Hugh Neilson

It could be done with 4e, 5e or 6e, and it was, at least to a large extent, 1e through 3e.
 
Make ACTUAL GAMES that use the Hero System as their engine.  Take that system, with its array of dials and switches and possible ranges of ability, and publish a game that uses the system - that sets the dials and the switches to create the feel desired for the specific game, and presents only those aspects of the rules which are needed to run that game.
 
Perhaps we want a Fantasy game.  It will be Heroic.  So we set our starting characters at 175 points, and 50 points of complications.  Done.  NO OTHER OPTIONS.  You can choose to use different CP, but our game does not.
 
What should their characteristics be?  Perhaps we state outright that no PC can have stats higher than a 20 in any primary characteristic, that few would ever have less than an 8, and that most would have half their characteristics (at most) above 15, and no more than 1 or 2 above 18.   Maybe some races are 3 points higher in one stat and 2 points lower in two others (or what have you).  The point is that we MAKE A DECISION and that is how this game is played.
 
Similarly, we set standards for the secondary stats like defenses and SPD.
 
Maybe we impose greater restrictions - characters cannot have more than 15 in any Primary and similarly set caps for each secondary.  They may then take a single Race template, and up to two Profession templates.  Elves are Agile (+3 DEX), Rogues are Agile (+3 DEX) and Acrobats are Agile (+3 DEX), so an Elf who is both a Rogue and an Acrobat, and buys 15 DEX as a base, can have a 24 DEX.  But none of these templates are especially Hardy, so the best CON he may have is a 15 (maybe some races or professions even have a reduced characteristic).  Maybe you can have as many Professions as you can pay for.
 
We set Skills, and perhaps a starting character may buy only base skills (no extra bonuses), so if you did not invest in DEX, your best agility skill will be 11-.  Some may be in Professions, and maybe we allow for up to X skill levels (or maybe starting characters only get skill levels from Races and Professions).  Perhaps we rename or remove some skills, and set parameters on others.
 
Let's add some Perks and Talents which might be part of those templates, or could be acquired separately.
 
Now, we probably want some Powers, but perhaps we do not call them this.  Maybe we have Extraordinary Abilities, Supernatural Abilities and Spells.  Maybe we have more than one kind of spell.  Perhaps you can only buy pre-fabs (in fixed amounts, or variable amounts - e.g. you decide how many d6 your FlameBolt will do, but a Mystic Shield is always 4 rPD, 6 rED).  Maybe you need specific professions to purchase from certain lists.  We also define our magic system here.
 
Now, if all Wizard Spells require a Wizard Staff, Gestures and Incantations, we don't need to say that in every wizard spell - we just apply those limitations.   Maybe the occasional Wizard Spell can be cast without an Incantation (price it that way, and specify that it is one of those rare exceptions).  Perhaps very skilled casters can overcome these limits (powers built with naked advantages).  No need to spell out the builds.  They could always go in an appendix, or online, but that's not essential.
 
Ditto complications - maybe we remove some we dislike for this game (e.g., no Hunteds; the PCs will make their enemies as they go).
 
We provide the core rules - but maybe there is no Radar in our magical realm (so we leave that sense group out).  Perhaps Blindsense is common, so we write that up using Detect and include it. 
 
We include the combat maneuvers we want, and exclude those we don't.  Perhaps our game will use velocity-based DCV, so we include those rules, and vehicles and mounts, so those rules stay.  No Bases though - PC's don't get to buy a castle.  Maybe we'll include them in a later supplement.  Include those combat rules we wish to use - maybe some maneuvers are not in our game.  Maybe there are no martial arts - simulate them with skill levels, Limited bonuses to CVs and/or DCs, etc.
 
Now, toggle the switches - either we will use wounding or we leave it out.  Same choices for hit locations, Impairing, Disabling, Knockdown/back, Bleeding, Critical Hits - at the extreme, maybe we implement the "ignore STUN" option.  Maybe we include Interposing. 
 
Perhaps we decide characters never recover in combat (reprice Recovery as it is for BOD only, or remove it entirely; a few minutes' rest restores all STUN and END, but running out in combat means you are out).  Maybe we remove END.  Unless we use Long-Term End, we remove those rules as well.  We choose the model of Pushing to be used, and that is the only model in the game.
 
Some environmental effects, like radiation and zero gravity, are not intended for our game, so we leave them out.  Others reflect only those elements relevant - we don't need lasers or electrical outlets, but we have lightning bolts and flaming oil and torches.
 
Maybe we exclude underwater for another supplement, or perhaps we deliberately leave out things like pressure, the bends, etc. - those don't happen in this magical world.
 
Clearly, we will need weapons, armor and maybe rules for magical gear.
 
The point, of course, is that this is not "A system to build any game you want" or even "a system to design your own fantasy game".
 
It is ONE Fantasy game, powered by the Hero System.  You want to do some customizing?  Well, pick up the full system rules and customize to your heart's content.  But our game will stick with the rule book, and any supplements we may decide to publish later.

Play a character with a heroic personality in a game of heroic fantasy?  That's just crazy talk!

Play a character with a heroic personality in a game of heroic fantasy?  That's just crazy talk!

I referenced the old 2e character as an example - Autofire has changed considerably since then.

While I disagree with "1 pip penetrating KA means 1 BOD penetrates", it has been a consistent ruling.  One I would not follow in my own games, though.

Back when Penetrating first came out, I was making an alien CatMan warrior.  He was agile, had claws, etc.  He came in under-budget, so I thought "let's give him a sidearm".  That will give him something he can do if he's too far away to close in and attack. 
 
I wanted it to be different, so I built the Needler.  A small RKA, with that new Penetrating attack and Autofire.
 
Yeah, the Autofire @Duke Bushido still uses - 10 shots, bundled with a +4 OCV.  On a character with 33 DEX.  And every hit got 1 BOD through unless the target had hardened defenses.
 
That sidearm got rewritten pretty quickly after its first couple of uses!

If we are playing in a campaign where 37 DC attacks are the norm, then I probably would have well over 40 rDEF.  Even 60 rDEF is only 2 points per DC.  In a 12 DC game, 20 - 25 rDEF is not uncommon. You're tripling that 12 DCs.  Make that more like 60 - 75 defenses, 40 - 50 resistant, which is a bit light (37 DCs more than triples 12, but not by much), and we're back to "that 12 1/2d6 KA needs a super-high roll to do BOD but Penetratig gets 10 BOD through at a time, on average".
 
A lot depends on how common accelerated healing is.  If you take huge STUN and are KOd, next combat you will virtually always be fully recovered.  If you get knocked down below 0 BOD, how long will that take to heal?
 
 
All we need is 1 BOD through to drop a classic force wall barrier or break a focus. 
 
A lot depends on the game, of course.  If you are playing in a game where rDEF is constrained so that, typically, a KA will get 1 BOD per die past defenses, Penetrating isn't very useful.  But in a 12 DC game, for example, that's 10 rDEF. Most characters I see for 12 DC games have a lot more than 10 rDEF.  At 15 rDEF, a 4d6 KA still has a shot at getting some BOD past on a high roll, but it won't do so consistently.  The penetrating attack will trickle a little BOD through on each hit. At +1/2, we get 2 1/2d6 for 60 AP/12 DCs so 2.5 BOD on average.  AP at +1/4 leaves a 3d6 KA (3d6+1 if we get a bit over 60 AP), which will get 3-4 BOD past that 15 rDEF, doing better than the Penetrating HKA.
 
Higher defenses will block more of the AP attack.  They won't block more of the penetrating attack.  Average defenses make a lot of difference to the comparison.

Honestly, I don't think Penetrating was considered when AP was repriced.  I agree with AP at -1/4.  Pre-6e, AP attacks tended to sit, seldom used, in Swiss Army Multipowers.  High defense characters typically Hardened their defenses, and low defense characters were hit harder by, say, 12d6 normal than 8d6 AP anyway.
 
On the other hand, AP seldom results in BOD damage like Penetrating KAs do.  Maybe the advantage should be higher for KAs/inflicting BOD.

While I find "perfect balance" elusive, when you can buy the exact same mechanical effect in multiple different ways, for multiple different costs, that is clearly "not balanced" in my view.

Equal can never be achieved. Equating +5 PD with breathing underwater can't be done.  But I do know that the ability to breathe underwater is situational enough that it should not cost 75 points, nor should +75 PD be reduced to a cost of 5 points.  And I know that when the exact same points spent one way generate the exact same mechanical benefits as a different spend, and gets something else as well, that is unbalanced.

It's the volatility that made the Stun Lotto powerful.  Let's say we have a 35 DEF opponent in a 12 DC game On average, 12d6 rolls 42 and does 7 STUN past defenses. The rolls won't vary a lot from the average.  A 4d6 KA averages 14 BOD. It will get 0, 0, 0, 7, 21, 35 past defenses for an average of 20.5 past defenses.
 
Let's drop defenses to 25. On average, 12d6 rolls 42 and does 17 STUN past defenses.  A 4d6 KA averages 14 BOD. It will get 0, 0, 3, 17, 31, 45 past defenses for an average of 16 past defenses.  A more comparable result, but I bet that 45 means a 1 in 6 chance of stunning the target (maybe even 2 in 6 from 31).
 
The average before defenses is not as meaningful.
 
6e?  You have a 1 in 3 chance of matching STUN from the normal attack.  KA exists to do BOD.

"fix it" you misspelled "hide it better"

If the Troll uses that puny knife, he drops from 7 DC to 4 DC.  The use of the dagger renders much of his STR useless already.  In fact, I think I should build a character with the BrickBuster - 1 pip HKA, Usable as an Attack.  He magically covers the target's fists with tin knuckles - a sharp, pointy 1 pip HKA.  Since the troll is (for reasons not explained by RAW - if you feel they are, point me to it) perceived as unable to use that 1 pip HKA (1/2d6 w/ STR) in a combined attack with a 7d6 STR strike, being forced to use that puny HKA puts paid to him!
 
In any case, in Heroic, that sword is a piece of equipment purchased with cash instead of points.  It can have any stats we wish to place on it.  The build is already pretty complex.  That knife would be 1/2d6 HKA, +2 DC (requires STR over STR min to access extra DCs), resulting in the same construction we have at present. As @Duke Bushido suggests, the equipment leverages your STR.  This approach applies the point cost of leveraging your STR to that HKA.
 
Now, I said "like it is now".  That's true unless we want to change those builds by having weapons modified by DEX, or EGO, or the greater of multiple stats.  Or we want some weapons to be especially good at leveraging STR (+1 DC per 3 STR over STR minimum) or not quite so good (+1 DC per 6 STR over STR min).
 
 
I can buy it as "no STR adds" as well.  From that perspective, I suppose you are paying 10 STR to get +20 STR.  This assumes we do not apply the "no, you must find the most expensive way to buy the power, unless the most expensive way would be to buy an HKA your STR is effective at augmenting" logic presented in some cases.  If I am able to combine KA, STR and these limitations to maximum effect, I should buy a 2 DC (1/2d6) HKA (10 points), plus 8 DC (2 1/2 d6), no STR addition(-1/2; 27 points) and only pay 37 points.  But I am told this is so cheesy that, when noticed, the character sheet should be shredded, I should be booted from the gaming group and the Pope of RPGs should excommunicate me, or some such.
 
But it's not cheesy to change my character concept from "scrawny little guy with great gnarly claws" to "huge brute with smaller claws" to get that extra STR at no extra cost.  Big, brawny guys are the only concept allowed to build an HKA on a cost-effective basis.  Because in Hero, you get what you pay for and pay for what you get!
 
The over-add STR and damage the weapon model is, I believe, still presented as an option.  But how do we apply it to the CatMan whose 1/2d6 HKA comes from natural claws rather than a metal dagger?
 
At least we have Real Weapon to make that dagger less effective at punching through a wall, I suppose.

Thanks for the clarification, please forgive my own assumption. 

Ahem! Six years ago, not sixteen.

I don't suggest that's your motive.  Too often, it is the creator/seller's motive.  Facebook, for example, wasn't exactly forthcoming about selling all its user data - people had to figure that out. Then it became important for them to fix it.

I have had some time (not as much as I would have liked, I am afraid) to review large chunks of this thread (as before, not as much as I would have liked).
 
 
There is no solution.
 
I don't say that dramatically; I don't say that facetiously.  There is no solution because there have been attempts to fix it already, which have resulted in new problems with no stemming of the original complaints.
 
The original problem, I think--  and yes; this is a puffy opinion piece.  We've made it to page five, so now we can give up and get all philiosophical, right?      
 
the problem seems to have come ultimately from multiple concepts of "where does the damage come from."
 
Some see "oh!  Well, this says hand-to-hand attack" or "hand-to-hand killing attack,' so that must be where the damage comes from.   Well if I a declare that I am swinging a physical weapon, then I should be able to add some extra damage because of my incredible strength"  while others see "well, physical hand to hand damage comes from strength initially, so STR must add in when I buy hand to hand attacks of all stripes" and still other see "hey, this combined attack, multiple power attack stuff should mean that I can swing my club, add in the damage from my strength, but also punch him for full strength damage because- well, because it says I can."
 
too many things have been, as we used to say in the DC electrical business, "fixed in the middle."  As an example of fixing something in the middle:
 
I never got used to the number of customers that would come in with cars, boats, bikes, and anything else with a DC electrical system that, I would discover while looking for the source of their problem (usually a burned out component), had a supply circuit with a ridiculously over-sized fuse.  Invariably, when I asked why such a large fuse had been installed, the customer would reply along the lines of "the correctly-sized fuse kept blowing, so I put in a bigger fuse.  Eventually I found a fuse big enough that it wouldnt blow, fixing the problem forever, and now the ECM smells funny."
 
Instead of starting at the problem and working all the way back to the source, or starting at the source and working all the way through the circuit, they went straight to the symptom, fixed the circuit in the middle, and called it good.  Bonus points for selling the truck in a hurry, leaving the next guy to figure out why his relays are a bit smokey.... 
 
Thumb typing sucks, which works great for you guys, since it prevents me from extending this methaphor in several dozen hilarious examples.  (You're welcome.)
 
At any rate, looking at two of the sides (and there are probably more than two sides, but for the bulk of the post-Desolid conversation, there have been two distinctly different viewpoints on this- anyway, from what I can see-- and again, this is more sermon than science; I am not a numbers guy (which is why I actually need time to analyze the numbers when you folks start slinging them around.  The first couple of hours is just figuring what heck you're talking about before I can even try the math.      )
 
Anyway, the biggest difference in opinion here seems to be a differing opinion on "where does the damage come from."
 
So let's start with PD damage.  I punch you!  Okay, that damage comes from STR.
 
Now I will martial punch you!  Okay, that damage comes from STR also.  But I get a +some dice!  That comes from martial Arts!
 
Okay, fine.  I will play along.  I Will watch a few youtube videos of actual martial Arts fights.  I will be looking specifically for knife hand strikes amd whatever it is you call it when it is the same strike, but the hand is balled into fist (which, for the record, hurts far less to deliver).
 
When I watch UMA clips, these strikes look like the hurt a bit.  When I watch more formal combat exhibitions, these strikes seem to hurt a bit.  When I watch kids and younger teens, I am pretty sure I could shrug off most of what I am seeing.
 
What is the point of all this?  I am saying that martial Arts damage does not come from martial Arts.  The argument is "but I built a maneuver that gives me STR+some dice!"
 
I submit that repeated exposure to gamer shorthand has led to a lack of questioning the word problem behind the equation:  martial arts does not in itself add extra damage.  It is a set of skills you have developed to let you deliver strength damage more effectively: to hit with the same force as an untrained combatant of greater strength--  hitting above your weight class, so to speak.
 
All I want to buy some hand attack to add more damage!  I can do that!  I want to buy three more dice of hand attack to represent this 3-foot piece of lumber I am swinging!  That lumber adds damage!
 
Again, in gamer shorthand, it does:  +3d6 HA, OIF (3' hickory 2x2).
Going from that, you get the impression that you do STR damage then add Wooden Stick Damage.  But what is actually being modeled here?  That stick cannot do 3d6 damage by itself.  I know this for a fact: I get hit with several of them everyday (treated southern pine, though; not usually hickory) either falling, being tossed, an occasionally on the head or shoulder because I forgot I put one on top the cage of whatever equipment I happen to be operating (the plant is littered with dunnage; it is cheaper to pick it up as I need it than it is to keep buying and losing canes).  It cannot do that kind of damage to you by itself.
 
So what are you modeling?  The leverage you get that- again- lets you more effectively deliver your STR damage.  The damage comes from STR; the additional dice are not "extra,' but an increased efficiency at applying that STR.
 
  (Yes; I know, and I promise: we'll get there, but for now, let's just take the slow road.  I kind of need it in order to stay focused right now)
 
Now we move on the HKA.  Conan's sword; Wolverine's also swords; a murderer' garotte. 
 
So what am I saying?  Because this isn't just extra dice!  This is a whole different kind of damage!  Aha!  I am got!
 
Well, it's all just philosophical, and just one guy's opinion, so there isn't going to be any sort of "gotcha" here.  But yes; that is how I see it.  HKA is, just like all other bonus damage, a model that you can apply your strength damage in such a way as to ignore all but the strongest defenses.  Maybe you use a sharp weapon that slices through lesser (non-resistant) defenses, or maybe you are so effective at applying directly-concentrated bare-knuckles force that your enemies call you Rikki-O when you aren't around.  Bones shatter, organs tear, and blood ruptures out in geysers from your oponents anterior surfaces.
 
But why can't I add all my STR or some more of my STR or more than HKAx2 worth of STR or--
 
Well, I think the biggest problem is that KA (particularly HKA) is the most screwed-around-with power in the game.  It has been fixed in the middle so many times that I don't think enough people stop to realize that when they build a knife or a sword or a club they are building a tool that lets them more effectively apply their STR.  _That_, I believe, is why STR adds to it in the first place: you are able to apply an amount of damage equivalent to HKAd6 plus (STR/15) up to whatever the limit od your edition or campaign has as a limit.
 
Let's remember the first edition let you buy half a die and add all of your (STR/15) in additional dice, and at some point someone said 'well, that gets ugly fast,' so they fixes it in the middle.  And then again, and again, and surprise!  Now the ECM smells funny, I have a pair of relays that look kinda melty, and the control panel is hot to the touch.
 
 I am not here to explain what is right or wrong.  I am simply saying "analyze the whole thing, including what it is you are modeling when you buy this power."  That in itself may help the rules for whatever edition you are using make sense in the scheme of your  games.
"Why can't I put all of my STR60/15 on top of my HKA dice?"  Well, you _can_!  All the rules are doing is telling you that you have to already have 4d6 of HKA to do it (in any edition with a doubling rule), and or course, your GM is really the _only_ thing stopping you.  If he is fine with you having 8 dice of HKA, more power to you and him both.
 
The players and the GM have a part to play in the rules, too.  The rules are more than just numbers to crunch; they are also concepts that must be rationalized.  If the players and GM of any group cannot work out a reasonable, gameable sensibility for what a certain thing works a certain way, then they can either declare that it doesn't work that way (which is fine, and why there is a massive blob of black Sharpie in my 5e book where the section on Shapeshift is in everyone else's)  or dig a little deeper for an solid in-game rationale for why it might work that way.  Building a sword? A hammer?  They are tools-  they are quite literally levers, and while levers amplify force, there is a limit to what they can do.  Building a brute-force bone-busting strongman?  Well, that bit of HKA is the amount of damage he can do with his strength-  remember that every die of HKA is DC3, making every die of HKA analogous to STR15.  If your STR 30 adventurer has one die of HKA and only gets 1 "bonus die" (again: gamer shorthand that ultimately impedes conceptual understanding), that is still 6 DC.  Yes; he gets 6DC with his "regular" STR damage, but rhis character has learned to use his STR so efficiently that he effectively ignores non-resistant DEF.
 
 
 
Now we are at that part that some folks have been waiting for; the part I promised we'd get to:
 
I can define my own SFX, and everything you have said falls apart if I say my HA or HKA is versus ED and my SFX is some form of energy.
 
No; it still holds water.  The write ups for HA seem to not care if it is "additional" to STR damage or a free-standing attack.  If that has changed for 6e, you still have the same option that you have for HKA in every edition: a power Limitation called one of several variants of "STR does not apply."  Further, if your SFX is versus ED, you are still allowed to accept the STR bonus, but _it is on you_ to work out with the GM how that makes sense; the rules cant do that for you.  That isnt in the section on HKA, but it _is_ in every esirion's discussion of the separation if SFX and mechanics which, as we all well know, are just as much part of the rules as the mechanics themselves.
 
 
In this way, the balance of the universe is maintained.  Well, my universe, anyway.  You all have your own universes to rationalize, or to continue to subdivide until you get to whatever level of points costs for individual elements feels right to you.  I gave up decades ago on worrying about that.  I expect that by the sixteenth edition, those of you left alive will _still_ be having those complaints, and remain just as unwilling to accept  that perfect points balance just isn't ever going to be a thing.
 
 
 

I would't say it's fixed, either. I did say that they put in safeguards to prevent the blatant racism mention in the quote from the article. Please refrain from making any further assumptions about my motives. I'm simply looking at what was provided to the thread and asking questions -- which I thank you again for answering -- to find the context that's missing.
 
--------/ Line between two totally different posts smashed together by the board sw /----
 
 
Speaking of that plagiarism thing! I finally found an article with a little more detail about that Author's Guild law suit. Apparently, one of the claims is that the source of the materials it was fed to train were pirate websites. That puts an interesting twist on their claims, since the material may have been illegally obtained. 
 
One good thing about all of this attention on AI lately, including the lawsuits, is that while it's not nearly as advanced as a lot of folks assume at this point . . . it will be. So, it's better to start asking all of these questions sooner rather than later.

Even if you want it completely undetectable, it's inexpensive enough for IPE. 

No issue, @Duke Bushido - I was only surprised to see your reply pop up as I was typing one where I wondered whether anyone else was reading the Text Walls - I thought of you because we both post lengthy commentary, but I did not expect you would weigh in on a "points balance and changes from 5e to 6e" discussion, for reasons obvious to anyone familiar with your game or your style.

I like that.  Especially with a big honkin' limitation because it's only useful in such narrow situations.  That makes a mild advantage VERY cheap.

I was rebuilding a notional character...HTH fighter, with teleport for his movement...using some expansions I'm playing with.
 
What I finally noticed?
 
Teleport adder:  No Relative Velocity.  6E1, p. 302:
 
 
BINGO!  Throw in a custom limitation to tailor it to falling only, and you're good.  Not complicated.  No distortion of the rules, just a pretty normal need to define a situational limitation.  It's easy to apply, unlike things like "flight only to slow down from falling" that suggest the fall takes far longer...you stop on a dime.  If you don't want there to be a short *blink* to say you teleport?  Fine, that's SFX.

The article notes the timing - she noticed these things before she worked at Google, and worked on improvements.  From the article, “I’ve been yelling about this for a long time,” Gebru says. “This is a movement that’s been more than a decade in the making.”
 
Do you think it is now perfect?
 
The facial recognition discussion is pretty scary (not for me directly, as a white male*, but still pretty scary).   AI on social media favours conservative politics. Should that be a concern?  I wonder whether the first few people who raised the issue of subliminal messaging in television faced a similar "oh, it's no big deal; oh, we fixed that one aspect a couple of years ago" (after it got publicity and we had on choice typically not stated out loud).
 
* Frankly, as a white male, and a pretty oblivious one at that, it's really easy for me to overlook subtle discrimination and biases, or dismiss them as trivial when they are raised.  I'm inclined to give the minority group the benefit of the doubt that issues which may not trouble me are troubling to them for good reasons.  On the other hand, assuming those facial recognition issues (as an example) remain, knowing that I were likely to be misclassified might lead me to consider how much harder I would be to identify if I were to be inclined to an anti-social or criminal act.  If my gender is likely to be misclassified, for example, then the authorities are less likely to look for the right person.

He is saying that is not the way the system works.  You do not look back at SFX like "really strong" and enhance their abilities for free.  If that is what you want, you pay the points for it.
 
Should high school jock, who can barely manage a coherent conversation (Ego 10), do as much damage with the Helm of ego whip (5D6 Mental blast), as the adept who has spent decades honing his mental power (EGO 25)?
 
It's the same question but I doubt you're giving the adept free dice of mental blast.
 
If your concept is that the giant is so strong, he gets more value using weapons, buy +HKA, only to add to weapons based on HKA.  Otherwise the giant combines his STR damage with the HKA, delivering more damage in that attack.

The problem then becomes why anyone would buy 1d6 HA (add a die of normal damage to STR) rather than +5 STR (get that 1d6 normal damage, Grab, Escape, Lift, Carry, Throw...). Hand Attack, at least in my view, is limited STR.
 
Why couldn't your STR be STUN only?  That's a -0 limitation.  Switching from PD to ED is a +0 advantage. STR can be double END or half END - advantages and limitations are fair game.
 
 
There's a "chicken and egg" issue there.  In 1e, many, if not most, published Bricks had 1d6 HKA.  That was the minimum you could buy.  And why not?  Tack on your 60 STR and you had a 5d6 HKA.  That was "free KA" and the doubling rule in 2e limited it.  Many Enemies 1 characters got no re-write and had 1d6 HKA (2d6 with STR).  That was fine for Armadillo who relied on his STR and Powered Armor.  Not so much for the 60 STR Monster who was supposed to rely on his HKA.
 
But let's assume we are not building a Brick.  We''re building "the shrimp with the AP Killing attack".  By concept, he's not extraordinarily strong, so we buy him a 19 STR to get +1d6 AP HKA.  Then he buys a 3d6 AP HKA for 56 points and does 4d6 AP HKA.  He has spent 65 points, 9 on STR and 56 on his AP HKA, and is in concept.
 
But if he had a 38 STR (28 points; +2d6 AP HKA) he could buy a 2d6 AP HKA for 37 points.  He has an extra 19 STR.  What did he pay for it?  Nothing - the same 65 points were spent.  So I would call that 19 free STR.
 
If we remove STR adders at all, then he has to make a choice.  He could certainly choose to have a 19 STR (9 points) and a 4d6 KA, No Range, AP (50 points) (which costs 6 points less than his original build AND avoids any reduction to KA if his STR is drained, yet gives him all the same mechanical advantages). If he wants a 38 STR instead of 19 STR, he has to pay the extra 19 points.  He can't get them for free by reducing his HKA and getting a higher addition for STR. Or he could put some extra STR and some extra KA in a Multipower, just like the Blaster has an RKA and a Blast she can switch between.
Oh, and @Duke Bushido, I was curious whether you were reading as we both write and read pretty long posts.  Your views on the underlying issue are known, so I see why you would not revisit them here.  Only so many hours in the day!

I think that's a different problem.  11 DC should be equally devastating.  11 DC, normal or killing, is going to be attempted murder when applied to 2 Def normal, for instance... 
...and I thought 6th fixed the StunLOTTO?