Panpiper

I suspect you would likely fracture a group playing this. Real world politics these days is insanely divisive.

A strength requirement means that a character needs to have that much strength to do the listed damage. If they have that strength, they do the full listed damage, it does NOT do "less" damage. If the character has 5 or more points of strength 'higher' than the strength minimum, each 5 points more adds an extra damage class, so it does 'more' damage, not less.

Moi, je suggère Roll20.  Ce n'est pas sans problèmes, mais c'est probablement le plus facile à apprendre.

Yea, that's a good bit 'more' than what I meant myself.  😉
 
My backgrounds often do tell a bit of a story, but they rarely extend more than a couple of pages.  For instance...
 
Posted character can now be found on this thread; Ref: Hecate
 
 

I completely disagree with this sort of supervillain build. It sets a VERY bad example for GMs and can easily instantly sour a player's desire to continue with your game. This is for MANY reasons, but I'll focus here just on the first that instantly leapt out at me.
 
You have here a character that can AND WILL kill player characters with one hit! I've seen GMs have to fudge their game to avoid killing characters with 5d6 killing attacks and here you have one with a 6 1/2d6 killing attack!  The normal attack too of 21d6 is again utterly out of whack. At least it's not area effect mind you, I'll give you that (yes, I've seen at least one GM deploy a massive, obliterate with one shot, area attack before and steadfastly be adamant this was not a problem).  I promptly dropped that game. Players have to be able to trust their GM to participate in their collaborative storytelling adventure. You are NOT "the enemy", you are NOT "trying to kill them". If the players think otherwise, you have a serious problem.
 
Supervillains should have powerful attack, yes, but not attacks that will one shot obliterate reasonably constructed characters. Their fearsomeness can come from high but not impossibly high defenses combined with damage reduction, along with a breadth of powers, resources and henchmen.

I completely disagree with this sort of supervillain build. It sets a VERY bad example for GMs and can easily instantly sour a player's desire to continue with your game. This is for MANY reasons, but I'll focus here just on the first that instantly leapt out at me.
 
You have here a character that can AND WILL kill player characters with one hit! I've seen GMs have to fudge their game to avoid killing characters with 5d6 killing attacks and here you have one with a 6 1/2d6 killing attack!  The normal attack too of 21d6 is again utterly out of whack. At least it's not area effect mind you, I'll give you that (yes, I've seen at least one GM deploy a massive, obliterate with one shot, area attack before and steadfastly be adamant this was not a problem).  I promptly dropped that game. Players have to be able to trust their GM to participate in their collaborative storytelling adventure. You are NOT "the enemy", you are NOT "trying to kill them". If the players think otherwise, you have a serious problem.
 
Supervillains should have powerful attack, yes, but not attacks that will one shot obliterate reasonably constructed characters. Their fearsomeness can come from high but not impossibly high defenses combined with damage reduction, along with a breadth of powers, resources and henchmen.

I would say it would depend on the character. If you're building heroes, sure, standard builds. If you're building a villain, depends on what your intent for the villain is.

I did a poll. "Standard superheroic" (400/75) was by far the most popular option.

I’m flummoxed of all the grief it seems that Panpiper is getting to spend a few points to special in one area. He didn’t ask for anything gamebreaking and (unless he says otherwise) is cool with the ability being spent and not being used again. A character defining ability.

That is even more concise.
 
My sin was clearly that I defined a power based on mechanics instead of the larger special effect. Perhaps that is because I have never, not once in nearly 40 years of Hero, seen anyone, ever, be restrained by any mental power 'other' than ego entangle. I prefer to be concise when I define powers so they are unambiguous to any who read it, and 'only versus ego entangles' sounded quite precise, especially as it never even occurred to me that some other power mechanic might be used to do the same thing.

You know, an awful lot of typing could have been prevented if you had simply suggested changing the limitation to "limited to mental powers which would prevent her free movement", instead of "only versus ego entangles", especially seeing as how I only took a -1 on it anyway.

That is even more concise.
 
My sin was clearly that I defined a power based on mechanics instead of the larger special effect. Perhaps that is because I have never, not once in nearly 40 years of Hero, seen anyone, ever, be restrained by any mental power 'other' than ego entangle. I prefer to be concise when I define powers so they are unambiguous to any who read it, and 'only versus ego entangles' sounded quite precise, especially as it never even occurred to me that some other power mechanic might be used to do the same thing.

And what, exactly, is wrong with someone deciding something like "I don't want mental entangles to affect me" and then wrapping an explanation around it?  

I ask because I don't see it as fundamentally any different from "I don't want to be really weak" .... and then buying a pile of STR to represent how strong the person feels the character is ... and then wrapping an explanation around it.

It's also fundamentally no different from "I don't want lead to affect my vision" and then buying N-ray vision that cannot see through lead ... and wrapping an explanation around THAT.

Hero System has been my favorite pastime for several decades, just to put the following into context. That said, I consider Hero Designer to be the best $25. I have ever spent in my life. No exageration.

It is a quality piece of software and definitely (more than) worth its $25 asking price IMO if you are either a GM or the type of player who likes just making characters for fun. 
 
It has what I consider to be a very mild learning curve (but I'm probably not the best gauge for that). It is a literal tabula rasa when first opened with no character selected...
 

 
You get started by either selecting an existing character sheet from disk (if you have downloaded one, for instance) or by making a new character selected from the types of characters HD has the character creation rules for...such as 6e standard superheroic or heroic, or a vehicle, base, etc...
 

 
Once you've picked the type of character, you are presented with a tabbed interface and you basically go from tab to tab filling in the parts of your character...
 
Note: I changed my preferences to have the tabs go down the right side, so your UI would look slightly different out of the box (if i recall correctly they default to run across the top), but it should be equally as obvious what the tabs are regardless.
 

 
ProTip: I would recommend saving your progress frequently as you go (Ctrl+S), as you should for any long form content development.
 
When you want to see a character sheet for the character, using the "Current Character" menu option select an Export Template and Preview the character sheet.

 
There are lots of export templates, targeting different options such as html (viewed / printed using your browser of choice), plain text, rtf, etc. Some come w/ HD and a lot more are available in the downloads section of this site, catering to different levels of verbosity, style preferences, and so on. When you are getting started, I would recommend a default HTML template and you can get more discerning later when you have a better idea of what you want. 
 
Personally, I use custom html templates nearly exclusively, but do sometimes output other formats when i have a particular reason to.
 
After you have the basics down (make a standard character), HD offers a plethora of other features if you want or need to get fancier. You can turn a "character" into a template from which you can make future characters...for instance imagine you made a "Goblin" character representing a baseline gobbo for your setting...you could make it into a template from which you could later create a new specific named goblin and add on to the baseline...you could go further and have layers of templates that stack one upon the next, such as a baseline gobbo template, a gobbo champion template built on top of that, and a gobbo chief template built on top of that, layering up the abilities from one to the next. I think the utility of this is fairly obvious in settings where you have lots of stock characters which are mostly defined by what they are plus some individualization, such as most fantasy settings. 
 
You can also make or use prefabs, the term used by the app for lists of pre-made abilities, gear, etc, which can be loaded up and used conveniently within the tabs for skills, talents, powers, equipment to quickly whip up characters without having to copy and paste common effects (such as your campaign's definition of a long sword or basic fireball spell, etc) from one to next.
 
Pro Tip: heavy use of prefabs can put memory pressure on the app, so I suggest loading up the ones you need when you need them.
 

 
One of my favorite features is the ability to define and reuse custom campaign settings that can be applied to all characters in a given campaign. This is hugely convenient and offers a lot of flexibility and is worth checking out if you get that far. I use this feature very heavily; one of the first things I do when setting up a new campaign is go into HD and make a campaign ruleset and then bang out a few baseline characters for that campaign (such as average person, average PC, average "thug" opposition, etc) as part of the dialing in process.
 

 
And so on...the summary is HD is basically an industrial grade power tool for Hero System character creation and management (an aspect of HD that doesn't get talked about as much but which is in my opinion its most significant value add), and like many power tools it does have its sharp edges and beginners traps, but it richly rewards time spent learning its nuances.
 
 
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My user preferences menu:
 

 
I no longer remember what the defaults are, but I recommend upping the max RAM allowed to the app using the conveniently provided slider if you are in the habit of keeping a bunch of characters open (such as all of the PC's of your campaign and the current crop of NPC's / bad guys) and have them auto-load on HD start.
 
 
 
 

Hero System has been my favorite pastime for several decades, just to put the following into context. That said, I consider Hero Designer to be the best $25. I have ever spent in my life. No exageration.

Hero System has been my favorite pastime for several decades, just to put the following into context. That said, I consider Hero Designer to be the best $25. I have ever spent in my life. No exageration.

I swear by Hero Designer. You made the right call getting it.

A very cool collection of characters. Alliteration unintentional. But I especially love the cursed healer!

And that makes sense to me Panpier. You were frustrated that it took so long to get out the first time. What I also like about this Power is that it gives your character something a little different from everyone else making him unique.

Sounds like you’ve unpacked the download (installed) to a directory you don’t have full permissions to.  Try putting it in your Documents directory or off of your Desktop.

The only problem I have with Panpiper’s build is that I would have to find a villain to have the Mental Paralysis and have it used against him. 😁 

Good enough for me!

Yes, she's even got a +1/+1d6 Striking Appearance (vs. all characters). That would be 100% appropriate. I have a similar character in another game who has exactly that for a hunted.  Except that in the game I am playing with Hope, virtually all good guy heroes have been vanished, leaving supervillains and Viper free to do their worst. Such a disadvantage is 'extremely' likely to be sufficient to blow her cover and get her or others killed, far more so than the points would be worth. I generally prefer to avoid too many hunteds in any case, often building characters with none at all. They are not just a problem for her, they are the same for all players and sometimes even the GM. Rules as written, if every player has a hunted, virtually every scenario will feature one or more of them. Non-combat hunteds can also derail the intended narrative flow of a game.