Please Explain Mutants & Masterminds 3E Combat/Powers Interaction

[Sailboat]

tl/dr: Mutants and Masterminds for Dummies?

A Savage Worlds (Necessary Evil) campaign in which I have been playing is wrapping up, and the group decided to move to Mutants & Masterminds (3rd Edition) for an entirely new campaign in an entirely new system.

I’ve read good reviews of M&M 3E, so I’m game. I just learned Savage Worlds, after all, I come from a rules-intensive background (Hero System/Champions).

I’ve also read the M&M rules here a couple of times. And I’m not getting it, despite its being based on the popular D20 system, which is described as easy and intuitive (I don’t know d20 either).

Since I still don’t understand how to play, I can’t intelligently make a character, and pressure to get started is building. Accordingly, I have been Googling around for hints on how the game actually works. So far the examples people breezily spin off are, in fact, not enlightening. In one case the someone explained:

First let’s start with stunned. M&M’s stunned doesn’t decrease save values. It just means you loser your turn and have a lower defense. That’s the same in M&M as it is in Champions. If the players are pig-piling on a stunned foe in M&M they’ll also be doing it in Champions because the conditional problems are the same.

Uh, aren’t “save values” a large part of what defends you? That’s what I thought I understood. So how does “stunned doesn’t decrease save values. It just means you…have a lower defense” make any sense?

And then there’s this cogent explanation from another site:

[li] Your attack roll is based off either your Fighting (Close Combat) or your Dexterity (Ranged) ability. To that you add your Close/Ranged Attack advantages and any relevant Close/Ranged Attack Skills.[/li]
You doll 1d20 and add to this total, then compare to your opponent’s Dodge or Parry + 10. If you tie or beat it, you hit.
[li] To do damage, the defeneder rolls their toughness bonus +1d20 and compares it to your strength or damage ranks +15. If they make the save they take no damage.[/li]If they miss the save by 1-5, they take a cumulative -1 to all further damage saves.
If they miss by 6-10 they take the -1, and are dazed for 1 round
If they miss by 11-15 they take the -1, and are staggered
If they miss by 16+ they are incapacitated.
[li] Your toughness determines how well you can take damage, other “health” effects are represented by fortitude (resisting poison gas, etc)[/li][li] Generally if you are going to want all the bonuses the ability will grant you anyway, you should just buy the ability, but most of the abilities are probably more expensive than buying the bonuses you want separately.[/li]So Captain Amazing has Strength 12, Fighting 5 and 3 points of Close Attack.
Mr. Evil has Parry 12 and Toughness 8.

Captain Amazing rolls 1d20, gets 15 and adds 8 for his Fighting and Close Attack. 23 beats the target of 22 (Parry of 12 + 10)

Now Mr. Evil has to roll his toughness save to avoid damage. He rolls 10 and adds 8. 18 vs. 27 (for strength), is failure by 9. Mr. Evil is now Dazed. Any further damage saves he makes until he heals is at -1, and since he’s dazed he only gets 1 action next round, move or attack.

I am **utterly baffled **as to where “vs. 27 (for strength)” comes from. So I showed this example to someone in my group, and got this reply:

I think, in that example, he’s trying to say that Captain Amazing’s 12 strength means his unarmed attack’s effect rank is 27. (base 15, plus 12)

I don’t get where “Base 15” comes from.

I’ve seen that there are some fans of M&M on the SDMB. Would anyone be so kind as to walk me through the basics of M&M 3E combat…and perhaps provide some non-basic examples, since a Microsoft-style “simplest possible example” typically leaves a lot of questions open. My objective is to get enough of a feel for the system that I can make a useful, smart character, not one based on misunderstanding and misinterpretation. I’ve seen such misunderstanding result in cases of massive frustration.

Also, our GM tackled the “stunned means lower defenses” question (see below), but admits he is trying to interpret the rules. Is his interpretation correct?

Stunned means you may not make any actions, including free actions. Dodge and Parry are considered “active defenses”. Fortitude, Toughness, and Will are static defenses.

“Dodge and Parry defenses require a measure of action to be fully effective. Limits on your mobility, focus, and reaction time adversely affect them. If you are vulnerable, your Dodge and Parry defense ranks are halved (divide their normal values by 2 and round up), and if you are defenseless, they are both reduced to 0!”

Hmm. It’s not implied that being stunned denies you your active defenses, but it does make sense. Still, Vulnerable and Defenseless conditions are not Stunned. And Stunned is not a combined condition. Until I find out otherwise, I say that Stunned does not reduce your active defenses, nor your static defenses.