Hello everyone! Now that the new rules have been dropped and we’ve had a week to soak them in, I want to take today to go over the changes from the PAC, or Powers and Abilities Card. Let’s see what’s new and what’s the same.

I certainly hope all of you have had a chance to read through the new rules. It’s seriously very important as everyone should read through them for their own good as we’re all on the same page. That’s why I skipped a full article last week here, and on Two Clicks From KO. The idea was to give everyone a chance to read the important stuff rather than another article. In terms of myself covering the changes, please be aware:

No one is an expert on these rules yet, and using one website or person as your guru is a bad idea.

With that said, I want to cover the things that I noticed with the PAC today. There’s a decent chance that this isn’t everything, as different levels of players will catch different things that changed, but I will do my best to cover everything. Again, I highly recommend that you don’t use this as your hard-lined rules link. Read the PAC front-to-back a few times, and then come here if you need a quick refresh on what changed. Once I get into the actual rule book, I’ll have the same suggestion.

I know even though I’ve hammered this as much as I can, there are still some of you reading right now that haven’t read any of the new material. Please, do yourself and everyone you’re going to be playing the game with a favor and just bite the bullet and read. I promise you’ll gain more knowledge about the game.

One of the neat changes in the PAC overall is that now powers will say ACTION, FREE< or some other vocabulary that will easily let you know how they link with each other (meaning you can easily see what combos with Charge or Running Shot now). That should help a lot of new players, and those that are easily confused by what powers work together.

Okay, let’s dive into the PAC and see the changes.

Movement Powers

[ ] Earthbound/Neutralized: This character can’t use Improved Movement or Improved Targeting, or Willpower. This is new as E/N used to only revert characters to standard combat symbols, with the big difference being size and flight. Now, if a character has E/N, their symbols aren’t affected, meaning Jakeem can’t pick this power and go for a ride. This also neutralizes all instances of Willpower, not just Indomitable.

[ ] Mind Control: Hit characters get to move half their speed and make an attack, in any order. No Costed or Free actions can be used. While Mind Control lost much of it’s power in terms of a hit character getting to do whatever they want, it got some nice versatility added. A lot of corner cases will be neutralized from this change, which is good.

[ ] Hypersonic Speed: Passively adds +2 to breakaway rolls. Can no longer carry. Action is split into three ‘mini-actions’ of movement, stop and make an attack, then finish movement. This basically eliminates Plasticity as a full-blown counter to the power as the attack doesn’t take place during the movement anymore, but does force them to make a regular breakaway roll (-2 from Plasticity, +2 from Hypersonic). The big change here doesn’t stem from Hypersonic, but the changes to items, which I’ll get to. Just keep that in mind.

Attack Powers

[ ] Blades/Claws/Fangs: Minimum of the d6 roll is equal to the characters printed damage value, minus 1. This helps a lot of 3 damage characters take advantage of Blades as it’s less of a risk to use the power. With the changes to Probability Control, this is a welcome adaptation and I feel it should have been there all along.

[ ] Energy Explosion: Now a RANGE action, meaning it no longer combos with Pen/Psy Blast. Now targets all characters adjacent to the initial target and deals two damage to all targets regardless of printed bolts. Initial target no longer takes regular damage (i.e., the character’s current damage value). This is perhaps one of the biggest changes as it effectively converts how EE is played. While the bigger-bolt characters like The Ray suffer from this chance, it’s a huge boost to single-bolt characters. Keep in mind that because the new EE targets everyone in the attack, Shape Change will get a chance to trigger. Note: I was incorrect on this, and just goes to show why everyone should actually read the rules for themselves. 🙂

[ ] Pulse Wave: The only real change to Pulse Wave, aside from cleaned-up wording, is that now it ignores abilities, meaning traits that prevented lines of fire from being drawn no longer protect a character. A prime example of this would be the old Midnight Sons ATA.

[ ] Quake: Deals printed damage if only one character is targeted. Also applies normal knockback rules rather than the old 2 squares. This is a big change as it greatly increases the potency of Quake, and makes beefy 150+ point characters more enticing with Quake showing on their opening attack.

[ ] Smoke Cloud: ALL opposing characters occupying Smoke markers suffer -1 to attack value, regardless of Improved Targeting. This just adds a little more bang-for-your-buck to a somewhat lower-end power (at least when it wasn’t Free).

[ ] Precision Strike: Only works on a single target. Damage can’t be reduced below 1. Super Sense rolls on the target have a -1 penalty. This was quite the nerf to a somewhat pesky ‘free’ attack power. Thankfully, you can now play Super Senses characters without fear that a small Precision Strike character completely neuters your defense. On the plus side, this now breaks through Invincible!

[ ] Poison: No longer during the beginning of the turn. Instead, is a FREE action, and can only be used if the character wasn’t moved or placed during the turn. This adds a lot more utility to Poison. While the character with the effect can’t go anywhere, you can certainly knockback someone or TK someone into a field of Poison characters.

[ ] Telekenisis: TK’ing either objects or characters now has a minimum range value of 6, with a maximum of the characters range. If a character is TK’d, the can be moved up to 6 squares from their current square, but still must be within range/line of fire from the character using TK. Also, any single-based character can be TK’d. The big changes here is that the range to move people around was dropped from 8 to 6, and that now size has no effect on the ability! As long as your giant or colossal has a single-base, you’re clear!

Defense Powers

[ ] Defend: Uses printed defense value. Basically, this stops the ‘chaining’ effect from teams like JSA or Defenders.

[ ] Mastermind: When a character would be hit by an opposing character’s attack, can change the target to an adjacent character who is either lower points or shares a keyword and wouldn’t be hit by the attack . The character becomes the hit target, even if illegal or they were otherwise targeted by the attack. This is perhaps the other big swing within the powers as the term ‘transfer’ no longer exists, meaning Precision Strike doesn’t get around Mastermind. Now, think of Mastermind like a late Shape Change in that it’s just changing the target of the attack, but because the new target of the attack “becomes hit”, they don’t get to roll for Shape Change or Super Senses if they have access to those powers. Lastly, Mastermind now only triggers from attacks, meaning you can no longer Mastermind Poison or other effects.

[ ] Invincible: No longer ignores damage. Instead, reduces all damage by 2, but it can reduce penetrating damage. Characters can only take a maximum of 3 damage at once. This is important because it’s now incredibly difficult to one-shot an opposing character with Invincible. The nice thing about this change is that it was really confusing to new players because of who was rounding for ignoring damage. It’s much cleaner now.

[ ] Regeneration: Roll a d6 and heal half the result, rounded up. In a nutshell, you can’t bomb out and heal for 0 with Regen, but you also can no longer heal for 4.

Damage Powers

[ ] Support: Uses regular attack and defense values. Minimum amount healed is 2. Perplex becomes a lot stronger with Support now.

[ ] Probability Control: Can only re-roll attacks and breakaway rolls, and that’s it. While Energy Explosion and Mastermind where big changes in what the powers did, the change to Prob is most likely the biggest adjustment and loss of power. Now, Prob won’t be the ultimate damage power that it once was with the ability to mitigate healing disasters or high results on opponent’s, or rolls for special powers. Prob is still remarkably good, but it lost a ton of power.

[ ] Perplex: No longer ‘fades’ or ‘vanishes’ if the target of Perplex has their dial turn. This adds a lot of safety to Perplex as using it on a defense value means that the addition or subtraction will stick. This also means that Perplexing your opponent’s defense down makes them easier to hit for the entire turn. Nice double-edged sword we have here.

[ ] Outwit: Choose a standard or special power and a character within range and line of fire, and they can’t use that power. Okay, I lied, this is the biggest power change. With countering becoming ‘can’t use’, this effectively turns all Outwit pieces into miniature Nick Fury’s (although Nick can still target PROTECTED: Outwit powers). Because the wording on Outwit doesn’t say that they need access to the power you’re Outwitting, you can choose any power you like. This means if you know a character is going to click into an ‘activation click’, you can proactively counter out their Running Shot. Pieces like Jakeem Thunder and Goblin King are now completely open and anything they pick can be neutralized.

[ ] Leadership: Adds a UNIQUE passive +1 to your action total, meaning it doesn’t stack. No longer an action of any kind as it just happens. Characters that are either lower points or share a keyword can have an action token removed. Leadership got a huge bonus as it will work wonders with Theme Teams. It’s also a lot nicer that you can guarantee that you get an additional action no matter what as long as you have someone on your force with Leadership.

Abilities

Carry: Reduces speed by -1 for each carried character (remember rule of 3’s). Characters can inherently carry one smaller character or their passenger count (fliers have Passenger: 1) without the Flight symbol. Neither character can be holding an object. The only real change to carrying is that your typical flier can no longer carry someone the same size and a smaller character. While I don’t agree with this change as someone like Ant-Man shouldn’t take up your carry slot, it makes things easier. Vehicles still don’t suffer a penalty for carrying and can still carry fliers, as per the errata put out last Friday.

Destory Actions: Destroying objects or terrain have been changed to their own actions as CLOSE or RANGE. This means that you can no longer use Close Combat Expert or Ranged Combat Expert to up your damage to a 3 to destroy things.

Object Attacks: Changed to CLOSE and RANGE actions. While this seems like a small change, it’s a very big one. Mainly, this stops object attacks from ‘comboing’ with any other powers. For example, Charge grants a CLOSE, so you would have to choose whether to use your object, or that Exploit Weakness in your damage slot, since both require CLOSE. Also, you can no longer use an object during Hypersonic Speed attacks because Hypersonic only grants an attack, not a CLOSE or RANGE.

Improved Targeting: Destroys Blocking: Can only destroy one square of blocking terrain. This is bad news for super-snipers like Cosmic Spider-Man.

Improved Movement OO> : Characters can move adjacent to or through opposing characters, but still need to breakaway normally. Essentially, they got rid of OO and compiled both effects into one.

Improved Targeting OO> : Characters can make ranged attacks while adjacent to opposing characters, and may target adjacent opposing characters with ranged attacks. Basically, they rolled Sharpshooter into this and got rid of the symbol.

PROTECTED or Protected: Always followed by a power or ability. If in upper case like PROTECTED, the character is immune to that power or ability (like Pulse Wave or Outwit). If lowercase like Protected, the power or ability it’s attached to is immune to whatever the protection is (like Protected: Pulse Wave will stop the power this is within from being ignored from the effects of Pulse Wave). This is a little wordy when you explain it compared to the old rules, but is actually pretty simple. It’s basically a way to protect characters from powers, abilities, and effects.

STOP: Protected: Outwit, and Pulse Wave added to the wording. Also grants a -1 to regeneration and support for the character. Note that this doesn’t mean if a character possesses a STOP click somewhere on their dial they always get a -1 penalty to Regen and Support. It means that if their STOP click is showing, then they take a penalty to those powers.

Swim: Grants +1 defense against ranged attacks while occupying water terrain. We got a nice buff to an otherwise unnoticed basic ability.

Wild Card: Limited to once-per-turn, like all other FREE actions. This doesn’t have a very large change in Modern as of today, but it absolutely effects things in Golden Age that could combo off of taking Free actions.

Removals and Other Big Changes

Transporter: Removed.

Duo Attack/Working Together: Removed.

Damage Depletion Modifier: Removed, except for Team Bases.

Sharpshooter: Removed, as stated above.

Improved Movement and Targeting OO: Removed.

I’m fairly certain that this covers all the changes within the PAC, but again, this shouldn’t be used as a cheat or something to read instead. By all means, I would love to know if I missed something so that I can add it into this page.

I’m sure we’re going to see some interesting things happen as a result of some of these changes. Pieces like Common Black Panther from Avengers Defenders War suddenly sees a surge in power as a 30-point Outwit piece with Stealth. The new Fast Forces Hulk from The Mighty Thor is a complete monster on his 50-point starting line as he can now move 11 squares and Quake a single target with 12 attack and 4 damage. The combinations are certainly endless, and I’m sure a lot of you are thinking about what pieces are going to be disastrous with these new power wordings, along with the new rules themselves.

Ultimately, I would love to discuss all the changes within the rule book as well, but frankly, there’s just too much to cover, and I feel that other people or sites have done a good job of covering some of them. I’ve already read through everything and I still needed some clarification from people who are rules guru’s and have even helped shed light on some things while we’re all in this unique span of learning together. With all that said, I won’t be doing a full-fledged article on the changes within the new rules. I would rather continue with the regular content I’ve been providing for you all over the past year (yep, Clix Fix turn a year old this month!). Bear with me while I cope with these new rules myself as my team builds may be off or my reviews could be skewed as I subconsciously think about old interactions. I’m sure once we start actually playing with these new rules, things will start to cement over more.

What are your thoughts on these changes? What do you like and what don’t you like? What do you think the biggest improvement is, and are you eager to try these new rules and powers out? Sound off in the comments section below.

On Thursday, I’m planning on talking about my ROC Age team for this coming weekend, as I’ll be attending the Majestix event in Anaheim. If you’re planning on coming, please introduce yourself as I love meeting new people who play this wonderful game!

As for next week, as long as The Mighty Thor is fully spoiled (since we’re still waiting on a few pieces), the plan is have a set review up. Of course, these two articles might flip-flop and you could have a set review come Thursday! We shall see. Take care everyone!