Welcome to the Freedomverse!
- In order to handle a large number of players, characters and GM, we have to establish a set of rules to help preserve the setting and ensure that GM’s of various skill levels can work with the characters being brought to their games with a minimum of effort.
Philosophy
- Our general Philosophy is that you are creating characters that will participate in Group Play. Characters that can “do everything” or don’t need a team at all are anathema to that goal. This means that characters like that will not be approved.
- Characters should be designed to be fun, not in an effort to be “unbeatable.” M&M is an easy game to break. We’ve all seen character than can destroy the Earth for a handful of Power Points and we’re not impressed. Don’t try and bring in characters with unstoppable attacks or impenetrable defenses.
Power Level Shifts
- PL Shifts are limited to 50% of the PL.
- PL 8 games, the maximum shift is 4
- PL 10 games, the maximum shift is 5.
- Shifts of more than 2 or 3 will receive additional scrutiny and must make sense for the character.
Action Economy Issues
- Powers and Abilities that break the action economy will be heavily regulated and only approved on a case by case basis, and only at low Effect Ranks.
- Minions, Sidekicks, Summoning are not allowed.
- Minions that can not affect combat in any way MAY be allowed in certain circumcstances.
Reaction and Triggered Effects
- Quickness (for non-combat effects)
- Quickness isn’t banned, but how you use it will be closely monitored.
- Takedown 2 combined with high Movement Ranks.
Story Breaking Issues
- Meta-level game breaking effects that create chaos in storytelling or in challenging the players are highly restricted.
- “Bathroom Mentalists” — characters that can “attack” without being readily attacked in return are unacceptable and will not be approved.
- Reaction Movement effects fall into this Category.
- Senses: Penetrates Concealment or Remote Sensing are key effects that may invoke this rejection.
- Holding Back — Creates difficult and unbalanced gameplay situations and is generally not allowed.
- Variable — The Variable power is highly problematic and is not allowed.
- This is the Variable Effect being discussed, not the Variable Descriptor Modifier. They are separate things.
General Effects
These are Effects that don’t fall into the above Categories.
- Intelligence, Jack of All Trades, Eidetic Memory
- This combination may be allowed, but can be problematic.
- It has to make sense for the character and it must not obviate other players ability to contribute.
Immunity
- High ranks of Damage Immunity should be limited in some fashion.
- Immunity: Toughness, Fortitude and Will — players may only have one of these, and Toughness must be limited in some fashion.
Luck
- Excessive levels of Luck (3+) will be heavily regulated.
- Freedomverse allows the Expanded Luck categories from Power Profiles.
- Reaction and Trigger can only be activated by an event that has already happened, not that is going to happen.
- Healing is limited to 5 ranks for use on others. For use on self only, all of the limits discussed below for Regeneration apply.
Regeneration
- High ranks is not a casual choice and should be central to the character and limited in some fashion. What does this mean specifically?
- Generally speaking, a Regeneration of 5 or under is acceptable with nearly any build.
- For characters with a Regeneration between 6-9 the balance of the Regen will be much more tightly scrutinized in relation to the build as whole and may require some balancing with a limitation of some kind.
- A Regeneration of 10 or higher will always require a balancing or limiting element of some kind.
- When combined with other strong defensive effects (Toughness, Insubstantial, Concealment) may result in a Story-Breaking character. Use caution.
Shared Equipment Points
- Unless on a Vetted Superteam, this is not generally allowed without specific permission.
- Holding Back is not allowed in The Freedomverse.
Crafting and World Changes
Crafting
Crafting follows the RAW rules for the most part. There is a change to the skill used in the Construction Phase, however.
Prerequisites:
- The character must have the Artificer, Inventor or Ritualist Advantages.
- The player must have access to appropriate materials needed.
- Design Phase: The GM rolls the the characters Technology or Expertise: Magic skill
- The DC is 10 + the Total PP to be put into the Invention.
- This requires 1 Hour per PP to be put into the Invention and may be reduced using Mental Quickness.
- This may be done as a Routine Check at the players request.
- On Failure, the player my try again, with the same investment of time.
- This phase is skipped when Jury Rigging.
- Construction Phase: The player rolls an appropriate Expertise skill to build the item (Engineering, Robotics, Smithing, etc).
- The DC is 10 + the Total PP to be put into the Invention. If Jury-Rigging, the DC is increased by 5.
- This requires 4 Hours per PP to be put into the Invention and may be reduced by Physical Quickness. If Jury-Rigging, time is reduced to 1 round per PP in which case Quickness does not apply..
- This may be done as a Routine Check unless it is being Jury Rigged.
- On Failure, the device simply does not work.
- Items built in this way may be used for a single scene before becoming nonfunctional.