Sean Waters

One obvious solution to me would be to declare OCV and DC maxima for both guns and martial arts.  Give martial arts a higher OCV maxima and lower DC maxima, give guns a higher DC maxima and lower OCV maxima. 
This would mean that both are viable choices, the question is just if the player wants to hit harder or more often. 

Yes, yes, yes. The whole post echoes what I said (essentially, strips down to increasing chance to hit which is increasing OCV or decreasing their DCV) so what in the system already allows for this?
 
Multiple attacks, especially if you buy levels to offset the MA penalties.  Quick, clean, interpreting maneuvers already in the game to cover various combat maneuvers you see in the source material.

There's something somewhere in one of the books... it might be on that same page, written in invisible ink, but I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere... something about GM permission?

OK Let's strip it down.  If we were going to build Spider-Man's Danger Sense from scratch, using Hero (without the danger sense power) what would it be?
 
Its DCV, I mean he's dodging stuff he should be half DCV against as if he is full, so that's no problem to build.
Its awareness, he's able to spot things he isn't immediately aware of like a sniper or someone sneaking up behind him. so like 360 sense of some sort.
 
But there's another aspect that's tougher to quantify: it allows him to be combat-ready regardless of the situation.  And how do you simulate that in the rules?  That's what Danger Sense does: it puts you combat ready when others would not be, and lets you intelligently react to the source of danger.  So the other things Spider-Man does with it (dodge, etc) are other powers in action.
 
So that's all it should need to be broken down into; I can react to danger properly despite its origin or location. 
 
Personally I don't think there should be a roll for Danger Sense.  how often has it failed Spider-Man the ur-example for the power?  Ever?  Sure, sometimes the attack is so fast or big he can't get out of the way, but unless his powers are negated its NEVER not worked.  Spidey has never blown a roll and gotten shot from behind.  It always works, every time, without exception.  He doesn't always get to take advantage of it: I have to choose between dodging Scorpion's tail strike or saving Aunt May!  But it always works.   Spider-Man doesn't just have a great roll, he never rolls 18.  Its impossible to fail.

I wouldn't call what Daredevil has danger sense, not in the classic meaning of the word.  He's just got 360 targeting hearing, so he can pick up anything around him but won't necessarily.

Disagree away.  I am kind of with you though, but it does then require that you have a GM with a clear vision that has been adequately communicated to the players and the point of a rules system is to do some of that legwork for you.  Many disciplines incorporate other disciplines: it is almost impossible to do any science without some grasp of statistics, for example. 
 
My feeling is that 'Science!' is too broad, but Quantum Mechanics is too narrow.
 
Arguably, what should happen is that if you put 'SS: Quantum Mechanics' on the character sheet, the GM should note that and make sure it comes up in the game.  I am a lazy GM though, and feel I have enough to do.
 
It is always going to be a balance between flavour and playability.  Playability should generally win, IMO.  We already differentiate between Mechanics and Electronics as specific skills, Computer Programming and Systems Operations, Bugging and Cryptography, amongst others, presumably because we thing that is the sort of thing that might come up as a thing.
 
I'd be happy if we had something like:
 
Life Sciences - the study of plants, animals and microorganisms, medicine and genetics
 
Physical Sciences - the study or matter and energy and their properties and interactions
 
Earth Sciences - the study of the earth, the oceans and the atmosphere
 
Social Science - the study of  the psychology of and interactions between people or other social groups
 
...and call the job a goob 'un.
 
Anyway: I'll see you on Monday.

Also, right, why the flippety flip is Science a Background Skill and not an Intellect Skill?
 
Damnit.

..or the drunk GM.
 
Of course, you can my friend.  You're my best friend.  I love you.
I NEVER SAID THAT!  I hate you.  You're attacked by rabid chickens
What?  What?  Who said that?
God, I need a kebab...

Summon Giant Eagles is also one of those campaign breakers.  Gandalf's player tried to use it, and the GM flipped the table over and started ranting about how much time he'd spent prepping the game.  "I even wrote a damn language for the elves!" he said.
 
Finally he was like "you can't do that!"
"I can too!  I paid the points for it!"
"No you can't!  Because.... because... because the Nazgul have these like, big ass flying dinosaur things!"
 
Then the GM reminded Gandalf that he hadn't chipped in for pizza for the last couple months, and Gandalf decided they'd just walk to Mordor.

So, what I’d probably do is this.
 
1.     Make DEX cost 1 point per point, even if that means stripping out ‘reaction time’ and having a separate ‘Initiative’ characteristic.  But it won’t: DEX is overpriced.
2.     Make the cost of all skills, including Background Skills, 3 points and 1 point for +1.  It needs to be 3 so you can still have 1 point Familiarity and 2 point Proficiency.
3.     Not have a skill level that gives you +1 with a single skill because you don’t need it – see 2.
4.     Make Perception a Skill and decouple it from INT.  Everyone gets it as a full skill naturally but you can buy it down to Proficiency or Familiarity if that fits concept.
5.     Cost +1 with a single Characteristic Roll for 2 points. Because EGO Rolls.
6.     Cost +1 roll with a small group (4 skills) at 2 points.
7.     Cost +1 roll with a broad group (INT/PRE/DEX/Background/Characteristic Rolls) for 3 points.
8.     Cost +1 roll with an additional group at an additional 2 points (so 5 points).
9.     Cost +1 roll with an additional group after that 2 point hike at 1 point per additional group.
10.  This would make an overall skill level that can apply to any skill or Characteristic Roll once per phase cost 8 points.
11.  Allow you to add OCV, DCV, +1DC damage per 2 levels, MOCV and DOCV the same way you can add extra skill groups, so an overall level covering anything at all would cost 13 points, although, in practice, I doubt many people will want all of those things, so their custom overall level will almost certainly be cheaper.
 
The maths is still not perfect, but I’m balancing that against the ability to define pretty much any combination of things you are particularly good at.  I think that would work better than what we have at the moment.

I am sitting here screaming "No" at this thread. 
 
I think skill levels of all types can only be balanced within an individual campaign against the other players and to a lesser extent npcs. If one player takes physicist as an int based skill while another takes science, one player is at an immediate disadvantage imo.
 
I also think combat skill levels should be used to enable how a player feels their character should work. Like your defensive swordsman above. Once they start getting loads of skills I would start pushing to merge them into globals or characteristics.
 
And lastly as an aside: many moons ago, when challenged to a duel at a larp, I did parry thrown daggers and arrows. Skill levels or missile deflection?
 

Hmm.  I'm not sure I can get behind the idea that any power that is more than you need is surplus to requirements, at least if you mean what you seem to mean.
 
Very few actual characters built by players are ever going to buy a NND as their only major attack: it is going in a MP.  You also almost never see an Entangle outside a MP, or a Flash.  There are many other examples.
 
The problem with MPs is not the mechanic, as such, but the way it seems to be habitually used - to cover a wide range of bases to make characters effective in a wide range of situations because that is play-efficient rather than because that realises a concept.  A lot of example characters I have seen are guilty of that.  You get powers with really complex builds that are there for synergy rather than anything else or powers that are situational.  You'd never splash out on that particular power if you were paying full points.  Well, almost never.
 
Remember Starburst (I think that was his name, could have been Opal Fruit) from 1eChampions?  He had a MP with an attack, defence and movement power in it, IIRC.  He was damn interesting to run.

I've always used it two ways:
 
If you flub a Per roll for a danger you could detect with your other senses, then check danger sense. 
 
If there is a very real danger that you have no realistic hope of detecting with your other senses, then check danger sense. 

Thanks Sean!
 
This actually is closer to what I was looking for.  I will just build it as part of sight.

I was going to hold off on a costs discussion until later, but...
 
10 Fighting Multipower, 10-point reserve
2v 1) +2 OCV (10 APs)
2v 2) +2 DCV (10 APs)
1f 3) Blast +1d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (7 APs)
1f 4) Hand-To-Hand Attack +1d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (7 APs); Hand-To-Hand Attack (-¼)
 
16 Points total
 
That is significantly better than 2 x 8 point levels in almost all cases because the DCV will apply to all attacks and is persistent. 

So I was thinking about DCs and caps and such, and got to messing with an old spreadsheet I started ages ago and got this.  It is a very basic way of comparing two characters and how much difference a point or two of extra Combat Value or DC will make.  There are any number of problems with this approach, of course, as it necessarily runs on averages - it would be more accurate to actually do a breakdown of a hundred combats but I lack the maths and programming skill.  Nonetheless, it is interesting.  There are other factors at play in Hero too: every so often a roll exceeds the targets CON, which usually has a dramatic effect on a fight, or you just keep rolling badly.  Moreover battles are rarely one on one.  It is not a bad gauge of how long combats will go on for though and gives a feel for how tweaking one number or another might impact the game.
 
Most of the games we play in do have DC caps, and often AP caps too.  We are not obsessive about it, and you can trade DCs and CV to an extent, but generally in a 12DC game, most of the characters will do 12DC of damage or less.  
 
Say you have a 12DC game, and one character has a 14d6 attack - only a couple of dice but it hugely increases the chance that they will land a Stunning blow and reduces the number of hits they have to land to KO an opponent.  Upping OCV by 2 or 3 points has a similar but less dramatic effect: a similar reduction in the overall length of combat but without the increased likelihood of stunning an opponent.
 
Of course if everyone is OCV/DCV 8 with a 12d6 attack, you might think that it would get monotonous, but that isn't my experience.  Look at the sample superhero characters in 6E2.  The OCV/DCV assumes levels are put on OCV.
 
Taurus: 10d6 attack, 10OCV/8DCV, 20/10 Defences, SPD 5 and 60 Stun 20 Rec
 
Eagle Eye: 12d6 kick 10OCV/9DCV, 21/11 19/11 Defences, SPD 6 and 30 Stun 8 Rec
 
Hardpoint: 12d6 Blast, 10OCV/8DCV, 20/15 Defences, 5 SPD and 36 Stun 20 Rec
 
Maelstrom: 12d6 Blast, 11OCV/8DCV, 23/10 27/10 Defences, 6 Spd, 40 Stun and 10 Rec
 
Out of interest, two of the four have MPs.  Most one on one's between this lot would not last a full turn.  Well, not if they were going all out to take the other fella down, anyway.
 
I'm sure there was more of a point to all this, but I've written it now, so I'll post it...
 
 
Hero Combat Comparator.xlsx

This statement appeals to me.
 
 
That's how I see it as well.
 
 
Congrats!

Ha!  Grandad!!  congratulations...hope mother and child are doing well. 

I very much appreciate that.  As for a system for quantifying Wisdom, well, that is probably what honest obituaries are for.  I so want to put a smiley face in there, but, again, I'm not going to.  I could probably build something in Hero to make me look wiser, but it would almost definitely involve Mental Illusions.
 
No need to apologise to me: it wouldn't be half as much fun if we couldn't have a frank and honest discussion or were worried overly much whether out opinions and way of expressing them might offend anyone.  It's been a weird week: I became a grandfather.  Normal service will be resumed soon.
 

I very much appreciate that.  As for a system for quantifying Wisdom, well, that is probably what honest obituaries are for.  I so want to put a smiley face in there, but, again, I'm not going to.  I could probably build something in Hero to make me look wiser, but it would almost definitely involve Mental Illusions.
 
No need to apologise to me: it wouldn't be half as much fun if we couldn't have a frank and honest discussion or were worried overly much whether out opinions and way of expressing them might offend anyone.  It's been a weird week: I became a grandfather.  Normal service will be resumed soon.
 

I very much appreciate that.  As for a system for quantifying Wisdom, well, that is probably what honest obituaries are for.  I so want to put a smiley face in there, but, again, I'm not going to.  I could probably build something in Hero to make me look wiser, but it would almost definitely involve Mental Illusions.
 
No need to apologise to me: it wouldn't be half as much fun if we couldn't have a frank and honest discussion or were worried overly much whether out opinions and way of expressing them might offend anyone.  It's been a weird week: I became a grandfather.  Normal service will be resumed soon.
 

Hmm.  I'm not sure I can get behind the idea that any power that is more than you need is surplus to requirements, at least if you mean what you seem to mean.
 
Very few actual characters built by players are ever going to buy a NND as their only major attack: it is going in a MP.  You also almost never see an Entangle outside a MP, or a Flash.  There are many other examples.
 
The problem with MPs is not the mechanic, as such, but the way it seems to be habitually used - to cover a wide range of bases to make characters effective in a wide range of situations because that is play-efficient rather than because that realises a concept.  A lot of example characters I have seen are guilty of that.  You get powers with really complex builds that are there for synergy rather than anything else or powers that are situational.  You'd never splash out on that particular power if you were paying full points.  Well, almost never.
 
Remember Starburst (I think that was his name, could have been Opal Fruit) from 1eChampions?  He had a MP with an attack, defence and movement power in it, IIRC.  He was damn interesting to run.

Yep, I read through.  My responses tend to be either pithy or prolonged.  You had the pithy version, so...
 
First of all you have to look at what you were responding to, for context.  MPs are too cheap was the point Toxxus was concerned about because you get a raft of different things for relatively few character points, which in turn encourages that build behaviour behaviour.
 
Your response was, well you only need a few things for a well rounded character, but more options give you, well, more options.
 
You then start talking about vectors.  I’m not sure what you mean by that, despite your explanation, hence my comment about ‘if you mean what you seem to mean’.  I might have to jump about a bit here, but you end up saying you are not overly concerned if a character has 5 flavours of lethal attack, but you are more concerned about multiple vectors of attack.
 
Now, I’m assuming when you talk about ‘5 flavors of lethal’ you don’t mean 5 slots each containing the same KA, but in different colours – you mean 5 powers based on Killing Attack with different advantages, so, maybe:
 
1.     RKA
2.     HKA
3.     1 hex AoE RKA
4.     Radius AoE RKA
5.     No Range Modifier RKA
 
…something like that?
 
I think that your vectors are a red herring.  Being able to throw a normal or killing attack is far less of a problem than being able to throw an AoE Blast as well as a ‘normal’ Blast, for very little extra cost.  With the former, you are still targeting DCV of the target character and you have to guess which of the attacks is going to be more effective (Hint: the KA, over time), but with the AoE plus Blast combo you can hit high DCV targets and low DCV targets and it is usually pretty obvious which is which, at least after the first round of combat.
 
Similarly you say that each flavour of exotic attack is a vector – I’ve not seen a MP stocked entirely with Entangle or Flash variations – there will be something damaging in there too.  AVAD being a ‘vector’ is also problematic – having a multipower of AVADs, all presumably stopped by something different is again trying to be effective against everything, and, IIRC, frowned upon.
 
I can understand that impulse, I can, and I accept that some MPs are more effective than others, depending on what they are stocked with, but the problem that creates, to my mind, is the one-man team: I don’t really need anyone else because I can do it all – I have an answer to every situation.
 
You go on to say you are more worried by a character with multiple defence options than multiple attacks.  The reason that people want to build multiple defences is because of multiple attacks, especially if characters take a ‘Dial-A-Gun’ approach.
 
The point I’d make is that, in most cases, characters will be part of a team, whether PC or NPC.  The team should cover all the bases, or a good number of them – the individual characters, generally, shouldn’t.
 
That is not to say that the occasional versatile character should not appear, but it should not be the norm – and the relative cheapness of MPs encourages people to use them to cover any and all perceived weaknesses rather than, in some way, making them simply more interesting.  You’ve already made a substantial investment, why not chuck in, for very little more, a Missile Deflection (you only use it occasionally anyhow), or a Barrier (it is Fire and Forget) or a Teleport to overcome Entangles or a Flash or a Drain or a Healing or…well, why not have multiple MPs to give you a huge range of potential abilities, or, well, whatever, really.
 
The flip side is that MPs are point efficient, so you are not giving up much power (and if you play AP limits or maximum DCs, possibly none at all) for a whole raft of new shiny toys that do not necessarily encourage team play. 
 
In addition, especially in 6E where the base points for a build have increased, without the overall power levels necessarily having increased, the investment in a few MP slots is far less of a burden.
 
My comment was that the idea of MPs is not a bad thing mechanically, but as with most things in Hero, it is how you use them in practice, and the effect that has on the game.  It has been my experience that a clever player, or GM can justify more or less anything as being ‘in concept’, and some do.  I admit to doing all the things you are concerned about, and I would be surprised if you did not admit the same.
 
So, to circle back to the start, Toxxus raised a valid point: MPs are a cheap way to get extra powers and that means that to compete, most characters have one.  My point was not that they are too cheap per se but that price point does tend to encourage overuse, to the point where many character builds will have an MP or VPP.  Rather than making characters nuanced, it becomes an almost necessary part of every build.  I don’t agree that “A different way to look at it is, any more than you need of something is surplus to requirements.” Unless you are suggesting everyone ‘needs’ a MP packed with options.  Which would be bad.
 
Another way to consider this is that the existence of the MP reduces the need for players to make hard choices about powers.  Unless you are playing in a heavily CP restricted game with relatively high DC, Defence and Movement expectations, you can pretty much always afford the extra points for a few MP slots.  
 
Ultimately we are probably disagreeing on definitions and detail more than principle, but that is where you will find the Devil.

Has anyone suggested punching the target unconscious and then shooting him?  Only guns sound rubbish.
 
Ultimately you can only improve your chance to hit something by increasing your OCV, decreasing their DCV, using an AoE or having more goes.
 
You can Spread an attack (6E2/49), but that may violate the hard cap on OCV.
 
You can't generally decrease an opponent's DCV on your own unless you sneak up on him or PRE attack him (which does not require a roll to hit!)
 
You therefore would seem to need an AoE attack, either on the basic gun attack (which could be a naked advantage if you are in an Equipment game) or on a suppress/drain if you want to make the target easier to hit for everyone, not just you.
 
As a side note the Suppression Attack would work if the target was moving because you get multiple attacks, potentially (and the fact that you can stand still in a field of Suppression Fire and never be hit is a definite lacuna in the rules), but you can do the same with Multiple Attack and that is kind of what is being described - firing several shots to increase your chances of hitting - the chances of hitting are increased because you get more than one go at it rather than because the DCV of the opponent is reduced, but it has much the same effect, at least one on one.  It does not help if the intention is to make a target easier to hit for your mate, but that is what coordinated attacks are for.

Then again, in the military, people either have to do what you say you you have to do what they say, and hard feelings be damned.  I am unlikely to get upset about anything you say about me or my opinions or, if I do, I'll calm down before posting a reply: we have known each other for a very long time through these boards and I am definitely older and in some ways wiser.  It may not be a coincidence that Hero does not have a skill that is directly analogous to 'Diplomacy'.  I feel I ought to put a smiley face in there, but I'm not going to.