Heroic Summons

[Sandman XI]

Allowed or not?

[Sandman XI]

Allowed or not?

[Barnum]

Allowed or not?

In our last "minion debate" we did not rule out the heroic extra. The rules we did place on minions . . .

1. The effective PL of Minions and Sidekicks is limited to one half the PC's PL, rounded down.

2. Minions cannot use Combined Attack, and as a group, they can never provide more than a +2 bonus to any other character through the Aid Another action. (This does mean that one minion could help another minion, while a third minion helps a fourth minion, but not all three minions helping the fourth minion.)

3. All Minions in a single group must have the same stats. You can buy multiple groups of minions, but this tends to be more expensive due to the nature of the Time and Value Progression table.

4. Sidekicks may not use the Progression feat. Multiple Sidekicks are possible, but they come at full cost.

5. Duplication and Summon are not allowed as Alternate Powers of other powers, such as Magic or Cosmic Energy Control.

6. While there is not an explicit limit to how many minions you can have, GMs are free to limit the number that you have on hand for a particular scene if it would not make sense for all of them to be there. Your character will probably not have 1000 trained soldiers with him when he goes to McDonald's for a late night snack.

. . . but it would depend on the build, I'm sure.

I will say that in my three years or so of trying to run forum-based MnM games (like this one), no minion-based character has ever lasted longer than just a few threads before being abandoned.

I know that as a player I am hesitant to join a thread with more than two or three other characters in it. There's no way I'd join a thread with a character who can summon 10 or 20 more characters to keep track of. And in my experience most other players feel the same.

As a GM I have always handled the minions with "hand waving" in combat. I just have no interest in trying to track damage, conditions, position, etc. for 20 or 30 lackeys. Making them heroic just exponentially increases the record keeping.

That's how I see it anyway.

[Barnum]

Allowed or not?

In our last "minion debate" we did not rule out the heroic extra. The rules we did place on minions . . .

1. The effective PL of Minions and Sidekicks is limited to one half the PC's PL, rounded down.

2. Minions cannot use Combined Attack, and as a group, they can never provide more than a +2 bonus to any other character through the Aid Another action. (This does mean that one minion could help another minion, while a third minion helps a fourth minion, but not all three minions helping the fourth minion.)

3. All Minions in a single group must have the same stats. You can buy multiple groups of minions, but this tends to be more expensive due to the nature of the Time and Value Progression table.

4. Sidekicks may not use the Progression feat. Multiple Sidekicks are possible, but they come at full cost.

5. Duplication and Summon are not allowed as Alternate Powers of other powers, such as Magic or Cosmic Energy Control.

6. While there is not an explicit limit to how many minions you can have, GMs are free to limit the number that you have on hand for a particular scene if it would not make sense for all of them to be there. Your character will probably not have 1000 trained soldiers with him when he goes to McDonald's for a late night snack.

. . . but it would depend on the build, I'm sure.

I will say that in my three years or so of trying to run forum-based MnM games (like this one), no minion-based character has ever lasted longer than just a few threads before being abandoned.

I know that as a player I am hesitant to join a thread with more than two or three other characters in it. There's no way I'd join a thread with a character who can summon 10 or 20 more characters to keep track of. And in my experience most other players feel the same.

As a GM I have always handled the minions with "hand waving" in combat. I just have no interest in trying to track damage, conditions, position, etc. for 20 or 30 lackeys. Making them heroic just exponentially increases the record keeping.

That's how I see it anyway.

[Sandman XI]

5. Duplication and Summon are not allowed as Alternate Powers of other powers, such as Magic or Cosmic Energy Control.

OK, this leads me to another question. So far my Summon array looks like this:

Summon Minion 10 (Flaw: Full Round (-1), Unreliable (5 charges) (-1); Extra: Humanoids (+2), Heroic (+1))

AP: Summon Minion 10 (Flaw: Full Round (-1), Unreliable (5 charges) (-1); Extra: Animals (+2), Heroic (+1))

AP: Create Object 10 (Flaw: Full Round (-1), Unreliable (5 charges) (-1); Power Feats: Subtle 1)

AP: Gadgets 10 (easy to lose; Flaw: Sustained (-1), Full Round (-1), Unreliable (5 charges) (-1))

Is this legal?

[Sandman XI]

5. Duplication and Summon are not allowed as Alternate Powers of other powers, such as Magic or Cosmic Energy Control.

OK, this leads me to another question. So far my Summon array looks like this:

Summon Minion 10 (Flaw: Full Round (-1), Unreliable (5 charges) (-1); Extra: Humanoids (+2), Heroic (+1))

AP: Summon Minion 10 (Flaw: Full Round (-1), Unreliable (5 charges) (-1); Extra: Animals (+2), Heroic (+1))

AP: Create Object 10 (Flaw: Full Round (-1), Unreliable (5 charges) (-1); Power Feats: Subtle 1)

AP: Gadgets 10 (easy to lose; Flaw: Sustained (-1), Full Round (-1), Unreliable (5 charges) (-1))

Is this legal?

[Barnum]

No, for three reasons.

1. In order to reduce the record keeping involved (extensive record keeping is the death of PbP, IMO) the rules say that all minions have to have the same stats, thus the "Type" extra is excluded.

2. We also don't allow most variable power structures, and have never approved the "Gadgets" power so far, certainly not 10 ranks.

3. We would probably allow two different versions of summon to be bought as APs, but not with other powers. The purpose of rule #5 is to put a premium cost on minions and thus discourage them.

[Barnum]

No, for three reasons.

1. In order to reduce the record keeping involved (extensive record keeping is the death of PbP, IMO) the rules say that all minions have to have the same stats, thus the "Type" extra is excluded.

2. We also don't allow most variable power structures, and have never approved the "Gadgets" power so far, certainly not 10 ranks.

3. We would probably allow two different versions of summon to be bought as APs, but not with other powers. The purpose of rule #5 is to put a premium cost on minions and thus discourage them.

[Sandman XI]

1. In order to reduce the record keeping involved (extensive record keeping is the death of PbP, IMO) the rules say that all minions have to have the same stats, thus the "Type" extra is excluded.

3. We would probably allow two different versions of summon to be bought as APs, but not with other powers. The purpose of rule #5 is to put a premium cost on minions and thus discourage them.

Hmmm... I see where the bookkeeping nigtmare would come into play. So you're saying if I bought Summon Minion it would be one exclusive minion, and that each AP would be another exlusive minion. Am I right?

[Sandman XI]

1. In order to reduce the record keeping involved (extensive record keeping is the death of PbP, IMO) the rules say that all minions have to have the same stats, thus the "Type" extra is excluded.

3. We would probably allow two different versions of summon to be bought as APs, but not with other powers. The purpose of rule #5 is to put a premium cost on minions and thus discourage them.

Hmmm... I see where the bookkeeping nigtmare would come into play. So you're saying if I bought Summon Minion it would be one exclusive minion, and that each AP would be another exlusive minion. Am I right?

[Heridfel]

You can have multiple minions within each effect, but they will all have identical game stats. That could be because they're generic (such as a bunch of ninja, a team of security guard, or a pack of wolves) or because they're all exactly the same (such as a clone army). An AP could allow you to have more types of creatures, but you'd only ever have one group at a time, due to the way that Alternate Powers work.

There's also a little clarification within Dorian Magnus' thread, here, on how Minions are handled. His minions came from the feat, rather than a power, but the concept is similar.

[Heridfel]

You can have multiple minions within each effect, but they will all have identical game stats. That could be because they're generic (such as a bunch of ninja, a team of security guard, or a pack of wolves) or because they're all exactly the same (such as a clone army). An AP could allow you to have more types of creatures, but you'd only ever have one group at a time, due to the way that Alternate Powers work.

There's also a little clarification within Dorian Magnus' thread, here, on how Minions are handled. His minions came from the feat, rather than a power, but the concept is similar.

[Barnum]

Not exactly. We are saying that if you buy Summon Minion, it must be a stand alone power (not an AP) and all of your minions must have identical stats.

[Barnum]

Not exactly. We are saying that if you buy Summon Minion, it must be a stand alone power (not an AP) and all of your minions must have identical stats.

[Sandman XI]

Thanks guys. Glad I got that out of the way before I posted the character, unlike last time Back to the drawing board :P

[Sandman XI]

Thanks guys. Glad I got that out of the way before I posted the character, unlike last time Back to the drawing board :P

[Sandman XI]

Er, just for clarification sake say I wanted to do some thing like this...

Summon Minion (Han Solo)

AP: Summon Minion (Indiana Jones)

Or would it have to be like this...

Summon Minion (Han Solo)

Summon Minion (Indiana Jones)

[Sandman XI]

Er, just for clarification sake say I wanted to do some thing like this...

Summon Minion (Han Solo)

AP: Summon Minion (Indiana Jones)

Or would it have to be like this...

Summon Minion (Han Solo)

Summon Minion (Indiana Jones)

[Barnum]

Er, just for clarification sake say I wanted to do some thing like this...

Summon Minion (Han Solo)

AP: Summon Minion (Indiana Jones)

Or would it have to be like this...

Summon Minion (Han Solo)

Summon Minion (Indiana Jones)

I'm not sure about that. It has never come up. I don't think I'd have a problem with Summon APs as long as they were different settings for the Summon power. Let me ask the Refs and get their opinion on this. I'll let you know ASAP.

[Barnum]

Er, just for clarification sake say I wanted to do some thing like this...

Summon Minion (Han Solo)

AP: Summon Minion (Indiana Jones)

Or would it have to be like this...

Summon Minion (Han Solo)

Summon Minion (Indiana Jones)

I'm not sure about that. It has never come up. I don't think I'd have a problem with Summon APs as long as they were different settings for the Summon power. Let me ask the Refs and get their opinion on this. I'll let you know ASAP.

[Barnum]

Yes, a Summon array where the AP is also a different setting of Summon is fine. :D

[Barnum]

Yes, a Summon array where the AP is also a different setting of Summon is fine. :D

[Dr Archeville]

I'm pretty sure you can't have Gadgets as an AP of anything anyway, due to Gadgets effectively having the Device flaw on it. (The other PbP M&M game I'm in, Living Supers at EN*World, we had some big issues with a player who wanted two of the APs of the char's massive array to be Devices; questions arose as to what would happen is she lost either of the easy-to-lose Devices [would it lock out all the other powers in the Array or not?].)

No Type extra? Well, there goes my idea to eventually have Doktor Archeville have some Expand-O-Bots (action figure-size bots which look like assorted superheroes [i.e., the Archetypes, though all with Con at -- and Immunity 30 (Fort effects) to represent their robotic construction] that grow to life-size and obey his commands). Though it does look like I could do it as, say, Summon Brick, AP Summon Energy (Fire) Controller, AP Summon Martial Artist, AP Summon Speedster, etc. (Come to think of it, it might actually work out cheaper that way.)

[Dr Archeville]

I'm pretty sure you can't have Gadgets as an AP of anything anyway, due to Gadgets effectively having the Device flaw on it. (The other PbP M&M game I'm in, Living Supers at EN*World, we had some big issues with a player who wanted two of the APs of the char's massive array to be Devices; questions arose as to what would happen is she lost either of the easy-to-lose Devices [would it lock out all the other powers in the Array or not?].)

No Type extra? Well, there goes my idea to eventually have Doktor Archeville have some Expand-O-Bots (action figure-size bots which look like assorted superheroes [i.e., the Archetypes, though all with Con at -- and Immunity 30 (Fort effects) to represent their robotic construction] that grow to life-size and obey his commands). Though it does look like I could do it as, say, Summon Brick, AP Summon Energy (Fire) Controller, AP Summon Martial Artist, AP Summon Speedster, etc. (Come to think of it, it might actually work out cheaper that way.)