House Rules
House Rules Overview
The intent is not to rewrite the rules. I wish to address a few concerns and keep players informed on how I tend to adjust or interpret the rules. Ultimately, it comes down to what the group wants and needs. Everything is open to discussion. Most of these are guidelines and suggestions rather than changes to the rules.A Note on Pronouns
For the purposes of this document, I use male pronouns for characters and female pronouns for players. This is done for clarity of whether we are discussing a character or a player.Skills
Expertise: Magic (Optional)
I like a adding a descriptor the Expertise: Magic skill. I do not require a descriptor of players but I will use a descriptor for NPCs. Samples include Expertise: Chaos Magic or Expertise: Summoner. These operate the same as the default Expertise: Magic skill, but I may provide a circumstance bonus if a check for information fits a character’s magic descriptor.Expertise: Medicine and Treatment (Change)
I roll Expertise: Medicine into Treatment. I have found Treatment can cover almost everything Expertise: Medicine does. If a player wants to play a character that is developing new medical breakthroughs then she might want Expertise: Medicine for him. We can treat Expertise: Medicine as a limited Expertise: Science and discount the cost accordingly.Powers
Descriptors (Change and Clarification)
I like for every power to have either a Source or Origin descriptor. Powers that are capable of affecting anything other than the character should have at least one Medium descriptor in addition to a source or origin descriptor.Immunities to entire power sources or origins are nearly unheard of without flaws in the MD610 Universe. These immunities are usually acceptable if Limited to Half Effect or otherwise flawed to not be all-encompassing. See Descriptors for a list of usual Descriptors by rarity. Other descriptors may show up, but they would likely be player created.
Impervious Defenses (Change)
Ranks of Impervious Defense after figuring in all modifiers greater than the character's actual defense are not counted when determining what rank of effects the character can ignore. Example: if a character has Impervious Toughness 12 and Toughness 10, then he would only ignore effects against Toughness of 5 ranks or lower and not of 6 or lower. If the effect has Penetration 4 (bringing Impervious Toughness down to 8) then the effect can be ignored if it is rank 4 or lower.Regeneration (Clarification and Possible Alternate Rule)
I would prefer Regeneration be purchased at either one rank, two ranks, or in ranks of multiples of five in order to make tracking the provided healing easier. If we play with more lethal rules than the default rules then every five ranks of Regeneration will count as one rank of Toughness toward the PL cap. Even if we are not using more lethal rules most NPCs will be built using this alternate rule.Remote Sensing (Clarification)
This power itself is unchanged. Remote Sensing does not allow for Perception-ranged attacks.Variable (Clarification)
Please remember to include a Limit to your Variable as a Limit is already figured into the base cost. Variable consumes table time. I actively discourage Variable for new players. For experienced players I like to have a library of power settings built before play. Please prepare at least five power settings. This represents what the character is likely to call on with little to no thinking on the spot. If the character does not have much time to think and one of the grab bag powers will work fairly well in the situation then we will use the premade option even if it might not always be the most optimal. If we run into an issue with Variable and table time after a few sessions we may rewrite the character using an array instead.Extras and Flaws
Innate (Transparency)
While everything technically requires GM approval, Innate is something I am hesitant to approve. It is extremely rare to run into an NPC with Innate. The power must truly be a part of the character to a point where not having Innate breaks the concept. Examples of characters that should have Innate in my opinion is Innate Growth for an elephant or Shrinking for a house cat. Extra limbs are also a common Innate power. Innate is not a hard no, but it will be an uphill battle to sell in most cases.Constructs
Absent Stamina & Extra Effort (Change)
Creatures without Stamina (constructs) can use Extra Effort, and suffer Fatigue & Exhausted conditions for that, even if they're normally immune against fatigue from other sources (this kind of "fatigue" represents wear&tear, overheating etc). An already exhausted construct cannot use Extra Effort until the condition is removed. A hero point can always be used for recovering from these conditions, but using the Recovery Action or natural recovery requires the construct to have at least 1 rank of Regeneration. Constructs without this must be repaired, outside action time.Constructs & Affects Objects (Change)
When a creature with Stamina “-” & Immunity (fortitude) is hit by a fortitude-targeting effect with the Affects Objects extra, it uses its PL -2 (Minimum 0) as a save modifier instead of its absent fort save.Other
Circumstance Bonus or Penalty (Clarification)
Circumstance bonuses and penalties are capped at +/-5, but two or more minor (+2) circumstance bonuses stack to a major bonus (+5). The same holds true in reverse for penalties, and penalties reduce bonuses; for example, if a character has a major circumstance bonus and a minor circumstance penalty on a roll, then they would have a net +2 bonus. Mechanics that explicitly let you stack circumstance modifiers beyond this limit (such as Team Attacks, or the inventing rule that lets you trade -1 time per -5 on the check) or give modifiers that don't fit the standard 2/5 scheme (Improved Aim's +10 bonus) work as written and can go above +/-5 as necessary; standard circumstance modifiers are applied separately. Also note that circumstance bonuses on a roll can explicitly ignore power level caps. This is a clarification of the existing circumstance modifier rules in the book, as the rules as written aren't clear about how different circumstance modifiers interact.Failing Forward (Transparency)
There are times a character may fail on a roll, yet still succeed at what they were trying to do. This will usually come at a cost or a temporary complication. The player character will usually not receive a hero point for a complication resulting from failing forward.Headquarters (Change)
We are using Better Mousetrap by Misfit Studios for HQ building.Time Travel (Transparency)
I am fine with allowing players to attempt to play a character that can manipulate time. That said, even when telling a story involving time travel I like to have events proceed in a chronological fashion for the main characters themselves. Time travel is confusing enough even with this constraint. We can discuss and work together to address any issues that may come up. If a solution can not be found then we may need to rewrite or retire the character. While I would prefer not to take that route, I would like any player considering a time traveling character to realize it is a possibility. As a time traveler your character would be aware that there are beings that work to maintain the timeline unless the character is completely new to manipulating time. These beings actively hunt people that are disruptive either on a large singular scale or in multiple small ways. Their concerns seem to be on a cosmic scale so a lot may go unnoticed, but it is not always easy to discern what might grab the attention of the Time Variance Authority.Source Books
Here is a list of player resources we are pulling from. Please bring something to my attention if you would like to see an amendment to this list. Green Ronin published materialsHeroLab
The Headquarters section from Better Mousetrap by Misfit Studios
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