Black Rose

It would.  But hey, it's nice to have a new player! 
 
Short version:  there is a long history of the bulk of the grognards dismissing change environment as inappropriate for doing something like changing the environment.
 
To be fair, most of this started after the introduction of Transformation Attack and let's face it: with T-form, you _can_ change the environment.
 
Conversely, none of them will suggest using Transformation Attack as an alternative to Energy Blast, even though all Energy Blast is doing is transforming your target from undamaged to damaged, right?  There is a subtle triple standard around Transformation Attack that has been repeated and accepted for so long that it has been given a legitimacy that it never actually deserved.
 
I have a hypothesis that one of the reasons Change Environment is p'shawed so regularly is that it doesn't provide movement or provide defenses or do damage, and is therefore "unworthy."  It's just a hypothesis, never tested (and never should be, lest we risk arguments and hurt feelings that we don't need.  Really, all I have to go on is the general trend of someone recommending it and the recommendation being shot down in favor of something with a combat mechanic.  Really, the last two rules sets have stated outright that Change Environment cannot be used to add light to the environment (and out of all the 5e and 6e rules that I absolutely ignore, I ignore that one far more joyously than all the others combined)).
 
Let's look at what change environment can do:  it can add or remove gravity- it can _reverse_ gravity!  Houses uprooted and falling into the sky!  It can create not just fog, but absolute typhoons and monsoons and roof-removing winds and toad-choking rains.  It can purify radiation zones or increase the background radiation  to deadly levels, turn a jungle to a desert then turn around and create an oasis.
 
The whole "but it has no combat effectiveness and is therefore not the right power" mindset is so deeply-ingrained that the last couple of rules sets added rules to govern just how change environment  can effect combat and skill rolls (because before that the GM had to make a call, and that sort of thing- normal in almost every other RPG- is complete anathema to the typical HERO grognard.)
 
I don't say these things insultingly-  I am an old HERO grognard myself, and set on my own overzealous and equally-poorly-thought-out opinions; I just have a lot of odd-man-out observations (most of which have left me never finding a compelling reason to move beyond 2e.)
 
Hell, the biggest thing I like about this place is the general civility with which differences of opinion are  generally discussed.
 
At any rate-  if CE can reverse gravity and purify radiation and cutse or bless or sanctify entire tracts of the countryside.....  Well, the idea that it _can't_ do something simple like disturb some soil and a branch or two to create a false path is kind of funny.
 
The best part is this:
 
Because the newer rules specifically address how to assign a Skill Roll Penalty specifically to Change Environment, and because CE has a built-in Area of Effect, it is _the_ power for this.  It gets more interesting, though:
 
A "trail" is part of the special effects of your movement power.  If you fly, you don't leave a lot of footprints-- if I am not mistaken, there is a version of Flight built _specifically_ to simulate walking without leaving a trail in some or other ninja book (not giving a rat's roll red rump about martial arts and magic ninjas is one of those overzealous opinionations of mine.  Sorry.       ).
 
But I was saying that CE is ideal for this--
 
HERO divorces SFX from mechanics.  Varting editions do a better or worse job of that with varying individual mechanics and powers in much the same,way that we GMs do better or worse at some aspect of it than do other GMs, and this is cool; we are just as human and fallible as are all the authors that have ever written for this game.  That is the biggest reason that I love the discussions of differing opinions that occur here.  We get a chance to see new ideas, to help someone see something differently, or to be helped ourselves (or even in spite of ourselves).
 
Change Environment has been codified as a power that can be used to pin penalties to skill rolls, and its nature is changing the environment in some way that is either (or both) beneficial to you or disadvantageous to your opponent.  You can assign a penalty to a tracking roll via Change Environment. That is essentially a third mechanic assigned to range and area mechanics.  You have to selecr a special effect for every mechanic ("power" ) that you buy.  In rhis case, that special effect is the appearance of a false trail, and possibly some occlusion of the real trail.
 
Those folks telling you that you cannot have this special effect with your power are telling you that you cannot have this special effect, period, in spite of the fact that you _can_ have this mechanic.  They are not objecting to you using Change Environment to force a tracking penalty on your pursuers; they can't object to that because the rules specifically state that you _can_ do that very thing.
 
That means the only objection they can have is to your special effect (which is ultimately between you and your GM), which in this case suggests that the objection is that you are using Change Environment to make a small change to your environment.
 
And if you just skipped all the way down here hoping for a summation:
 
Ir can.  This is exactly what Change Environment does, and the last two editions have made it more specifically perfect for this sort of thing than it ever has been before.
 
Ultimately though, no matter who thinks what, all we can do is be a sounding board.  A player will take the idea _he_ finds most pleasing, pitch it to his GM, and they will work something out from there without any regard for which of us feels how on the subject.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Let us not forget the most accursed tome of them all--Seduction Of The Innocent.  The work of the conformist scholar and covert magician Frederic Wertham, contained betwixt its lines of text and "scholarly" arguings, are subliminal incantations and charms designed to bewitch the unwary and the weak minded into following along with his miserable, deplorable campaign to suppress creativity and freedom of thought, to stifle beyond reviving the notion that great power could--and should--be used to protect the weak and defenseless, and advance the greater good.  All in the name of instilling and promoting "Appropriate Behavior."
 
A thousand thousand curses upon Wertham and all his Dark Disciples!  May they be condemned forever to reside in the pseudo-intellectual prisons of compliance and repression they have constructed for themselves!

Champions New Millennium /jk

When Fifth Edition came out, it sold. It sold very well. There seemed to be a lot of pent-up demand. The first few years of the DOJ era of Hero were profitable ones for the company, and a joy for us players, seeing new product coming out every couple of months.
 
All of us who love the game would be delighted to see it return to its glory days, or even in the same ballpark. At this point that looks very unlikely. Lots of reasons have been put forward for the system's decline in audience: a shrinking market for tabletop RPGs; changes in new gamers' tastes and expectations; DOJ's publication and marketing strategies. But nothing lasts forever, so maybe Hero's day is just past. Maybe it will survive only through those of us who love this type of game, and those we can find who discover they share that love. It may experience a renaissance one day as gaming tastes swing back; or it may not.
 
Even if that's the case, it's been a helluva run.

Effectively, we had that in 5, re5, and 6: Sidekick then the rules.  Didn't seem to bring the waves of new players we've all been hoping for.  
 
 
 
 
I'm not a naysayer by nature, but I don't see the point anymore.
 
We had 5-- "to address and correct problems with 4, and introduce stuff that players really wanted to see," etc, etc.
 
Was it what?  Eighteen months?-- we had Re-Five.   And it wasn't too many months before Steve mentioned the need for a 6 and shortly after that the SETAC was formed, etc, etc, etc--
 
to solve all the problems and quibbles a quirks of the Second Coming of 5.
 
So....   5, as evidenced by the existence of a successor, failed.  
 
5 revised also failed.
 
6, by nature of this very discussion and others like it-- with it's broad sweeping changes and tearing down of a couple of long-held traditions-- failed.
 
And at this point, I can't see it not failing no matter how many tens of thousands of pages are written.
 
It's not the fault of the game:  Hugh and Duke and Christopher and Brian and Ed ---   we all want something different out of the game.  There is no way in Hell anyone is going to write a rule book that gives each and every player exactly what he wants.   Hell, life itself has _way_ fewer rules, and even that can't make us all happy.
 
 

In that cinematic reality, we tend to have one fellow with Legendary agility, and a lot of others who do not.  Giving our Cinematic Jackie Chan a 29 DEX is much less impressive when every other character in his story has a 23 - 29 DEX than when most are normal folk (8 - 13), with some being more agile (maybe up to 18) and only the rare few possess anything approaching him (20 - 23, say).

No, the heating is the actual point, not a side effect. The purpose is to raise the temperature of an object; the Cool spell does the opposite. The source material (GURPS Magic) has it as a gradual increase over time (+20 degrees F per minute) and I was trying to maintain that element. It might be too much fiddling, though. Minor (or Major) Transform with Partial Transform would get the feel of that, right? Cosmetic makes it hot to the touch (but not damagingly hot), Minor makes it... soft?, and Major fully melts it (assuming a solid from the start).
 
I think I will keep the Change Environment at a lower level for minor effects.

No suggestion that there be three rolls. Following the flow of the Indie game, if only one player has "Scientist", and no one else has any science schtick, that player gets a normal, unpenalized roll for all things science.
 
But if we have a Scientists and a Geologist, then a roll related to Geology is a normal roll for the Geologist. The more general Scientist can roll, but takes a penalty because his knowledge is more broad and less focused on Geology.
 
I see no reason your "degrees of success" model can't be applied in addition. The Geologist is more likely to know more, but we may still see rolls where the Scientist knows some obscure Geology issue that the Geologist has never run across before.  If they both paid for the same roll, the Scientist will not handle Geology as well over time, but there may be occasional exceptions.
 
Of course, nothing would prevent GM or play group decisions that some skill choices are too broad, or too narrow, for the game.
 
 

You might be onto something, Hugh.
 
Maybe make a double roll for a broad skill:  do I know it?  Can I do it?
 
 
Or perhaps use the Familiar / knowledge / Professional set up as an example:
 
For a General skill, you have your will to have a General knowledge about the specific subject.  At a prescribed penalty, you can have specific knowledge about the specific subject.  For a further penalty, it happens to be something with which you are intimately familiar.
 
 
Myself, I am not keen on making three rolls on the same skill to answer the question, so here is an alternative:
 
I have Scientist as a skill.  Let's say it is decided that have a knowledge-skill type knowledge on...  Geology?  Sure.  I have to make my roll (14-) at a penalty of -3 (11 or less), and to be intimately familiar-  say I have a specialty there, or apent a couple of years helping research a paper with a couple of geologist friends-- whatever, then I have to take and -additional -4 (I am literally pulling these numbers from the air, okay?), which means I have to roll 14-7 or less, or 7- to have a professional geologist familiarity and ability with the field and the equipment and whatever else.  Sure, we could go deeper, but since I never will (it's a game, and depriving players of the chance to know, do, or affect something isnt especially  fun- for them or for me), I am not going to.
 
I would have the player make a single roll (assuming I adpot this ( Doc Democracy, you may recognize the logic here from my "Mook Sweep" Maneuver), I would then look at the roll and see what the level of success was:
 
Okay, you rolled a 6; yes, you are reasonably experienced here, and given a few minutes, you can probably determine where the mineral is most likely to be exposed, or at least close enough to dig.
 
Okay, you rolled an eight.  Yes; you have considerable knowledgw about this, and you know that these are the conditions in which quartz is found, but you dont really know how it might be used in a laser.
 
And of,course, you might will spectacularly well:
 
Guys, I think our villain is Kevin Spelnik.
 
Why?
 
You see how the Einman vircuit has been modified to increase the impedance to a ridiculous degree?
 
Well, Kevin waa my college roommate.  He qas playing around with quartz lasers- really, back then, who wasn't?  Anyway, he refuswd to add additional,circuits; kept swearing it would work fine if he upped the impedance.
 
Dqmned,near took out thole dorm building,when it blew, and the imoes2nce wasnt a tenth of this.
 
So you can deactivate it?
 
Oh yeah. ,just turn it on; it should,melt,completely before it gets close to charged.
 
 

 
 
 

I recall an indie game (can't recall the name) where PCs selected abilities with a wide open slate.  So I could take "Science", another player might take "Chemistry" and a third could take "Petrochemistry".
 
The rules provided that, in general, you got your roll on anything within your ability. However, if another character had a more narrow ability that fell within your broader ability, you took a penalty on your skill.  So my Scientist would take a penalty on Chemistry within Science (and a bigger penalty for Petrochemistry), and the Chemist would take a penalty on Petrochemistry like my penalty on Chemistry.
 
It seems like that could be ported to Hero. If my character simply takes "Scientist", he gets his roll without penalty for all things Science.  However, if another character takes Biology, my Science skill takes, say, a -3 penalty for Biology-related rolls. The more the schticks overlap, the more specialized the characters need to become. 
 
So in a typical Supers game, PS: Lawyer makes you Matt Murdock or Jen Walters, able to research the law and argue cases across all fields of law in any court.
 
But in a Courtroom Drama case, we might find a Legal Researcher, a Litigator and a specialist in Criminal Law, all with a basic PS: Lawyer that would be penalized when operating within another character's field of expertise.

Just say it's reducing the Darkness Level.  It's a negative modifier to characters with Phys Comp: Reduced Visual PER In Bright Light.  

A lot of the stuff below is for my own use; apologies if it bores/confuses anyone.
 
Based on things suggested above, for my setting I think it's best to define a "Scrying Powers" category and say, "If you're doing anything that I-the-GM consider scrying, regardless of the means (Clairsentience, Enhanced Senses, Mind Link, Mind Scan, whatever), I'm calling it a Scrying Power, and it falls into the Scrying Sense Group."
 
For my purposes, I'm going to use:
Change Environment to simulate scrying resistance, for individuals, objects, or locations
Invisibility to simulate "immunity to scrying"
Images to simulate scry-spoofing
 
Mind Link and Mind Scan, when used as scrying (as opposed to being some psionic thingie) will not be considered Mental Powers in this case and fall under the "Scrying Powers" category.

A lot of the stuff below is for my own use; apologies if it bores/confuses anyone.
 
Based on things suggested above, for my setting I think it's best to define a "Scrying Powers" category and say, "If you're doing anything that I-the-GM consider scrying, regardless of the means (Clairsentience, Enhanced Senses, Mind Link, Mind Scan, whatever), I'm calling it a Scrying Power, and it falls into the Scrying Sense Group."
 
For my purposes, I'm going to use:
Change Environment to simulate scrying resistance, for individuals, objects, or locations
Invisibility to simulate "immunity to scrying"
Images to simulate scry-spoofing
 
Mind Link and Mind Scan, when used as scrying (as opposed to being some psionic thingie) will not be considered Mental Powers in this case and fall under the "Scrying Powers" category.

A lot of the stuff below is for my own use; apologies if it bores/confuses anyone.
 
Based on things suggested above, for my setting I think it's best to define a "Scrying Powers" category and say, "If you're doing anything that I-the-GM consider scrying, regardless of the means (Clairsentience, Enhanced Senses, Mind Link, Mind Scan, whatever), I'm calling it a Scrying Power, and it falls into the Scrying Sense Group."
 
For my purposes, I'm going to use:
Change Environment to simulate scrying resistance, for individuals, objects, or locations
Invisibility to simulate "immunity to scrying"
Images to simulate scry-spoofing
 
Mind Link and Mind Scan, when used as scrying (as opposed to being some psionic thingie) will not be considered Mental Powers in this case and fall under the "Scrying Powers" category.

Apologies for the rambling, I find that if I take the time to write down a topic question I frequently already know the answer. But this time I'm not sure if I do.
 
There was a stretch in the oughts' and early teens' where I was bouncing back and forth between HERO and GURPS semi-regularly. This has messed with my understanding of both, I'm sure. Regardless... There's a rule in GURPS, primarily for combat, called "Readying". The idea is that you have something held or carried such that you can use it pretty much immediately, with no fiddling. To use HERO terminology, it's strongly related to the "STR Min" and somewhat related to the "Required Hands" of the weapon. Por ejemplo:
Something like a knife or a short sword is almost impossible to Unready, while a polearm or great sword held with one hand would require great strength to maintain Ready after an attack. Marching in formation with your rifle against your shoulder means its more available than if it were slung on your back, but Unready for combat -- you need to shift it to either a shoulder or hip position to effectively fire it. For an out of combat example, you could carry a big Maglite flashlight like a mace, and that would make it Ready for combat, but Unready for you to turn it on/off. Likewise, if you held it close to the top, with your thumb resting on the switch, you can turn it on/off very quickly, but now it's Unready to use in combat.  
And yes, I know that it only takes about a second to shift grips and take something from Unready to Ready, but GURPS runs on 1-second turns, so that means "you don't get to do anything this round but get ready for the next one."
 
On a cursory look through Fantasy Hero and the Equipment Guide, the closest thing I could find was Extra Time for reloading. STR Minimum gives penalties to OCV and DCs, but says nothing about taking longer to hit. Weapon Length mentions Initiative Penalties, and I feel that's the closest I'm going to get. I think the fact that it's harder to fully Disarm someone in GURPS than it is to Unready their weapon (seconds count) might have something to do with this -- Unreadying is a more realistic, less cinematic effect, and HERO prefers a more cinematic, less realistic vibe.
 
Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Ninja Hero 4ed, The Ultimate Martial Artist 5ed, and HERO System Martial Arts 6ed. Your welcomed. 
 
There is also Mental Combat, including Mental Martial Arts, from pages 69 to 78 of the Advance Player's Guide 2, but they do NOT give you the ability to create your own manuvers like on HERO System Martial Arts. So if you actually NEED to create your own forms of Mental Martial Arts for a mentalist orientated campaign, your Satilight Of Loved.
 
And from the same book, Social Combat (pages 79-96), but that doesn't follow actual Martial Arts more lthen Talents pseudo powers.

I think the Knowledge Skill is sufficient in itself.  I think this effect is only worth a Complication if it means that people would know these things without a Skill.  In other words, it would be kind of similar to a low-grade version of Social Complication: Public Identity.  It's not that everyone knows your biographical details or other personal information, but everyone knows these traits about you.
 
Imagine it with vampires.  If I have KS: Vampires, then I know what vampires can do and what their weaknesses are, whether they have a Complication to that effect or not.  However, if a vampire has something like Social Complication: Stereotypical Vampire, because its abilities and weaknesses match the classic cinematic traits, then even people who don't have KS: Vampires know what this vampire can do and what its weaknesses are.

Re: How To: Suspended Animation
 

Re: How To: Suspended Animation
 
Solution? (well...A solution....)
 
In DnDWorldHero, ANY target is affected by transform as if it had 12 BODY, regardless of ACTUAL body.
 
Go with transform.
 
Bing
 
banga
 
boom.

My first Superhero RPG was the FASERIP Marvel Super Heroes. Didn't get to play it much, but I bought a bunch of the material.
My next "superhero RPG" was GURPS Supers. I was, among other game systems, a GURPS junkie in the '90s and early '00s.
I suppose my third was White Wolf's Aberrant, because another system I was into in the '90s and early '00s was "anything White Wolf is putting out... that isn't Werewolf, Wraith, or Changeling". So... Vampire, Mage, and Exalted, also Aberrant.
Then Champions: New Millennium, but that doesn't count because it doesn't exist.  I only picked it up because I was getting the Fuzion Bubblegum Crisis book, and then realized I had bought an old HERO 4e rulebook second-hand years ago, couldn't make sense of all the acronyms, and promptly went back to GURPS.
I dabbled with Mutants and Masterminds very briefly back in 1e (one game), then again in 3e. I both really like, and am greatly frustrated by, the simplicity of the system. I prefer the crunch of HERO.
 
I would probably have enjoyed V&V back in the day, but I just don't like random character building anymore. Almost every new Superhero game I see today seems too simplified in character building. I could be wrong.

One of the comments ->
 
 
This is one topic I refuse to become jaded about; we must consistently push back against the normalization of prison schools.

Like unclevlad, I think the ambassador is downplaying the divorce from reality. The US responded to a couple of very prominent buildings being knocked down by all but flattening the country hosting the terrorist training camps of said attack's mastermind (and incidentally invading another completely unrelated country we didn't like while we were riled up). The amount of [crap] we would lose at a hostile nuke detonating on American soil would be like nothing seen in human history.

US White Supremacists arrested at Idaho Gay Pride event
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61773358
 
Nice to catch them before they can do something

This story of the bloodsuckers who are consolidating the market for the products that keep people with diabetes alive is just infuriating:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/10/loopers/
 
That our political system allows this to continue no matter which party is in control of our government is doubly infuriating.
It seems we have no choice at all.