Tasha

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.

As a player I prefer pencil and paper to build characters. 
 
As a GM, Hero Designer is a favorite tool and I am really missing it while building up my 4th Ed game. 
 
While I know it will never happen and do understand why.  The appearance of 3rd and 4th edition support would be a fantastic thing if it ever magically happened.  
 
HD is probably the reason I keep circling back to 5th Ed.
 
 

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.

The only characters disadvantaged by low OMCV are mentalists. I am talking Golden Age superheroes here. There will be mental combat but for someone with no offensive mental capabilities selling back OMCV has no drawbacks.
 
Obviously I could contrive points where this brick might have to use OMCV but it would indeed be (and look) contrived.

Is this the only characteristic, in which losing some of it does not disadvantage a character? Would you allow it to be sold off? How would you make that impact the character in-game?

Hero Designer is customizable enough that it could almost work better than Heromaker, I think.  
 
Otherwise, nothing beyond spreadsheets.

Yes, Mark Williams too.  He's sort of the first-gen iconic Champions artist!  

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

George Perez covers, Storn Cook, Denis Loubet (Champions Cardboard heroes).
 

Nice! Great to see someone pull the ol' boots on again.

 

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

Yeah, but you have to LOVE fiddling with the math behind allocating pool points to a number of powers.

Fixed slots you just choose the abilities and that's pretty much all of the math you have to do. Kind of EC that you can only use one power at a time.

I use fixed slots for characters that have a number of powers that aren't ever used at the same time. Usually thematically linked in their special effect (ie having a Blast, Darkness, Barrier and a Flash that are all based on wind special effects, but nothing that might not want to use together.
 

What is a build sheet? Is this the old list of character conception questions from the early years?

Brian
I would seriously suggest using a build sheet to teach how to build a character but to get as much of the building dross out of the way on a play sheet.
Doc

Welcome home.

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

Which is a common mistake in Game Jargon. Similar to when people confuse Phase with Segment.

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

Which is a common mistake in Game Jargon. Similar to when people confuse Phase with Segment.

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL

Heck, I had pretty much abandoned the system. It IS the system that I know the best. So when the players wanted to play Supers, it was the game I chose.

We are running a beginning 6e Champions Game.

Dex 18, SPD 5, DC10 (62 active), CV 7 as our averages.
So Skill levels (yet)

The PCs are the newest hosts for Beings that are Iconic for a character type.

Developing

I'm BACK!!
LOL