****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I primarily run the DC Adventures roleplaying game, which uses the same rules as 3rd Edition Mutants and Masterminds-- the two games are so nearly identical that they're practically carbon copies of each other! This book, Power Profiles, is an incredibly useful reference for either system.If you played 2nd Edition Mutants and Masterminds, you may recall that the Ultimate Power Sourcebook essentially replaced the rules for powers from the core rule book. This means that characters created using only the 2nd edition core rules might or might not be fully compatible with characters created using the Ultimate Power Sourcebook, and vice-versa. Fortunately, the 3rd edition avoided this contradiction; the third edition core rules provide a system for creating and modifying or limiting powers, along with a few examples of powers created using these rules-- and then Power Profiles compliments and expands that material with dozens and dozens and dozens of additional examples.This book isn't required to play the game, but it's helpful in a couple of different ways. For one thing, it makes it much easier for new players who aren't familiar with the rules to create characters-- if you want to make a character with fire powers, for example, you might select a couple of powers from the "Fire" chapter, perhaps take a power from the "Weather" chapter and re-name it to 'firestorm,' and take a power from the "Armor" chapter to describe the way that the mystical flames which wreathe your character protect from physical damage. With this many examples to choose from, conveniently categorized for easy browsing, it's a simple task for new players to shop for power ideas during character creation (with a little tinkering assistance from the GM, perhaps, to tailor these selections to the player's concept). Easy peasy!This same principle also makes Power Profiles a quick reference for GMs to use when creating non-player characters. With a little experience, it becomes really easy for GM's to select a few powers from this book "on the fly" to form the basis for an NPC which, if needed, can be more fully-developed later.It's worth mentioning that the 3rd edition Mutants and Masterminds rules treat powers and gadgets the same way, and that the Gadget Guide does the same thing for gadgets that Power Profiles does for powers-- it adds page after page of gadget examples, categorized by the type of game effect they create, making it a very similar type of resource for gadgeteers. The out-of-print version of the Mutants and Masterminds GM's Kit and the deluxe version of the Mutants and Masterminds core rule book both provide quick-start instructions for randomly generating player characters or NPC's; if you have these quick-starts, along with Power Profiles, you have everything that you need so that players who already have a great character concept in mind can "shop" for powers in the 'Profiles' book, while players without that solid concept can create their character by rolling a few dice.All in all, this is an incredibly useful supplement for your Mutants and Masterminds or DC Adventures roleplaying games.
