Panpiper

Just to be clear. There is no magic roll required on anything unless the spell/power/framework has taken the limitation 'requires a skill roll'.

Just to be clear. There is no magic roll required on anything unless the spell/power/framework has taken the limitation 'requires a skill roll'.

It looks like I gave false impressions.  I tend to forget sometimes that terms have shifted over the years
 
I am not one of the "first person" in character role players.  I was never able to do that well, I am more of a third person narrator.  Which is why I tend to use narrative even though it is not what comes to mind for most people.  Sorry about being misleading.
 
The reason I cannot GM remotely is you really can't see the players body language.  For me a primary key to running is real time adjustments of the story based on the player reactions.  I can't do that watching a thumbnail of each player on my screen.
 
I do have people nearby to roleplay with, but many of them are "old" like me, or have family that fall into the "at risk" category.  While I have been going in to work everyday, some of them have not.  Many of them teleworked even before C19.  But I have been staying away from them because we have a constant turnover of personnel traveling in the US and overseas and I'd rather not share anything I might come across. 
 
Most of the gamers I know also are having higher demands of family time and it would be nice to find more players with kids in the same age groupings.  I don't have any kids myself but I have started looking into RPG's suitable for short people.  Who knows?
 
I started this thread to see if I could find other nearby gamers of similar interest to expand the loose group of table top gamers up here.  
 
 
Friendly Local Game Store. 
What I still consider the heart of the hobby.   Far more people learn to game RPG's by example than by themselves and a colorful product on the shelf tends to say "buy me" to a non-gamer far more than over the internet.  Sadly too many people do not realize that FLGS's are to gaming what pubs are to sports and restaurants are to dinner.   You can do all of those activities far cheaper yourself at home, but you will not have the atmosphere and social interaction.   It is like watching my MLS team.  I do watch the game on TV if I have to, but watching the game at the stadium or in my local pub is far more fun because I am watching it with a crowd of fans.    The same with gaming, I can run a game on the dining room table and have fun.  But I can have a incredible time running the same game at a FLGS with all the regular players plus one or two new people trying it out. 
 
If you have a FLGS make a point of supporting it.  Buy something there, even if it is just a soda.  I made it a point of buying at least one thing a month.  Sadly too many people want to use the a GS's tables and space but not spend money there.  But I guess that is the world.....

Sometimes you can. I ran a D&D 4e (the most maligned, but oh so balanced version) campaign for almost three years with basically the same group. Started with everyone at the table in person, then people started to PCS across the US. Ended with the game being my wife and I at home with everyone else virtual. We would still be running, but babies dropped four players (table was mostly couples). But it's totally possible to play remotely with people you know and/or like if you aren't happy with who you're playing with.
 
The other option is to run a weekly open table game of some sort at your FLGS and hand pick your favorites for an invite. That's how I put together my current group. Downside is dealing with some really poor roleplayers till you find the good ones.

So more for non-combatant then? I’d say -1 is fair.

needs more context, it is one of those cases where the value might vary.
 
In a SPD 4 game, if I was to buy SPD 3 and buy a fourth point with "only to abort" then I think I might be quite generous, possibly even to saying +1 or more.
In a SPD 4 game, if I was to buy SPD 4 and buy a fifth point with "only to abort" then I think I might be quite stingy, possibly even to saying +1/4 or less.
 
So what matters is how often that comes into play.  If I have the same number of actions to burn as everyone else and I have an extra one as long as one of those actions is an abort, then I am not particularly inconvenienced by that. 

This is why I am moving to online, and TTS solutions. I have been with a fairly stable online group for the last four years. If and When I GM I will introduce them to HERO. 

"Just give me a character sheet and tell me what dice to roll.  And what abilities I have.  And what spells I have memorized.  And what armor & weapons I have.  And what equipment I'm carrying.  And..."

"Taking a full 100 points in powers changes that to 'Wizard' and is worth a whopping -2 limitation."
 
That is not 'active' points, that is character points (same thing as XP). Being a Wizard requires a large investment. Full blown Wizards would be rare in the game world. I'd be a bit disappointed if we didn't have one as a player though. Every troupe of adventurers needs a Gandalf.
 
I should probably append as well a caution to any and all. While I would have no rule stating someone 'must' spend character points in skills, knowledges and the like, it likely will have a deleterious impact in the XP growth of your character if you neglect that side of things too much. PbP is HIGHLY weighted towards role playing and I would be heavily abstracting any combat with player tactics and results simply narrated. XP rewards would be massively skewed towards the quality of the role play interaction rather than beating up bad guys. Skills and such will likely play a far greater role in one's ability to not just progress, but also have fun.
 
Real world has distracted me lately, so this is going slower than I anticipated originally.

You'll want to review the rules regarding how Advantages and Limitations work...as well as general math.  30/(1-.5) = 30/.5 = 60...and doesn't really have anything to do with HERO System.

A 30 Active Point Power with -1/2 in total Limitations would calculate as:  30 / (1+1/2) = 30 / (3/2) = 60/3 = 20 points

A 30 Active Point Power with +1/2 in Advantages would calculate as: 30 * (1+1/2) = 30 * (3/2) = 90/2 = 45 points

Apply a -1/2 Limitation to the Advantaged Power above and the calculation follows the same rules: 45 /(1+1/2) = 30 points

Hi,
 
I am the developer of Hero Combat Manager.  The purpose of the program is to help a GM manage combat.  Here are the specific things you can do with it:
 
Using Hero Designer (HD) - you can export characters you have created using HD into a format that Hero Combat Manager (HCM) can use HCM will track when each character can act depending on their Speed and Dex With HCM the GM can: Handle all dice rolling and damage management for NPCs.  This includes Normal, Killing, Mental, Presence, Flash, Entangle, etc. and apply the damage to the player character information.  You will always know how injured your player's characters .  The players still have to keep track of the damage which the GM will provide Handle all damage that the NPCs receive when the player character's hit an NPC Handle held actions Buff/Debuff per Aid/Drain or the GM can adjust.  Be prepared this part of the application has always been a bit flaky (sorry) What can't be done with HCM: You can't create a character on the fly in HCM.  You have to use HD and then export the character It doesn't interface with the Hero System Mobile (we have talked about it but I am too busy and technically not savvy enough to figure it out how to do that - yet) Quirks and issues When I was a full time paid developer I worked on embedded software systems.  A UI was the raw data being dumped out an RS-232 port to a dumb terminal.  We didn't need no stickin' UI.  So that means HCM's UI is primitive I haven't done an update in a while.  Too busy.  I will answer questions and I am going to set aside time in 2020 to do some major bug fixing. This project grew out of my need for a tool to help me track combat.  I have done it with pencil and paper and real dice in the past.  That worked but in a big fight someone would get missed.  I tried doing this with a spreadsheet and a fancy VB macro but that failed pretty quickly.  The program grew out of my own needs.

Here's something to keep in mind -- the actual stats of the mook don't matter so much as does how much lower they are than the PCs.  Telling you that Vinnie the Snitch has an OCV of 5 doesn't help you if you don't know where the PCs should be.
 
A difference in OCV/DCV of 3 or more will mean that the character with the higher number will have a much easier time of hitting his opponent, while the character with the lower number will have a much harder time.
 
https://www.thedarkfortress.co.uk/tech_reports/3_dice_rolls.php#.XtFulkRKiUk
 
This page has a 3D6 distribution chart at the bottom.  In the middle column they have percentage chance to roll under a given number.  So let's say that Vinnie the Snitch has an OCV/DCV of 5.  If Captain Amazing has an OCV/DCV of 9, then that means he needs a 15- to hit, whereas Vinnie will need a 7- to hit the good Captain.  15- means the Captain is hitting 95% of the time, while 7- means the gangster hits only 16% of the time (about 1 in 6).  Of course if Captain Amazing decides to dodge, his DCV goes up by 3 and Vinnie needs a 4- (less than 2%) to hit.  Whereas if our thug dodges, his DCV goes to 8 and the Captain still hits on a 12- (74% of the time).
 
So the OCV/DCV difference is important.  Another thing to look at is the Speed differential.  Having an extra 2 points of Speed is a big advantage in combat.  A Speed 4 character will have a lot of trouble with a Speed 6 character if all other things are equal.  The Speed 6 character can afford to block, dodge, take recoveries, or other defensive actions that the Speed 4 character can't.
 
Then look at the average damage of an attack compared to a character's Def + Con, and Def + Stun.  If your heroes throw 12D6 attacks, the average damage is 42 Stun and 12 Body.  Hitting a character with 8 Def means they take 4 Body and 34 Stun.  If that exceeds their Con score, they are stunned and lose their next action.  If it exceeds their current Stun total, it means they are unconscious.  What this means is that superheroes can often "spread" their ranged attacks and affect multiple characters who are standing side by side.  If Captain Amazing shoots his Optic Vision at a crowd of thugs, (4 guys sitting at a card table), he may be able to hit all four of them by only spreading a few dice.  If his 12D6 attack lowers down to 8D6, then he's still doing 28 Stun on average, minus their 8 Def and each character is taking 20 Stun.  He will almost certainly cost all those thugs their next phase, and might knock them all out.
 
In general, because I'm lazy, I tend to give generic thugs and mooks straight 15s in their primary physical stats.  15 Str, 15 Dex, 15 Con.  Give them 10 PD and ED and a 3 Speed.  5 OCV/DCV and about 25 Stun is good.  They'll carry weapons that are in the 6-8 damage class range.  These are not meant to be threats to superheroes.  They are very dangerous threats to normal people though.  But most of the heroes in our games have OCV/DCV of 8 or above, Speeds of 5-7, and Defenses of 30 or so.  They chuck 12+D6 attacks and so mooks are little more than targets for them.  But that's how we like to play, mooks are just the warmup for the real fights.

Bingo!  Thank you. 'That' is what would make it worth the extra limitation.
 

What is CBR?

That is comic book resources. They can be located here.

This is a first! 
 

 
I have never had two simultaneous threads where people have gone to a lot of trouble to make my points for me. 
 

If you're the GM and those are your terms, then the players who agree to play in your game are opting in. As long as, in the end, people have fun, there's no harm. Part of the GM's job is to be a quality filter on what makes it into play. If you feel like the best way you can provide that level of quality is to fully own the character creation process, and you have players who don't mind then it is a non issue.
 
Personally, I prefer to start new players with an array of pre-gens to choose from, which is an even more extreme form of what you are talking about here. Saves time and allows getting into the action right away with characters intentionally designed to be relevant to the setting, reliable at their shtick, and to be interesting in some way. This is one of the reasons I write up a bunch of "Iconics" for my various settings; not only do they help me build out the setting, and demonstrate the range of possibilities as archetypes, and provide benchmarks for stats, they also serve as potential starting pre-gens for players to choose from.
 
Later, after some trust has built up, if the player wants to make their own character and put the time in to do it then I'll work with them through some number of rounds of back and forth. They submit their character, I make some tweaks and bat it back for acceptance or negotiation. My main concern is that the character make sense within the setting (lore, power level, etc) and equally important be distinct from the other PC's in the campaign. 
 
Every now and then, a player submits a character that is 100% in line with the setting and campaign and is mechanically clean and free of exploits or problematic mechanics. But it is definitely the exception. :) 
 
Back in the day I would sit with each player in person and help them make their character, but it was a huge time sink, and in the grand scheme of things not really any more successful than the approach I settled into over the years.  As my available free time shrank over the years, I began to optimize for trying to make every face to face session focused on actual play as much as possible. Dinking around with a character build with a given player...some of that is unavoidable and will happen if necessary, I but I really prefer for it to be handled between sessions via email or direct 1:1 communication and not at the table.
 
So, tl;dr: if it works for you and your group, then more power to you.

There is no defeating your argument. If you are the GM, you get to define the terms of your game. It is up to everyone else solely whether they want to play or not.
 
For most new players, this is likely to not just be the easier choice, but will result in a more effective character. I have frequently seen newbies show up to a game with a character they have built themselves with such glaring flaws in their construction as to be functionally useless. A character you build will not likely suffer from such faults.  The downside of course is that many players are drawn to Hero System precisely because they enjoy the process of building characters, and this approach deprives them of much of that pleasure. That can be mitigated to a degree by allowing players some freedom with how they spend experience points. Also perhaps while building, leave a few points free that the player can allocate as they choose before the first game, so they can feel some personalization for the design you hand them.
 
I can well understand your motive, and it is not wrong. I have been frequently tempted to do something similar on those rare occasions I have GMed. Players have a natural tendency to power creep, to push as close as they can to maximum effectiveness. If everyone does this to the exact same degree, there is no problem for balance with the game, the GM just tailors encounters to the power level the players have defined for themselves. The downside is that it is never equal. One or more players will emphasize combat to the max and be quite a bit more powerful than someone else who emphasized role playing, which can skew both balance and enjoyment. The role player will feel slighted in combat and the powerful one will have so little to do outside of combat that they will enjoy nothing else.
 
I would again return to my suggestion made before. Build the characters yourself based upon description, with some discussion, but leave something like ten points unspent. Let the player spend those ten points however they want. The power player will buy up their strength and a couple of levels with their favorite weapon (or similar) and the role player will add a few skills and/or skill levels. Things will not be completely out of whack and the players will feel more ownership of the resulting characters.

If I could make a suggestion, it would be this.  The fewer differences in game mechanics between character types, the easier it is to balance.  If you have an entirely separate "magic system" that non-spellcasters never use, there's a good chance it's not going to be balanced properly.  Yeah it'll feel different in play, but it'll be really wonky too.  Mages will either be really awesome or they'll really suck.
 
Instead, try things like this:
 
1)  If you're going to allow basic equipment for free (i.e., costs money, not points), then also create some low level magic that only costs money.  It can be more expensive than a normal tool, but a wizard shouldn't be paying points on something the fighter gets for free.  Having the special effect of "magic" shouldn't suck all your points away.
 
Bob the wizard's apprentice sets out on an adventure.  He has a spellbook of entry-level magic.  The Fire Bolt spell summons a flaming arrow, just like an archer could shoot.  The Handy Rope spell conjures a rope with a grappling hook on the end.  The Slip and Slide spell covers a 10'x10' area and requires Dex checks to walk across it, just like if you'd dumped a bucket of olive oil on the ground.  Bob has a dozen spells or so in his spellbook, none of them that much different than a regular mundane effect.  He trades the encumberance of carrying around all that crap for the requirement of making a magic skill roll.  Should he really have to pay points on top of that?  Probably not.
 
Bob also has a wand of charm person.  It makes targets friendly to you.  The wand costs 100 gold to buy new, and comes with 10 charges.  It requires a magic roll to use.  The GM secretly decides that the wand makes a target friendlier by the exact same amount as if you had given them a gift worth 10 gold and made a persuasion roll.  So it's really just a mundane ability with a magic special effect and a swapped skill roll.
 
Finally Bob has a handful of one-use magic scrolls.  These effects are more powerful, but are still rough equivalents to things you can do in a non-magical way.  The Magic Ship scroll conjures a sailing vessel that lasts for one week (or month, whatever).  The scroll just happens to cost the same amount as buying tickets for your group on a normal sailing ship.  Yeah it's more portable (you could use it on a deserted island), but it's also like a gift certificate -- you might buy it and never use it.  Scroll of Disarmed Dungeon sets off the first 5 traps in a dungeon.  It costs the same as hiring a gang of local dimwits to run ahead of the party and try opening doors and chests ("Hey Dave, go see what's around that corner, okay?").
 
Depending on how creative you wanna get, you could simulate a lot of things a wizard does with equipment like that.  All these things are either GM created or GM approved.  The mage takes Power Skill: Magic, Weapon Familiarity: spellbooks, wands, scrolls, etc, and maybe a complementary KS for whatever type of magic he's using.  Then he can buy combat skill levels with his preferred abilities.  That's not much different than what a fighter would do.  You've just let him change the special effect.
 
2)  If you're gonna let one player do it, you should probably let other players do it too.  If one guy takes a multipower, then it should be okay for other players as well.  If Ricky the knight wants to have a set of "knightly abilities", such as an ED Force Wall only vs dragon breath (requires him to heroically hold up his shield in front of him), a blow where he shatters his enemy's weapon (dispel vs HKA), and a powerful rallying cry (+30 Pre, only to inspire the troops), well there's nothing really wrong with that.  The wizard player didn't do anything worthy of reward by choosing to play a magical character.
 
I think if you allow things like that, where non-magical characters don't feel like they're penalized, then players are more likely to pick them.  This prevents the "everybody plays a mage" problem where everybody wants the cool powers and has to be a wizard to justify it.
 
 

"Complex Gestures" are in Fantasy Hero pg 285. It's a skill roll penalty, or forces a DEX roll if the spell does not require a skill roll.

I you waggle a few fingers and wave an arm, then it's a normal gesture. If you have to do the Hokey Pokey or equivalent, it's complex gestures.

Now that is a character.

My favorite RPG of all time was 4th Edition Fantasy Hero. Just saying.

Yeah. Some of us work hard every day to be idiots!

I think you did a fair job, Panpiper.
 
If you listen to every suggestion of what you _should_ include or _might_ include or what-have-you, you'd end up re-writing the entirety of 6e, which defeats the purpose.  (We did an exercise on writing a cover bulb some months back, and that turned into a chapter, so....)
 
  Shortening anything requires leaving things out and making decisions about what to leave in, leave out, and to create shortcuts, and frankly, I don't think you did those at any sort of unrecoverable level, yet still managed to give a solidly accurate description of the game.