Avengers 2 in M&M

Question

I'm going to try to keep this spoiler-free, but there may be limited spoilers for specific actions in the movies.

In Avengers 2, Captain America and Thor work together at least twice, taking advantage of the interactions between Cap's shield and Thor's hammer.

When a group of soldiers (and an APC/Tank) gather to assault them, Thor asks, "Are they lining up?" Cap's reply of "Well, they're excited" is ended with Thor striking Cap's shield, sending a line of lightning at the grouped soldiers.

Obviously, this was Thor using a Line Area attack.

Later, during the climactic fight with Ultron's robots, Thor bats Cap's shield, giving it extra power to destroy several robots.

This seems like it would be built as either a Multi-attack or a selective area attack on Cap's shield.

How, though, would you model the interactions between the characters - it seems like it would be needlessly expensive for each character to have an attack with 'Limited: X must spend an action to enable this' or similar, and it doesn't seem to fit with the flavor the game goes for, either.

How could you have two characters do something like this in M&M 3E?

Answer 1

Mutants and Masterminds 3E handles this through the use of a few different systems.

• By the use of the Aid action (p246) and Team Checks (p16), one character can sacrifice their action to contribute to the success of a lead character's action.
• Through the use of Extra Effort (p20), you can gain the effect of an Alternate Effect on your power -- that would be one way to get the variation on Thor's lightning.
• And through spending a Hero Point, you can gain a rank in an Advantage you don't already have (giving you, say Extraordinary Effort or a useful combat advantage) or remove any fatigue from expending Extra Effort.

So you don't need to build these things into the characters' powers -- the system itself backs you up.