[RPG] feature in Mutants & Masterminds 3e that is mechanically similar to Evasion in D&D 5e

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In Mutants and Masterminds, much like in many versions of D&D, Area of Attack abilities allow you a dodge check to take half effect. That's all fine and dandy, but I'm trying to create a character who can see the tiniest movement in his opponents and moves in advance to make certain he's not where the attack is going to be when it goes off, which results in a very high dodge / parry and a very low toughness.

This works fine for single target attacks, but for AoE attacks, even when he makes his save, he's still looking at an injury, which doesn't really work for the idea of fighting-by-avoidance.

I'm trying to make a power that works similar to evasion in 5e, which reads:

When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

I don't care about the half damage when you fail part, if he gets hit, he gets hit hard, but I want to figure out a way to avoid taking half effect if I succeed the dodge.

It seems, however, that Mutants and Masterminds doesn't really have this option. I've looked at immunity (which lacks an AoE immunity), and doing something like a Leaping Reaction on Dodge to physically move out of the way, but I might be over-complicating things.

Best Answer

You could take an Enhanced Trait: Toughness power with the Impervious quality, with a sufficiently high Limited modifier specifically calling out you're only immune to damage from Dodge checks that you have succeeded. Note that per p.135 on Partial Modifiers, you will need at least as many ranks in the power increasing Toughness as you would in the Impervious stat (and thus, defeat the intent at being defensive by dodging).

Alternatively, consider the "Impervious" modifier for an Enhanced Trait: Dodge power.

Impervious is primarily intended for Toughness resistance checks, to handle characters immune to a certain threshold of damage, but it can be applied to other defenses with the GM’s permission, to reflect characters with certain reliable capabilities in terms of resisting particular effects or hazards.

Having a certain degree of ranks in Impervious defense makes the character immune to the effect. For example, a Grenade is a piece of equipment that counts as a Area Damage 5 power. So having 10 ranks in Impervious Dodge would make your character immune to a grenade.

In the end though, the Impervious modifier is what you're looking for. If you want to be able to buy this cheap, then bundle it with Limited so that it only applies when you have succeeded on the test.

It is worth pointing out that the whole "80 ranks in Immunity" to be Immune to Toughness is there to be equal to having Enhanced Toughness 40 and Impervious 40, thus being able to ignore a rank 20 attack. As long as you don't need your character to successfully evade a nuke, you don't need to start from there.

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