M&M: 2nd ED vs 3rd

The iHero campaign is running Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Edition. A while ago I decided to run this over 3rd for a few reasons.


More familiar to those used to d20 systems. M&M2e uses the same basic attribute and save system, the only real changes is instead of HP characters have a toughness save, and attributes don't directly contribute to to-hit rolls.

More material readily available and often for cheaper. This is perhaps the 2nd biggest reason. 3e is starting to catch up, but as of right now I have several books filled with templates and archetypes which allow for very quick character creation  (PCs and NPCs) when wanted.

GM is more familiar with power composition. This is by far the biggest reason by far, farestly. As of now, I feel that I can more easily remember powers, effects, modifiers etc. While a lot of this remained the same and in some ways improved in 3e, I still think 2e will be by far the easiest for me to teach and help others with.

Lack of Villain Archetypes in main book. 3e has since come out with a masterminds manual that supposedly covers some of my issues (I think it supposed to have a quick power generator or something as well). But when I was back making my decision, it did not exist, and wasn't going to for some time.

Not enough changes in 3e. While most of us can probably agree that D&D4e did a lot of things horribly wrong, there was a lot in there that I actually liked (And much of it came from Star Wars: Saga Edition). I personally liked lots of the streamlining for skills, how each stat was equally important, lots of the tactical improvements, and the addition of swift/minor actions. While not everything in that list would've worked for M&M, and I think I read somewhere that one of the reasons for a new ED was to distances themselves from WotC. 3e was just too similar, and at the time, not offering enough of an advantage for me to make the full switch.

With all that being said, I will likely be house ruling some of the improvements from 3e into the 2e campaign. I also suspect that one day we may make the jump as more and more material becomes readily available, and/or I am convinced for some other reason.