Tasha

One thing that would make Hero and the various supplements FAR easier to understand would be for each of the published game worlds to CHOOSE a starting POWERLEVEL (points, DC, CV, defense etc). Then support that powerlevel in the books. There would be a section talking abouit how to increase the campaign's powerlevel as PCs gain Exp. Defining that set of variables would make creating a character MUCH easier. Seeing as many many Hero campaigns don't seem to increase their powerlevels much, you can then rely on that powerlevel when buying/writing supplements.

One problem that the system has had though the years are supplements that are all over the place for powerlevels. So a Dark Champions Supplement could be street level supers with a power or two, or a full power superhero adventure that has a more street focus. Things like Champions powers become less understandable because it tries to be any powerlevel. Champions Villains have many many villains who are way too powerful for a 'Standard' campaign.

Corea made an ass out of himself on his website way before he started playing games with the Hugos.

Last I checked Both Game Kastle in Fremont CA, and Gator Games in San Mateo had the Hardcover in stock. They usually get stocked with other games because there's nothing on the spine to ID it as being Hero System compatable,

The MHI dice are just big D6's with the MHI Logo on one face. They are nowhere near as functional as the Blue and Black Hero System dice. Also the MHI dice are this shitty looking white and green speckle. UGLY. Probably should have sold my book to Half Price books. I don't think I opened it to look at it after I bought it. So Hero Games got my cash on that one, but I have never bought another book by Corea.

Since first edition Fantasy Hero and the First large Package Deals. I have often wondered if the system was looking at Disads/Complications all wrong. I DO hate how Lowering Stats, buying off Running, Senses etc are treated as "free disads" ie they lower the cost of your character, but Disads were something that added points to the character. Mathmatically they seem to do the same thing, but it gets weird when you have a package deal with sells off stats and other things, but also comes with Disads. The sell off items are only limited by what you want to sell off. Disads are limited by Campaign limits. This is the ONLY reason that I have any problem with Disads.
 
I am all for games that give incentives for Players to take weaknesses for their characters. In my huge experience, Players don't want to take ANY thing that will weaken their character. So if you don't give them an incentive to do so, they won't. I agree that in Previous editions of Hero (pre 6e) Players were asked to buy way too many Disadvantages. I do like that in 6e the number of Complications asked for is MUCH lower (Probably a bit too low, YMMV). I know that asking for 50-75 pts of Disads for a 400-500pt PC isn't that much to ask for. The Reason that the PC gets those extra points is because they are adding something to the campaign. They are helping me to write adventures for them. They are telling me who the important NPC's are for them (Villain, DNPC, and NPC alike). They are even asking me for adventures that challenge their PC's morals (ie adventures that trip their Psych Limits) and their Physical Challenges (ie Very heavy, blind etc). These are all things that I may not have thought about myself or even if I did they probably wouldn't take that form.
 
The Roleplay DNA podcast Talks about disads and Hero points/Bennies and how they find them to be an invaluable aid to their Roleplaying and Worldbuilding as a whole.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-002-yippee-ki-yay/id515837046?i=124790863&mt=2
or here
http://p5productions.com/roleplaydna/2012/05/01/episode-002-yippee-ki-yay-2/

Also if you play alot having Hero Designer will make your life very much easier. It makes characters, computers, vehicles etc. Also it will print out Combat Record sheets (with all of the PC's phases with characters in Dex order).

Intelligence measures ability to process information, and perception rolls are often made for characters to notice something inobvious, which sounds like processing information to me.
Animals and creatures with low intelligence and good senses of course have this simulated with Enhanced Senses. The bumbling genius could be simulated with a Disadvantage.
Your argument for CON makes some amount of sense, but you're still going to have situations in which a high CON character should have low perception, and cases in which a low CON character should have high perception. While INT doesn't necessarily perfectly correlate with the level of perception desired, no stat will.
Based on the way that INT and PER are defined, I think they fit pretty well. Also, another reason not to base PER on a stat like CON or DEX is that those stats already have so many combat benefits, additional benefits don't need to be associated with them. (Especially DEX- it's already useful enough.) My thoughts fall into the not broken, don't fix category.

Bonus DCV won't work any more than a regular or martial dodge. Dive For Cover and Flying Dodge both allow for movement as an Abort. If the character can move far enough or behind cover they can escape the Area of Effect.
 
HM

Creating Hero System Characters 101

I am tired of posting pieces of this in other threads. This is the process I go through when I create a character. It includes the "campaign reality check" stuff to check your stats, defenses and other stuff to make sure that you aren't a total wimp or too powerful

http://tashasbraindump.blogspot.com/2010/09/creating-hero-system-characters-101.html Where I posted this first.

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Creating Hero System Characters 101
It is pretty common for someone to look at the Hero System rule book and be totally overwhelmed by the options inside. Usually first characters are a mish mash of powers of wildly varying powerlevels and are not really suited for play. After seeing this come up time and time again on the Hero Games forums I thought that it was time for me to try and answer this question once and for all. So I created this little tutorial and guide.


1) Learn everything possible about the campaign.
ie What Genre, What kind of adventures will be run (ie Action, Political, soap opera etc). Does it take place in one spot (ie one city) or will there be travel? How often will characters be engaging in combat? How serious is the game (is it comedy, Tragedy, high drama or something in-between?)These questions give you a direction for the design of your character. It will allow you to make a character that will fit within the GM's campaign.

2) Come up with a basic idea of what the character is beyond adventuring.
ie Marine Corps Sniper, High Society Socialite, College Professor, News Reporter etc. This gives your character a life outside of adventuring and gives greater depth to their background. This step also can give you ideas for people who may be attached to the character both for good or bad (ie a Dependent or a person Hunting the PC) Write these ideas down.

3) Now work on the character's Adventuring side.
Wizard, Healing Priest, Person turned into metal, Thief/Rogue, Person who can create fire effects, Warrior. Be general at this point, specifics come next. Also think about quirks that will make this character different from any other character of your type(s)

4) Take those generalities and be more specific.
Write out what the character can do in plain english (don't even worry about opening a rule book yet). This step is VERY important for Super Heroes and for Spell Casters. Done right this will both help with writing up powers and will suggest weaknesses.Make sure that this list shows what you want your powers to DO. Fiery Body from being possessed by flame elemental is a good start, but you need to write down specifics of what the Character does with that Fiery body. The more specific and detailed the writeup the easier it will come to write up powers.
ie Fireperson the flaming superhero
a. Can project bolts of fire
b. Body's fiery aura can vaporize bullets and is resistant to heat effects
c. Being made of fire makes character lighter than air and allows her to fly
d. can see heat (ie Infrared Vision)
5) Discover the power level of the campaign.
You need the Point levels of the campaign (ie 350pt supers, 150pt Heroic normals).
Find how powerful should your attacks be (ie 10d6, AKA DC10, AKA 50pt attacks) and also the average and maximum Active Point values allowed for any power. Then find what the Dex and SPD range is and what the average number for both of those are. Average and maximum OCV, DCV, OMCV, and DMCV (for 5e players the last two are Mental combat values). Maximum and average PD and ED also maximums for unusual defenses (ie Power def, Mental def, Flash Def). The average is important as it tells you what most PCs should have for that ability, so you can decide whether your character should be above or below that value.


6) Start writing the character up using the rules.
This is where you open your Rule books and Genre books. I recommend starting with skills. See if you can find a writeup of your profession in the genre book. Most of the professions have some sort of package that lists out skills (and complications) that are appropriate for that profession. You may think of more. Next work on Perks (things like favors, contacts and licences), Go onto Talents, then Powers. When you start to write up powers go back to your list of what your powers should do, then find the power in the book that best fits that writeup. Start with the abilities that translate easy. (ie Can project bolts of fire; sounds like either a Blast or a Killing Attack Ranged or it can be both if you like).
b. This is also a good time to buy Int and Presence. Keep in mind that 3s and 8s are breakpoints and will save you points.

7) Now balance the character so they fall within the points budget.
This is a great time to see if some of the powers can be purchased in a Multipower. Also think of limitations on your powers. ie"Power requires a Roll" is a good limit for beginning heroes. Also think of weakness in those powers. ie Fire powers probably don't work under water or in Vacuum. This a good time to lower stats that you were kind of wishing for but don't break the character's concept to lower (ie Presence can be a good stat to lower). If you cant come under budget, then go onto the next step. You might find ways to save more points in the proofing stage

8) Proof the character vs campaign limits and power levels.
These question are to reality check the character so they aren't a total wimp or over-powered.

a. Do I have at least 1 attack power that is straight up dice of damage? (ie Strength, Energy Blast or Ego Attack). This means one attack power that has no advantages like NND, Armor Piercing, Penetrating etc. If your powers all have gimmicks you can find yourself in situations where the character cannot damage their opponent(s) at all, which can make for a frustrating gaming experience.

b. Are my defenses = 2x to 2.5x the average damage dice (AKA Damage Class) being thrown in the game? (ie if the campaign is based on 50pt (10d6 powers), then I should have from 20-30 Defenses.

c. Can the PC take one attack at campaign average Damage Class with an average damage roll and not be stunned? (ie have my Con Score exceeded by damage taken after defenses) 1d6 does 3.5 average stun. so 3.5 x 10d6 = 35 stun on average - PD or ED (lets go with 20) and you take 15 stun which means that you need 16 Con to not be stunned by an average hit (round to 18 to take advantage of figured chars).

d. Do I have enough STUN to take 2 - 3 average attacks? ie using the numbers above the character takes 15 STUN per hit and should have 30 STUN to 45 STUN

e. Do I have enough End to use my most common attack + end using defenses + movement for one full turn? ie ((Sum Attack End Cost + Defense End Cost + Movement End cost/2)* SPD). Your movement end is halved is because you take half moves during any phase you attack.
f. Do I have a movement power that is faster than 12m/phase? or is moving slowly ok for the character concept. There is nothing more annoying in a Champions game than being the only character that is moving base movement. In a Heroic level game even moving a couple of meters more than base can be a huge advantage.

g. If your character has ego powers remember to have Mental Defense at 2x to 2.5x the dice of Mental Attack (not the dice of Telepathy or the other mental powers). The character should have around 20-30 Ego and OMCV and DMCV around 5-7. Most people never buy their DMCV above the base of 3 or their ego above 10. You can bank on this being true in all campaigns with the exception of ones that are all mentalist based. So take advantage of that fact to save points. For Telepathy, Mind Scan, Mental Illusions, and Mind control, you can reality check these by using the formula 3.5 x dice rolled -10 (avg ego). On a 10d6 attack you roll a 35 on average, subtract 10 for avg ego and get 25 which means that you get +20 effect on most rolls (with a -1 on breakout rolls on +20 effects to boot). 6d6 averages 21 which gets +10 vs most targets

h. Your CV scores should be at least campaign average. OCV should be at campaign average or average +1

i. This is a good time to buy any other Characteristics that I haven't talked about above.

9) Does the character still fit the points budget?
If you are under budget go onto Complications/Disadvantages the next step. If not, then really look hard at all of your powers and skills and see if there is something that can be cut (and purchased later when you get exp). Also, see if there is some other limitation you can place on your powers to help lower points.

10) Start putting together your Character's Complications (AKA Disadvantages).
Go back through your notes and see if any complications jump out at you. If the PC was a crusading lawyer or reporter perhaps some criminal is hunting the character. Perhaps you know that the character is curious, and/or has strong convictions against killing. Perhaps that body of flame has a weakness against cold attacks. Complications are good for the character. They give the GM something to grasp onto to help write adventures that involve the character beyond just being there. Don't be afraid to have that weakness to alien glowing rocks, or Ice attacks, have a sweet curious Aunt May, or a Wife/Husband,Girlfriend/Boyfriend. These things make your character interesting, not your powers and skills. If you are really hurting for ideas go to this site, it's a real nice resource for Physical, and Psychological Complications along with Social Complications Masterlist of Limitations
http://www.cellularsmoke.net/rpgs/masterlistdisads.php
or
http://masterlistsofcomplications.wikia.com/wiki/The_Master_List_of_Complications_Wiki

    a)Write your Compications all down in plain English just like you did for your powers. Open the book to the Complications Section (or Disadvantages if playing 5eR or earlier).
    Use the things you wrote down and see what Complications from the book fit best.

11) Transcribe the Character onto a character sheet Make one copy for you and one for your GM. If you use a program like Hero Designer it can make the whole process easier by taking the math out of the equation for you. Check it out on the Hero Games Web store. It’s inexpensive and makes character generation very easy. It also works for making both 5th Edition and 6th Edition characters.

12) Go through your notes and write down your character’s background.
ie Job, what the character did before they started adventuring. It can be anything from a bullet pointed list of events to a short story. Make sure the GM recieves that background along with the Hero system character sheet. You are done and if you have followed all of the steps you should have a well-rounded character that isn't a total wimp. Who can contribute inside and outside of combat, and has a background that the GM can use to write better adventures

Congratulations you have finished your character!

Corea made an ass out of himself on his website way before he started playing games with the Hugos.

Last I checked Both Game Kastle in Fremont CA, and Gator Games in San Mateo had the Hardcover in stock. They usually get stocked with other games because there's nothing on the spine to ID it as being Hero System compatable,

The MHI dice are just big D6's with the MHI Logo on one face. They are nowhere near as functional as the Blue and Black Hero System dice. Also the MHI dice are this shitty looking white and green speckle. UGLY. Probably should have sold my book to Half Price books. I don't think I opened it to look at it after I bought it. So Hero Games got my cash on that one, but I have never bought another book by Corea.

Corea made an ass out of himself on his website way before he started playing games with the Hugos.

Last I checked Both Game Kastle in Fremont CA, and Gator Games in San Mateo had the Hardcover in stock. They usually get stocked with other games because there's nothing on the spine to ID it as being Hero System compatable,

The MHI dice are just big D6's with the MHI Logo on one face. They are nowhere near as functional as the Blue and Black Hero System dice. Also the MHI dice are this shitty looking white and green speckle. UGLY. Probably should have sold my book to Half Price books. I don't think I opened it to look at it after I bought it. So Hero Games got my cash on that one, but I have never bought another book by Corea.

On the one hand, bat'leths are stupid.  On the other hand, for inventing a Klingon-looking weapon out of thin air, and creating something that looks like a martial art to go with it, I have to give credit to the creators.  There are real-life martial arts weapons that are stupider than a bat'leth.

IIRC, there's a YouTube video explaining why Bat'leths are stupid.

Scott, my man, 
 
that is just freakin' _amazing_.
 
Dude!
 
 
 

That’s a classic John Byrne costume look! Very 1982. But yeah, never mess with a good design. 

In college , I shifted from Fine Art, to Industrial Design, and loved it. I was still playing Champions with the same group, but I learned new art techniques in college, such as the then, in vogue, Syd Meade style, Marker/colored pencil/ crushed chalk concept rendering, a style made obsolete by the adoption of Photoshop, when the first color Macintosh came on the scene a few years later. 
 
The character was was kind of forgettable, a flying psychic brick, built wildly inefficiently and played maybe twice, but people would always pause and look at the art when paging through the binder. 
 

Some very cool art there.

I don't have any 1e character sheets surviving. That's partly because I've never used official character sheets for any game.

Okay, since you asked, here is my second Champions character. This is MegaLord from our short lived “Lords of S. T. A. R. “ supergroup. No, I don’t remember what S. T. A. R. Stood for, but ever character was (______) Lord. Mine was the brick, as that was the easiest to build. I am honest about this, I was so math-traded, that until the original Heromaker, I had to have lots of help making them work. Here Bob McCarty helped me with this. 

Firestorm was in my writing. The name was blank, when I was handed the character. He was a flame elemental, so I thought Firestorm fit. Then one of the other players leaned over and said, “You know there’s a DC character called Firestorm, right?”  Being a Marvel reader at that time, I had been unaware. Still after that first game, I was unaware. 
 
I don't know what the level of interest is, but I could show a couple of early characters. I also hit a trove of early Hero rule books. No adventures, as I was a player, not a GM, but I seemed to have most ofvthe core books up through Dark Champions. I even found a still boxed and shrink wrapped copy of Justice Inc. 

So I have recently completed a move, to a place largr enough to not need storage. So I have bern unpacking many boxes of books. Along with finding all of my old gaming books, I found my character binder.  Inside was the original Hero flyer announcing Champions, and also the character handed to me by either Bruce or Ray, for a game GMed by Steve Peterson an that convention back in 1981. I present it to you in the interests of the historical record. 

I think we already have Striking Appearance.
 
I also think it's easy to write up something like this:
Striking Appearance - On Strike:  (Total: 3 Active Cost, 1 Real Cost) +1/+1d6 Striking Appearance (vs. all characters) (3 Active Points); Limited Power No bonus to Skills (-1) (Real Cost: 1)
 
Lucius Alexander
 
Oh Wow, where'd it go? That beast just used a striking DISappearance to make an ABSENCE attack!
 

Just to approach this laterally: 
If a character had nothing but mental attacks, would you object to them selling back their OCV? 
What about a character who only had Close AOE attacks, and thus would never need to make an attack roll, selling back both OCV and OMCV? 

NPCs encountered
13 Black, a Cyberkinetic Uplifted Housecat.
13 Black's Clone Children- Simiilar powerset to 13 Black, but weaker as they are still kittens.
Fury a Teleporting Martial Artist, who creates wormhole between places
 

For Session Zero:
The PCs were riding home on Public Transit and were passing though the Port of Oakland. When a huge explosion of Black energy engulfs the train. They ee a white flash behind their eyes and pass our.

The PCs awake in a Hospital Room with no windows. Hooked up to IVs and monitoring machines. With a LARGE Kitten on their bed mind speaking with them urging them to awaken. The PCs do so, go out in the hall to meet the other PCs and a Very Large (large Bobcat/Lynx) sized black cat. Who explains to them that they were discovered during a rescue for the Kittens. They were recognized as the survivors of the commuter train accident a year ago and were added to the list of people that needed rescuing. On the way out security robot dogs attack the escapees. The PCs use powers they didn't know they had to defeat the security bots and then leave the facility. Met at the shoreline by and Established Superheroine Fury, who teleports them to a Superteam's base located at the former Alameda Naval Air Station.

GM comments:
The players had very sketched out PCs at the beginning of all of this. So what they had was basic and evolving. The experienced players picked up the rules quickly despite not having played since 4th edition. The true noobies picked up the rules quickly. Thanks to "hero in 2 Pages" and someone's Hero System Survival guide. The session was short due to the early character gen and campaign setup.

For Session Zero:
The PCs were riding home on Public Transit and were passing though the Port of Oakland. When a huge explosion of Black energy engulfs the train. They ee a white flash behind their eyes and pass our.

The PCs awake in a Hospital Room with no windows. Hooked up to IVs and monitoring machines. With a LARGE Kitten on their bed mind speaking with them urging them to awaken. The PCs do so, go out in the hall to meet the other PCs and a Very Large (large Bobcat/Lynx) sized black cat. Who explains to them that they were discovered during a rescue for the Kittens. They were recognized as the survivors of the commuter train accident a year ago and were added to the list of people that needed rescuing. On the way out security robot dogs attack the escapees. The PCs use powers they didn't know they had to defeat the security bots and then leave the facility. Met at the shoreline by and Established Superheroine Fury, who teleports them to a Superteam's base located at the former Alameda Naval Air Station.

GM comments:
The players had very sketched out PCs at the beginning of all of this. So what they had was basic and evolving. The experienced players picked up the rules quickly despite not having played since 4th edition. The true noobies picked up the rules quickly. Thanks to "hero in 2 Pages" and someone's Hero System Survival guide. The session was short due to the early character gen and campaign setup.

I could not figure any of that out, so I just bought the powers straight, or whined to my fellow players to fix it. I consistently failed math in school and can’t do any math outside of my former profession. 

Agree.The diminished returns on disadvantages, the endurance reduction as half each time you buy it, various other aspects of 3rd seems hard to make a herodesigner template or mod to cover.