DC Heroes RPG to Mutants and Masterminds 2nd edition aka OMACS 1

The WORG staff now offers a revised, more powerful version for the third edition of M&M, called OMACS II. The data below, for the second edition, is no longer maintained.

Context

A few months before the announcement of M&M 3^rd edition, we started working with both Atomic Think Tank  people and DCH Mailing List  people to hammer out a resource allowing M&M folks to derive the gist of DCH stats into M&M stats, and vice-versa — for the second edition, of course.

This set of rules was called OMACS, meaning “OMACS Maintains it Ain’t a Conversion System”. This makes it clear that these are not magical algorithms that provide an accurate result – these are meant for people to get ballpark values. A rough idea. Some key scores. A gist of what the character can do. Approximative stats.

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That is, once these values have been produced there’s still a bunch of work to do to get an actual writeup, but you more or less know what you’re dealing with. Capice ?

This version of OMACS has all the “big blocks” in place but will likely remain unfinished — as you can deduce from the first paragraph, 3^rd edition and DC Adventures were then announced, freezing the work.

This document can still be useful to people who’ve decided to continue playing with the second edition of Mutants and Mastermind, so there’s no reason not to keep it around.

Powers and Abilities

The not-a-conversion rules are arranged in rough order of importance.

1/ Attack and Defence bonuses

Those map to the DCH notions of Active Value (AV) and Opposing Value, respectively. For simplicity’s sake here’s a table:

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The baseline AV and OV in DCH are the DEX score, but common exceptions include:

• Martial Artist or Martial Artist (AV) can be used as the AV and OV for hand-to-hand combat, if higher than DEX.
• Weaponry is used as the AV with the relevant weapon type.
• Accuracy is used as the AV with the relevant action.
• Some Powers are specifically noted in the writeups as having an AV equal to their value.
• Acrobatics (Hard Target) is used as OV against ranged attacks (and is a frequent house rule in the DCH community).
• Acrobatics (Evasion) is used as OV instead of DEX (and is a frequent house rule in the DCH community).

There’s a special column for Weaponry Skill scores with ranged stuff (such as Weaponry (Firearms), Weaponry (Missles), Weaponry (Heavy)) since for minor technical reasons the scale for those in DCH is slightly different.

Note: After the discussion at the Atomic Think Tank, this scale has been made fairly conservative, with the PL10 Martial Artist archetype in the rulesbook having the Attack Bonus of a modern Lady Shiva or a modern Shang Chi.

2/ Saves

Reflex save = roughly ((3xDEX)/2)

Fortitude save = roughly BODY + (Systemic Antidote power if any) + 2 if (BODY + Systemic Antidote) is 7+
For people with (BODY + Systemic antidote if any) at 6 or less, ((2xBODY)-4) is more appropriate

Will save = roughly (((MIN + SPI)/2)+2)

Toughness saves roughly map to the DCH notion of Resistance Value (RV). Baseline RV is equal to the BODY score, but common exceptions include:

• Skin Armour adds to the RV, usually against physical attacks (i.e., non-energy attacks, at least in a common rules interpretation), though a narrower or broader perimeter may be specified for the character.
• Force shield and Force field add to the RV.
• Energy Absorption is more complicated – for expediency’s sake assume it increases RV against energy attacks.

Here is a table, since the progression is not quite regular:

3/ Damage Bonus

The M&M damage bonus (or damage value for ranged weapons) approximates the Effect Value (EV) in DCH though it often floats one or two points away in a random direction.

Weapons in DCH often have a straight EV. Hand-to-hand attacks have an EV equal to the STR of the character, and powers (Energy blast, Projectile weapon, Claws, Mental blast, etc.) have an EV equal to their value.

4/ Stats

At this point you have all the key values – the stats have less of an effect in games, so trying to evaluate them precisely is not critical.

For characters who are skilled combatants (rather than naturally dextrous), it is possible to use the following DEX chart, then use Feats (such as Attack Focus, Attack Specialisation, Dodge Focus, etc.) and straight Attack/Defense Bonus additional points to reach the target Attack and Defence Bonuses.

Here’s a table to roughly derive Constitution from DCH’s BODY.

Strength can be derived from the unarmed damage bonus, but a more appropriate table might be:

What about higher scores ? Well, there is the odd matter of the Super-Strength power that usually accompanies superhuman strength. The following chart lists some common values of DCH STR score with the M&M Strength and Super-Strength that often corresponds.

These scores are above most estimates I’ve seen for Marvel/DC characters, but even with Super-Strength on the generous side are fairly conservative compared to the actual performance of the very strongest comic book characters such as Thor, Mr. Majestic or Superman.

Intelligence can be roughly derived from the average of INT and WIL in the DCH stats block. If this average is 6 or less, add 9 to get a rough Intelligence ; if the average is 6.5 add 10 ; if the average is 7 or more, add 12. So a person with INT 03 and WIL 03 would have an Intelligence of 12, and one with INT 08 WIL 06 would have a 19.

Wisdom can be derived from the WIL save, but you can also experiment with an average of INT, MIN  and SPI and applying the same formula as with Intelligence above.

A decent ballpark for Charisma would be averaging INF and AUR and subtracting two – though this gets the Charisma *modifier*, not the raw stat.

For INT, WIS and CHA, of the equation results in an odd score, feel free to round up to the highest even number.

5/ Skills

The values in the Skills section of a DCH writeup can be used to approximate Skill Ranks in M&M ; however you will need some common sense and/or basic knowledge of DCH to decide which DCH Skill maps to which M&M skills.

Note that DCH has a broader approach to many rolls (there are more Attributes and the Skills in DCH are quite broad, meaning that M&M has more skills, meaning in turn that some skills the character would likely have in M&M but are not needed in DCH have to be added during the conversion process).

For reasons I won’t get into, DCH has two implicit skill scales – “physical skills” (Acrobatics, Artist, Thief, Vehicles — Martial Artist and Weaponry are not ’skills’ in the M&M sense) and ’mental skills’ (Gadgetry, Scientist, Charisma, Detective, Military science).

Here’s a handy conversion table. If you think the character likely has a Notice skill, use ¾ of the INT of the character as if it were a ’mental skill‘.

Note that a lack of DCH Acrobatics Skill doesn’t mean a lack of M&M Acrobatics Skill – DCH is looser with what you can do without a formal Skill or Feat.

5’/ Martial Artist Skill in DCH

Note that DCH has a very comic book-ish Martial Artist Skill, occasionally broken down into four components (AV, OV, EV, RV – the meaning of which are explained above). AV is a good number to use as a target for Attack Bonus (via Attack Focus), and OV as a Defense Bonus target (via Dodge Bonus) if those scores are above the DEX of the person.

Furthermore, Martial Artist (EV) is a good hint that the person has Power Attack ; AV likewise hints toward Accurate Attack, OV toward Defensive Attack, and RV toward one or more ranks of Defensive Roll.

If the Martial Artist score has the note “includes Techniques”, the character almost certainly has Feats such as Chokehold, Improved Trip, Improved Throw, Stunning Attack, Takedown Attack. This note is not always there, though – often the author just considers it is automatically included in the Skill.

Some characters used precise Martial Artist EV, RV, etc. to model very unusual abilities to inflict or withstand damage ; this is always explained in the Powers and Abilities section. In M&M terms these effects are better reached via powers such as Strike and Protection, with the Innate Power Feat.

In DCH a Martial Artist can dynamically choose which aspect of his prowess he’s enhancing, but the tables in this document are built so that in most cases one can use the Martial Artist score for both the melee offence and the melee defence.

6/ Movement Speed

Since both systems can convert into a a common measurement (miles per hour), it is possible to convert DCH powers such as Running, Superspeed, Swimming, Flying, Digging, etc. into M&M powers such as Speed, Fly or Super-Movement.

The following lists the speed (in mph) for basic M&M powers Speed and Fly, and the equivalent value in DCH. Note that I am assuming Accelerated Movement in M&M.

(DCH doubles every level whilst M&M sometimes is x2 and sometimes is x2.5, so you can use the M&M chart to prolong from there if needed).

7/ Powers and Feats

This is the bit where a good knowledge of both systems is needed — formulas can only go so far. As noted above, though, for offensive power the scales are roughly similar, making ballpark conversions of firepower easy.

8/ Wealth

Just doubling the Wealth value seems to be a solid approximation of the M&M Wealth rank. Most DCH characters have a Wealth of 04, translating to a M&M score of 8 and thus no Benefit (Wealth), as it should be.

9/ DCH Advantages

DCH has a fairly short list of Advantages, which are kept broad and generic. Common equivalencies spotted so far:

10/ Skills

This section lists the rough power equivalencies spotted so far — mostly to avoid parsing the lists of powers in both games every single time when trying to remember what does what. DCH Skill first, M&M skill next.

11/ Powers

This section lists the rough power equivalencies spotted so far — mostly to avoid parsing the lists of powers in both games every single time when trying to remember what does what. DCH power first, M&M power next.

By various DCH and M&M gamers, coordinated By Sébastien Andrivet.