Vehicles underpointed?

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slade the sniper
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2016 11:15 pm

Vehicles underpointed?

Post by slade the sniper »

Looking at the fairly small number of military vehicle builds in the M&M books, they seem to be a bit underpointed, especially with regard to sensors and weapons.

For example, there is no mention in the "tank" for it to have a rank 9 vision sense (2 miles) with laser rangefinder (distance sense 1 rank and accurate 2 ranks), infravision (1 rank), navigation system (direction sense 1 rank), radio (1 rank)....for a total of +15 points and that is just for sensors. For weapons you can imagine that the tank cannon (ranged damage 10, range 9) would have 5 ranks Armor Piercing ammo (for +5 points) and the smokescreen (assume the 12 points are covered in base cost of 65 points. That would still leave 20 points for the AP ammo and the sensors making the baseline modern tank be 80 points.

For a modern jet aircraft they are even more expensive...the baseline cost is 66 points, but that is still ignoring sensors such as:
100 mile radar (rank 15 range), radar threat detection (awareness 1 rank and danger sense 1 rank), stealth characteristics (cloaking device 4 points), accurate (4 ranks to slew and cue a lot of sensors), communication link (1 rank), counters concealment (active sensors to cut through jamming, 2 ranks), simultaneous (for the HUD) at least 1 rank, direction sense 1 rank, distance sense 1 rank, infravision 1 rank, radius 1 rank, tracking (lock ons) 1 rank...that is 34 points, for a total of...an even 100 points.

You could even toss in a few advantages for the vehicle such as Assessment to determine the type of enemy, Improved critical for some weapons, move by action (for shooting on the move), redirect for some missiles to continue to attack their target if they miss initially, daze for using flares, favored foe (tanks for tanks, aircraft for interceptors or fighters, etc.), Startle if they attack first or an ambush, etc.

I love the system, but for some reason, I think that there could be a deep system of vehicular combat and creation that mirrors the superheroic. Granted, the Equipment Points are going to be a pain, even if chipping in a few points each for crew served vehicles, but a singular F-22 pilot will be hurting, unless the EPs are free if you assume the drawback of being in the military or some I don't know. Probably just me :(

-STS
greycrusader
Posts: 1179
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 11:25 pm
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: Vehicles underpointed?

Post by greycrusader »

Agreed the vehicles in the core books aren't terribly detailed (and hence they are under-pointed); I think, aside from space considerations, the idea was simply to give examples of their respective speeds, carrying capacities, and combat stats. Most of the rest is just hand-waved, particularly in the case of military vehicles. Most GMs would require truly advanced vehicles that heroes regularly employ in combat situations to be built in more detail, or for characters to spend Hero Points to use various capabilities.

All my best.
slade the sniper
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2016 11:15 pm

Re: Vehicles underpointed?

Post by slade the sniper »

greycrusader wrote: Thu Aug 15, 2019 1:18 pm Agreed the vehicles in the core books aren't terribly detailed (and hence they are under-pointed); I think, aside from space considerations, the idea was simply to give examples of their respective speeds, carrying capacities, and combat stats. Most of the rest is just hand-waved, particularly in the case of military vehicles. Most GMs would require truly advanced vehicles that heroes regularly employ in combat situations to be built in more detail, or for characters to spend Hero Points to use various capabilities.

All my best.
I agree with you, but I suppose that is just a genre trope where tanks and planes are just things for heroes to break or throw. Once you shift into a darker more, um, modern/sci-fi genre, the equipment becomes much more lethal.

-STS
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