A Fantasy Campaign

[Stule Brown]

Hey guys!

I had an idea but I need some help.

I miss playing fantasy.

I hate 3.5 or just about any other addition.

I love M+M!

I was wondering, if I was going to run a campaign where the party are the Hero's, what Power Level should they be?

I was thinking 10, but that seems like an awful lot of Power Points.

I was also thinking PL 8, becasue in the book, Full Plate is +8 Protection.

What do you guys think?

[Patriarch]

I think full plate being +8 Protection is absurd, but I don't really like many of the ranks given in the Devices chapter. But something tells me that's not what you were asking about.

[BlackDragon1200]

The thing about Armour in the comic books is that it pretty much gives you universal protection against everything. A bullet proof vest will also give you ample protection against melee weapons while chainmail (as worn by Captain America) would seem to help protect you against bullets (In real life, depending on the caliber of the weapon, being shot while wearing chainmail can potentially do you a lot more damage). With this reasoning Full Plate which is a lot chunkier than a Bullet Proof Vest, would give the user a lot more protection (think the original Iron Man).

[EDIT]
I really like the idea of running a D&D esque game using M&M (I've been thinking of doing this myself). I would probably start them all at PL 5 (As that is the level when humans become "Super Humans"). The fact that they cannot yet obtain Full Plate could be easily explained by a lack of "money" or if you really wanted you could just bend the Power Limit rules a little bit.
[/EDIT]

[Greyman]

[EDIT]
I really like the idea of running a D&D esque game using M&M (I've been thinking of doing this myself). I would probably start them all at PL 5 (As that is the level when humans become "Super Humans"). The fact that they cannot yet obtain Full Plate could be easily explained by a lack of "money" or if you really wanted you could just bend the Power Limit rules a little bit.
[/EDIT]

Or you could just wait for second edition where power level trade offs come into play. Of course to gain Protection 8 at PL 5 your Defense would be limited to +2 but, at PL 5, that's not really too bad. Get Adamantine Platemail, also known as Device 8 [Protection (Impervious)].

[ronalmb]

The nice thing about 2e is that you can make that Full Plate (Protection , let it add to your damage save, but not make rifles (or broadswords) automatically bounce off you.

I am currently running a Fantasy flavor M&M campaign on Thursday nights. After some initial playtests, having armor provide 1e Protection was way wretched.

On the plus side, people were able to play Celestials, Gnolls, Ogres, etc. if they wanted to without having to worry about DnD's difficult ECL and CR system messing things up.

We started around PL 5 (1e), awarding everyone 75 points for character building.

It seemed impossible to get out of the DnD equipment mindset, and many of my players miss accumulating magic items, weapons and especially Gold!... so we are attempting again, with a few DnD flavored rules (that gives fighter-types something to spend their points on)

Feats (2e - 1 point each)

Armor Proficiency (ranked)
You are trained in the use of armor. You may wear any armor that you meet the proficiency requirement for without penalty. You may take this feat up to 6 times. [Reasoning - Old Dnd Armor Proficiency feats cost 6 points total] If you do not meet the requirement, you suffer the armor check penalties to skill checks, attack rolls, and to your defense.

Weapon Proficiency (ranked)
You are trained in the use of weaponry. You may use any weapon that you meet the proficiency requirements for without the -4 non proficiency penalty. You may buy this feat up to 3 times. [Allowing for Simple, martial, and exotic type weapons]

Magic has several individual power sets that are themed to represent specialties in magic (Illusion, Alchemy, Necromancy, Fire Elementalism, etc.)... it seems to work well especially with the 2e system for Alternate Powers.

I have rambled on a lot, so if you are interested in knowing more, let me know, and i could try posting most of it here.

[Rivalsan]

Thing to remember: In Olden Days, to be able to fight wearing full plate, you rode a horse. If a knight in full plate got knocked off his feet, he was dead meat. Getting up wearing several hundred pounds of metal was very difficult to do.

Doesn't Captain America wear scale? I don't see any rings.

Other things to remember
1) There were lovely knives developed to deal with chain mail. Needle points that slid right through the links. Armor? What armor?
2) You're the Game Operations Director. If you decide full plate is only +6 its only +6. Honestly, any player wearing anything over +5 should probably have some serious hamperings going on. x.x

[the_masochist]

Other things to remember
1) There were lovely knives developed to deal with chain mail. Needle points that slid right through the links. Armor? What armor?

why yes, it was called a Kendal, but it was more like a chisel then a knife...(you put it on someones armor and hit the back of it with a hammer and it usually pierced something vital) and it wasn't limited to chain mail either. (penetrating attack maybe?)

[BlackDragon1200]

Doesn't Captain America wear scale? I don't see any rings.

Probably, it was one or the other (actually i've seen pictures that look like chainmail and pictures that look like scale).

As for chainmail, it was primarily designed to protect against slashing and bludgening weapons and therefore was a lot less effective against any kind of piercing weapon.

[Tagnik]

I'd love to use a Fantasy Campaign, power level limit to like.. 5 or something.

No Super Powers can be bought, then make everything else Items.

IE Belt of Giant's Strenght, Longswords. and get rid of Power Level Limits for Powers. If you find something powerful enough, you get to use it (if the GM allows).

[the_masochist]

I see, so a wand of polymorph other would be a device with the transformation power?

[tomorrow]

If I'm not mistaken Cap's armor has always been a very tight chainmail weave... for awhile now its actually been micro-chainmail like that used in the classic Iron Man and Guardian armors... but otherwise mundane. That's why at times its hard to tell Cap is wearing armor at all... because the links of the chainmail are so dang small... but really, really tough none the less.

[Tagnik]

Exactly Maso.

You'd just have to find it

The problem would be leveling up... No powers allowed.. .You'd have some seriously highly skilled heroes.. maybe set it so power levels = 10 points?

[ronalmb]

No Powers allowed? I assume you won't be having wizards, sorcerers, dragons, floating eyeballs, etc...

Anywho, Tagnik, I have my fantasy notes present with me. I'm going to post them as a seperate topic in the Fan Resources forum now.

Got part I up, working on entry 2. It's a lot of typing, and I have left a lot out.. so i really should condense our gaming groups rules into something more legible

[Rivalsan]

Doesn't Captain America wear scale? I don't see any rings.

Probably, it was one or the other (actually i've seen pictures that look like chainmail and pictures that look like scale).

As for chainmail, it was primarily designed to protect against slashing and bludgening weapons and therefore was a lot less effective against any kind of piercing weapon.

Actually - Chainmail was supposed to protect against slashing weapons and against pesky things like arrows (Crossbow bolts can cheerfully go through plate armor). It was the padding beneath that protected against blunt weapons.

Most people wearing chain mail vs someone with a heavy sword like a broadsword would die from pesky things like broken ribs going into their lungs.. You tended to beat the other person to death more than cut them, unless you got in a lucky strike.

[the_masochist]

and thus came the reign of Rapiers, which could find chincs in the armor and strike vital points, while easily dodging the big clunking knights.