One of the hands-down coolest moments in superhero fiction is when two or more characters combine their powers to overcome an obstacle, take down a whole bunch of henchmen all at once, or deal a decisive attack to the all-powerful villain. The most classic example is probably the “fastball special” popularised in the pages of Uncanny X-Men, where the super strong Colossus would pick-up and throw the Wolverine at an opponent.
Representing this sort of Team-up Stunt in Mutants & Masterminds can be a little bit tricky if you’re looking at it for the first time. Team Checks can be used in certain situations, but are somewhat limited. Here’s the d20 Radio Blog to the rescue!
One of the most versatile aspects of the Mutants & Masterminds system is the Power Stunt mechanic: the player is able to have their character suffer a Fatigue condition, and in exchange, they’re able to temporarily redistribute the Power Points used to build one of their powers. Effectively, the player is able to create an entirely new use for those Power Points, limited only by their imagination and how narratively appropriate it is in the moment.
It’s not difficult to change a Power Stunt into a Team-up Stunt; you just need the Enhanced Trait power combined with the Affects Others Only modifier, and some creativity.
Let’s consider the fastball special. It’s awesome on the comic page when the super-strong character picks-up and throws their ally at an enemy, because it makes for a very cinematic moment. It is also something that could be done fairly easily in a Mutants & Masterminds game session, as there are existing rules which are very clear about how far a character can throw an object — or, in this case, ally — of a certain mass in a given round. The problem is that, other than covering distance, there’s really no mechanical benefit for doing so. What if instead of going through the motions of one character picking-up and throwing the other, the super-strength character’s player was to create a Team-up Stunt?
For this example, we’ll use the Powerhouse and the Martial builds found in the Character Archetypes section of the Mutants & Masterminds Hero’s Handbook as the thrower and throwee respectively.
The Powerhouse archetype’s strength is built as:
Super-Strength • 20 pp
– Enhanced Strength 8
– Enhanced Strength 4; Limited to Lifting
Using the system in place, that’s more than enough strength to lift and throw a regular person up to four miles. However, Power Stunting the Powerhouse’s super-strength would give character’s player the opportunity to use those 20 power points creatively to get the Martial Artist from their current position to invading the bad guy’s personal space as quickly as possible.
Something like this would work:
Fastball Special • 20 pp
– Enhanced Extra: Multiattack 4
– Enhanced Advantage: Improved Critical (Unarmed) 3
– Leaping 11
– Immunity 2 (Self-Inflicted Slam Damage)
Using that Fastball Special build as a Team-up Stunt would allow the Powerhouse to “throw” the Martial Artist effectively the same distance, while giving the Martial Artist the opportunity to maximise their potential damage by temporarily granting their normal unarmed attack the Multiattack extra — they’ll be attacking with all their limbs, after all — as well as increasing the chance the attack will result in a Critical success. Also, the Immunity allows the Martial Artist to perform a Slam Maneuver without the player needing to be concerned about potentially taking damage.
Now someone might look at that and say that granting another character the ability to leap incredible distances is not the same as throwing them, but I’d argue that for the sake of the narrative there’s no difference. Keep in mind that Mutants & Masterminds is necessarily abstracted, and that for the sake of the Rule of Cool™, the rules can bend just a little.
As with other Power Stunts that your character regularly performs, it’s a good idea to build any Team-up Stunts before actually sitting down to play, so you’re not causing a delay of game flipping through the Hero’s Handbook trying to create something on the fly. Just think about the characters in the game, and try to come up with a fun and interesting way to combine their powers. If you’re hit with a sudden bolt of inspiration, it’s probably forgiveable, but make sure you write it down afterwards so the Stunt can be used again in the future.
If you’re looking for some inspiration as to what could be done with Team-Up Stunts, here are some favourite examples from recent[ish] superhero movies:
The Avengers (Marvel Studios, 2012) – During the battle of New York, Iron Man and Captain America are fighting the Chitauri invaders, and Cap uses his shield to reflect Iron Man’s repulsor blast into a group of the alien warriors. That could be represented by Cap adding the Burst Area and Selective modifiers to Iron Man’s Blast power.
X-Men: Days of Future Past (20th Century Fox, 2014) – While fighting the future sentinels, Blink uses her ability to open portals to drop Colossus from a height, catch him with another portal, and then launch him out yet another so he uses that built-up momentum to slam into a killer robot. It probably counts as a variation on the fastball special, but it looked amazing. Given the nature of the attack, this could be an Indirect extra, combined with a few ranks of Speed, and an Immunity (Self-Inflicted Slam Damage) again.
The Incredibles (Disney, Pixar, 2004) – When Syndrome’s goons attack the kids in the jungle, Violet is able to create a force field “hamster ball” around herself and Dash, which Dash then uses to roll-over a bunch of henchmen at high speed. Perhaps a Line Area Damaging extra on Dash’s super-speed?
Post some of your favourite team-up maneuvers from comics, movies, and video-games in the comments below. If you have an idea how you’d build them in Mutants & Masterminds, or the superhero RPG of your choice, post that too!
