Panpiper

Well, what effect would this have on the campaign? If it doesn't have a real effect (it's a generic fantasy town, except that the local lord is the PC), then it could just be the SFX of his wealth and nobility perks. If he wants to build it as a base, then he gets whatever he chooses to pay for. If he wants followers based there that help him adventure (men at arms, a wizard that can scry) he can buy them as followers, but he shouldn't have to pay for the local guards if they stay in town while he's off slaying dragons or whatever.
 
And, of course, if the town is constantly being attacked by dragons, then it's a DNPC.

TL;DR: delete your appPrefs.xml file before starting HD
 
Most likely cause is that your monitor configuration has changed (either change in resolution or manually moving your HD directory from one system to another), causing the presets for dialog positions and sizes (that you specified to save within the application preferences) to not apply correctly under the setup that you're now using.  Essentially, HD is positioning things where you told it to put them...it's just that those positions are now off screen.

My basic balance guidelines for supers.  The idea is to keep characters roughly in league with published examples of supers at this point range. These are not rigid rules as exceptions might be made in exceptional circumstances, but they should give an idea as to what to shoot for. The idea here is to give new players a basic idea of what I consider reasonable. Characters still need to be approved and I will help beginners make sure their character is viable.

Characters MUST have at least 20 points in skills. This does NOT include any sort of skill levels. No pure combat builds.

Only in alternate ID and OIF power suit characters (and the like) MUST have a reason in their backgrounds and disads to NOT always be in their alternate ID or power suit. (Changing into an alternate ID will always take at least a phase and an OIF may take longer. Be warned.) If you use unified to save points, expect the bad guys to figure this out and find a drainer, just for you. Be very wary of using 'gratuitous' limitations. They WILL be used against you and will haunt you.
 
The following are the basic standard which characters should hover around. I'll refer to these limits as 'Campaign Limit Points' or 'CLP' so as to differentiate them from the actual character points spent. 

60 CLP - 12 damage classes maximum. This includes advantages like armor piercing, etc. Reduced endurance does not count against this, buy that as you will. 

50 CLP - An average total of 50 divided between PD & ED. As much of that 50 points of defenses as you want can be resistant. Mental, power, flash defense etc., can be bought with no limit.

100 CLP - 5 CLP for each OCV or DCV for a total of 20 between adding OCV, DCV 'and' skill levels. So 10 OCV/10 DCV, or 8 OCV/8 DCV & 4 CSLs, etc.. Negative penalty skill levels do not count against this, within reason.

50 CLP - Between 4 & 6 Speed. Speed 5 is the norm. 50 CLP is equal to 5 speed. You can drop one speed to put 10 CPL elsewhere or or raise speed by one and take 10 CLP from something else.  However... See below.

These point limits can be modified in a few ways. The first way is that for every 5 points you remove from one limit, you may boost another by five points. None of these categories can be boosted by more than 10, except for strength based bricks (see below). (Players are strongly cautioned to not drop any category by 'more' than 10, lest you severely hamstring your character.) The other way is that you may buy a custom talent called OP Boost. For however many points you spend on that talent, you may increase any of these limits by the same number of active points. This functions much like characteristic maxima, except for powers. No limitations of any sort may be taken on this custom talent.

A tweak to these rules, just for strength based bricks; if you restrict yourself to a speed of four and have no ranged attacks other than throwing cars and the like, you may boost either strength or defense by 15 CLP dropping some other category by only 10 CLP.

Spending 10 AP out of the above allows the character to buy Martial arts maneuvers, as many as they want. These do NOT otherwise count against the limits. 10 AP covers it. This does NOT allow the purchasing of additional HTH damage classes to exceed the 60 AP limit. Any such would count against the limit, 5 AP per.

Ivanova can do whatever she wants and call it whatever she wants.

Personally it’s the 1/2 DCV for Multiple Move-Bys which hurt Speedsters more. 

I think these are good rules of thumb.  I did something similar, with 325 pt chars.  They all had a limit slightly lower than yours, 50AP for example, but they could boost one area, (AP, DEF, OCV/DCV, or SPD+1)
If they downgraded one , they could upgrade another.  Seems like we agree.  Luckily, my group is green, and I built the characters they described, so shouldn't be any gotchas.

My basic balance guidelines for supers.  The idea is to keep characters roughly in league with published examples of supers at this point range. These are not rigid rules as exceptions might be made in exceptional circumstances, but they should give an idea as to what to shoot for. The idea here is to give new players a basic idea of what I consider reasonable. Characters still need to be approved and I will help beginners make sure their character is viable.

Characters MUST have at least 20 points in skills. This does NOT include any sort of skill levels. No pure combat builds.

Only in alternate ID and OIF power suit characters (and the like) MUST have a reason in their backgrounds and disads to NOT always be in their alternate ID or power suit. (Changing into an alternate ID will always take at least a phase and an OIF may take longer. Be warned.) If you use unified to save points, expect the bad guys to figure this out and find a drainer, just for you. Be very wary of using 'gratuitous' limitations. They WILL be used against you and will haunt you.
 
The following are the basic standard which characters should hover around. I'll refer to these limits as 'Campaign Limit Points' or 'CLP' so as to differentiate them from the actual character points spent. 

60 CLP - 12 damage classes maximum. This includes advantages like armor piercing, etc. Reduced endurance does not count against this, buy that as you will. 

50 CLP - An average total of 50 divided between PD & ED. As much of that 50 points of defenses as you want can be resistant. Mental, power, flash defense etc., can be bought with no limit.

100 CLP - 5 CLP for each OCV or DCV for a total of 20 between adding OCV, DCV 'and' skill levels. So 10 OCV/10 DCV, or 8 OCV/8 DCV & 4 CSLs, etc.. Negative penalty skill levels do not count against this, within reason.

50 CLP - Between 4 & 6 Speed. Speed 5 is the norm. 50 CLP is equal to 5 speed. You can drop one speed to put 10 CPL elsewhere or or raise speed by one and take 10 CLP from something else.  However... See below.

These point limits can be modified in a few ways. The first way is that for every 5 points you remove from one limit, you may boost another by five points. None of these categories can be boosted by more than 10, except for strength based bricks (see below). (Players are strongly cautioned to not drop any category by 'more' than 10, lest you severely hamstring your character.) The other way is that you may buy a custom talent called OP Boost. For however many points you spend on that talent, you may increase any of these limits by the same number of active points. This functions much like characteristic maxima, except for powers. No limitations of any sort may be taken on this custom talent.

A tweak to these rules, just for strength based bricks; if you restrict yourself to a speed of four and have no ranged attacks other than throwing cars and the like, you may boost either strength or defense by 15 CLP dropping some other category by only 10 CLP.

Spending 10 AP out of the above allows the character to buy Martial arts maneuvers, as many as they want. These do NOT otherwise count against the limits. 10 AP covers it. This does NOT allow the purchasing of additional HTH damage classes to exceed the 60 AP limit. Any such would count against the limit, 5 AP per.

First off, I would strongly encourage you to let your silver age heroes be 400 points.  If you are used to older editions, now that 6th doesn't have figured characteristics or elemental controls the points don't go as far as they used too (Multipowers are still a thing, but unless you can afford some powers outside it your characters can feel anemic).  In general, 400 point characters feel more like comic heroes.

As to your real question: the biggest thing to sort out in a Hero team vs. Villain team vs. Mega villain fight is how long do you want a fight to last. 
You decide this when setting campaign limits.  How many attacks are getting thrown around, how many are hitting, and how much damage is getting through?

If a hero with a 12d6 attack, 5 speed, 23 Def, 8 OCV and DCV and 40 stun fights a mirror image of himself, he will
- hit about (edited) 62.5% of the time (because his OCV and DCV match)
- on an average roll his 12d6 attack will do 42 stun against his 23 def, allowing 19 stun though
- Assuming he isn't con stunned, he will drop on the 3rd hit (having *just* avoided going down after the 2nd hit)
- Given that he has a (EDITED) 62.5% chance to hit, he will likely get that third hit near the end of his first turn or early in the 2nd turn of combat (if he is unlucky).  If it goes into the 2nd turn of combat, post segment 12 recoveries will mean he some stun is recovered, meaning you may or may not need an extra hit to drop the opponent depending on how high their recovery is.

This is what happens if the character and his mirror just stand there and hit each other.  If folks start dodging, blocking, multiattacking, etc things get complex.
If someone rolls above average to hit, more hits happen faster.  If someone rolls above average for damage, it may only take 2 hits instead of 3 to drop their opponent.  This leads to a fight that is over in phase 5 or 8 instead of 12 or on the next turn.  That is probably fine if the player feels like their good rolls are resulting in their character defeating enemies faster (which they should!)
If you want fights to last longer, reduce damage, reduce the chance to hit by limiting OCV/increasing DCV, or increase defenses.  If you want combat to go faster, reverse that.

I personally like combats to last from 1 to 1.5 turns (10-18 segments).  If an enemy goes down in less than 6 segments they feel weak, if it takes longer than 2 turns people get bored.

In general, for new players I like to have villain teams that match the PCs pretty well but have one fewer member, that way the individual fights are pretty even but the extra manpower means the PCs are likely OK.  An actually even fight will usually go the PCs way as they are usually much more focused on getting the most out of every action than you are as the GM running the Enemies.

If you want a group of PCs to fight a master villain, that villain needs to be able to take hits from *all* the PCs and last for as long as you want the fight to last.  So their Defenses need to be higher.  Higher DCV means fewer hits land, but that can be frustrating for players.  High enough Def to allow just 5-6 stun past defenses instead of 15-25 goes a long way to making it feel like attacks matter but that you need the team to take this guy.  Lower defenses combined with Damage Reduction can be good for master villains as it allows weaker attacks to matter but doesn't allow one really lucky roll from doing too much damage & ending the fight quickly.
While the PCs are fighting the bad guy, that bad guy needs to be doing enough damage to drop a PC in 1-2 hits.  The bad guy is unlikely to be getting nearly as many attacks as the whole PC team, so they need to be able to make it matter when they do get an action.  It is *very* common for master villains to have attacks 6-8 DC higher than the PCs for this reason.

Sorry all that I had been away from this thread for a bit.  Had some unexpected medical stuff come up.  
 
Unfortunatly Tuesdays are out for Me and my son right now due to school and work.  Friday nights, and Saturday afternoons are best.  Beast, I have put feelers out on a few platforms (here and a couple pages on facebook).  I am hoping to get some in-person gaming soon as it looks like covid restrictions are losening or nearing the end. 
 
For right now I am about to start some training sessions with my son.  I am basing the training on short combative scenerios in a halographic room.  It is akin to the X-Men's Danger Room.  We will start off with lower level thugs (common muggers, gang members, etc.) so my son can get use to the process of combat (dice rolling, phases, etc.).  We shall work our way up to more difficult challenges such as henchmen, lower level bad guys, and progressing through more challanging villians and super villian teams.  This will get him more adept to the Hero system of play and allow me to get back into the feel of being a GM again.  That way when we do get some people together for adventures we are a bit more proficent. 

If it's a Tuesday evening EST, I'd be interested. Only evening I have free at this point.

Usually that would mean beginning heroes built on less points than standard, typically 300, that are in fact usually teenagers. That of course does not mean that YOU need to be a teenager to play.

My favorite charm of all charms. I have used that incantation many times for many different things. 😄

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.

I think that it must be looked at in the context of other -1/4 limitations.  Yes, "magic only" is very versatile.  Remove the -1/4 limitation and it is fully versatile - it can do absolutely anything.  If the VPP could only be used when in alternate ID, or when the character is wearing a very nondescript token, or would fail in an intense magnetic field, would it be less useful than being limited to magic only?
 
The value of the limitation does not vary with the base utility of the underlying ability it limits.  It varies with the extent to which it limits that underlying ability.  "Magic only" does not limit what the VPP can do by very much.  If it limited what the VPP could do by a lot, it would not be a -1/4 limitation.
 
How much of "absolutely any power that could possibly be achieved, with any SFX" has been removed?  Certainly not "most" or "half" of its effectiveness.  But slightly limited.  Well, that "slightly limited" is what a -1/4 limitation is.

I've used it in the past since it's listed for published characters, including signature character Witchcraft. But I'll confess "magic" is so versatile a special effect it feels like cheating in the absence of other limitations like Gestures, Incantations, Requires a Magic Skill Roll, etc.. I'm more comfortable with more restrictive versions like Only Chinese Sorcery (-1/2) that give a better feel for what can and can't be chosen as a slot.

By locking in the special effect of magic can cause it to be affected by some advantages and limitations.  If a character has defenses that only work vs magic he gets those on anything in the pool.  In some cases a power will have multiple special effects.  For example a fire spell will count as both fire and magic.  It also should exclude certain special effects.  I for one would not allow lasers or other scientific special effects in a VPP with the limitation magic only.  You could do a light spell but that would not count as a laser.  

Yeah it has to do with special effect, but also conceptual stuff.  You cannot make a robot, or a starship, you cannot do things that do not feel or seem magical.  It has to follow a theme.  This is  very broad theme, granted, but still its a small limitation.

What IJ said. In many campaigns (especially FH and Urban Magic), that adds a set of limitations to the powers such as what can and cannot be done with magic, that all spells must cost endurance, that additional skills may be required by magic school, etc.
 
It's easier to think of for me as being like "Only Gadgets". In that case it means they will all have a similar set of limitations (focus or physical manifestation), that they operate within a technology structure that can be researched for ways to counter it, etc.
 
- E

The special effect of any powers from the pool would be, "magic." This might not seem like much of a restriction, but, "Dispel Magic" would work against any of them.

Had a longer post last night; failed,to,post it.
 
Short version: you can track the evolution of power pools from Gadget Pools in Champs II to Power Pools in Champs III.
 
Personally, I would allow Panpiper's proposed limitation on the pool, simple because it does limit the usefulness of the pool by making it effectively unavailable and replacing it with whatever load-out the character has preselected.
 
That, and it already exists as a vaild limitation aince the days of Gadget Pool, where it was "just the way it worked," and you spent extra points on a skill to make it changeable in game.
 
I would not personally allow this limitation to apply to the powers built using the pool, because it does not affect them in any way.  As an example, if a scenario called for Telepathy, the Hulk' strength is useless, but it hasnt been made any less effective than it was.
 
I hope this helps.  No long discussions when i am working off a touchscreen, I am afraid.   
 
 
 
 
 

Guys, I think I see what he is trying to say; he just hasnt gotten the point across.   I am at work, and dont have time to detail it, but those of you with access, look at Champs III and Gadget Pools and the limitation "can only be changed between adventures" or "only changed in a lab" or whatever it was. 
 
I dont think this has anything to do with making it easier on the GM or any other meta reason.
 
 
Panpiper: denounce me for a fool if i am wrong here.

It occurs to me that being able to invent new powers for a VPP on the fly in game is a very nice feature, whereas requiring that all VPP powers be predefined, approved and on the character sheet before game is actually a limitation on the VPP. Would you agree that taking (or having it required to be taken) the titular limitation aught be worth a -1/4 limitation on the control costs of a VPP?

Well, I mean its not immoral to powergame and its fine if the GM and players are okay with that.  What isn't fun or good is trying to get an unfair or unwanted advantage over everyone else, and "win" by overwhelming the GM's scenario.  Building to efficiency and using the system well is good -- I personally welcome that kind of thing as an interesting challenge, and a way to build scenarios.  But if you're just in it to pwn everyone and everything, well maybe you should go play some other game.

Building inefficient characters is a mortal sin.  It offends the gods of Champions.

File as a jpg. Formatted as 11x8.5
 
I included a table of file types, extensions and what pages they are discussed in the HD manual.