greypaladin_01

As an alternative to a flat...if you roll well enough to move it into the harder category, then perhaps there's minor advantages.  If time matters, maybe you execute it faster than normal.  So if you have a task rated Average, and the player rolls enough to get an Extreme-level success, it's done quicker, or with flair. 
 
Also, if you don't want to make it automatic, then the player can "shoot for the moon" and elect to roll for a higher level...like Telepathy, where shooting for deep memories is harder than surface thoughts.
 
Yeah, this is basically swapping "roll high" for "roll low."  I remember we had a pretty long discussion on this a few years ago.  There might've been little wrinkles, but I don't remember any huge problems.  What you're introducing, really, is the task level, which can be a useful guideline for GMs.
 
Mmm...one note.  What is an "Experienced" skill roll?  That's not a term in 6E1 or 6E2, APG I or APG 2, checking the indices.  And standard doesn't have a fixed roll, it's tied to the underlying stat. Also remember that 
--standard skills have Familiarity (8-) where Everyman is used simply to say it's free, Proficiency (10-), then standard (9 + CHAR/5).
--background skills  have Famil, Prof, AND General...a flat 11-, not tied to a characteristic, then standard.
 
So an approach can be:
3d6 + SkillFactor + SituationalMods >= Task Difficulty Rating.
SkillFactor: the base is
--Famil:  -3
--Prof: -1
--General:  0
--standard (based on a characteristic:  CHAR/5 (using standard Hero round) - 2  (because the baseline is 9, not 11).
then add in levels that apply.  Not the prettiest to say it's CHAR/5 - 2, but perhaps no better or worse than saying 9 + CHAR/5.
 
And the situational mods are as you've noted.  
 
But you can't ignore the impact of a high DEX or INT, and your notation seems to confuse the CHAR-based roll from the skill-based.  How do we get that our thief, in your lockpicking example, is "+2"?  You can't refer to a line on the old character sheet;  it has to be self-contained.
 
EDIT:  I thought about tweaking the base target number for a skill roll, to eliminate that -2 and have it be a flat CHAR/5.  (You'd also have to tweak the familiarity and proficiency and general levels to reflect a diffferent baseline.)  Simpler there...but now you've got a different baseline for skill rolls (12) versus combat rolls (10).  I'd rather keep the -2 tweak on characteristic skills mods...which are something you can precompute trivially and put onto a character sheet, or incorporate into a spreadsheet.  It leaves the mechanics consistent at the table, and that's to be preferred.

Ah, if the goal's to have something that can be passed on and used at the table with current HERO material then, yes, I agree that messing around with the presentation of characteristics probably goes a bit too far. It would remind me of the OSR games that use Ascending AC, because no matter how much I prefer Ascending AC, having to convert on the fly when using books that used the traditional AC system took me away from what I was trying to do, and added another point where something could go wrong. Which I could easily see happening if people were looking up a villain in the middle of combat and thinking to themselves "80 STR, so that would be +16? Or is it +14, or something else? Oh dear..."
 
For the critical hit solution, an exact equivalent of the probabilities would be rolling (21 + n)/2, where n is the number you need to roll on the dice. For the critical hit example, n would be 10 + DCV - OCV or better. Which would mean that you'd score a crit on a roll of (31 + DCV - OCV)/2, which with a bonus of your OCV gives a target number of (31 + DCV + OCV)/2. So, since 31/2 is roughly the same as 15, you could set the target number for a crit as 15 + the average of the attacker's OCV and the defender's DCV.
 
Now that is quite messy, so I understand completely if you don't want to use it, but that gives you nearly the exact same probabilities as the current HERO crit system, so it might be worth checking whatever method you go for against that to see if they give comparable results.

If you MUST have crits, which I loathe...whatever you do, KEEP IT SIMPLE.  

Thank you both for the feedback. Grailknight, if it helps, this campaign is modelled around social matters, where the genre doesn't support violently attacking people in conversation, so while the opposition will respond negatively, they'd be limited to doing so with their own Drains, Mental Powers and Presence Attacks, much as you are.
 
I decided to do some digging in my Champions Villains books, and it looks like most villains have between 20-30 EGO. Going by my rule-of-thumb of 1 Mental Defence per 1 DC of Mental Power (the villains in these books seemed to have nearer 1.25 Mental Defence per 1 DC, but I prefer the round numbers of a straight 1:1), a 12 DC Mind Control will average 30 EGO, giving an EGO Effect for the high-end, and an EGO+10 Effect for the low-end. As this rule-of-thumb means that adding 2 DCs of the Mental Power adds 5 to the average Effect Roll, I can scale my numbers up or down depending on how heroic or superheroic I want the campaign to be.
 
So, for a totally average world where average people just happen to have psychic powers, an average DC of 8 pairs up with 10-20 EGO. Or I could beef the players up to 15-25 EGO and get an average DC of 10. Or even go full Champions and go with 20-30 EGO and 12 DC. This method looks to be nicely future-proofed, since I can tweak the numbers and use these guidelines for different campaigns working on different principles.
 
So, again, thank you for the input and hopefully this information will be of use to someone reading this thread. If not, at least it's sorted me out for a while!

Like Hugh says, this is mostly just presenting the HERO mechanics differently, so I don't see it affecting gameplay that much. Building on your ideas, though, have you considered dividing all characteristics by 5 and making them the same as the modifiers? So a 10 in the old system would become +0, and for 5 points you could raise a characteristic by 1. You'd lose a bit of granularity, and you'd have to decide whether to put a cap on negative characteristics or not, but since figured characteristics are out in 6E everything seems to work out to multiples of 5 now.
 
Regardless of whether that's useful or not, I'm interested in hearing about your further ideas for this, particularly the expansion on Presence Attacks.
 
EDIT: And then my brain caught up to my mouth and remembered the 2d6 damage you start with from STR. So maybe have characteristics start at +2, and set target numbers to 12 by default? It loses a little of the aesthetic appeal, but otherwise I don't think that should break anything.

HERO: Skill Mechanics Rework v0.1
 
Goal: The goal of this document is rework and streamline the dice mechanics for HERO System in order to simplify and increase ease of use for new players. It is not looking to recreate systems from scratch but to use existing systems in slightly different ways to facilitate faster and smoother gameplay. However later versions my offer alternate system methods, but for how looking for something that can get into game usable states quickly.    Thank you for @Doc Democracy for the inspiration for many of these ideas from the examples character sheets posted and to everyone on the boards in earlier discussions on this!
 
 
Core Mechanic: In order to keep in current gaming trends and to streamline how dice rolls work in play, changing from Official HERO rolling to an additive system needing to equal or exceed a target number.
 
New Roll: 3d6 + Relevant Skill + Modifiers VS Target DC. (Base DC = 10)
11 or less on 3d6 is the same as 10 or higher on 3d6  
Combat Rolls (old): 11 + OCV – DCV = Number or Less on 3d6
- alternate this could be viewed as 11 + OCV – 3d6 = Target DCV hit.
 
Combat Rolls (new): 3d6 + OCV + Skill Levels + Modifiers = Target DCV
for this system DCV is calculated as normal but added to a base of 10 example: DCV 5 character would be DCV 15  
 
Skill Checks: Perform skill checks by the core mechanic (3d6 + Skill Level + Mods vs Target DC)
 
Difficulty Class: Base DC 10 modified by difficulty. Character needs to equal or exceed the target DC in order to succeeded.
 
DC By Task Difficulty: (these numbers need review, may need to modify by genre?)
Routine: 5-7 Easy: 8-9 Average: 10-11 Hard: 12-13 Extreme: 14-15 Folly: 16+  
Skill Conversion from normal HERO: for sake of conversion, the skill information will be converted from standard HERO System rules. Purchase as normal, then convert over to the new format after.
 
Skill rolls in the new system start at +0 for the equivalent of an 11- roll (BASE), each point under BASE roll is the equal to -1 on the skill roll and each point over BASE is equal to +1 skill roll.
 
Examples:
 
Everyman Skills: Standard HERO skill is 8- roll, new system is -3 skill roll

Standard Skills: Standard HERO skill is 11- roll, new system is +0 skill roll
 
Experienced Skills: Standard HERO skill is 13- roll, the new system is +2 skill roll
 
SKILL MODIFIERS: As in standard HERO there will be circumstances that will modify the skill DC or Skill Roll itself.
 
Bonuses: as per HERO – extra time, positive circumstances, etc – this are bonus that adds to your existing Skill Roll. GM will inform the player of the bonus at time of roll. Penalties: as per HERO – rushed attempt, lack of proper tools, poor circumstances, etc – these penalties will increase the Target DC by their amount.  
Example: Randall the Rogue is trying to pick the lock on the back door of shop during the middle of the night. Unfortunately his lock picks were confiscated earlier by the guards and so he is having to wing it. Randall's base Lockpicking (security systems) skill is +2 (13- in classic HERO) and he is taking taking extra time so the GM gives him +1 bonus. The lock is decent but nothing special, Average quality, so the GM decides the base DC is only 11, however due to the lack of lockpicks there would be a -2 penalty causing the final Target DC to be 13. Therefore Randall's player will be rolling 3d6 + Skill of 2 + Extra time bonus of 1 for a total of 3d6+3 and will need to get a total of 13 or higher.
 
Obviously all of this shakes out to being the same as classic hero expect that the players only have to worry about any bonuses they are given not the total of the penalties and will only have to roll and add. Looking this over I note that perhaps I need to rework the standard Skill Modifier chart to just make it all additive as well for ease of use. I am open to feedback there.
 
 
UPCOMING ADDITIONS:
 
Characteristics Contests: based on how STR rolls use BODY totals for Grabbing in combat. Working on expansion of this for dealing with things that would normally be handled by CHA skill rolls. Currently looking over things like Forcing Open doors, Initiative Ties, Reflex checks when two characters are both trying to grab same items.  
Presence Attacks: This is another stand alone system that is not utilized elsewhere. Not I am looking to see if there is a way to give this more weight... or at least way to use other stats the same way. Perhaps (for older editions) a way to make Comeliness Attacks in a similar vein. Open to ideas here.  Also trying to decide if PRE and EGO are defense or if that is too easy for Egoists to ignore PRE attacks.  
 
--One last note:  I would like to update this in the future without spamming new topics.  Is there a way to edit the starting post just later on, or can I only add new posts down the chain?

There should be three dots at the top right of your post.  Click that and Edit should be one of your choices.
 
Most of this just reworks the math into a different form, so no big deal.  You do need something to replace rolling half or under the target number, if you want to retain any of those rules. Doubling the DC isn't a practical alternative, I suspect.  Maybe a flat amount that the roll succeeds by?  Make the roll by 10?  That would allow an unskilled (-3 penalty) roll to achieve such a success on only a routine task.
 
As for PRE defense, I prefer EGO as the sole defense. There is no reason for an impressive person to not be easily impressed themselves, where a strong, disciplined mind seems more likely to see past the flash to the objective reality.

I also agree about the granularity aspect, but I also am in the camp that finds 3d30 to be unduly cumbersome and clunky.   
 
1 - It would be the ONLY place in HERO that does not use d6s  (d3 is the same and d6, lets be fair)
2 - It creates the need for players to buy specialty dice that do not come in any standard dice packs.  I don't even recall the last time I saw a d30 at any local game shops.  
3 - I have personal experience using just 1d30 back in houserules from the AD&D days... and they were HORRIBLE.   Dice the size of golf balls that roll and roll.... over half the time they would go right off the table and people would have to hunt them down.   The readable face is a little hard to identify given the size of the dice.    I shudder even trying to imagine keeping 3 of them active and controlled at table play.   (Sure this is just anecdotal... but this was a 3 year long game that played twice a month with average of 5-7 players... so not an inconsequential sample size.   And for the record, it NEVER really got much better as far as using them at table)

I agree with the coarse granularity of 3d6.
The problem becomes even greater for non-heroic level games, like Western Hero or Pulp Hero. If, Sam wraps tape around the grip of her .38, that should be worth something. Even a +1% is an acknowledgement of a player’s ingenuity and immersion.
 
I will need a week or so to look more closely at the 3d30 for skills. But I like the underlying reasoning.

STR does add to HKA and HA. That's a legacy thing from 1st through 6th Edition. I haven't seen anything better and since I use doubling and proration for both, I don't encounter any real issues in my mostly Supers games. They're three different powers but even though STR adds to HA and HKA just buying extra HA Or HKA will not let you lift more.
 
And it needs to be that way not for the sake of Supers but all the other genres Hero is good at.  Can you imagine if HKA and HA were separated from STR in a Fantasy setting? Kilmore the 25 STR  barbarian should do more damage than Meeka the 8 STR mage with a sword neither has any skill with.
 
You have to bow to logic here and implement it into your system in a way that doesn't kill game balance.  Hero does that pretty well by keeping the cost of a DC consistent across STR, HA and HKA. The only unfairness is that the free 10 STR benefits some concepts better than others. It could just as easily be fixed by giving the first 2 DC equivalents to any other power but that really makes Character Generation bookkeeping complicated.
 
 

See, if I was going to buy into this, I would have Deduction 3 reduce the moderate difficulty of 6 down to average difficulty 3, and then roll the standard 3 dice. It takes away the potential for the expert to roll a result of 12 but it better demonstrates the value of the skill. 
 
I would also not make the skilled character roll for an average difficulty task, their skill has reduced it to 0 difficulty, play into the competence...
 
GM: As you are walking through the Great Hall you can see there are doorways and galleries stretching away into shadowed recesses.
 
Player: Great place for an ambush, can I see any sign of one.
 
The GM knows there are 3 archers in two of the upper galleries (moderate difficulty check) and a more poorly hidden (average difficulty) swordsman lurking near a doorway.
 
GM: "what's your perception? 3?  Quite impressive!  You can see a swordsman near a doorway to your left, roll the dice to check if he has back up."

I agree.  While there probably is an argument that could be made the some things are over/under priced for their effect per edition, I think that many of the changes stem from some type of obsessive need to codify everything. No matter how minor.

The best example I can think of was how Instant Change was just it's own thing up through 4th Edition costing 5/10 points depending on just how much you could alter your clothing.   However starting in 5th edition it was removed and instead turned into something like Transform: 1d6 (a dozen modifiers and advantages/limitations)  that made the cost result to something like 6/12.    Was there REALLY a need to complicate things to that level and was the 1-2 point increase that vital to 'balance'?
 
It has been stated elsewhere in the boards but campaign limits to things like DC and DEF are much more balancing than point costs overall.   In fact, you could probably grab a villain character sheet from as far bac as 3rd edition and just run them in a 6e game as is and it would usually function just fine.   Certainly the 4th edtion ones....   The same goes for PCs made in different editions, there is really only a very small grouping of abilities that had massive overhauls.

I never quite understood this one either. In the games I've been working on, I've brought back a variation of the 4th ed Instant Change and made it a Talent. 

While adding more modifiers might be the way to go.  It is also something that you could just establish as -0 Limitations that are just the "ground rules" for how the system works.   As long as all mental powers are used in this manner, they are less game mechanic limits and more just the Rules of The Game.
 
This will also clarify to players how the abilities work ahead of time.

I agree.  While there probably is an argument that could be made the some things are over/under priced for their effect per edition, I think that many of the changes stem from some type of obsessive need to codify everything. No matter how minor.

The best example I can think of was how Instant Change was just it's own thing up through 4th Edition costing 5/10 points depending on just how much you could alter your clothing.   However starting in 5th edition it was removed and instead turned into something like Transform: 1d6 (a dozen modifiers and advantages/limitations)  that made the cost result to something like 6/12.    Was there REALLY a need to complicate things to that level and was the 1-2 point increase that vital to 'balance'?
 
It has been stated elsewhere in the boards but campaign limits to things like DC and DEF are much more balancing than point costs overall.   In fact, you could probably grab a villain character sheet from as far bac as 3rd edition and just run them in a 6e game as is and it would usually function just fine.   Certainly the 4th edtion ones....   The same goes for PCs made in different editions, there is really only a very small grouping of abilities that had massive overhauls.

I agree.  While there probably is an argument that could be made the some things are over/under priced for their effect per edition, I think that many of the changes stem from some type of obsessive need to codify everything. No matter how minor.

The best example I can think of was how Instant Change was just it's own thing up through 4th Edition costing 5/10 points depending on just how much you could alter your clothing.   However starting in 5th edition it was removed and instead turned into something like Transform: 1d6 (a dozen modifiers and advantages/limitations)  that made the cost result to something like 6/12.    Was there REALLY a need to complicate things to that level and was the 1-2 point increase that vital to 'balance'?
 
It has been stated elsewhere in the boards but campaign limits to things like DC and DEF are much more balancing than point costs overall.   In fact, you could probably grab a villain character sheet from as far bac as 3rd edition and just run them in a 6e game as is and it would usually function just fine.   Certainly the 4th edtion ones....   The same goes for PCs made in different editions, there is really only a very small grouping of abilities that had massive overhauls.

If I had to guess, the No Range is included mechanically is to simulate that you can only use the ability when speaking to those around you, instead of say 50m away like you could with normal Mental Powers.
 
I do not have my books at hand to look up the rules on Mental Powers but do you not also need to include a limitation for "must be able to speak / target must understand language" for these?   The whole thing is that you must be talking to convince/manipulate someone with this system.   You could perhaps even make a case that the powers need Extra Time modifiers since a proper speech usually takes more than a short sentence or two to sway someone.

I just had an idea for warriors!  D&D had the Book of Nine Swords.  Different styles that gave you almost magical abilities with your weapons.  There were Stances, Strikes, Boosts, Blocks, Counters.  Blocks are already in FH.  A Counter is what it seems, a counterstrike when someone attacks.  It is the strikes, boosts, and stances that almost go over the top.   Some I remember:
 
Fire Wurm- a full move that leaves a trail of fire behind you! (FH 2d6 RKA only along run path + Extra Running)
Fire Sword - for the rest of the melee, your blade is on fire and deals extra damage (FH +1d6 RKA, no range linked to HKA)
Healing Stance- you regen 1d6 hp per round of combat (FH Heal 1d6 At post 12 recovery)
Healing Strike - Hit an opponent, heal yourself (FH 2d6 Heal linked to HKA)
Diamond Strike - do a touch attack, hit for full damage (FH hit opponent and disregard any armour-PD-ED.  So it turns your attack to a NND does Body)
 
 
 
 

That looks like a great solution to the battlemap question, and much more artistic than I could manage. If you don't mind my asking, how many points are your players working with? And how are you handling the conversion of D&D monsters to HERO - are you using some sort of system, or do you just substitute whatever seems reasonable? Hope your second session goes well!

They are made by a company named Role 4 Initiative. 

It sometimes gets to the point where I figure that, if the rules worked one way in that edition and another in this one, and presumably people were happy enough playing both versions, then the game won't fall apart completely if I tweak a few things. I think the game's precision can sometimes be misleading, where people assume that the specific points costs for abilities mean that the ability must be worth that much, and not one point more or less. Actually, I think the game is much more flexible than it can sometimes appear to new players, and these slight changes through its lifetime are my proof of that.

Oh boy!  A thread made for me!   
 
 
 
And, if memory serves, _only_ in Fantasy HERO (I will have to go crawling the bookshelf to confirm that), which has led to I-can't-keep-up-with-how-many conversations revolving around it being impossible to knock someone down without martial arts, because only then does something say "target falls. '. Knocked' em down to-30 Stun?  Well, too bad; you don't have martial arts, he wobbles around on his get, unconscious, but still standing.  You'll just have to shoot around him. 
 
 
 
 
I don't get that, either.  I can see it changing, the same way Haymaker did, but I don't get why it wasn't forwarded. 
 
Except I kind of do. 
 
I am going to blame it on a combination of Aaron Alston and the absolute mania that tabletop gamers seem to have for martial arts.  Once his truly-inspirational idea for a one-off campaign-- modify skill levels and pretend they are individual maneuvers, rip elements out of the standard maneuvers and tie them to these martial skill levels-was legitimized as _the_ HERO way to do things (not saying it isn't a lovely idea; I am just not pretending it is something that it isn't), suddenly common, everyday brawling maneuvers-things third graders instinctively know how to do-were reserved as "martial.  You have to buy that martial." 
 
It's the same problem HERO has had since it was just Champions:  there are going to be those people who think along the lines that "if it is _possible_ to pay points for it, then you _must_ pay points for it.  It's the flamethrower thing all over again: yes; that is your Ed energy blast, but if you want it to set things on fire, then you have to also buy a transform, otherwise that giant pool of crude oil is perfectly safe. ". (the backdoor, of course, is a side-effect: may set flammable things on fire, which rebates points, so we get right back to the" points don't mean squat, balance-wise" discussion). 
 
Honestly, after Ninja HERO, I am pleasantly surprised we can still punch without having buy it martial. 
 
Seriously!  Think about all the things kids do instinctively when fighting: the tackle, they slap, they grab, they hold, they choke, they bite, they kick-- you know what they don't do? They don't punch!  Most of them don't even learn how to make a fist with their thumbs on the outside until they see it often enough, someone shows them, or they dislocate their thumb. 
 
Wierdly, all of those maneuvers are martial, and punching is not. 
 
 
Hold suffered a "roll into" problem.  These days (since 4e, I think, but again, I would have to crawl the bookshelf) it is just assumed to be a part of grab.  The problem is that in reality, grab is...  Awkward.  It is a quick maneuver to take someone off guard or pull them off balance or even just get their attention. 
 
You have to grab and then hold., realistically, and just because you grabbed them didn't mean you weren't going to take a poke or three to face or one to the groin before you managed to actually get a hold on them. 
 
In a fight, and once upon a time in Hero, you could grab, then hold, or grab, then punch, or grab, then choke, or grab, then throw, but somewhere along the way someone who maybe didn't fight a lot growing up thought 'well, of course you are going to hold them; what else would you do?' 
 
And that was the end of that. 
 
Man, you could even do a Grab By, and if you were running full-tilt across the room, there was no way you were going to put a hold on them.  A grab is really nothing more than a maneuver to get your opponent off-balance (either literally, for a good shove, or figuratively, throwing his game off) and dropping his DCV a bit to give you better odds with your next maneuver (which is now hold, period).
 
 
 
Not from this perspective, looking backwards from Grab and Hold rolled into one; not, it does not make sense.  But once upon a time, you could do more than just squeeze them after you put the grab on them.  Grab an arm with one hand and slam them with the other, grab them and shove them into a wall, grab them by the head and jam your things into their eyes (which you can know only do with Martial arts, as it adds a 'flash' element or something; I don't know....) 
 
_or_ grab them and attempt to put a hold on them.  Or-a perrinial favorite: grab them and go into that haymaker. 
 
 
 
 
Got out of hand; became awesome.... Tomato, tomahto..... 
 

 
As it was only found in Champions, I always took it to be available as either someone's Schick, or for knocking down doors justicely.  You know: before "Tunneling" became the way to knock down a door (or pick the lock, if you choose 'fills in behind me').  Maybe that facial-tick-inducing build came about because kick had gone away. 
 
 
 
You can _now_.  In fact, that is pretty much all you can, if you don't have high STR or superpowers to either zap them or squeeze them. 
 
 
 
 
Respectful disagreement.  Every high-school boy knows that a punch to the throat is brutal, as is a punch to the side of the neck, or a kick to the side of the knee, and lots of other things just as bad.  Whether or not they choose to do these things in a fight is more a matter of how brutal they can really bring themselves to be.  Seriously: a lifetime of "don't hit people" and "use your words" really does have an effect.  With that in your background, you can probably still get threatened enough or enraged enough to trade a few punches, but there is a psychological line you have to cross before you can willingly cripple someone.  Most people won't do it if they can stay alive without doing it (and that gives me hope, overall). 
 
But it is a bit like being a serial killer: pretty much everyone on earth knows how to kill another human being.  Actually doing it has more to do with who you are and what lines you won't cross than it does any sort of ancient school of training or wizened old men on mountain tops. 
 
 
I was going to give an anecdotal  example of this, but I cannot find a single bit of news coverage on it-not surprising; it involved minors, and there was no internet. 
 
Back in the mid to late 80s, I lived in Liberty County, Georgia.  There was a call-out fight between two high school students.  I remember one of them was a local DJ named Mike (called himself 'Stanto Jay' or some such on the radio and a tiny kid who went by the nickname Tojo, and he was 'known' to be a problem Al over town. 
 
They got in a fight and Tojo scammed Mike out to some teen hangout spot, so he went, and he was a 'use your words' kid, and kept trying to talk the situation down.  According to witnesses, the entire time Mike was talking, trying to reason with him, the little guy pulled an aluminum bat from his car, walked over to Mike, and beat his head in, then left. 
 
I don't know how it came out ultimately, but I know Mike was still a drooling vegetable a couple of years later.  (and these are the things that extinguish that hope).
 
Even kids know what lethal is.  Whether or not they go that far is a matter of who they are. 
 
 
 
Good thoughts.  I just made it require a full phase and called it good. 
 
 
 
Agreed on structure: it's a sacrifice move-through or move-by.  Respectfully disagree on makinf it martial, however, unless one of the kids I grew up was a well-disguised Master Sifu teaching us how to play Smear the - -  look, I am going to leave that there; I rather hope it has a new name these days, but I know kids still play it: one kid has the Thing (usually a nerf football, for some reason) and all the other kids tackle him and keep jumping on until there is a dog pile wrestling to get the Thing, and whoever gets it takes off running until everyone figures it out.   At any rate, at least for those of us for whom childhood play didn't involve a screen (I know I ain't the only old fart here, by cracky!), tackling is an everyman ability. 
 
 
 
Quite a lot, actually.  Those modifiers are the reason my players would typically line up kicks instead of haymakers.
 
 
  
 
I laugh because when the Haymaker change came out, we _sort of_ incorporated it.... 
 
 
By that I mean that we changed kick to be +50 percent _up to 4d6_, and left Haymaker alone.  Still play it that way, actually.  It just seemed more "right," especially if you have actually tried kicking something apart.  Sure, your legs are much stronger than your arms, but outside of actual martial (and possibly gymnastic) training, you just aren't that good at bringing them to bear and keeping your feet, so you don't do a _lot_ of extra damage, just enough to notice. 
 
 
 
 
 
Just a total swag on my part, but possibly because you were only going to gain a die or a die and a half?  It didn't really help you break down doors (Killing Strike did, though!), so it is possible the authors saw no need for Killing Strike, Kick, and Haymaker.  Remember that for all of its universality, at the lower levels, HERO isn't really granular enough to justify a lot of identical-damage maneuvers.   Probably why most guns in our games were listed on the character sheet as 'gun.' without any particular regard for what sort of gun it was.  Even the seller Guns! Guns! Guns! Supplement did little but demonstrate how depressingly pointless it was to stress variations. 
 
 
We were disappointed.  We did take some inspiration from the Haymaker, and kept kick anyway. 
 
 
 
 
 
Went over somehow above, but I am having editing issues with the new keyboard, so.... 
 
Which makes it a normal or standard maneuver: anyone willing to jump face-first at another human can do it. 
 
 
And they were AWESOME! 
 
Thank you again for that! 
 
 
 
They do now; yes.  When Killing Strike was still around, there was no Ninja HERO, and most certainly no HERO System Martial Arts.  There was just martial arts: here is some extra damage, and you have unlocked the maneuvers that say "martial" on them. 
 
That was it.  Since anyone could kick a knee or punch a throat (the one maneuver that I never saw and always wanted to was dropkick.    ), it wasn't considered Martial. 
 
 
 
Ooh!  This sounds interesting!  If you haven't by the time I have finished this, go on a bit more about this idea.  I am very curious to know your thoughts on this. 
 
 
 
This is pretty spot-on.  Though we might consider two options: a move-by that ends with both prone as well as a move-through.  Sometimes the object is to catch them without roughing them up more than necessary. 
 
Ultimately, though, a tackle ends in a hold.  Both are knocked down; yes, but the entire point of a tackle is to stop them by restraining them. 
 
 
 
Eh.  You only get hurt the first time you try it, barring getting kicked in the face.  After that, you realize you should land on top of the guy, and not throw yourself at the ground next to him.  And, as mentioned above, it really isn't a stand-alone maneuver: the thing that makes it a tackle _instead of a move-by or - through is that it ends in a hold.  Both prone, yes, but with one of them holding the other. 
 
Those folks who find validity to the HERO Martial Arts seem to be focusing on the falls and the damage but not the "hold" part.  A tackle is itself a flying grab-by more than it is anything else. 
 
Agreed.  A move-through in a tackle is called "clipping," and will cost your team some yards.  ;). Seriously, though: I agree that move-by is a better model, as in particular, the goal is to restrain someone and not actually kill them. There is more "damage" from the fall than from the impact (unless you are clipping, which is why it is illegal). 
 
 
Now _this_ I can really get behind!  With the Tackle ending in a hold and the Trample ending in a....  Well, I can't say Grab anymore for you later-edition guys, as they are now one and the same, but still, I do like the distinction that one is intended to capture and restrain and one is intended to deliver injury. 
 
 
 
Sorry about that; somehow, I have an extra quote box. 
 
 
Dude, that was...  Brutal.  Ugh. 
 
 

How does any of this actually pertain to Hero as written? Doesn't much of what's being discussed here technically change the system beyond what we're using? How would rolling extra dice slow down play any more than, say, rolling damage? To me, it looks like we're changing some of the basic rules of Hero. 

Introduced in FH for Fifth Edition, "New Talents" section, pp. 107-108. I don't have the Sixth Edition book(s), so can't say for certain whether, where, or how it appears there. But I'd be surprised if it's not there, and it shouldn't be substantially different.

I'm hearing far too much complication for the sake of very little gain.  You'd have a totally different system.  The roll's based on Target Number OR LESS, so how would adding dice even work?  What's the target number, how does a characteristic play into it?  If the skill check stays the same and you have to make multiple checks, that slows play down tremendously.
 
I've played Storyteller, Shadowrun, and some L5R with exploding dice and Roll X, Keep Y.  I'm not entirely convinced any of them are an *improvement*...and all of them use notably different underpinnings.  Some of em might even make really good supers systems, if you strip out the genre stuff and use the supers environment of your choice.  (Golden Age, SIlver Age, more modern comic, urban fantasy generally, or a specific supers universe from a book series, as most have their quirks.)  But I don't want to cobble an approach from any of them, into a structure that wasn't intended to use it.