Low Level Hero Project

[Novac]

We all agree that Mutants and Masterminds is a really well done system for building characters. Well, okay, we might not all agree, but still work with me here. The game was designed around PL 10, but I was wondering how lower PLs would work out. Any of you guys got examples of characters PL's 1-7?

[Strand0]

older ideas of power levels:
What Power Level are you using?
Ideas for Teen Villains for a Teen based game
Good PL for High School Game...

[Ryan_Singer]

I am running a PL1 fantasy campaign where the players started as teenage peasants with just ability scores and built up from there. it's going pretty well, the players have adapted very well to the extra care needed in a low powered campaign. that said, these same characters will be scary by the time they get to PL5, much less 10.-Ryan

[mgg]

I don't have any examples of super heroes, but I figured you could play a pretty entertaining pulp fiction game at around 3rd level if you use 3:1 skills and don't charge for ordinary equipment.
The sort of game where the characters are exceptional people but not super heroes.

Jack Danger, Stunt Pilot
Str: 12, Dex: 14, Con: 12, Int: 10, Wis: 10, Chr: 14 (Total 12)
BDB: 3 (Cost: 6)
BAB: 2 (Cost: 6)

Skills: Balance +7 (rank 5), Climb +6 (rank 5), Repair +3 (rank 3), Pilot +9 (rank 7), Spot +3 (rank 3), Swim +5 (rank 4)
Cost: 9

Feats:
Aerial Combat (when piloting), Attractive, Expertise, Heroic Surge, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot
Cost: 12

Total: 45, PL 3.

[Artimus]

I'm planning to run an X-Men game in the near future. Here's what I will been using for PL's: (This is based off the X-Men cartoon)

New Mutants PL 4-5
X-Men/Brotherhood PL 5-6
Acolytes/Mystique PL 8
Xavier/Magneto PL 10

I'm thinking on upping Xavier's and Magneto's PL's a bit. The PC's all fall into the X-Men group.

I could go lower if I wanted to.

[Gamer X]

older ideas of power levels:
What Power Level are you using?
Ideas for Teen Villains for a Teen based game
Good PL for High School Game...

Hey Strand, thanks for providing the links, rather than just saying, "check the archives..." I for one recognize and appreciate your time and effort of finding these threads. And they're good threads, too!

I'm not trying to ass-kiss, it's just that there are so MANY pages of so MANY threads, that it is hard to leaf through them to see what's been covered before. Heck, I have a hard enough time just keeping up with the CURRENT conversations!

Anyway, thanks again.

[horned god]

After making up characters I think PL 9 is a great staring PL. I did daredevil, black cat, powerman, ironfist, moonknight and other heros like this at PL 9 just fine. They could do all I wanted them to do. Sure I can make them higher but didn't really need to. I think PL 9 for me represents the 90 to 130 health classic marvel characters which as well as many of the marvel mutants who are more like normal people with a single power which is sorta high in rank but need not be more than rank 9. I'd even do up the Boy Wonder, Robin at PL 9 as I bet he could be done nicely at that level. He could easily end up with a 22 to 27 defense, three or four powers rank 3 to 6 and perhaps a single power rank 8 or 9, and like +9 or +10 or even +11 to hit (modified not base). Dont' see why he'd need to be better than that.

Seeing as PL 9 can represent such 'street level' heros like the ones mentioned above I don't see why a good campaign can't start at that level or even perhsp PL 6 or 7.

[Blacklight]

The game I'm running starts the PCs at PL7. At that level Minions are still enough of a threat to be a nuisance, but the heroes are still way above the "mere mortals" level. The campaign is aimed at just above street level, with the heroes taking on the day to day policing in FC while the Freedom League are off saving the world.

The main reason I didn't start at PL10 was that I wanted to keep the number of character options down to a manageable level for some D20 newbies in the group. Previous experience of giving someone a 10th Level character (in T20) to play from scratch wasn't a great success.

[Novac]

The game I'm running starts the PCs at PL7. At that level Minions are still enough of a threat to be a nuisance, but the heroes are still way above the "mere mortals" level.

I think that's a very neat observation. I had never really thought of things from an NPC aspect, I guess really that comes from being a PC at heart.

Thanks to all who have helped keep the thread alive, loving reading all the posts