Hugh Neilson

I'm pretty sure that a home run hitter major leaguer would stand a fair chance of taking my head off with one swing (of course, that is a head hit, so he gets extra damage). A 10 STR normal can certainly beat someone to death with a baseball bat. Is the current weightlifting champion (or the gold medal boxer) Legendary? Probably not - I don't think we get a Legendary any more often than one per generation, and likely not even that, so not one per Olympics. But a cinematic reality fantasy party could include several Legendary characters.

Talents are often built with a lot of limitations. If I were to place them in an MP, I'd probably want to break out the build for purposes of costing the MP pool and slots. If casters can use multipowers, I'd let non-casters have combat trick MPs, although a lot of those combat tricks are built with Naked Advantages, so consider whether you want to override the usual rule that a naked advantage can't be a framework slot.

To Nija-Bear's point, our modern world is largely designed around the expectation of bipedal, two armed organisms with decent hearing who navigate by sight.

The lift chart has always been a challenge, which is why many modify it for Heroic games. I would expect someone twice as strong as the current world record weightlifter to be quite Legendary, and to hit a lot harder than a typical person. That does not mean I think he would crush brass knuckles if he hit someone, or that he would hit harder without them than with them. If that "twice as strong" fellow was a baseball player, would you expect him to be a better hitter without a bat than with one?

Blatant? Man-Bat has sonar. Is that a blatant attempt to circumvent an opponent with a sight-based Flash or Darkness Field, or is it an ability consistent with his character concept? In that undercover situation, when the fellow previously seen only on video or in photographs, walks through the door, does the sighted character say "Hey, that's the guy we saw in the files we broke in and looked over last week?" Even making perfect accommodations for blindness creates a form of distinctive features. Hmmm...there's a blind Super in the team making life difficult for our organization, and suddenly we have this blind guy showing up with...the same number of friends/colleagues that blind Super has as teammates. But that could only be a coincidence, right? He can delay. That is a disadvantage if his opponents now get to attack before him, instead of after him. Who says he should attack the same guy the teammate attacks? Now that Teammate pointed at one opponent, that opponent can abort to a defensive action while his teammate uses his held action. I will bet that Man-Bat does not have workplace accommodations that assist with his superheroics. Does he have a secret ID? All the characters have personal lives - do the bad guys and other events all wait quietly while the team gets together so a teammate can be there to act as Man-Bat's eyes? For that matter, does he never fly around a corner ahead of his teammates? It's the GM's job to work disadvantages/complications into a story. I view a character with Life Support (or Sonar) as paying points to say "I want to see situations in-game where my immunity to this environmental condition (unique sense) is advantageous, and makes my character shine". By the same token, by taking points for a vulnerability to fire (or Blindness), he is saying "I want to see situations in-game where my character must deal with the extra challenges posed by his weakness to fire attacks (lack of sight)". 6e reduced required Complication points, and I think it was pretty clearly said that this was to allow only those items that were central to the character to be required to fill that quota of complications. It is a hallmark of the rules, from 1e to present day, that a Disadvantage (Complication) which does not disadvantage the character (complicate his life) is not worth any points. Or toss in a character who makes it tougher for that communication to happen? A Silence field? Loud noises (make a PER roll to hear what Teammate said)? Ventriloquism? Images/Illusions to take advantage of the fact that Man-Bat is a trained attack pet for the character who guides him? I don't know that I have ever designed a situation specifically around a disadvantage/complication, but I do keep my eyes open for situations where they could reasonably crop up. And they typically do crop up. Maybe not as often as die rolls would dictate (no, that 8- Hunted does not attack every fourth game session), but they definitely crop up. If there were not situations where they would crop up, they would not be worth points.

A Silence field works pretty well. There are social situations where one character cannot reasonably provide "described video" for another. Which opponent should Man-Bat attack? His sighted teammates do not know what features are perceived through echolocation, and probably fall into "the red costume" pretty easily. Spectra fires different-coloured energy blasts. By the time Man-Bat's seeing eye teammate tells him what blast she is using, it's probably too late for him to react. Do his teammates not have work or family commitments? They stay with Man-Bat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Man-bat is starting to seem less a teammate and more a DNPC. Or, if it is no hindrance, then it is not complicating his life, so it is not worth points as a Complication, is it?

Legendary caps out at 30, which falls short of super-human.

Seems like the above both suggest the same thing, basically.

Seems like it. He'd have to be slightly into the legendary STR category (22 STR IIRC). That's not out of line for most Fantasy games. The axe and mace are larger. Are they more structurally sound? The brass knuckles are a lump of metal wrapped around the hand. They're metal, so that's a decent defense. How do they break? An axe can be blunted, and typically has a wooden haft. The mace also has a haft thinner than the business end. That HA could easily come from an armoured gauntlet. I'm supposed to expect that will break if its wearer hits someone hard? That's the quality of armour? Or I am supposed to believe that being hit with that metal around the fist will hurt the same, or less, than being hit with the flesh and bone underneath?

Yes, brass knuckles that buckle after one or two hard punches are much more immersive, realistic and consistent with cinematic reality...🙄

Two words: Brass knuckles. You feel it is more immersive if Throg stops to removes his brass knuckles, or iron gauntlets, because he's strong, so his bare fists will do more damage?

That special ability is often defined as the exceptional skill that makes the warrior stand apart from others. When their back is against the wall, that is the time when they dig deep, and access that deeper skill.

Blind is no longer a complication. It is a sellback, like -2 meters of running or -3 INT. You do not get a discount to Radar Sense because you already have targeting sight and can perceive a lot with other senses. Why should you have a reduced sellback for losing Sight?

Cheesy player construct, meet cheesy GM ruling: "Grond strikes you with his mighty fists. Immediately before taking the damage, you Teleport 2 meters away. On materializing, [clatter of dice] you take 65 STUN, 19 BOD and 24 meters of knockback from Grond's attack." Hey, if you don't take the damage, then the Teleport isn't triggered - it's triggered immediately before taking damage, remember?

By the way, Tywyll, it occurs to me that we (myself included, if not especially) have been providing no shortage of unsolicited advice on your Casters rules, and occasionally mentioned the non-caster question you actually asked. You've been very gracious in filling us in on the desired game style and the background to the caster rules. Thanks for that! STUN instead of END could certainly be workable. When out of END, a character in RAW can exert himself at a cost of 1d6 STUN/2 END already. However, given it will likely be Martial-types using this, I wonder how well that will play out. When we are at our most desperate, and I really need to use that extra boost, can I afford the STUN loss? Clearly it will not be used in a last-ditch effort by a barely conscious (or just-recovered-to-positive-stun) character. But I may open every combat with it, since I will get a PS 12 recovery and get the few STUN expended back. You mentioned tracking END when characters do something extreme, just not for routine (well, routine for adventurers) activity. One possibility would be ruling that the default rule of "nothing costs END" is really "if you have enough END and REC that going full-out in combat is no big deal, then you do not have to track END". What END would they spend in a typical phase? Maybe 1 for movement, a couple for STR, so 3 END per phase. A 4 SPD character would use 12 END and recover what, 6 or 8? So he'd start with 20 END, act on Ph 12, recover his END, take 4 actions, recover 6 END and start next turn with 14 END. He can go two turns and a bit before worrying about END. We give him a break when he recovers from being KO'd, but that's about it. Perhaps, just like casting means buying in to some extra tracking and resource management, so does an ability that "costs END". It may be a means of introducing the overall END concept to the group. Or those "costs END superskills" also feed off an END Reserve (perhaps with a different name) to place a resource management constraint on those characters' unusual abilities (the Monk has a "Chi Reserve", the Swashbuckler has "Panache", etc.). Different abilities could also have different "side effects". The Barbarian can fly into a rage (maybe he gets +5 STR for a turn or so), but when it ends, he takes a STR Drain from fatigue. You mentioned it won't come up much, so perhaps that suggests an option to create a very customized consequence for the specific over-exertion in question.

I take this from: Neither of the items I have emphasized are CP costs. The discussion of characteristic rolls and END costs both refer to "standard rounding rules", as does Stretching (p 284), damage from heat (6e v2 p 150). Oddly, it's not mentioned in halving DCV, but with no other guidance, it seems reasonable that "standard rounding" would apply.

In early editions, you bought KAs in 1d6 increments, until someone came up with the +1's and half dice. Here, I'd just divide by three and probably round up for the middle steps, as applicable. As you note, I consider loss of both OCV and DCV pretty significant, so I picked -1 1/2. It aligned perfectly with a Martial Arts DC, which I was not expecting, but which suggests an underlying consistency.

They are paying points for an END reserve that no one else needs because no one else pays END. That allows them to pay points for abilities that other characters don't have. If they followed the same "no one else pays END" rule, then they would not need to buy an END reserve. If everyone started with a Fatigue pool, which no one else bought up, they would not be paying something for nothing, and that "one magic item" from TFT would not need a special rule. Shifting to normal END could work, but would not capture the same feel without a lot of customizing anyway. The END reserve seems like the right tool. Sounds like their REC is effectively faster in Hero. With 6 REC and 30 END, they get the whole pool back in just under half an hour. But if it's getting the right result, why mess with it? I (maybe some others - can't speak for them) often wonder why people adopt Hero and then try to replicate a different system with as much precision as possible. If the other system was great, why switch? But it sounds like you have other reasons for preferring Hero, just want to simulate the feel of the magic system. Given the whole pool recovers in half an hour, a one hour ritual does not seem so bad, but I guess the normal one recovers while you are on the move, so an hour sit-down would feel quite different. Probably have to call it "limited power" in HD as I expect it can't be told END does not normally apply. For a power that costs 0 END by default, there is no advantage to costing no END when the game does not use END, so it's even more limited/disadvantaged. Not sure how often it would be relevant, though. It may not be worth the extra customization/hassle.

I think the rule was applied to normal damage weapons. It was not applied to HA by default - many characters had a small HA which added to much higher regular STR damage.

Standard rounding rules on 6e v1 p12 set out "standard rounding rules" which is 0.5 rounds in the character's favour. Half DCV means round in the defender's favour, at least to me.

When I see Deadly Blow and Weaponmaster, it is typically in a "weapons cost no CP" heroic game, so a multipower to enhance a power you didn't pay for is pretty tough for many, especially Hero non-experts, to figure out. We could eliminate skill levels entirely, and build a pretty effective Deadly Blow as +X STR, only to add damage to weapons. +30 STR, 0 END (45 AP), OIF Weapon of Opportunity (-1/2) would cost 30 real points, making the cost of Deadly Blow "with any weapon, whenever I want" 15 points for +1d6 KA, or 5 points per DC. That's cheaper than all but the lowest level of Deadly Blow, again supporting the assertion that the present model is overpriced. As noted above, the 6e price is based on 3 and 5 point skill levels. It just massively lowballs "only for damage", which is not that tough to fix. And all you need to buy 1 DC at a time is to buy 2 skill levels at a time.

In this context, because it is damage which applies to a group of attacks, rather than a specific attack. Skill levels are the only real "floating DC" concept in the game. The pre-6e versions of these talents were controversial because, with the "no more than double" rule, they could not be built with skill levels, so they were a limited form of something we could not buy in unlimited form - that floating DC.

In part, I suspect, because any source of added damage to HKAs was always prohibited from more than doubling it, where no similar restriction was applied across the board to Hand Attacks. In part, I think, because we are used to many more items adding to STR (like Martial Arts, say) so Hand Attack seemed like less of a big deal. In part, I'd wager, because adding HA to STR does not change the type of damage (although there have been various different rules over the editions for advantaged HAs).

How do you inflict that damage with a 5 point HKA? You don't. You need to add STR, or skill levels, or martial arts, or Deadly Blow, or Weaponmaster. You have to use something else which cost points in order to do the kind of damage needed to sink the battleship. Since I do not see a battleship on 6e v2 p 171, let's sub in a medium spaceship. 10 defenses, and 20 - 40 BOD. Let's up the defenses to 16 (Tank Armor, other than the front) and go with 35 BOD. And we'll only add STR, since the example is always "Hulk with a penknife". To reliably do damage with a KA, he needs to average at least 18 BOD, so we'll set that at 5d6+1 HKA, average 18.5 BOD. He'll average 2.5 BOD per hit, so it will take 14 phases to sink the battleship (which we will define as "reduce to 0 BOD"). That is too long, though. We want him to sink it in a single hit, or maybe three hits. For 3 hits, he will need to get 12+ BOD through on each hit, so he needs to average 28 BOD. We need an 8d6+1 KA, so he needs STR 120. 29 BOD on average punches through 13 BOD. To sink it in one shot, he needs to do 50 BOD. A 14d6+1 HKA will average 50 on the nose, so he will often need only a single hit, provided he has a 210 STR. But if he has a 120 STR, he can average 24 BOD with a normal attack, passing 8 BOD through per hit and sinking the battleship in 5 mighty blows, instead of 3. If he has STR 210, he does 42d6, and 2 hits will still reliably sink the battleship, although he needs a really good hit to manage it in one mighty blow. So how much extra utility did that 5 point penknife actually add? How often did Brick players get ticked off that BlasterMan has a swiss army Multipower with an attack for every occasion, while he has to close and use normal damage STR every time? More than once, to put it mildly. BlasterMan goes from "only normal damage" to "select normal or KA" at a cost of 20% of his Blast cost. Why does Brick have to spend 50% of his STR cost? How many times did you ever see a Super with a 3d6 KA and a 15 STR in a 12DC game? No, they all had a 2d6 KA and 30 STR, because that was WAY more efficient pre-6e thanks to Figured Characteristics, and is still more efficient in 6e, though not by the same margin. Note also that, in 1e, there was no doubling rule. It was added in 2e. There is certainly a balance to be struck. Look at Enemies 1 and 2, and you will see many Bricks with a 1d6 KA. Why? Because they were drafted under 1e rules, and rewritten under 2e rules, without considering the impact of the Doubling Rule. This was especially obvious for the Monster, whose KA went from something to be feared to something laughable. But matching the HKA AP precisely to STR is not "clearly superior", at least not IMO.

I assume you are making the players limit the REC on the reserve, as the default is a one/turn recovery. EDIT: Now posted - per 5 minutes or slower. My only concern would be on the impact it actually has on the game. Do spellcasters carefully husband their resources (and maybe get pretty bored watching the non-spellcasters handle whatever can be done without magic, since I don't want to have no resources when we really need them)? Do we get the 15-minute work day (Caster goes nova every combat, then we set up camp and wait for them to recover their Mana Pool)? Assuming it is working well in your game, I would not mess with that. Per five minutes means I can buy 9 REC (6 AP) per 5 minutes (-3/4, the spread between "per turn" and "per 5 minutes") for 5 points, so pretty rapid recovery is practical. Seems like this would be more limiting to a single encounter than a day. Or just require the END reserve, and all spells must take Costs END, which draws from the END reserve. Much like Magic Skill, the more magic you purchase, the more points you will save due to that limitation. If the spell would not normally cost END, give that spell a -1 limitation since nothing in your game costs END by default. That should also apply to "burn STUN instead" builds like +2 OCV since that also would not have cost END, even in a normal "costs END" game. We could quibble over whether it really "costs END" or has a side effect inflicting a bit of STUN damage, but it comes to the same thing - the character takes a bit of STUN damage when they use this ability.