Vanguard

What you’re talking about would be “The Book of Ordinary Stuff”.  A game book three times the size of Ninja Hero or Mystic Masters that had nothing but the stats for everything in the world.
    No one would buy it ‘cause you don’t really need it.  
    When the tornado or tidal wave comes, the GM just has to say “it destroys the the town.”  And 99.44/100th’s % of players will never have the points to completely stop it.  STOP SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF!!!!!
    This is “let’s pretend” not algebra class!!!    Yes, rules are necessary to keep things from devolving into “Bang, Bang, I got you!”  “No, you didn’t. You missed!”  But obsessing over exactly how much of this power or that limitation takes you out of the child like joy and flights of imagination that this game can give you
The GM/DM of a game isn’t like the dealer in a card game or the banker in Monopoly. They act as both a guide and a host for their players. And as such, there has to be a level of trust between them and the players.  They’re there to challenge the players not to screw them over.  They know what’s on your sheet.  So if the GM says the catastrophe can be stopped than it can.  If not then it can’t and the heroes have to help the survivors and stop Dr. Evil from causing the next one.
   I always love the story of someone at a convention trying to pin down Joss Whedon on Serenity’s exact speed vs. the size of his ‘verse.  To which he replied “She flies at the speed of plot”.
   If you’re the player, just trust that your GM knows how strong the door is.  And if you’re the GM than just give it your best fair guess and keep the game moving.
   I’m sorry if I come off a bit hot button on the subject, look through my posts and you’ll see I’ve always been very much on the side of story over rules, art over science in the game.     Thanks, and I await the inevitable smackdown.

Gnope. Sorry.

My favored style of FH play is "low heroic" (see the link in my signature below for details), primarily Skill-based characters, with pointwise-free equipment, and Powers outside of that generally limited to being used to replicate magic.  In that style of play, characters don't get more powerful than superheroes.  
 

I would consider a beholder to have magical origins and not be a natural creature. It may be highly intelligent but may not have free will, having been created to cause destruction. 

Couldn't agree more.  Centuries of bladed weapons training and the kind of hard, dangerous work that typified life prior to the 20th century makes it inconceivable that the immortals wouldn't have lost fingers, toes and limbs.
 
Hell, I've known multiple people with manual labor jobs (auto mechanics, oil rig workers, etc.) who have lost 2 or more fingers before they were 50.

In a fantasy game I'd call them Explorers or Border Scouts.  The people that guard or expand the frontiers.

Professional adventurers probably wouldn't be known as such. They'd be referred to as a mercenary group, a band of wandering heroes, or a pack of troublemakers. My experiences lead me to believe most folks would use the last term the most often.

I can certainly appreciate and respect why you would feel that way. Just to consider the issue from a different angle, fantasy game settings represent a heightened reality. They feature circumstances, complications, threats, opportunities that would never have existed in the corresponding historical eras of the real world. The "professional adventurer" can be viewed as a heightened response to that reality, in some ways analogous to the costumed heroes (and villains) of a supers world.

As for Things I'm Tired Of Seeing, I'm a bit irritated with the concept of the "professional adventurer." I suppose it's useful for getting PCs into adventures: Village/Kingdom/Whatever has problem, hires "adventurers" to solve it. PCs take the job, aadventure begins. B ut the term is a little meta for my tastes.
 
Like, James Bond isn't an "adventurer." He's a spy. This results in him having adventures, but that's not his goal as such. Mike Hammer isn't an "adventurer": He's a private detective. The Fellowship of the Ring weren't "adventurers," either. They were on a specific quest and when it was over they went home and did other things. Though that's not very good for an ongoing game.
 
I like when there can be some frame to explain why the PCs keep getting into trouble. Our last FH game had a good one: The PCs are the neighborhood watch. Looking for trouble, in a sense, as we stop drunken bar fights and such... but this is a Fantasy city where small events can entangle one in larger conflicts such as the power struggle between the Duke, the nobles and the merchants, or the stolen McGuffin that people are chasing is magical, or there's stuff buried beneath the city that could reveal the world Isn't What You Thought It Was. Worked out really well. The GM had to end the campaign for personal reasons, but I've lifted the concept for my own use.
 
Dean Shomshak

As far as Voldemort trying to zap baby Harry with his Big Kill-o-Matic Spell instead of just having his sname eat him or something, I think Rowling did okay in presenting the psychological reasons. Mainly, that he started out a homicidal sociopath and got steadily worse as he broke off parts of his soul to make himself immortal. (Add that to the Evil Overlord Rules: Damaging your soul for power never ends well.) And he really, really liked using his Kill-o-Matic Spell. So why wait, like, 30 seconds to arrange some other death? Just wave the wand and do it now!
 
And for all that he's brilliant and erudite in some ways, Voldemort is sloppy on the basics of magic -- the stuff that doesn't seem to have an immediate payoff in power. It's why he didn't know that willing sacrifice could create a magical shield powerful enough to bounce the Kill-o-Matic Spell. Or that a bit of his own soul would break off and lodge in Harry. Or correctly parsing the TOS for the Super Powerful Wand.
 
In Harry's world, evil seems to involve a degree of stupid, or at least blindness. I'm okay with that.
 
Dean Shomshak

@Lord Liaden
 
Thanks!!
 
Gave Highlander Hero a quick look over and it looks like we did some of the same things.  One of the few things we changed, off hand, was that Immortals in our game regenerated lost limbs and body parts.  Mainly because during the series, we only saw 1 Immortal that was missing a hand while none of the others were even missing fingers.  And we found it a bit hard to believe that after hundreds of years of fighting with edged weapons, no-one lost a finger.

Just a note here.  Bionics is just another name for cybernetics.   If you're looking for something that's "grown in place" you're looking for bioware or other type of genetically modified/enhanced items.
 
Due to that, I can see the advice for just making the skills/abilities intrinsic to the character.
 
That being said, I did something like this with one of my characters.   With the notable difference that the computer started out as a normal one but wound up gaining sentience as the game went on.
 
 
Would you be amused to know that I read that in JARVIS' voice?

First thing I thought of, too. Shows how thoroughly we've been MARVELized by this point. But the phrasing is just like what Jarvis would say.

Just FYI, all the books Chris suggested are in PDF in the Hero website store, for pretty reasonable prices.
 
https://www.herogames.com/store/product/809-champions-ii-the-super-supplement-revised-2nd-edition-pdf/
 
https://www.herogames.com/store/product/802-autoduel-champions-2nd-edition-pdf/
 
https://www.herogames.com/store/product/433-the-ultimate-vehicle-pdf/
 
https://www.herogames.com/store/product/420-the-ultimate-speedster-pdf/
 

At this point it's moot.  But if I ever do get into things again, I'll attempt to rummage up a copy of Champions II and take a look.
 
I did look at the segmented movement but thought it would make mapped combat a bit tedious but if that's the price I pay for something that "feels" right I'll take it.  I have the other resources you mentioned and like i said, if things change I'll take a look.
 
Thanks for the advice Chris!

Take a look at the Champions II supplement to see if the originals work any better for you.  The main difference is that vehicles don't have a DEX and SPD; they move every segment on the driver's DEX.  The vehicle combat rules in Autoduel Champions were based on those as well.  I'd also recommend trying the dogfighting rules, which have been in the game almost forever, including in TUV and one of the APG's.  The Ultimate Speedster also talks about how to handle segmented movement, in 5th edition but eminently usable with 6th.

Ah. Gotha.  Thanks for the Cliff Notes version.
 
 
Same thing happened to me.
 
Loved the game and the concept behind it but stopped playing at 2nd Edition.  Did pretty much what you did and picked up 5th Ed and thumbed through it and had a hard time recognizing it.
 
Anyway, I'll go on record as saying that I to like elves and like playing elves but don't have a problem NOT playing one either.  I do think they *are* cool but so are ninjas and cyborgs and lightsa . . er Beam Sabers.
 
Oh and trench coats.  Trench coats are cool to.
 

I have, yet again, updated the Robot Warriors to HERO System Current Editions document.  I was never quite happy with the Ground Scale to Range Modifier conversion; I am now.  Link above in Lord Liaden's post or below in my signature.  

I think that's an astute observation, N-B. As the mecha genre evolved, it became more infused with samurai culture in Japan, whereas it became purely an expression of the technology culture in America. That's why mecha in anime move like people in samurai armor wielding katanas, whereas here in America mecha are primarily military ordnance on legs--ala BattleTech--emphasizing powerful ranged weaponry over the Japanese conceit of "pilots" squaring off as if they were dueling samurai.
 
So I think it is important to know which mecha tradition one is trying to simulate in a campaign: the Japanese tradition or the American tradition (such as it is). Because in the former, mecha are probably best built as characters, whereas in the latter they are probably best built as vehicles.

As far as I know Mecha are treated as vehicles and use the corresponding rules. As I understand it, Giant Robots aka Mecha, were designed (as an art form) in Japan as extension of the there love of Samurai.  As the ‘80s America was introduced to Robotech and other Japanese Magna, the Western love affair of Mecha. I love me some Battletech! 

The most straightforward way to represent Mecha in the HERO System is as huge vehicles. Unfortunately, the vehicle combat rules in HERO usually leave most players unsatisfied, particularly if they are looking for an experience akin to Battletech or Car Wars. Aside from the old Robot Warriors book that LL mentioned, I'm not aware of any official publication(s) that offer more detailed rules for Mecha-as-vehicles combat in HERO.

Used to really enjoy SR. 
But the game moved on and left me behind.  There is a thing of too much world development and too much change. 
I don't really remember which version that left me behind, but I did pick up one of the version where they went wireless.  It was brutal and completely redefined how things work and basically nerf'd  years of built adventures and campaign frames. 
 
There are a lot of people that really like the new game and many these days that never saw the older versions.  And that is great for them.  But the game changes plus the way they established the world history made it too difficult use for me. 
 
My milestone for the end of my interest in the game was when it went wireless and completely redefined the game.  
 
 

Found the Shadowrun player.
 
(At least I think so.  That's the only place I've heard the slang for elves)
 
(PS: Not really sure why elves are getting hated on so much but to each their own.)

@Lord Liaden
 
Thanks!!
 
Gave Highlander Hero a quick look over and it looks like we did some of the same things.  One of the few things we changed, off hand, was that Immortals in our game regenerated lost limbs and body parts.  Mainly because during the series, we only saw 1 Immortal that was missing a hand while none of the others were even missing fingers.  And we found it a bit hard to believe that after hundreds of years of fighting with edged weapons, no-one lost a finger.

@tkdguy
 
You did/do good work!  (I don't have any more "reactions" today so 👍