ALTERNATE BENCHMARKS FOR M&M: 3E I love the game DC Adventures. Not only does it feature

half of my favorite comic book characters (the other

half residing in the Marvel Universe), but it also

launched the third edition of Mutants and

Masterminds, one the best superhero RPGs ever

created. In most respects, the game earns an A+ from

me. The mechanics are streamlined and elegant, and

the layout is beautiful. I’m very pleased. That being said,

no game has ever satisfied me 100%, so there are a

couple of areas that I feel need tweaking to suit my

particular gaming style. Those areas are the Ability

Benchmarks and the actual write-ups for some of the

DC Heroes characters.

ABILITY BENCHMARKS: I have two issues with the

Ability Benchmarks as presented in the game. First, the

values changed from Mutants and Masterminds 2E, but

the designation for “Human Maximum” wasn’t adjusted

accordingly. In Mutants and Masterminds 2E, for

example, the “Human Maximum” for all Abilities was

set at 25, which granted a +7 Modifier. A character with

a Strength score at this level could lift up to 1,600 lbs.,

which might seem excessive, but which came close to

matching the strength exhibited by Captain America

and other “peak human” characters as presented in the

comics. Mutants and Masterminds 3E maintains the +7

modifier as “Human Maximum” for Abilities, but the

values have now changed, so a character with a

Strength at that level can now lift 3 tons! As far as I’m

concerned, this no longer matches what I consider to be

“Human Maximum” scores in my campaigns.

One solution to this dilemma is to assume that each

Ability has different “Maxima.” Indeed, the game

designers seem to have assumed as much. A “peak

human” character like Batman, for instance, is

presented as having a Strength 4, a Dexterity 7, and a

Fighting 14. There is nothing wrong with this approach,

except that I personally don’t like it. It messes with my

sense of order, and it makes it confusing for my players

during character creation. The rules and tables

presented in this document attempt to address these

concerns by tweaking the Benchmarks presented in DC

Adventures.

CHARACTER WRITE-UPS: Obviously, tweaking the

Ability Benchmarks means tweaking some of the write-

ups presented in DCA to match my rules changes. In

addition, I prefer slightly different interpretations of

some of the DC characters presented in DC Adventures.

Specifically, I prefer my Batman a little more human

than “Bat-God,” and I prefer my Superman a bit more

powerful, cheery, optimistic, competent, and intelligent

than he has been presented for the last 15 years or so.

In addition, I’ve assigned values to some of my favorite

Marvel Characters and included these in the tables

below. Why? I just like ‘em!

NOTES ON ADJUSTMENTS: I thought some of you might

be interested in how I arrived at the new values

presented below. First, I decided that 5 would be the

new “Human Maximum” for all Abilities. That meant

that I had to adjust all values from 1 – 7 to fit the new

benchmarks. In general, I approved of the relative

values that the game designers assigned to the various

characters in the core book, so I wanted to keep those

rankings consistent. In order to do so, I used the

following table:

ORIGINAL RANK ADJUSTED RANK

1 1

2 2

3 3

4 4

5 4

6 5

7 5

The exception to this rule is Fighting, which the game

designers seemed to have treated different from all the

other Abilities. What I did with Fighting was divide the

assigned value by two (rounding down), and then

converting that value using the above table. Batman, for

instance, has a Fighting 14 in the core book. Fourteen,

divided by two is seven. If we then convert that value

using the table above, Batman ends up with a Fighting

5.

This is a good time to point out that lowering Batman’s

Fighting Ability in NO WAY lowers his combat ability in

the game. Indeed, his final combat values are pretty

close (if not identical) to those presented in the core

book. They are just purchased differently. The use of

Advantages like Close Combat or Ranged Combat

(which I treat as overall fighting skills) compensate for

the reduced Fighting score, so Batman remains a

bad@$$ on the battlefield, even while his Fighting

Ability is made consistent with the other Abilities.

Stats above 7 were generally left as-is. I only adjusted

them if preferred a slightly different interpretation of

the character. For the most part, this only happened

with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

MORE TO COME: This is it for Abilities, but at some

point I’ll work out a similar document to include

Combat and Defense Values. As already mentioned, the

DC characters will have values in these areas that pretty

much match those in the core book (even when their

Ability scores change).

The upcoming document, however, will present those

values for the Marvel characters, and will also explain

the method that I use to assign such values. I also plan

to post a conversion matrix that I use to port characters

between a series of systems, including HERO, SAGA,

BASH, and Savage Worlds.

In the meantime, I hope the following tables are

interesting, if not useful.

CHEERS!

Eletarmion

ALTERNATE BENCHMARK TABLE

CATEGORY RANK EXAMPLES

WEAK HUMAN

-5 Completely inept or disabled

-4 Weak; infant

-3 Younger child

-2 Child, elderly, impaired

-1 Below average; teenager

AVERAGE HUMAN 0 Average adult

HEROIC HUMAN

1 Above average

2 Gifted

3 Best in a nation

4 One of the best in the world

5 Best ever, peak human

SUPERHUMAN

6

7

8

9 Spider-Man’s Agility, Mister Fantastic’s Intellect

10

WORLD CLASS SUPERHUMAN

11

12

13 Sub-Mariner’s Strength and Stamina

14

15 Thing’s Strength and Stamina

LEGENDARY SUPERHUMAN

16 Wonder Woman’s Strength and Stamina

17

18

19

20 Superman’s Strength and Stamina

COSMIC ENTITY

21

22

23

24

25

STRENGTH

RANK EXAMPLES

-1

0 Doctor Strange, Zatanna

1 Flash II, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mister Fantastic

2 Black Canary, Cyclops, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Nightcrawler, Plastic Man, Robin, Storm

3 Daredevil, Hawkeye, Nightwing

4 Batman, Black Panther, Wolverine

5 Captain America

6

7

8

9 Spider-Man

10 Aquaman

11

12 Iron Man

13 She-Hulk, Sub-Mariner

14

15 Thing

16 J’onn J’onzz, Thor, Wonder Woman

17

18 Hulk

19

20 Captain Marvel, Superman

STAMINA

RANK EXAMPLES

-1

0

1 Iron Man, Robin

2 Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Zatanna

3 Black Canary, Cyclops, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Flash II, Hawkeye, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mister Fantastic, Nightcrawler, Nightwing, Storm

4 Batman, Black Panther, Plastic Man

5 Captain America

6 Spider-Man, Wolverine

7

8 Aquaman

9

10 J’onn J’onzz, Wonder Woman

11

12

13 She-Hulk, Sub-Mariner

14

15 Thing

16 Thor

17

18 Hulk

19

20 Captain Marvel, Superman

AGILITY

RANK EXAMPLES

-1

0 Hulk

1 Doctor Strange, Mister Fantastic

2 Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Green Lantern, Invisible Woman, Iron Man, J’onn J’onzz, She-Hulk, Superman, Thing, Thor, Zatanna,

3 Green Arrow, Hawkeye, Human Torch, Storm, Sub-Mariner

4 Aquaman, Batman, Black Canary, Flash II, Plastic Man, Robin

5 Black Panther, Captain America, Daredevil, Nightwing, Wolverine

6

7 Nightcrawler

8 Wonder Woman

9 Spider-Man

DEXTERITY

RANK EXAMPLES

-1 Hulk

0

1 Mister Fantastic, Thing

2

Aquaman, Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Doctor Strange, Invisible Woman, Iron Man, J’onn J’onzz, She-Hulk, Storm, Sub-Mariner, Superman, Thor

3 Black Canary, Flash II, Green Lantern, Human Torch, Wolverine

4 Batman, Black Panther, Green Arrow, Hawkeye, Nightwing, Plastic Man, Robin, Zatanna

5 Captain America, Daredevil, Nightcrawler

6 Wonder Woman

7

Spider-Man

FIGHTING

RANK EXAMPLES

-1

0

1

2

Cyclops, Doctor Strange, Flash II, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkeye, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Nightcrawler, Plastic Man, Zatanna

3 Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Spider-Man, Storm

4 Aquaman, Black Canary, Hulk, J’onn J’onzz, Nightwing, Robin, Sub-Mariner, Superman, Thing

5 Batman, Black Panther, Captain America, Daredevil, Wolverine, Wonder Woman

6

7 Thor

INTELLECT

RANK EXAMPLES

-3

-2 Hulk

-1

0 Plastic Man

1 Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Thor

2 Aquaman, Black Canary, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Hawkeye, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Nightcrawler, She-Hulk, Storm, Sub-Mariner, Thing, Wolverine, Wonder Woman

3 Daredevil, Doctor Strange, J’onn J’onzz, Nightwing, Spider-Man, Zatanna

4 Black Panther, Flash II, Robin, Superman

5 Batman, Iron Man

6

7

8

9 Mister Fantastic

AWARENESS

RANK EXAMPLES

-1

0 Hulk

1

2 Black Canary, Green Arrow, Human Torch, Plastic Man, She-Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Thing, Thor, Wolverine

3 Aquaman, Cyclops, Flash II, Green Lantern, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Mister Fantastic, Nightcrawler, Storm

4 Daredevil, Invisible Woman, J’onn J’onzz, Nightwing, Robin, Spider-Man, Zatanna

5 Batman, Black Panther, Captain America, Superman, Wonder Woman

6

7

8

9 Doctor Strange

10 Captain Marvel

PRESENCE

RANK EXAMPLES

-3

-2 Hulk

-1

0

1 Spider-Man

2 Black Canary, Daredevil, Flash II, Invisible Woman, Mister Fantastic, Plastic Man, Robin, She-Hulk, Thing

3

Aquaman, Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Doctor Strange, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkeye, Human Torch, Iron Man, J’onn J’onzz, Nightcrawler, Sub-Mariner, Wolverine

4 Black Panther, Nightwing, Storm, Thor, Zatanna

5 Batman, Captain America, Superman, Wonder Woman