This mental exercise is similar to the classless 4E in several ways, and yet at the same time is different in certain ways. Before I continue though...
WARNING: This alternate version of the 4E system removes a significant amount of the "safety valves" set by the original developers of 4E, so it's very easy for this to become unbalanced without DM supervision. You have been warned.
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Character Creation Guide
Race
Choose any of the 4E races.
EDITOR's NOTE: The following are placeholders of the Marvel powers, which I will fill up as time goes by
Determining damage:
Resistances
Typed Resistance
Choose an element: Acid, Cold, Fire, Force, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Psychic, Radiant, Thunder. You gain a resistance to damage of the chosen element equal to this power's rank + your Constitution modifier. You can take this power multiple times, but must choose a different element each time.
Charm Resistance
You gain a bonus to defenses and saving throws against Stun, Dominate, and Daze, as well as effects that have the Charm keyword, equal to this power's rank.
Typed Immunity
You increase the resistance granted by your Typed Resistance by 15.
Typed Resistance
Choose an element: Acid, Cold, Fire, Force, Lightning, Necrotic, Poison, Psychic, Radiant, Thunder. You gain a resistance to damage of the chosen element equal to this power's rank + your Constitution modifier. You can take this power multiple times, but must choose a different element each time.
Charm Resistance
You gain a bonus to defenses and saving throws against Stun, Dominate, and Daze, as well as effects that have the Charm keyword, equal to this power's rank.
Typed Immunity
You increase the resistance granted by your Typed Resistance by 15.
Fire away!
Ok, so, why not use Gamma World as a reference? It's already a classless 4e that can be molded to fit any guidelines, complete with a pre-existing list of mutations to use a base for superheroes.
It's still level-based though, and I'm a bit worried that, as the HP will generally be static throughout the game, that players might not have enough HP to go throughout (hence, the HP utilizing all three physical stats, as opposed to just CON).
Also, in the original Marvel Superheroes -- which used d100s and a large table to determine success, as well as additional tables for other effects -- the system basically amounted to something like "tell me what you want, check the table what percentile you'll need to reach, spend karma if needed, then see the effects."... which, to me, is just like 4E's skill system, only far more elaborate (and cryptic at times). So this system aims to simplify and update the Marvel's FEAT system, by utilizing 4E's skill system, and having a bunch of pre-packaged powers may or may not mesh well with this system, so I'm still testing the waters on that one.
I dropped a whole lot of things from both sides (mostly from the Marvel side, but also from the 4E side to retain some of the Marvel "feel" hopefully), but I am considering placing some of them back, if need be... although I seriously doubt I'd want to bother bringing back up the granularity of Contacts and Talents.
Note that maximum stat restrictions are employed to emulate the original feel of Marvel's "normal people are leagues less powerful than anyone else, but they are normal so they get to have better plot-based benefits"; In the original Marvel RPG, normal humans in Marvel could only reach a maximum rank of "Excellent" (rank number: 16), while robots could potentially reach the maximum starting rank, "Monstrous" (rank number: 63), which means normal humans had at *best* a 60% chance to hit -- although would far more likely reach a 40% or lower chance to hit -- while a robot could at best have a 80% chance to hit, although typically will go for around 60% or better. Damage-wise, a normal human with Excellent strength could hit at most 26 points of damage [with a melee weapon of Remarkable quality or better], while an alien with Monstrous strength could easily deal 75 damage bare-handed.
By the way, I am planning to utilize Gamma World 4E's Hit point tracking system [including Second Wind], as well as employ the GW4E's gear system (almost directly). I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate the Body Armor power and the like -- which is basically damage resistance against most attacks -- among other things. I may add in AC again, and have the Body Armor "power" simply be a damage reduction "power".
tl;dr -- I've already taken certain elements from GW4E, although I had to drop the pre-existing powers, skills and power sources.