A very interesting read

[Joseph Barros]

critical-hits.com/2008/10/02/the-professor-x-paradox/

I think MnM adresses his concerns pretty well with hero points which have prevented his exact scenario a number of times. However, some of the comments are equally interesting. Very interesting indeed.

[frobones]

He has a semi valid point, but I think I can tear it apart.

First of all, Speedster looked to be a min-maxed glass cannon to the extreme. He apparently put all his PP or whatever they call it in that system into avoidance, none whatsoever into mitigation. So, when he had a crap roll, his weakness due to min-maxing was severely exposed - and apparently died because of it. I'm pretty sure if he took some semblance of balance in his build he would have been fine.

Second, I find the Professor X paradox a little flawed. This is a game, it has rules. If the playing field is even, everyone is alloted the same amount of points to spend. Strengths and weaknesses are bound to be there, but it's not too much different from D&D. As long as you don't heavily Min/Max, you won't have the same pain these guys are encountering. To compare to D&D, let's make Professor X a rogue with piercing strike (you know, the at-will that attacks Reflex with a weapon, meaning VERY high attack vs. Ref) and let's make the Hulk a two handed axe wielding paladin. If the paladin were to fight something like a brute, the battle would be pretty even. The paladin was probably expecting fights like this, thinking he was pretty invincible with his uber high AC. However, when he comes across the rogue I described, his min side of his min/maxing is exposed. The rogue has a really high chance to hit the paladin and deal consistent damage while probably having less AC when compared to the brute, thus increasing the Paladin's chance to hit. In this situation, both parties have an "advantage" against each other. So I think they are overemphasizing the Professor X paradox.

Finally, Hero Points do help. With the epic level of Min/Maxing possible in the genre, and the nature of it being super heroes, a crap role can spell death. Hero points can save the unlucky hero in this situation.

In closing, I think the morale of the story folks is to play the game and have fun. Do NOT min/max, this makes the GM need to do wacky things to provide a challenge (like demons accelerating to the speed of light and exploding) that can lead to wacky imbalances that creates topics like the one we're discussing. If everyone just played a "balanced" hero or accepted that your build will have a weakness or two (like superman has kryptonite), no one would really be complaining - just accept the nature of the super hero genre.

[Joseph Barros]

I see a few problems with your argument. First of all, maybe he didn't want to play a speedster with iron skin or a force field. That would have been min-maxing. Something extreme like that may not have been what the guy had in mind, and no one should be forced to try to "cover all their bases mechanically" because very few super heroes do. The Flash, Quicksilver, Speedster, etc. all would have died too in that exact and very unfortunate situation. None of them, not one, can survive a Rocket Launcher to the chest. If your idea of "glass cannon" is inability to survive a rocket to the chest then by your standard most of the Marvel and DC universe is populated by "min/maxed glass cannons to the extreme." Would you consider the Flash or Quicksilver "poorly built?" Of course not. Character and story first, min/maxing second. Faaaarrrr second.

As for your second example, I think you missed his point. Yes, you can come up with a character that would create a medium or difficult challenge for one of the PCs. However, you cannot guarantee those two will square off unless you first quarantine the pair. Your paladin will not come across the rogue in your example. The paladin AND his team will come across the rogue. Now in many situations this is fine for most well balanced teams. The problem is that certain characters, like a Professor X can make it very difficult to create a challenging encounter for a party unless every single encounter is tuned around that one PC. His point, which I've known for a while, is there is nothing in place (within the core rules) to maintain balance and restrict heavy power gaming other than the DM's judgement. I'm fine being a benevolent tyrant while the author wants the system to do the balancing for him. He dislikes that no current super hero system can adequately do that. I get that. Not every DM likes to have to be both god cop AND bad cop mostly due to the fact that they have enough prep work to do without also having to closely monitor the PC's character builds. 4ed DND you only need to keep watch for a couple things, but other than that it's very challenging for a player who isn't breaking any rules to make a character that just dominates a fight the way Professor X has the capability of doing.

Your moral of the story is 100% true. The problem is that, unlike in the popular fantasy setting games, the responsibility of balance falls much much heavier on the shoulders of the DM because the players, whether they realize what they are doing or not, aren't going to do it for you. Players want to be as badass as possible. Can't blame them, why wouldn't they? So as a result in most superhero games the possibility for ridiculousness is so great, DMs need to be very comfortable with saying no. Much moreso than in a game like DnD.

And one final thing, and yes I fully admit I am now totally nit- picking with this, but Superman and kryptonite is a terrible example of a "balancing flaw." Kryptonite is not something many people will have access too. If an opponent has access to kryptonite there needs to be a convincing reason written into that villain's backstory explaining it. He won't ever just "happen upon" his weakness. His weakness to magic, however is a much more vulnerable weakpoint as it is much easier for him to accidentally run into magic opponents. Green Lantern getting messed up by yellow is also a much better example of a balancing weakpoint as yellow is something that can come up quite often, requring this otherwise insanely powerful super hero to be much more generally aware of his weakness than Supes will ever have to be. (of Kryptonite that is)

[redbstrd]

I'd agree with Frobones on this one. The person who did that review hadn't played Mutants and Masterminds and it shows in his argument.

In the Professor X example, the author argues that Professor X is limited to mind control in an all-or-nothing attack. Professor X, however, can disable senses (Dazzle), cause paralysis (Stun), and fire mental bolts (Mental Blast). He is neither as dependent on single-hit kills nor as defensively helpless as the author implies. Xavier is trained in martial arts which are enhanced by his ability to telepathically anticipate attacks. In game terms, he would be Defense shifted - even if that is a bit humorous because he is confined to a wheelchair.

The author's speedster example is even worse. Any speedster in comics, such as the Flash or Quicksilver, would have some degree of Defensive Roll. In the comics, they are able to survive encounters with supervillains because they don't really take rocket hits to the chest. MnM represents that situation through a combination of high Defense *and* Defensive Roll. In MnM, in order for a speedster to get hit in the chest with a rocket hit, they would have to be targeted with a high attack roll, plus they would have to fail their Toughness save by a large margin. If they have a decent Toughness score due to Defensive Roll and don't completely fail their save, the description wouldn't be "The speedster takes a rocket to the chest." What could have a been a direct hit would be explained as a blast that missed but the explosion may have singed and bruised the hero. Speedsters shouldn't usually be able to survive a direct hit with a rocket, but that situation should rarely be the description of events (given how Defensive Roll should mitigate the degree of impact). MnM is built to account for speedsters in exactly the way that comic books keep them alive. It's the same basic explanation of hit points - they don't just represent the ability to take a sword hit (because people shouldn't live through 40 sword stabs) but instead includes a mechanical system that weakens the character but implies that some dodges and parries are involved.

Taking the specific examples of Professor X versus Hulk is also a poor analogy on a couple of levels. First, they probably aren't the same power level. Hulk would probably win hands down. Second, Professor X is probably built as a "glass cannon" due to his restricted mobility. He probably doesn't come anywhere near his defensive level caps. However, the author's point is not just that Professor X and Hulk fighting each other is problematic; he instead argues that the example tells us something about the *typical party* (which therefore implies a serious problem in the game mechanics). His claim there just isn't true. The typical party's telepath is going to be much more akin to Jean Grey than Professor X. It's going to be a character with a telekinetic force field and at least a decent Defense score. Likewise, the typical speedster is going to have a high Defense, but still some degree of Toughness from Defensive Roll. If a party includes heroes built like Professor X and his speedster, then they are designing broken characters. It would be a player failure, not a game system failure.

[frobones]

Aug 23, 2010 17:00:26 GMT -8 redbstrd said:

It's the same basic explanation of hit points - they don't just represent the ability to take a sword hit (because people shouldn't live through 40 sword stabs) but instead includes a mechanical system that weakens the character but implies that some dodges and parries are involved.

Exactly!