Mutants & Masterminds: Basic Hero’s Handbook streamlines the system into a sort of ‘Basic D&D’ vs. I’m not sure I can comment on how hard or easy it is to create characters in DC Heroes. M&M Basic doesn’t have a point buy system you select from 8 sets of choices and you’re done! Mutants & Masterminds Deluxe Hero’s Handbook is much closer to Champions in terms of being complex for newcomers and taking a while to build custom characters.Ĭharacter creation in Mutants & Masterminds: Basic Hero’s Handbook on the other hand is streamlined and much more like creating a Fate character where you pick archetypes and can quickly roll up a character (but results in characters compatible with the main system). DC Adventures RPG Heros Handbook ( $42.74 as of this writing).Mutants & Masterminds Deluxe Hero’s Handbook ( $34.04 as of this writing).Mutants & Masterminds: Basic Hero’s Handbook ( $25.69 as of this writing).COSTĭC Heroes is expensive on the secondary market (books or the box set run $70 to $200 for a one-person set).ĭC Adventures / M&M is in print and has several options as a core Players Guide: There are about 150 products for M&M / DC Adventures available from Green Ronin. There were dozens of products for the DC Heroes line, all out of print. OPEN GAME CONTENT / SRDĭC Adventures / M&M has an online SRD and much of M&M is released as OGL content, with tons of third party support and fan creations.ĭC Heroes doesn’t have an SRD but does have several fan communities. I’m not aware of any such digital tools for DC Heroes. You can create M&M characters using Herolab. Many of the key design principles of DC Heroes are incorporated in DC Adventures / M&M. He is also credited as a contributing author to DC Adventures / M&M. Ray Winninger was the co-designer of DC Heroes and Torg. I think you’d need to play each system for a few games to comment definitely on combat speed between the two systems, but having read many times online that DC Adventures / M&M plays faster, I’m tempted to believe M&M is faster. An NPC with a ton of powers and ton of Advantages/Feats can be a challenge to run as a GM (although as a GM I might ignore many of the feats, just concentrating on 2 or 4 of them). SYSTEM SPEEDĪs I understand it, DC Heroes has Hero Points, and often a lot of them, where both sides can spend points to reroll multiple times, getting you into a Savage Worlds style benny/soak cycle which can really chew up time.ĭC Heroes has two charts (or alternatively a combat-dial tool) which you have to use on just about every roll, which can slow things down.ĭC Adventures / M&M is inspired by D&D 3.0 and many characters may make extensive use of Feats (renamed to ‘Advantages’ in 3e). GOLDEN AGE SUPPORTīoth systems have Golden Age setting support and have dedicated Golden Age setting material (important for my group since we’re kicking around running a Golden Age campaign someday). Green Ronin is the same company that does Fantasy Age and Dragon Age and their art and products are top notch.īoth DC Heroes and DC Adventures / M&M have gone through 3 editions.ĭC Heroes is out of print with no retroclones. Based on forum posts and reading through the rules (and having played M&M 2e several years ago, but not having played DC Heroes), here’s my observations on the two systems.

I’ve been doing a bit of reading on DC Heroes and its history and also reading up on Mutants and Masterminds (aka M&M, which is the generic version of Green Ronin’s ‘DC Adventures’ it’s the same system, but one has the DC characters and the other doesn’t). Leviathan: Campaign Overview & House Rules.The Taurus Reach and Starbase 47 (Vanguard).It is also interesting to note that prior to slaying Slyark, Davion also slew Uldorak, another dragon who threatened the kingdom of Candoness, along with Crimson Wyvern, arcs that might be featured in the anime. This birthed the Dragon Knight, who often used a Shadow Blade, which grants invisibility for 14 seconds, allowing players to ganker around effectively. However, his decision undergoes a change, and as soon as he sinks the blade in Slyark’s breast, the dragon sank his claw in Davion’s throat, effecting mingling their blood in a transference of power. As honor is one of the primary motivators of a knight, Davion had initially decided to turn away from the old Slyark and let him die in peace. As per DOTA 2 lore, Davion had been on the trail of the dreaded Slyark for years but was rather disappointed when he meets his ancient and frail foe. Davion, also dubbed the Dragon Knight, draws most of his in-game powers from his Dragon Blood, which grants him a hefty amount of armor and regeneration.

Blood of heroes character sheet