Hunter: The Reckoning vs Mutants & Masterminds
Compare Hunter: The Reckoning and Mutants & Masterminds side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Hunter: The Reckoning | Mutants & Masterminds | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Modern, Superhero |
| Tags | Investigation, Mystery, Character-Driven, Gritty, Deadly, Atmospheric, Social Combat, Strong GM Support, Lore-Heavy, Urban Fantasy | Superpowers, Heroic, Crunchy, Character Building, Tactical, Cinematic |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a pool of d10s, usually an Attribute plus a Skill. Each 6 or higher is a success. Meeting the Storyteller's Difficulty wins. Each pair of 10s counts as four successes. On tests within their creed's Field, Hunters may choose to add Desperation Dice equal to the cell's shared Desperation rating. A 1 on any Desperation Die turns a win into a choice: keep it and raise the cell's Danger, or fail and enter Despair. A failed test with a Desperation 1 always causes Despair. | Roll d20 + modifier against a Difficulty Class. Heroes are built from a Power Points budget capped by a series Power Level (usually 10), which limits paired trait totals (attack bonus + effect rank, dodge + toughness) to twice the level. Damage is resisted with Toughness checks that escalate conditions (bruised, staggered, incapacitated) instead of tracking hit points. Hero Points let players reroll, edit scenes, or recover from conditions; complications coming into play earn them back. |
| Dice | d10 dice pool | d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Accessibility | Medium | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | OGL |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | Free |
| Publisher | Renegade Game Studios | Green Ronin Publishing |
| Year | 2022 | 2013 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish | English, Italian |
| Best For | Groups who want investigation-heavy modern horror in which a cell of ordinary people researches, plans, and confronts a monster at real personal risk. | Groups who want unlimited freedom to design any superhero concept (from masked vigilante to cosmic powerhouse) with a flexible point-buy build system and tactical combat that emphasizes power-level balance. |
| Highlights | Desperation rises after the cell's setbacks, so mounting trouble adds both dice and risk to later Field tests. Overreach lets a player keep a win by raising the cell's Danger, which escalates the quarry's response against the whole cell. Monsters have weaknesses Hunters can discover, so research pays off as concrete advantages in the final confrontation. | Modular power-construction system builds any superpower from effects, modifiers, and flaws; Power Level caps enforce balance even when individual traits vary widely; Hero Points reward roleplaying complications with mechanical benefits; conditions track damage progression instead of using a hit point pool |
| Considerations | Desperation Dice apply only to tests within a Hunter's creed Field, so a character's signature boost sits idle outside that specialty. The book recommends ending most conflicts after about three turns, which leaves little room for extended tactical combat. The content warning covers themes such as sexual violence and torture, so groups should calibrate boundaries before play. | Character creation requires significant rules mastery to navigate the point-buy power construction; resolving an attack involves multiple checks per action: attack roll, Toughness resistance, condition tracking; Power Level caps can frustrate players who want to push paired-trait limits like attack and effect rank |