ghost-angel

Combined Attacks can absolutely use Martial Strike + Flash; page 74 states "any two types of attack without restrictions" - the only exception is defensive maneuvers (block, dodge, dive for cover, etc) cannot be used. You gain the worst CV bonuses for Multiple Attacks for each attack in a Multiple Attack, and I'm pretty sure in a Combined Attack (versus a single target) each attack uses it's own CV adjustments (I forgot to double check that when looking up what can be combined).

If none of the strengths of hero are a draw; well, you know what - I can't help you. D&D is a box, it's not even a particularly creative box. You choose from cut outs, you play cut outs, and you fight cut outs. Heck, some editions of D&D barely encourage roleplaying in any sense, non-combat aspects had to be (badly) stapled into AD&D2E. D&D4E (still my favorite edition, really) is basically a board game. It comes right out and even tells you "you need these elements in a party. deviating will make the game not work." Hero's strength is flexibility, versatility, and yep, does require some up front work to get going. You have to know what flavor of game you want to play, without that it's just a book full of words. If you want a grab & go system, there's bunches out there.

My inclination is to just keep the Growth Power, as it does what the concept actually calls for: changes the characters size. Also, maybe ask the Player "Does it have to be a 0END Power? and Why"

Where are you seeing this behavior? Mental Entangles are built with a series of Advantages and Limitations and otherwise use PD/ED and Body and the standard cost for Adders with the aforementioned Advantages/Limitations.

Yes. And then some. FHC pares down the rules a lot, tailors them slightly towards the Fantasy Genre, and adds info for creating a Fantasy Hero Campaign.

This is the most pertinent point; Even with the generic D&D Books that have no specific campaign world attached are Build & Go for the most part (the GM needs to do enough work to populate an appropriate level adventure.) One of the better books for Players from the 5E era was the Character Creation Guide, it's as close as Hero has come to a pure Players Guide. A set of books that is GM Campaign and Players Creation Guide that strips the rules down to "this is what you need to play this specific campaign" & then have a note "for more detail on creating your own game or adding to the system get the Full Ruleset..." might be a way to go for Hero. Reduce the Needed Rules down enough for each campaign and it might be one book...

I currently GM a group in D&D5E of nine players, most of them show up at every session so it's almost always all 9. It works very well and the whole group is engaged. I've played at a table with like 10, which went pretty well, though things took a while to do. It was D&D4E which is not designed for a group that size and it showed. And once we tried a big Champions Brawl of 20, it went badly - too much noise.

I do like the D&D 5E model of Adventures - they're really micro-campaigns designed to last a group several months or more worth of play. They have slowed up hard on Character Splat Books which is nice. More stuff like Xanathar's & Ravnica's might get more players buying books, but mostly it seems to be the Campaign Books being put out. I think it would be interesting if Hero, being a universal system, actually put out pairs of Books and GMs and Players Campaign Book, for different kinds of campaigns. But... 5E's line mostly proved that if the word "champions" isn't on the front it doesn't sell really well... so I doubt that would help Hero sell more stuff. That kind of product line could make getting the 2 big volumes back in print possibly worth it.

It's 0. the Specific ruling on NCM on CC.151 overrules the Maneuver Modifiers.

EGO is also Mental Affects Threshhold, whose importance varies from game to game, but when it's important it's Very Important. (and I should have specified the 6 Primary/Classic Characteristics whose ranges are all similar/bought the same.) But the math doesn't bear this out. You spend 3 Points and get the benefit, then spend 2 more points for the "5 Points is costs" and get ... nothing more than the guy who spent 3. That's an irrefutable point. The next +1 costs everyone the same 5 Points though... Making the 5 Points the Median cost, which is fine, we just need to recognize that first step is even cheaper. I've been picking on INT because it's probably the one Characteristic that has little to no meaning in the mid points. PRE/EGO can change Effect Level, DEX has going first, STR can increment Damage, CON can effect Stun Threshold. But INT... does nothing in the mid steps. Maybe that's just the Odd Man Out, should be removed and replaced with a less granular Step Leveling. Perception is really just an INT Based Skill instead of a Power/Ability (This is true in a very large number of games, in actuality). Meaning 5 Points for +1 to All INT Based Skills should just be the cost, you get 2 INT for free, it goes up to 6 with NCM, +1 INT costs 5 Points. Presence is a Skill. 7th Edition Fodder possibly.

Perhaps the answer is that the Characteristics should get more bang-for-the-point than component builds. I'm not entirely sure I agree that all the components of a Characteristic should add up to a full cost. After all, Characteristics get their bonuses at 3, 8, 13, 18, etc... and not 5, 10, 15, 20, etc... At that point, 3Points of INT would need to break down to "All INT Skills At Once" and "Perception" - and then you have to spend 5 Points to get the next +2. Which means the first +2 are at a disparity and we're just using 5 Points as a median, not an actual point expenditure. The math doesn't work anyway, so it feels futile to add Limitations and then make them all add up to the original cost as components. If INT does two things, then each +1 is worth half the INT, or 2.5 Points, do you round in favor? Then +1 To All Skills & +1 to Perception is actually 4 Points separately, or +1 to All INT Skills is 3 points and +1 to Perception is 3 points and the total is 6, more than +5 INT. Or, we use the current cost in the Book, 4+3 is 7... still more than INT. But at 2/1 INT is going to be 10 Points, +1 to all INT Skills becomes 5 Points, and +1 Perception becomes 5 Points, more than the current book cost, probably more than they're worth. Making 2/1 Too much. You can do this with practically any Characteristic, and it'll never work out right. So either literally everything that isn't 5pts/+1D6 is probably incorrect; Or Characteristics are inherently a good value just by being - at that point from a Play perspective, you can either play a numbers game to tweak the math as you wish; or the GM+Players set Ranges for a game, and anything not in that Range has to be bought at the less effecient Cost. Which brings me back to the idea that DEX is worth 1/1 along with all the other Characteristic - screw "Going First" and "Lightning Reflexes" as reasons to artificially inflate a single Characteristic.

On this point, I agree. Not base Characteristic is worth more than 1/1. This simplification of costs down, and removal of Figuring, is one of the reasons I think 6E is mechanically a superior system. It allows for maximum customization of base character stats, and (except for how DEX is priced) places no particular emphasis on which elements will help you more inherently.

I'll agree that if DEX is worth 2pt/+1 then INT, PRE, and STR are all also 2pts/+1. STR does Damage (at 5pts/D6) and Lifting. But as long as we insist that STR is 1/1 then all the others should fall in line with that level of utility, including DEX (especially if we're stating that Lightning Reflexes - i.e. going first is important, and I contend it's no more important that the lifting capacity of STR in the first place - which is to say, not so important as to inflate either cost).

The point brought up on inflated DEX scores and the increased 6E Character Build Points does bring up a good point; When we were working up what actually happens when you remove figured and still build the Exact Same Characters we locked ourselves into the old method, almost by accident. Of course, it was the only benchmark we really have to go on that was solid numbers to work with. I'm still against DEX costing 2Points Per +1, I feel this places unnecessary emphasis on the combat aspect, and this also contributed to the Base Point Inflation - the one characteristic guaranteed to be bought to 18+ in a Champions game (and 13+ in Heroic games) costs twice as much as anything else. The "maybe we should reconsider what baseline Characteristics are" instead of just using the current published material (and I plugged every single Published 5th Edition character into a spreadsheet for some people to play with) was not an argument that was prudent at the time. If one wanted they could probably pull 25points off the Standard Superhero and reduce the DEX/CV values a notch or two without much effect to the At Table Experience.

Probably not.

I almost broke a game with the combination of Duplication + Penetrating Killing Attack with a Coordinated Effort on a single target... 33 Penetrating Attacks in one phase is a lot of damage to deal with it turns out....

If one were to want to make the case for What Do I Look Like (ugly, average, beautiful) in a game with an Effect... well, first you need to ask "Why is this on the Character Sheet? What is it doing?" Point cost or not, if it's written down it should probably affect the system being played in some fashion. In Hero Terms, well, it's traditionally just been a Presence Based Boost with the Special Effect "Looks", or just a throw away RP item. (hence the switch over to the more mechanically defined Striking Appearance, which I've occasionally struggled with reminding some that being Good Looking isn't just about sexual attraction and Striking Appearance comes into play with non-physically attracted situations; especially if the SFX are "intensely ugly" - Marv from Sin City frex /digression) You could probably expand it to do other things, at which point I'd ask - Is Comliness really just a Special Effect of Doing Something Else Mechanically? (especially in Hero where SFX and Mechanics are separate concepts entirely, unlike most game systems.) If not, why is How Good/Bad Looking Am I? on the character sheet, and I don't mean "are you paying points for it or not" aspect, because I fall fully with Hugh on this one - if it's not doing anything Mechanically (in any situation) it should not cost points, period. If it's not SFX then how are we using this information in game, as long as we're statting it out. -Will buying Comliness cause penalties to others Perception Rolls (frex, Matrix, the girl in the red dress) -Will it help with certain social interactions (the standard PRE based boots) -Will it work in the other direction (PRE based penalties to Other Characters) -Will it be used to determine how/when RolePlay moments start for certain scenes (frex, the Characters with COM16+ easily get into the Night Club, everyone else needs a Plan; but the street thugs feel more comfortable talking to the rough looking COM6 Character about the Plot Hook, and keep getting off topic with the COM14 character) To really any answer any question on "I'd like to introduce this Component to my game" you really have to answer "What am I actually doing with it?" first and that will inform the decision much more effectively.

Well, the new Damage Classes also have to 'pay' for the Advantages to be on them. A Damage Class is 5 Points, if you have +1 worth of Advantages on a Power, adding a DC adds 10 Active Points of Power to it... It's a math thing. Of course, math at the table can slow things down, so sometimes it's easier to ignore the rule and just add DCs from other sources on straight. This all does track back to 4th Ed, just expanded explanations (4EHSR page 159 has a single sentence regarding Advantaged STR with added Damage Classes).

It would probably be easier to apply a "Resistant ED Stops the Attack completely" Limitation, as Blast generates more Stun per DC than Killing Attacks.

It's a bad loop designed to prevent people from gaming the system. Rules that are obviously only anti-twink rules are generally bad form. Personally, I'd totally allow someone to Hold to take a Recovery, as long as their stated Hold Action condition is "so I can take a Recovery" and not the generally vague "I'm holding..."; They, of course, can't abort to a dodge or block in that time, they have to take the hits until their Held Action comes around... but it seems fair enough to me to allow. Hardly game breaking.

This explicit denial of Hold Then Take A Recovery goes all the way back to 4E (HSR p167); probably further back. Just to head off any "that's why I don't like 6E" commentary.

Yes, the DEX20 Character can declare their Recovery even if a DEX25 Character has caused damage. And it's not get hit, it's take damage - if your defenses completely block all the damage your already declared Recovery already occurs. If you take damage before your Action in a Phase you can still declare a Recovery Action, and it goes off at the normal time.

Given the breadth of base Animal Friendship, I might even go to -1 1/2 for Dogs Only.

Yes, you can land from your own Leap. This should be a common sense application of an ability/power/mechanic - there's no reason why using a basic game mechanic would be detrimental to a Character unless specifically noted as such.

I agree with JMoz, Physical Manifestation is a simpler, and generally better, option. It can be removed fro your possession for a short period, targeted directly, and called to you via 'teleport' at will.