M&M 3e House Rule requests

[charlieluce]

Is it too early to start talking about what sort of House Rule check boxes we would like to see in the M&M 3e data set? Yeah, yeah, I know there's a screaming horde of "Use 2e Impervious", but for Hero Lab purposes that's just a flavor text change (unless it's also supposed to flag a violation if Impervious exceeds PL, which is also a common suggestion).

Anyway, that's what this thread is for.

 

[Captain Canuck]

I noticed that there is already a house rule box for changing the cost of skills. I would like to see this divided into combat (close combat/ranged combat) and everything else.

Ideally, since there are only 16 skills, it would be pretty cool to differentiate costs for any skill we want (technology/investigate vs. expertise, anyone?).

 

[Shadowchaser]

I noticed that there is already a house rule box for changing the cost of skills. I would like to see this divided into combat (close combat/ranged combat) and everything else.

Ideally, since there are only 16 skills, it would be pretty cool to differentiate costs for any skill we want (technology/investigate vs. expertise, anyone?).

You can use the rules editor to adjust the costs of skills and create new ones. I created a new Presence skill called "Occultist" which, in my game, will help make Presence a more useful stat.

 

[SeeleyOne]

Could you please provide details of your Occultist skill? Perhaps in a private message if not in the forums?

 

[charlieluce]

I noticed that there is already a house rule box for changing the cost of skills. I would like to see this divided into combat (close combat/ranged combat) and everything else.

Ideally, since there are only 16 skills, it would be pretty cool to differentiate costs for any skill we want (technology/investigate vs. expertise, anyone?).

I looked at the various proposals for changing skill costs, and after I ran the numbers I concluded that making Skills cheaper just screwed up Attribute costs even more than they already were, so being unwilling to reconstruct the entire skill list I decided that if it looked like it was going to be a problem in my games I'd toss the players a few more starting points and call it good.

Presence, though, is a non-starter for me.

 

[charlieluce]

Speaking of Skills, I'd also like the option to have Expertise that is not based on Intellect; since I'm preparing a Mecha & Manga/fantasy type game, Awareness, Dexterity, and Presence will all be valid bases for an Expertise.

EDIT: Now included! Yay!

 

[Shadowchaser]

Could you please provide details of your Occultist skill? Perhaps in a private message if not in the forums?

Terribly sorry I didn't reply to this earlier. It's been a crazy week.

My Occultist Skill is pretty much lifted from the old DC Heroes game. It has the following uses/subskills:

Create Artifact (Needs Advantage), Identify Artifact, Occult Knowledge, Ritual Magic(Needs Advantage), and Premonition

I'm still play testing these in game, but essentially I use the skill in place of Expertise (Magic) for Artificing and Ritualism. Additionally, even someone without the Ritualist advantage can use this skill to try and gain premonitions of the future, and investigate magical evidence.

I tend to think of Presence as being the "Magical" stat, mainly because it's all about your character's sense of self, his or her force of personality. Kinda goes back to how I think of magic in the DC universe, based on a quote whose origins escape me at the moment: "Science is learning to speak about the universe in words everyone can understand, Magic is learning to speak to the universe in words it cannot ignore."

 

[Shadowchaser]

Speaking of Skills, I'd also like the option to have Expertise that is not based on Intellect; since I'm preparing a Mecha & Manga/fantasy type game, Awareness, Dexterity, and Presence will all be valid bases for an Expertise.

I'm sure once they've updated the software, we'll get a drop-down/selectable Ability association for Expertise, since it's obviously meant to be the 'catchall' skill.

One thing I've noticed in the description of Expertise (and it should probably apply to other skills) is the idea that subskills or specific uses of Expertise can add their bonus to other abilities. For example, someone with Expertise (Electronics) might require a Dexterity+Expertise Ranks to perform a delicate bit of rewiring.

This is probably beyond the scope of Hero Lab, but it's interesting to note that it makes all stats more useful, even if a given skill doesn't list that stat as the associated stat, it might always come into play later.

 

[charlieluce]

I noticed that there is already a house rule box for changing the cost of skills. I would like to see this divided into combat (close combat/ranged combat) and everything else.

Yeah, I don't recall anyone that has talked about Skill Costs on the Atomic Think Tank saying that they were going to change the Combat Skill costs (and really, is anyone going to use 4 or 5 Skill Ranks per point in M&M3?).

 

[Colen]

Good idea for a thread - I'll definitely look at what people ask for here once I've had a chance to tighten up the files a bit.

 

[charlieluce]

Colen, I've concluded that my Presence workaround is excessively convoluted (and probably impractical to implement).

Instead, I'm going to propose a House Rule inspired by a current thread on the ATT. Admittedly, this would probably be easy to implement in the Editor, but if I can do it with a checkbox, so much the better.

1) Eliminate Presence altogether (just put a - through it for 0 points on the output or something like that for simplicity).

2) Base Deception on INT, base Intimidation on STR, and base Persuasion on AWE.

3) Add an Advantage that allows you to base Intimidation on INT (Scathing Wit?).

The original post wanted to put Intimidation on Fighting, but I think that overvalues Fighting, and I don't mind STR getting another Skill.

 

[chatty]

It isn't patently obvious where to adjust skill costs, but I will try to find it. I, too, am in favor of being able to price skills by category.

 

[Shadowchaser]

You can create your own skills in the Editor, and base them off whichever stat you like. So build Intimidation (STR), etc, and add it to your house rules.

Colen showed me how briefly at Gen-Con, it's not that hard. He's probably better at explaining it than I am, though.

Since Presence doesn't cost you anything to leave at 0, there's no real need to do anything else except instruct your players not to use it.

 

[Praetor]

I think what Chatty's problem is when you say editor. Not everyone has purchesed the Authoring kit, so Chatty may not have the editor.

 

[chatty]

I think what Chatty's problem is when you say editor. Not everyone has purchesed the Authoring kit, so Chatty may not have the editor.

I THINK I have the authoring kit. But when I look at the skills in the editor, I don't see where the PP cost is defined!

Is there more than one editor?

 

[Paragon]

There's a basic editor included with the package; its under Tools. I don't think it'll allow you to generically reedit all skills though; you have to create all the new skills with costs separately.

 

[FifthWanderer]

I don't see a way to change the skill costs in the editor yet. This may have to wait for further down the road. Keep in mind that the dataset is still beta, and not everything has been implemented.

 

[chatty]

There's a basic editor included with the package; its under Tools. I don't think it'll allow you to generically reedit all skills though; you have to create all the new skills with costs separately.

I DID buy the actual authoring kit. I just have no idea how to invoke//use it and was apparently in the simple editor. What I wouldn't give for 4 hours of uninterrupted time.

 

[Colen]

There's no way currently to change the cost of individual skills; the game assumes that all skills have the same cost based on the number of ranks you put into them, so Hero Lab does too.

If all you want to do is change the attribute on a skill, you can do that easily in the editor - simply have the new version of the skill "replace" the existing version of the skill.