Trencher

Mercenary
 
Male Char Female
15 STR 10
14 DEX 18
15 CON 13
12 BODY 11
13 INT 13
10 EGO 11
15 PRE 15
16 COM 16
5 PD 4
3 ED 4
3 SPD 3
6 REC 5
30 END 26
28 STUN 23
Total Characteristics Cost: 100 Points
 
Cost Skills
8 CSL: Combat +1
3 Concealment 12-
3 Demolitions 12-
2 Navigation [Ground] 12-
3 Stealth 12-
3 Streetwise 12-
3 Tactics 12-
Total Skills Cost: 25 Points
 
Cost Powers
15 Armor +5 rPD +5 rED
45 Multipower (45 Points)
3 u) HA +6d6, HTH Attack (-1/2), No END (+1/2)
4 u) HKA 2d6 [[3d6 [Male] or 2 1/2d6 [Female] w/STR]]
4 u) RKA 2d6, Autofire [2-3 Shots] (+1/4), [32c] (+1/4)
4 u) RKA 2d6, Explosion (+1/2), [16c]
Total Powers Cost: 75 Points
 
Total Cost: 150 Points
 
75+ Disadvantages
5 DF: Uniform (Easily Concealable/Noticed)
10 Hunted: Employer (More Powerful/NCI/Watch) 8-
15 Hunted: Government (More Powerful) 8-
10 PsyL: Fear of Employer (Uncommon/Strong)
15 PsyL: Greedy (Common/Strong)
10 SocL: Secret Identity (Occasionally/Major)
10 SocL: Subject To Orders (Occasionally/Major)
Total Disadvantages Cost: 150 Points
 
 
This is a typical mercenary working for a supervillain or evil organization.  Most superheroes can easily defeat them one on one, but for 25 Points a villain can get four of them.  They are good for distracting superheroes of threatening innocents.
 

I think a lot of the glass cannon syndrome is actually pretty normal.  It is a reflection of both reality and game design.  Take the example of a gun vs armor.   You typical armor is bought using resistant defense with an OIF limitation.  The gun on the other hand is bought with either blast or RKA with an OAF limitation.
 
When you break this down by the points you see that the armor gives less bang for the buck.  In most games characters tend to by similar amount of physical and energy defense.  This means that armor has to pay twice.  Since armor is also using a lesser restriction it costs more.  For 10 real points you get DEF 5 armor.  The gun on the other hand only has one energy type, and a more restrictive limitation.  For the same 10 real points I get a 4d6 blast.  The blast will do an average of 14 points, so 9 after adjusting for armor.  So for every 1pt you spend on blast you get .9 points through.  Armor on the other hand prevents .5 point per point.  If we using nonresistant defense the numbers improve slightly so now every point spent prevents .75 points of damage.  This means that characters are paying 20% to 80% more for defenses than attacks.
 
Next we factor in the fact that a character can normally only make one attack, but may be attacked multiple times.  This means I only have to have one attack available.  On the other hand since I can be attacked by different things I need to have all my defenses operating all the time.  In game terms this is often represented by a multipower. 
 
If multipowers are used or the character has multiple weapons they can switch to attacks become even more efficient.  So now the person with armor has 7 DEF for 14 real points.  The gun is now a 20pt multipower with 4 slots for 14 points.  The multipower has a 4d6 blast, a 1d6+1 RKA, a 2d6 NND, and a 2d6 Drain.  Now for every point I am spending on the gun 7 gets through.  This brings the ratio down to .5 which matches the armor.  Except now I have two attacks that completely bypass the armor. 
 
There will of course be a lot of variation from my calculations, but the idea behind them remains sound.  Simply put attacks are more often than not more efficient than defenses.  This also reflects the real world.  We have guns now that can shoot through any armor we have. 

Trencher when I made a Conanesque character for a Fantasy Campaign I bought his STR to 20. Fantasy you are more likely to take Body compared to most other genres. My GM didn’t mind because I also was a “stormtrooper” concept. I charged head first into battle!

Ok everybody lets take a moment to appreciate that we have different opinions and that not all campaigns are alike. All the talk I seen here makes sense and the characters and point values indicate great GM's who got their game in order. The only thing that is important in accordance to balance is to stick to the creation parameters you as the GM have developed. 
 
Normal characteristics maximums not being used as the maximum for human development in many campaigns is because the games curve is way to steep. Its the only weakness of the hero system. 
 
The hero system is unique among rpgs as its rules are not really rules for simulation but rather an "language" which can be used to describe everything from a pencil to an house cat to an sentient galaxy cloud. 
 
The only problem here is that we start at different places when we set the standards, in relation to how much emphasis we put on different aspects of the stories we create. Be it ease of gameplay, realistic simulation, dramatic effect or balance. 
 
The discussion I wanted was to get each of your thoughts about players focusing on not getting hurt and doing damage themselves rather than being able to get hurt but still keep going and that the majority of characters I seen in the game goes down if they take a stunning hit twice. 
 

Though my sample set is very small (mainly because most players prefer 5th than to change over to 6th) and thus can be skewed, I've found that 6th characters can take slightly more stunning hits and stay up longer than 5th.  
 
What I've seen is a bit higher defenses, higher STUN and bigger recoveries.  Note that the CONs I have seen are only down by what would be by about 5 points (18 <- 23).  By decoupling, there is no longer a need of doing a point saving maneuver by buying up CON or STR and those values have gone down to or below the 20pt characteristic max.  Stun, being relatively cheap, has gone up in amounts usually by at least 10 points and recoveries have gone up about by 4.
 
Again, this is mostly anecdotal and not very scientific.
 

I've noticed that in Champions, characters are much less exaggerated than in the comic books.  You never have someone like Storm or Cyclops who have absolutely zero defenses going out and standing in combat with people that could kill them with a thip.  Usually people build characters with some manner of defenses to keep them going better in combat.

That's the beauty of this system: you CAN build that 35 PD/ED mentalist if you want to.  The ability to soak those hits will, of course, come at the cost of superior mental abilities -- because you elected to put the points into physical and energy defenses instead of mental abilities, but you did that presumably to maintain concept, and that's A-OK!

It depends on the players and the campaign. I have a problem with people expecting heroes with certain powers having to be a certain way. That's not the spirit of Champions; if I want to create a mentalist with a 35 PD and 35 ED, I can build it that way. If I want to build a martial artist with a 12 DEX, I can do that. I'm not suggesting those builds but I often bite my tongue when I hear players saying 'such-and-such characters are this way'. It takes away from the creativity allowed to a player.
 
Now, for what Trencher said:
Anyone else have trouble with glass cannon syndrome? It seems everywhere I look there are pc's and npc's who would go down if they get stunned for a round twice in a row. In fact the system encourages imo making high dex hard hitting characters or at best an controller of sorts. I kinda miss the human tank arch type who could take a lot of hits, get stunned for a round a couple of times but suddenly get back up if the enemy missed or wiffed an shot.
 
I'm curious where he sees this happening in what books (it seems everywhere I look etc.). For myself, I've noticed it in a few books such as' Enemies for Hire' and 'Champions Worldwide' to name a couple.
 
Now, if a player builds a character that is easily stunned, but is in concept, I hope the GM provides other means for the character to be important other than just another brawl.

I think the way the game is set up (and the way people play the game), most PCs will be able to take hits (or avoid getting hit often enough to worry about it) as noone wants to be taken out of a fight too easily.  Also, if you set up with damage dealers and damage soakers, the damage dealers are likely to go straight for the opposiing damage dealers and take them out to allow them to focus on the damage soaker.
 
Kind of like how the cavalry battles on the wings of 16th and 17th century battles would take place while infantry blocks held the centre.  Whoever won the cavalry on the wings could then decide the stalemate in the centre.  :-)
 

Doc

I’ll echo what Indianjoe said. It depends how you set up the game. And how people spend their points.

I suppose it depends on the players. When I was in an active group. the rule of thumb was that even the DPS had to be able to take an average hit without being stunned, and 3 average hits without being knocked out.

Well, to be fair, a well-rounded team of 6 supers only tends to need 1 solid tank (e.g. Hulk) and 1 off-tank (e.g. Captain America).  The bulk of the rest of the team SHOULD be focused on damage ... and both damage dealers and support types tend to have glass jaws by their very natures.  A good ratio (IMHO) tends to be 3 damage dealers of different disciplines (e.g. martial artist, flying energy projector, and maybe a gun guy?) and one support provider (e.g. buffer/debuffer or perhaps tactical support a la darkness, barriers, etc) ....  or possibly 2 damage dealers and 2 support types if you want more versatility at the expense of longer fights.  However, any way you cut it, that's often 4 squishies in a team of 6.  
 
Note that mentalists can be damage dealers, support, or both -- depending on build.  Also note that when you add one to your team (who is likely a glass jaw much like Professor X), you also invite the GM to join the mentalist arms race, which will likely force more of a support role in order to defend the team from other mentalists.
 
My point is that 2/3 of a well-rounded team tends to be squishy ... and while the off-tank can often soak 2-3 times the hits of the squishies, it won't be able to soak what the real tank can.  Nor should it.

Instead of a sling she could use a custom glove crossbow that shoots spesial arrows with glass vial tips which breaks on contact. 

When we start making over-emotional and/or accusational statements we put are planting the seeds of something that can't yield healthy fruit. This post election discussion is planting a lot of bad seeds. We aren't taking the time to check if something is true or if there is at least some data to back a statement up before letting it slip. "I heard a LGBT person killed themselves" becomes "10 LGBT people killed themselves" in this telephone game we call social media. It is like how Mega still believes in "Bernie Bros" long after the fact. "I am curious to see whether there was a hidden "gender penalty for Clinton in the Senator Sanders campaign" seems like an interesting idle thought. But one with no evidence but a LOT of emotion. And that is all it takes to provoke motivated (bias) reasoning to find any shred of evidence to prove a point - and it doesn't matter. 

The issue of Suicide is far stronger a case here than the 'gender gap'. That is true. It was probably unwarranted of me to link the two. The consequence of one is that people take it as a social cue to actually kill themself, and the other just inspires greater and unwarranted animosity among us. These memes that everyone who didn't support Sec. Clinton is a racist and/or sexist must stop. Idle speculation about how many of them there are should stop until you actually have some evidence for it and not just raw emotion. 

So, when is it appropriate to talk about talk about such things? When there is hard evidence. When do we talk about a spike in suicides? When there is evidence there is a spike in suicides. When we do we start saying Sec. Clinton lost because of millions of sexist voters? When there is evidence.
 
Soar.

The Dems will either have to move forward and adapt or keep going with this "never my fault" attitude.  It was a shock, so I understand somewhat, but being conservative-leaning and looking at it from that side, blame it on everything but themselves can only help the conservatives.  Clinton got beat partly, probably mostly for her (or appearance thereof-whichever fits one's narrative) corruption.  Less people were enthused for her because of that.
 
I'm also frankly tired of many Dem politicians condescending arrogance.  "he cant possibly find fault with our policies, he must be KKK-loving, woman-hating homophobe who beats homeless people on the weekend." 

There are so many horrifying things about the Trump victory that it is hard to focus on just one, but his promise to repeal the Johnson Amendment fills me with the most dread.
 
Most of his campaign promises in my mind are pretty iffy. They are things that can be filibustered by the Democrats, fail to pass even through even a Republican controlled congress, get struck down by the courts, take years and years to implement or simply be forgotten by Trump himself like all those promises he has made to investors and contractors over the years.
 
Repealing the Johnson Amendment is different, though.  It is literally something that he can do in his first hundred days.  Even if the measure to repeal it gets filibustered by the Dems in the Senate, he can simply do it by executive order.  He can leave the law on the book but instruct the IRS to stop using its resources to enforce it, and this would be perfectly within his rights as POTUS.  It is not particularly different from what Obama did with is Dream Act or the decision to have DEA back off of states that legalized marijuana.
 
So that is what we have to look forward to, pastors telling there flock from the pulpit that they are going to go to hell if they vote Democrat and that he expects them to all get and do everything they can to get Congressman Joe Gaybasher reelected for for a 5th term.  
 
There is a saying that if you mix water and raw sewage that you get sewage, and that if you mix religion and politics you get politics.  That is what we have to look forward to from the pulpits on Sundays,  raw sewage.  I mean politics.  I mean both,

I think the majority of Americans were faced with the choice of the less undesirable candidate of those available.  I include myself in that category of wishing we had other candidates from which to choose.  On the other hand, there is some upside, regardless of political preference, to a Donald Trump presidency.  If you, like me and others, believe that American politics has become to entrenched with the same people and the same families, donors, etc. wielding too much power creating a "political elite" or "ruling aristocracy" Donald Trump is certainly not part of that.
 
If Donald Trump becomes president regardless of who wins control of the House and/or Senate he will have to "reach across the aisle" to get anything done because large segments of both parties vehemently disagree with him.  This may be enough for Congress to muster the where with all to actually take back some of its Constitutional power from the previous two "imperial presidents."  Yes, I believe that both George Bush the Second and Barrack Obama have Unconstitutionally expanded the power of the presidency and Donald Trump is sufficiently hated by the entrenched members of Congress to encourage them to finally do something about that.
 
Fair warning.  The securities markets are likely to go a bit nuts in coming days as a Trump win was not expected and the markets always react negatively to uncertainty.  There are "talking heads" saying that a Trump presidency will be "catastrophic" but I will remind that the said the same things about "Brexit" and after the initial panic reaction in the markets, which was fully resolved in 2 weeks, we've come to realize that Brexit wasn't the tragedy for Britain it was alleged.  The long term viability of the EU with a British exit is perhaps a different story.
 
At this point we've all voted (or not) and we'll just have to see how it goes.

Of course Superman would kill a bad guy to save innocents, if he was backed into a corner with no other choice. But that's not a Superman story. The point of a Superman story is that the strong have a duty to act morally and lawfully. The point of MoS was that Superman's philosophy is hopelessly naive, and the whole story was about his struggle to finally abandon the moral code that was holding him back.

Ultron is my least favorite movie in the franchise (well, I haven't seen Ant Man yet... technically); Whedon did a good job, but the editing felt discombobulated and truncated, and caused more than a few issues I have with how some characters were portrayed.

I'm okay with that for Captain America, he was more about bad guys than supervillains, but you're right the movies in general have very much downplayed supervillains for mooks.  And almost every superhero movie is about how the alleged hero creates all the problems then solves them and poses for the cameras.  Its almost as if the writers cannot seem to conceive of there being any actual bad guys or heroes, only problems created by and dealt with by the alleged good guys.

I saw Captain America Civil War and while it was good it does seem to underscores the fact that the series lacks real fights between superheroes and villains.  

I hope Civil War isn't faithful, because the comic book storyline was an incoherent mess.  

Yeah, a movie could be made about Spider-Man using a sloth in a bright green costume set on the moon and someone on the internet would defend it, mocking anyone who found fault as a purist.