Why a 4th Edition?

"Yeah, so why a fourth edition when the third edition works?" asked no one, really.

Well, let me state a couple goals first:

1. Characters built using 3rd edition rules can be used, as is, in a 4th edition game. I don't want to invalidate all the existing 3rd edition material. Thus,
2. Almost all of the changes will be made in character generation. Playing 4th edition will be nigh identical to playing 3rd edition. The point costs of something might change, but at the table, these changes can easily be glossed over.

And a couple assumptions:

1. The main purpose of Power Points is to balance the combat effectiveness of a character. Notice, I said Power Points, not Power Level. The corollary to this is that character traits that do not affect combat should have little to no cost in terms of Power Points.
2. The way combat works now is "good." There will not be any changes to how Damage and Affliction compare in terms of power, for example.

As I said, M&M3 is an excellent game. But there are a few holes in it. And I think I can plug up those holes by making character generation changes and leaving the "playing the game" parts of the rules relatively untouched.

"So, if backward compatibility is a high priority, what's changing?"

That's what the rest of the blog is about. But essentially, the main change is granularity. The Power Point cost of everything is doubled: Strength is 4 PP per rank, Damage 2 PP per rank. The Area Extras add 2 PP per rank to a power. Skills will cost 1 PP per rank. And so on.

And then, some things will NOT have their costs doubled. Dexterity will cost 3 PP per rank because it is not as effective as raw Strength, for example.

Now, the "why" of all these changes is important. And each article will tackle some small part of the system and explain why it is or is not having its costs tampered with.

"Are there downsides to this?"

Admittedly, doubling all the costs means your standard PL10 character will have 300 Power Points to use to build their character. That might seem like a daunting number for the new player.

And there will be fewer cost shortcuts in the game. All abilities will not be 4 PP per rank, it will vary by ability. All Advantages will not be 2 PP per rank, it will vary by advantage. Some Flat Power Extras will be 2 PP per rank and some will still be 1 PP per rank.

And a very common house rule of getting 3 Skill ranks per Power Point will become inconvenient to use. The book keeping on 3 Skill Ranks per 2 Power Points might rankle some players.

I hope that gives you a reason for doing this. The next post will jump head first into the issues associated with the current costs of ability scores.