 8, Resisted by Will • 1 point
  • Billowing Darkness: Ranged Burst Area Concealment 4 Attack (All Visual) • 1 point
  • Enervation: Ranged Weaken 8, Broad (Physical Abilities (one at a time)) • 1 point
• Astral Projection: Remote Sensing 8 (Visual, Auditory, Mental), Limited—Physical body is defenseless, Subtle 2 • 26 points
  • Levitation and Mystic Shield: Flight 4 (30 MPH); Sustained Protection 12, Impervious 6 • 1 point
• Mystic Awareness: Senses 3 (Mystic Awareness, Analytical, Radius) • 3 points

Combat

• Initiative +1
• Close
  • Unarmed +4 Damage DC 15
• Ranged
  • Magical Blast +8 Damage DC 27
  • Enervation +8 Weaken DC 18 (Physical Abilities (one at a time))
  • Billowing Darkness - Ranged Burst Area Concealment 4 Attack (All Visual)
  • The Horror! +8 Damage DC 23 (Resisted by Will)
  • Ectoplasmic Constructs +8 Create 7
  • Ghostly Hands - Perception Move Object 7

POWER POINTS

Abilities 42 + Skills 14 + Powers 59 + Defenses 24 + Advantages 11 = Total 150

Complications

Motivation—Responsibility: Maddox comes from a long line of protectors of humanity. It is his responsibility to use his power to combat the horrors from the ghost realm that threaten to spill forth into the every day.

Power Loss: As with most wizards Maddox cannot cast spells without speaking and/or gesturing.

[Matt]

Cool review. Could you use the "random" character generation system in a non random way by selecting what you want at each phase rather than rolling and still get a fairly balanced character?

The Mutants & Masterminds 3e GM Kit Review will be available from Amazon in the printed form for only $13.57. It hasn't come out yet, but that does put the price very close to the pdf.

[jameson (ST)]

There's absolutely no reason that you couldn't cherry pick from the given lists. As a GM I would almost lean toward insisting that new players choose their archetype, rather than roll it randomly, to ensure that they at least get the basic type of character they desire. The arhcetypes in general break down into rolls for: a preset of Abilities/Attributes, a set of Advantages/Feats, and then a series of rolls for powers. At each step the available choices are balance against each other so that out of 3 sets of Attributes, or 5 Sets of Advantages, each set is the same cost as the others, your PP spends will always line up and the options chosen always reflect both a balanced build and a suggested background or personality aspect to the character (ex. Wealthy or Charmer, Athlete or Scientist).

[Matt]

Awesome.

I have been waiting to get the non DC paperback 3e book and I'll pick this up then.

[jameson (ST)]

Follow up:

I got the physical screen and booklet today. Pre-order from Green Ronin seems like the way to go (assuming you can stomach the shipping costs).

The booklet is about as you would expect. Staple bound, 46 pages, black & white on an a good quality paper. A nice product to be able to use when you don't have the PDF handy (the ability to copy/paste out of the PDF really makes the digital format ideal for a chargen product.

The screen is in an entirely different league. I've not seen a GM screen since the 90s back when you got a 3 page poster-board print that you were lucky to get to stand up to a heavy sneeze. This is not that kind of screen. The panels of full color on both sides, glossy paper, on a cardboard core. The cardboard core is about half to three-quarters the thickness of standard hardcover book. This will easily stand on its own with little chance of tipping over. The artwork is superlative with a nice high quality printing with a tight "grain", i.e. very high dpi.

Game content on the reverse is very dense and very useful, with most of the major reference tables present, and some of the major mechanics such as hero points and extra effort detailed in brief for reference.

Booklet: B+, about what you would expect, but a high quality physical product with a very high quality content.

Screen: A+, High quality all around, I can't find anything to fault here, and much to applaud. The only thing that might detract will be the long term durability of the product, which is impossible to know at this time.

[Matt]

Drivethrurpg currently has the PDF version for sale as part of their Movie Mayhem Sale for only $8.

You can get it here: Mutants & Masterminds GM's Kit