Best Rules for Leaping and Throwing Objects in M&M?

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greycrusader
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Best Rules for Leaping and Throwing Objects in M&M?

Post by greycrusader »

Inviting any advice my fellow posters may have either come up (homebrew) or come across (3rd party products) to better two weaknesses (IMHO) in the 3e M&M/DCA rules:

First, how do you handle super-powered characters jumping/leaping as a mode of attack, a la Spider-Man or even the infamous Batroc? While the Leaping rules themselves are fairly straightforward (basing distance off STR and any ranks in Leaping), do you treat jumping AT a particular target as a Ranged Attack? An Athletics (or maybe Acrobatics) check? And do you base Damage off STR or treat it as a slam/move through attack, as covered under the rules for flyers and speedsters?

Second, has anyone out there created/found a rational and playable way to handle damage from thrown objects (as opposed to throwing weapons)? This is one of the biggest omissions in the combat system-RAW, there's no difference between a powerhouse/brick tossing a rubber ball at a foe...or a monster truck tire...or a whole monster truck; they all do STR damage, no more, no less.

I've tried out various house rules (and sometimes just ad-hoc "circumstance" bonuses/penalties) but I've never really come up with rules I've particularly satisfied with for either situation. And while M&M (and most either points-based mechanics) really limit PCs to what they "pay for", its just TOO limiting to forbid characters from making use of their surroundings in a combat situation.

What's worked best in your campaigns?

All my best!
Nunya B
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Re: Best Rules for Leaping and Throwing Objects in M&M?

Post by Nunya B »

I don't see any reason Leaping needs to be a snowflake. Charge/Slam rules should work just as well for it.

If you're dissatisfied with thrown objects, the first instinct I'd have would be to assign each thrown object a rank cap based on weight plus lethality.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Best Rules for Leaping and Throwing Objects in M&M?

Post by Batgirl III »

• Do you treat jumping AT a particular target as a Ranged Attack?

No; It’s just the movement from the Move Action they take before the Standard Action to make the attack. Not much different than walking there, really, although it will probably cover more distance and/or let them move vertically.

• A rational and playable way to handle damage from thrown objects (as opposed to throwing weapons)?

What’s wrong with the current rules? Target’s Toughness vs. the Attacker’s Strength Rank + Object’s Damage Rank + 15...?
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EpicEclipse
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Re: Best Rules for Leaping and Throwing Objects in M&M?

Post by EpicEclipse »

Yeah, leaping is just a move action. No different than flight or teleporting or burrowing up to someone and smacking them. If you're doing it as a cannonball bodily bodyslam kind of thing, use Charge/Slam rules.

If you have no actual ranks of leaping and just use mundane jumping at someone, you are still moving at rank 0 for whatever that is worth. Just remember you take recoil on a slam.

Where leaping does get complex is once it hits that poind that a single leap takes longer than a single round, but at that point it gets impractical to consider it for a means of attacking an enemy anyways, even if you're doing some kind of Dragoon leaping attack thing, just hold back your leaping rank to that point when you want to do a leaping slam.

As for thrown things, as Batgirl says, STR + Object damage (Which is often equal to it's toughness). Though when powerhouses do that, their STR is generally already set to punch at PL cap, but you could also consider throwing things as a free ranged modifier on their strength, so take that as you will.

Also note object SIZE plays a factor as objects of sufficient size can constitute an area attack, and some gms will play rule of cool based on the object itself, so even with STR PL capped for punching, object throwing can still be viable. Just remember wielding an object you have uprooted may simply destroy the object if it's toughness is below your strength level (short of having something in your mechanics to bypass that)
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