Panpiper

@John Desmarais - Let me know if you are interested in trying out the Roll20 character importer. I am close to ready for general release, although there will be bugs I suspect it will still reduce the work of getting characters loaded by a factor of 10.
 
- E

We'll use your example. 
 
50 point pool (25 AP Control, 50 AP Pool): 75 points base cost. Powers change as Full phase action, INT Roll required. 1/4 Limitation on control. Real Cost: 70 AP (5 point savings)
Spends 30 points on INT (40 INT total), 3 point power skill roll, gets a 19- INT roll. Changing powers is a 14- (90.74% success). Total spent: 103 Real Points
 
Other player decides he doesn't like the limitation.
 
50 point pool (25 AP Control, 50 AP Pool): 75 points base cost. Powers change as Full phase action, INT Roll required. Real Cost: 75 AP 
Spends 8 points on INT (18 INT total), 11 point power skill roll, gets a 19- INT roll. Changing powers is a 14- (90.74% success). Total spent: 94 Real Points
 
After doing the math, I'd probably actually give him -1/2 on the limitation value. I would make him have cards of all the powers written up or a list in HeroDesigner that just had the ones for the session, so I could keep track, but it seems like a reasonable amount given that he is encouraged to buy up INT (not a typically highly bought characteristic) and has a decent concept.
 
- E

Yeah, for me it is genre-dependent.
 
For modern games, wealth eases things for the players. They can jet around, go to fancy restaurants, and have a lifestyle rather than just a life. If no one has a wealth perk and the team doesn't have transportation, just them getting to the scene of the crime can be a challenge at times. Some players like the struggle. Some want to have cool team jets or to throw money at their problems. Either way is fine to GM but it's much better if the players all agree on the style.
 
For many low fantasy or medieval games, most people live in poverty and they don't deal much with actual money. Players who spread around even small amounts of wealth can buy favors, followers, eternal devotion, etc. because a small amount of money given to someone who has none can be the difference between life and death. Players who have wealth in those kinds of games need a rationale for why they have it and why the crown (or the church) hasn't taken it away.
 
In high fantasy games where basic economics are set aside and players routinely bring dragon's hoards back to town with them, the players can buy stuff like lands, priesthoods, knighthoods, or other minor grants of nobility as well as gear and comfort. Since money is more common, the common folk do their dealings using money rather than barter and the lifestyle of grinding poverty isn't the norm. And small amounts of money given or traded to such common folk aren't a life-changing event and those common folk don't treat it as such.
 
 
I am a huge fan of the characters I play having the wealth perk. Part of that is having grown up very impoverished by American and all non-third world standards. Part of that is because I don't want my role-playing experience held back by logistics.
 
If I need to peel off a twenty dollar bill to pay an informant, I don't want a character who has to worry about whether he has twenty dollars to spare. And if I have to peel of a twenty dollar bill ten times in a night, I don't want to have to worry if my character in his secret ID can pay the rent or not. "Worrying about the rent" isn't a fun gaming activity for me so I actively avoid it by throwing character points at the problem.
 
And regardless of my character's wealth and regardless of genre, my characters tend to be the type to pick up the loot and take it home. Obviously not money from the bank. But gear from agents and supers to tinker with, maybe money from drug dealers because I trust myself to find a worthy cause for it more than I trust the cops or drug dealers to find a worthy cause for it, vehicles, bases, I consider it all to be fair game. I can justify that better when I have the wealth perk.
 
If I get to use it often depends on whether I later want to spend points on it. But I've always liked the idea of if my team's base gets blown up or if we have to go on the run that I've already stripped and then repurposed some villain's base that we'd shut down years ago. I've never gotten to actually play through that. But I've had it ready a couple of times.
 
That's one of those neat things that someone like Tony Stark, Batman, or Reed Richards could pull off without his teammates knowing about but someone like Spider-Man couldn't.

If you can find a GM, I have just the thing for you, for free.  Its an introductory/tutorial 5-part scenario of adventures designed to help both GMs and players learn how to play Champions currently in playtest.

I would use the 1/4 Limitation but call it "Only for Pre-tested Powers." So, it takes a while for the character to build a repertoire of powers. The player gradually makes a list of the powers she has tested, and can use any power on that list. 
 
It prevents the lag in-game where the player is building the power.
 
Also, if a new situation arises then the player can master a new power between scenes: "You head back to the HQ and hit the Danger Room, focusing on making your fire blasts more focused like a laser...."
 
It also rewards the player who spends the time dreaming this stuff up. I would limit it to one new power for every 15 minutes of practice time.

Re: Istvatha V'han - why can't she conquer Earth?
 
EndGame MegaBosses are not allowed to overrun the newbie zone.

the question is then How many spells can you have created and accessable during any 1 scenario
if you can have 200 spell/powers then no limitation
20 spell/powers maybe -1/4
10 spell/powers maybe -1/2

Not quite. Dervishes are conducting a sacred rite. GMs just think their games are a sacred rite.

Iron Man is a little unusual in growing notably through his early career.  It seems like most supers come into their full power right away and they experience crazy variations over time, rather than steadily get better - presumably because of writing/marketing/publishing with retcons and different writers and reboots and whatnot.
 
And I'd never say /couldn't/ do something in Champions!, just that IMX, running some multi-year campaigns, and having a few character accumulate hundreds of exp over the years, a character built at a high-power/cosmic level is very different from a more typical one with the same number of points due to accumulate exp.   Points you spend a few at a time, or maybe save up tens of for a 'radiation accident' (though i can't say I've seen a lot of that), just seem to be spent differently than points spent all at once in chargen.
 
The specific example of a high-fantasy (Fantasy Hero/D&D-esque) wizard with tons of exp, yeah, it'd be nothing like Dr. Strange, not even a little bit like him.  Campaign norms, for one thing, are totally different in kill-crazy, treasure-grubbing, S&S or quest-driven high fantasy (which you honestly don't see so much of in TTRPG thanks to D&D) vs either regular super-heroes, or the 'mystic' variations typified by Strange.  

IMHO, any place which is run by a single being which players would be accustomed to seeing as targets in a typical fantasy game would be problematic (lich, dragon, vampire). Too many players seem to have the attitude of "it wouldn't be there if I weren't intended to kill it".
 
Then an aspiring GM is going to be faced with 
1) Talking the players out of trying anytime they're near the city.
2) Letting the players try and let them get killed.
3) Letting the players succeed and the GM not having the usable neat setting to use.
 
I don't think any of those options will make the aspiring GM be satisfied with your product.
 
 
I'm also not personally fond of the city of assassins. The first time the PC's get crossways with the assassins, either the assassins are competent and kill the PC's...or the assassins are incompetent and the GM has to come up with excuses of why a bottomless pool of professional assassins can't manage to kill off a party of random adventurers (who probably are not behaving in such a way as to make themselves difficult targets for assassins). Either isn't likely to make the GM happy with his purchase.
 
2 cents

If you are putting the limitation on the VPP magic only obviously magic exists.  In a campaign that magic exists there are usually at least a few villains or creatures that are highly resistant to magic.  They usually purchase very high defenses with the limitation only vs Magic.  By taking the limitation magic only that means that anything you create with your VPP no matter what the other special effect or game power is will trigger that limitation.  Likewise any dispel or drain targeting magic as a special effect will be affect all your powers.  
 
Even if you conjure a supposed normal gun it will be considered magic and be affected by anything that affects magic.  Without that limitation I could use a spell to conjure a non-magical gun with the special effect I am teleporting a normal non-magical gun into my hand from my lair or other location. With that limitation I cannot do that and the gun is still considered magic.
 

While magic armor can duplicate any power of a technical based power armor, it does not have the same special effect.   By putting on the magic only limitation on the VPP you lock in the special effect.  Without the limitation I could have a spell that creates a suit of armor but after the suit is created it is non magical and is not affected by things like dispel magic.  Maybe the spell is summoning an ordinary suit of armor instead of actually creating it.  With the Magic only the suit of armor I created will still be magic.  The game effect is exactly the same, but the suits of armor are not.
 
 
Likewise I can create a golem that has the exact game stats as the robot but all its special effects are magic.  Both the golem and the robot may have the exact same game design, but subtle differences will exist.  For example the robot may have a radiation blast, but that would not be appropriate for a golem.  To most characters it will not matter, but to the character that has a vulnerability or susceptibility to radiation it could matter a lot. 
 

I can help you do you have a discord ?

I am to the point on my Roll20 character import for 6e that I would like some alpha testers. If you are interested, send me a PM. To be able to help you need to:
 
1. Own Hero Designer.
2. Have a PRO subscription to Roll20.
3. Use the HS6e character sheet in your Roll20 campaign.
 
At this point I have the basic characteristics along with running, swimming and horizontal leap, continuing to work on other things. Skills are probably up next.
 
- E

How much income has Hero Games left on the table by not having previews or even page counts listed in the store? As an ecommerce professional, I would say that the conversion rate of more casual browsers (those not knowing exactly what they want, and not part of the hardcore community) is probably reduced by 90% due to these factors. It's difficult to understand, frankly. 

Thank you Panpiper and Hugh. These guidelines and counterpoints have help a lot in curtailing my own tendency to manipulate loopholes and finagle "free" points out of the system thus making it better for when my son and I play. 👍

Serpent's breath, charm of death and life, thy omen of making.  Old Irish.
 
https://www.evertype.com/misc/charm.html

OK as I get a first draft down to sections of this I'm going to post them as pdfs here for people to look over and comment on.
 
My goals are these:
To create a package that has a book for GMs and a book for Players For each book to be fun, easy to read, and teach the system The scenario is in tutorial format (familiar to gamers) introducing concepts one bloc at a time, until they know enough to play the game without the tutorial I'm using the old Viper's Nest/Microfilm Madness scenario updated for modern times (so, no microfilm) Each chapter has an intro to the rules used in this section, then the episode of the scenario Players will have pre-made PCs to choose from in very familiar and well-loved archetypes with fun and colorful names and costumes Each entire book should be slender and filled with images for all ages The end result is intended as a free product for players to download and use Ideally, eventually, I'd love to see this packaged as a box set with dice, a map, a GM screen, that kind of thing.  
Please be constructive and positive, any nit picking or troublemaking comments will be cheerfully ignored.

The Hardest Lessons (Warning; Potentially 'dark champions' disturbing.)
 
Morgana was a mere seven years old when she encountered her first predatory pedophile. The fellow saw the strange-looking, but still quite attractive child running around the carnival alone. He figured he got lucky when she chanced past the shadows he was lurking in. He grabbed her from behind pinning her to his chest far more strongly than she could resist while covering her mouth, her muffled screams utterly swamped by the noise of the carnival.

By this point in her life, she had been introduced to most of the spells that were in the grimoire but had little experience with casting any of them, so she could do nothing while he carried her off. In the back of a van, he tied her up, gagged her, and most worse of all, covered her head in a sac. That done, he drove off to some unknown destination.

The drive was a good twenty minutes, during which time she was able to calm herself to concentrate. She spent her time remembering everything she could about the "Ghostly Chill" spell her mother had tried to teach her. Her mom knew there were dangerous people in the world and had tried to convey that lesson. But sometimes lessons need to be learned the hard way so they really sink in. That lesson now learned, she recalled all the instruction with deadly seriousness, rehearsing it repeatedly in her mind.

She whispered the old words over and over like a mantra, invoking their power to aid her memory, "Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis ’s bethad, do chél dénmha!"

The ride done, her abductor carried her into a room where he took off her hood, preparing to do his worst. She didn't scream, she didn't struggle, she just took a good look at him. The predator was confused at her odd lack of apparent terror. Then her eyes went white as she looked into his soul with Blindsight. She wanted to see what such a person truly looked like, so she could more easily identify such dangers in the future.

At the sight of her eyes suddenly going white as she stared at him, the villain stood with a start! He opened his mouth to speak, but Morgana had seen enough. She nailed him with Ghostly Chill and he dropped like a sack of potatoes, right on top of her! She was trussed up too much to use her arms to get out from under him and struggle as she might, she couldn't wiggle out.

Again she calmed herself. There was another spell, "Spirit of Akasha" that she had studied but not yet accomplished. Now her life might depend on it. Once more she recalled her lessons, again with the mantra, and while it took some time, the seriousness of her plight catalyzed her success. She phased to spirit. Her ropes fell through her as she glided up and through the unconscious body of her abductor.

She looked around the room, a large closet really. There was little in it save a mattress and a bucket, no window. There was a pile of discarded children's clothing in a corner. Then she noticed that the mattress was covered in bloodstains, and the pedophile had a big knife sheathed on his belt.

It was a day for lessons, there are some truly dark evils in the world as her mother had warned her. She understood what had happened here, apparently at least several times. Morgana was torn now with a hard ethical choice, a really tough choice to face at the young age of seven. 

Her mother had long counselled her on the extreme necessity of their hiding their magic from the world. She had learned the histories, especially of what was done with those simply suspected of witchcraft. She dared not go to the authorities to report this man, there would be too many questions she could not answer. Yet if she simply left, he would continue to perpetrate this extreme evil. She nailed him again with her Ghostly Chill, just to be sure he stayed down. She wasn't going to take any chances.

She stood there and stared at him for a long while, just wrestling with her choice. It was a futile struggle really, as she knew pretty much right away what she had to do. The time was spent convincing herself she 'could' do it. It was during this mental struggle that she discovered a few more of her cantrip magics, as the room glowered from her mood, and as she got closer to her resolve, her eyes started to burn and her hands started to crackle with red arcane lightning.

As her resolve to do what needed to be done reached its fruition, she invoked the Charm of Making once again to catalyze her Arcane Lightning, "Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis ’s bethad, do chél dénmha!"

A red lightning bolt erupted from her hands and with one fell stroke, killed the monster as he lay. He would harm no more.

Morgana searched the house, in case there were any other kids he had kidnapped still there and alive. She found none. She resolved to hide the evidence of how this monster died by setting fire to the house. She'd already ascertained it was in the middle of nowhere.

Not more than a couple of hours had passed in the evening since she's been taken. The carnival would be in operation for a few more still. They didn't drive so far she couldn't maybe see the carnival lights from a height. This one she had done before, I mean what child wouldn't learn to fly first and foremost. The "Wings of Aether" bore her aloft. She had to fly quite high up to see more than the occasional street lamp, but soon enough fortune shone upon her, and she did indeed see the telltale light shape of the carnival's Ferris wheel.

She flew home while pondering what she should say, or if she should say anything at all. She knew now that she could take care of herself. She feared though that her mother might overreact and seek to curtail her freedom so as to "keep her safe". In the end, she resolved to say nothing. No one would know that this night, she had killed someone. She knew she had done the right thing, and as long as no one knew, there would be no consequence.

She slept soundly that night. Her demons were already defeated that day.

Oohhhhh. I see now. Sorry, I misunderstood. Still like it, I think it's a good guide. One I will happily steal next time I get to run a supers game. 

It's not 'all' the martial arts maneuvers, it's the 'right' to buy 'any and as many as they like' martial arts maneuvers. None of the above are actual points spent, but are spent in the abstract to establish a relative balance. They establish ceilings to which the various stats/powers may rise, but they may not reflect the actual points spent. 

My daughter played a druid in a sea-based campaign. I built a 2-3 character point base on Lost Skull Island for her and described it briefly on her character sheet, basically a nifty but mysterious place where she'd once been shipwrecked. The base was in a fairly well concealed grotto and had a clairvoyant "TV" screen built into the wall which could look over the immediate area so she could see when it was safe to come out. The grotto itself was very small with not much more than some bedding, fresh water, and a few salvaged odds and ends which some previous survivor had apparently dragged there.
 
I also sent the GM a background on the mysteries and features of Lost Skull Island in case he wanted to work them into the campaign at some point.
 
There wasn't a real expectation that the action would take place close to her base. But it provided the group a place to go if things went badly while at sea (I was skeptical of a sea-based campaign because if your ship is damaged, you're screwed). And if they came up with any plunder, it gave them an easy place to choose to hide it.
 
It wasn't any worse of an investment than buying some skill which the GM never manages to work into the campaign.

Used as basic guidelines, this makes sense.  But tacking on "oh, you can trade off a reduction here for a bonus there" is moving from Guideline to Rule Structure. 
 
The entirety has to be taken in the context of how you present it to the players, of course.  But if I'm a rookie player, and you tell me it's OK to trade off, say, OCV for defenses, I am taking you at your word.  The result may be Invulnerable Guy with a big AoE attack, offset by low CVs, and I may not even know (as a rookie player) that this is unbalanced.  A player coming from a d20 background might think a glass cannon is as viable here as a Wizard with lousy AC and hit points is in D&D, and build a character that's demolished by a single hit, not realizing how likely that single hit is under the Hero rules.
 
I think one key addition I would make (whether intended as a basic guideline or a hard and fast rule) would be to limit the tradeoffs.  You can increase any of these by lowering the cap on others, but you can't increase attacks by more than (say) 3 DC, or defenses by more than 15 total PD and ED, or CVs by more than 3.  I'd add SPD to that - maybe baseline is 5 SPD, but you can drop to 4 and raise another cap, or go to 6 or 7 by lowering another cap by 10 or 20 "CLM" respectively.  That creates some boundaries with scope for some variability.
 
Adding in a suggestion that you likely need at least x DCs to hit effectively.  Unlike D&D, where that 1d6 attack still plinks a few hp through with its 3.5 average roll, even when small compared to a more combat-ready character's 1d10 + 16, average 21.5, if the standard in a Hero game is 6d6, average of 21, that 1d6 will be worthless.  You should have at least x OCV (to hit an average opponent on an 8-).  A spread of +5 to hit in D&D isn't much compared to a 5 point spread in Hero.  And my AC 12 Wizard in d20 works a lot better than having 3 PD and ED, none resistant, will in Hero.
 
With a reasonable group of players, guidelines can be pretty vague for experienced Hero players, but not as much for gamers with no Hero experience.  With this level of detail, I'm assuming "a standard 12 DC Supers game" would be meaningless to the players.

I agree with this. If it isn't really expected to impact play, there's no need to even pay points for it, let alone write it up. If the fief is where you go when you unwind after an adventure and gear up for the next and move on, why bother with more than naming it, say it's home, and leave it at that? As fans of the system, we tend to think in terms of "how do I write this up in the rules", when the reality is, sometimes you don't.

Will your fief have any impact on the game?  If you are not getting any in game benefit to having a fief then it does not need to be purchased or even written up.  Even if some parts of the game takes place there you may not need to purchase anything besides the wealth perk.  If your fief is just an ordinary village with ordinary buildings you don’t need to write it up as a base.     If your manor has some sort of magical protections or other special abilities then you may need to write it up.