Chris Goodwin

I've got the beginnings of a 3rd edition template for Hero Designer...
 
Creating a template to use the 3rd edition costs for Powers, Skills, and Disadvantages is the easy part.  
 
Regarding the differences in Reduced END Cost... It's theoretically possible to generate a 3rd edition legal Champions character using HD.  Doing so requires a little bit of hand-massaging of the character file.  When buying levels of Reduced END Cost on a Power, you need to do two things: in HD, manually add a cost multiplier to the Power, equal to 1 + 0.25 per level of reduced END, and then edit the character's XML file (after backing it up, of course) to manually set the Power's APPEREND attribute (HDDocs p. 45) in XML.  
 
You'd similarly (manually) apply cost multipliers to Enhanced Senses and Disadvantages, based on how many of them your character has.  
 
It's only partially complete, and I may have to start it over again.  If anyone is interested in seeing it... it may be a week or so before I can dig it up.  I wouldn't mind help with it, also. 

I'm not a wizard, so I don't know...
 
In 6th edition, we've divorced CV and MCV from their former parent Characteristics, so we can kind of use special effects to represent them.  For instance, we could translate D&D fighter types by giving them bonus OCV, Melee Only (-1), representing using their Strength to power through their target's defenses.  
 
Shouldn't a highly skilled and powerful wizard be reliant not on their frail, rickety, low-DEX body, but on their INT, EGO, and great knowledge of and connection to the mystical sphere?  That's what Arcane Combat Value represents.  
 
So, the answer to your question is "That's up to the player's SFX or the GM's magic system." 

I've never played with those rules but I wish it had remained that way instead of the way it is now. 

I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "Please accept my apologies for writing such a long letter; I did not have time to write a short one."

Phil's suggestion is pretty close to how I do High Fantasy.  Not exact, of course: we're two different people and we've never played together, after all.
 
I do "cantrips" both of two different ways:
 
if it's a lesser variation on something you can already do (as in Phil's suggestion above), then you can just _do_ it.  Seriously.  No roll.  No check.  You can just _do_ it.    The umbrella question that started this thread off?  If you have Force Field, Force Wall, or even Telekinesis, fine: you can just _do_ it.
 
Now before going further, let me put in a couple of things:
 
That cantrip _stops_ the moment you focus the power from which it's derived to a greater use.  Using Lothai's Armor of Lighted Aether as a rain shield for your coiffure?  Go for it.  You have a sparkling little dome of twinkling lights floating just above you...   bandits leap out and you cast great Lothai's wondrous spell upon your swashbuckling companion?  Fine: he's protected by the shimmering sparkles.  You're getting wet, though.
 
If it's something with potential to really affect the game or the plot (again, see Phil's example of telekinesis)?  Want a cantrip that grants 1 pt of telekinesis?  Sure, it's a nifty thing to be able to float your spell book in front of you as you study, or have your clothes put itself upon you when you've finished bathing and step out of the river, _but_...   This particular cantrip-- let's call it Astral Servitor (because I _do_, in fact, call it Astral Servitor) can also be used to fetch the keys from the hook on the wall to you in your jail cell, or to pull a curious lever while you remain a safe distance away....), well that's going to cost you a point.
 
That's the thing: a "cantrip" in my High Fantasy is essentially one point of a power or skill (six or less), or talent.  A seriously bare-minimum.  Want something bigger, learn it as a spell.
 
Why?
 
because I don't really read fantasy fiction (I know; it's not a secret, but most of it irritates the Hell out of me.  I enjoy a lot of Low Fantasy, though, and I _adored_ Turtledove's The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump so much that I was _mortified_ to find out just how awful most Urban Fantasy is....    ), with only a few exceptions, most fantasy RPGs are designed to highlight their lack of originality and tend to just revisit Tolkienisms or re-invent D&D....
 
The upshot of this?
 
I have absolutely _no_ solid grasp of what a "cantrip" is supposed to be.  Many, many years ago-- at some point before there actually was a Fantasy Hero, we tried some fantasy in Champions, and it wasn't half bad.  Then one day while writing up the new spell one of the players had been working on creating (i.e., he'd been "studying" it and now had enough EP to buy it), he asked me quite boldly how many cantrips he could have bought instead.
 
I had no clue what he was talking about.
 
Not wanting to short him, I got up, found a dictionary, and discovered that it was, to paraphrase, a small and not-very-powerful magic spell.
 
And that's pretty much how I've played it since: insignificant stuff: if you can derive it from something you have, then you have it, period.  Call it a perk of not being able to swing a sword.
 
If you can, buy a point of it.  Anything more than that is not a cantrip.  Anything that has good potential of being plot-effective?  costs a point.
 
 
 
I'm going to stop before I repeat myself again.
 
 
have a good evening.
 
 

What is it you want these cantrips to do?
 
A Power Skill, in addition to the spellcaster's array of spells, might cover it.  Can you cast a Fireball spell?  Then with a "Cantrip" Skill Roll, you can light a fire without burning the house down.  Have an Illusion spell?  Then with a Cantril roll, you can make a small projected image for illustrative or entertainment purposes.  Have a spell to keep everyone warm in the cold weather?  Then you can make a cantrip roll to warm up a plate of food.
 
If you want to telekinetically fetch your spellbook from across the room as a cantrip, then you should probably be required to have some TK spell available first.
 
But IIRK, 1 point of TK should allow you to pick up 25 kg up to 10 m away.

You don't need to take RSR for Power Skill to be useful.  Even though it's innate, training probably helps elves learn new things they can do with it.  So I'd use Power Skill there as well.

That's fair.  I usually say "Does it pay for itself?"  Meaning, does whatever the proposal is, provide more fun value than it costs in whatever fiddliness is involved in switching to it from the original rule.  
 
Combat Value is pretty modular.  We already know how it generally works.  If we're adding a new one, or changing the definitions of one of the current ones, all we really have to do is make sure players have the information up front so they can design their characters accordingly.  Using MCV as a Mystical Combat Value, and suggesting or requiring that wizard characters buy all of their attacks based on it, to me is a minimal change.  Adding a separate Combat Value (Arcane) with its own cost and separate defensive value is only slightly less minimal, and again as long as the GM is up front with the players about it I don't see it as being that costly in terms of paying for itself.  Probably even less costly in 1st-5th editions, as it's easy enough to set Offensive ACV at INT/3 and Defensive ACV at EGO/3, or just use Defensive ECV. 
 
I wouldn't balk at requiring a separate Advantage for casters to let their spells use OACV vs. DACV or DECV, or to use OMCV vs. DMCV.  6th edition gives us guidance in Alternate Combat Value ("ACV," heh) for doing just that.  OCV vs. DMCV, OMCV vs. DCV, OMCV vs. DMCV, any of those can be done.  

There are quite a number of options that allow you to UAA against someone at range, for instance.  That's part of what I was getting at in the Discord. 
 
 
By the overall definition of Sticky, yes.  This threw me also, except that there's a small bit buried in the description of Sticky, 6e1 p. 345:  "A character who has a Constant area-affecting attack (see 6E1 127) can apply Sticky at the +½ level so that when a character leaves the affected area, he continues to take damage as if affected by a non-area Constant attack."  
 
I suggest renaming the general "Sticky" Advantage to Viral, and pulling out this smaller part that I quoted as "Sticky".  
 
 
I suggested this to @cptpatriot as well.  Change Environment further allows 1 point of Telekinetic STR for 5 points, and per Star Hero, +/- 1 G of gravity is equivalent to +/- 5 STR.  
 
UAA might not be needed at all.  Something like this:  
 
Gravity Field:  Change Environment (10 Telekinetic STR) (Base cost: 50 points)  Area of Effect (4m radius; +1/4), Sticky (continues to affect targets who leave area; +1/2).   
 
87.5 Active Points, 9 END/Phase, add additional Advantages and Limitations to taste.  Archie, I'd say this does exactly what you're looking for.  Change Environment is already Constant.  

That's fair.  I usually say "Does it pay for itself?"  Meaning, does whatever the proposal is, provide more fun value than it costs in whatever fiddliness is involved in switching to it from the original rule.  
 
Combat Value is pretty modular.  We already know how it generally works.  If we're adding a new one, or changing the definitions of one of the current ones, all we really have to do is make sure players have the information up front so they can design their characters accordingly.  Using MCV as a Mystical Combat Value, and suggesting or requiring that wizard characters buy all of their attacks based on it, to me is a minimal change.  Adding a separate Combat Value (Arcane) with its own cost and separate defensive value is only slightly less minimal, and again as long as the GM is up front with the players about it I don't see it as being that costly in terms of paying for itself.  Probably even less costly in 1st-5th editions, as it's easy enough to set Offensive ACV at INT/3 and Defensive ACV at EGO/3, or just use Defensive ECV. 
 
I wouldn't balk at requiring a separate Advantage for casters to let their spells use OACV vs. DACV or DECV, or to use OMCV vs. DMCV.  6th edition gives us guidance in Alternate Combat Value ("ACV," heh) for doing just that.  OCV vs. DMCV, OMCV vs. DCV, OMCV vs. DMCV, any of those can be done.  

That's fair.  I usually say "Does it pay for itself?"  Meaning, does whatever the proposal is, provide more fun value than it costs in whatever fiddliness is involved in switching to it from the original rule.  
 
Combat Value is pretty modular.  We already know how it generally works.  If we're adding a new one, or changing the definitions of one of the current ones, all we really have to do is make sure players have the information up front so they can design their characters accordingly.  Using MCV as a Mystical Combat Value, and suggesting or requiring that wizard characters buy all of their attacks based on it, to me is a minimal change.  Adding a separate Combat Value (Arcane) with its own cost and separate defensive value is only slightly less minimal, and again as long as the GM is up front with the players about it I don't see it as being that costly in terms of paying for itself.  Probably even less costly in 1st-5th editions, as it's easy enough to set Offensive ACV at INT/3 and Defensive ACV at EGO/3, or just use Defensive ECV. 
 
I wouldn't balk at requiring a separate Advantage for casters to let their spells use OACV vs. DACV or DECV, or to use OMCV vs. DMCV.  6th edition gives us guidance in Alternate Combat Value ("ACV," heh) for doing just that.  OCV vs. DMCV, OMCV vs. DCV, OMCV vs. DMCV, any of those can be done.  

There are quite a number of options that allow you to UAA against someone at range, for instance.  That's part of what I was getting at in the Discord. 
 
 
By the overall definition of Sticky, yes.  This threw me also, except that there's a small bit buried in the description of Sticky, 6e1 p. 345:  "A character who has a Constant area-affecting attack (see 6E1 127) can apply Sticky at the +½ level so that when a character leaves the affected area, he continues to take damage as if affected by a non-area Constant attack."  
 
I suggest renaming the general "Sticky" Advantage to Viral, and pulling out this smaller part that I quoted as "Sticky".  
 
 
I suggested this to @cptpatriot as well.  Change Environment further allows 1 point of Telekinetic STR for 5 points, and per Star Hero, +/- 1 G of gravity is equivalent to +/- 5 STR.  
 
UAA might not be needed at all.  Something like this:  
 
Gravity Field:  Change Environment (10 Telekinetic STR) (Base cost: 50 points)  Area of Effect (4m radius; +1/4), Sticky (continues to affect targets who leave area; +1/2).   
 
87.5 Active Points, 9 END/Phase, add additional Advantages and Limitations to taste.  Archie, I'd say this does exactly what you're looking for.  Change Environment is already Constant.  

After reviewing the challenges I had with introducing Champions (5th and 6th Edition) with brand new players and the excessive amount of rules, I looked back at the 3rd Edition which was the version I first started with decades ago. In addition to the nostalgia, I really enjoyed the simple game design and approach. After revising some old 5th/6th Edition characters to 3rd Edition, I found myself enjoying the Hero System again.
 
Attached is one of the characters, DC Comics' Huntress. The format is similar to how characters are depicted in the game book.
 
Let the Third Edition Renaissance continue! 😀
 
Huntress.pdf

Time.
 
 
 
For the first ten years of my GMing, this was the case for me, too: I built everything.  I Grew everything.
 
Then I got a life:  a business, lots of debt for the equipment-- you fix that by keeping the equipment working-- and work, work, work.  Still, I found time to make my own stuff.  Granted, it cut my time to spend actually _playing_ down to a third of what it could have been, as I was busy building more than I was playing.
 
 
 
Ethos?!
 
You keep bringing this up as if it's some special jewel in the hipster crown to kick working people in the nuts, and it's getting damned old.
 
I don't know a single HERO GM who doesn't _want_ to build his own stuff.
 
So let's move from my first ten years as a GM to the next ten.
 
Right about the time I got a fiancee and a pair of twins-- and mortgage on a more appropriate house for a wife and kids, the bottom kind of fell out of house moving.  Great thing is the bottom didn't fall out the payments on the equipment and the trucks, but they were suddenly a lot harder to sell.
 
So I went out and got a couple of jobs, as did the soon-to-be wife  So here I am, working roughly 90 hours a week.  I _want_ to keep playing.  I _want_ to keep building.  To some extent, I was able to do that, but not so much because I had time to build on something, but because I could find creative ways to keep the existing stuff fresh and interesting enough that the players were happy to adventure in the same setting for another decade.  They'd get tired of their characters, we'd retire them, and start new characters in the same environment, usually after the biggest BANG of  crescendo I could manage-- all the villains from the arc were defeated one way or another, and the heroes became legends for their deeds on "that fateful day."
 
No, it's not "the true GM ethos" of building an entire new thing.  But let's figure that I'm putting in 90 at two jobs, and the fiancé is putting in between 30 and 45 all the while going to school.  I'm taking side-jobs as well, because we've got kids, and while pears, pecans, apples, and ornamental bushes are in every nursery I check, none of them have diaper trees.  But all the while, I am finding a way to do _something_, anything!-- to keep the game alive.  We're creeping from weekly to biweekly to monthly to bi-monthly...  We could have stopped somewhere around bi-weekly, I suppose, but I kept insisting on making my own stuff.  Granted, I had to admit that all I had time for anymore was _tweaking_ my already-existing stuff, but hey-- it was _my stuff_ and that's "True GM Ethos" of some kind, right?
 
The fiancee begins to have nervous problems.  Stress?  Fear?  I'm not sure.  She pushes the wedding date back.  Half the equipment is sold, and I've manage to split the note into two pieces, completely paying off one piece with the proceeds of the sale.  Great.  But the kids are a bit older, too, and hey-- more resources have to be had, right?
 
About the end of my second GM-ing decade, fiancee takes the kids and runs to her mothers in Virginia because "I can't raise them by myself and you're always working or playing that damn game!  (which, for the last couple of years, had been a twice-a-year affair, so I felt she was unfairly targeting my hobby (one she never cared for to begin with) as a vent for her frustrations of how her husband-to-be had gone from successful business man to over-worked strong back on the whim of a market).  Then I kind of figured out that even when I wasn't playing, I was stealing an hour here and there to work on "my DIY stuff," because I was a "true GM" with "proper ethos."  
 
I let the game drop, and any time I had seventy hours or so in a row off, I was on the bike, running back and forth to see my girls.  I also had to pick up more side work, as I don't have it in me to be a deadbeat, and supported my kids and their mother as best I could.  Besides, I still had the other debts.  Still, I could squeeze in enough time to work on "my stuff" that we could still manage to get in a game or two, provided everyone met at my place.  Games had to be short, because at that time the longest "between shift" time I had (still working two jobs and side jobs) was about seven hours.  Attendance was terrible, but we still did it, and we did it with "my stuff."
 
Now I've posted on here before-- during a "what music bugs you and why" thread what the next bit of my life was, and I don't want to get into it again too deeply, because it doesn't get better.  F**k the poets: it does _NOT_ get better!  Short version is I lost my girls, and shortly thereafter their mother ended herself.  The next two years I lost everything, including me.  I spent the majority of that time drunk or talking to LEOs.  I am not proud, and it was not pretty.  I was very much living out of my saddlebags at that point.
 
Enough was enough.  I pulled myself together, with the help and support of my friends, in particular those I had been gaming with for nearly twenty years now (except the last couple: I had just been crashing on couches when the weather was too ugly for a tent, or borrowing their shower or washing machine when I didn't have money for the truck stop or the laundry mat.
 
I applied myself harder at the one job I still had, and started hustling the side work again.   Worked like Hell, and got straight.  Started to put myself through school.  Found time to game again, too.  Of course, I had "ethos," and would only play _my_ stuff.  Eventually, the focus on "my stuff" cost me the schooling, because despite what you see in the movies, there just isn't time for both, not if you've got to spend hours and hours building worlds and preparing scenarios from scratch and making sure everything pegs into place with everything else that's gone before, etc, etc....
 
About that time, I met my wife.  She was a Godsend.  I met her-- well, that's not important.  She was going back to school for a real degree (it's amazing all the things you can't do with a Liberal Arts degree, no matter where it's from) with which she could get a job doing something other than teaching liberal arts.  We dated after my screwing around in school pretty much meant "start over or get out."  I couldn't afford to start over (financially or at my age, by then), so I got out, and got me a Big Boy job again: I was right back to pushing 60-plus hours as week.  My wife and I got engaged, and bought a house.  I kept working on "my stuff" for gaming, and having a slightly better schedule, gamed every other month.  Again, there was the time thing-- the new fiancee didn't like that when I had a weekend, I'd rather spend it in my old stomping grounds than with her.  I stopped.  Period.  Cold turkey.  Too many nightmares about the time I didn't.
 
By that time, her schooling was getting more and more expensive, and I again took a second job to pay the bills and help where I could with her schooling.  She took a part-time job, wisely in a field related to her study).  Before I knew it, I was working 90 a week again.
 
That was about the time we got internet, actually, and I "got my fix" by lurking on the old Red October, and followed it until the end, then participated a small bit on the sysabend thing, and ended up here the first time.
 
The bug bit.  After nearly two years with nothing but social calls to my gaming friends, I started working on "my stuff."  And yes, K noticed when I wasn't available to help her study because I was thumbing through reference books and sketching maps.  However, she understood.  This was the _one thing_ I could still do.  We didn't even have time to ride anymore, with our work schedules the way they were.  We talked about it now and again, and I eased up a bit.
 
I came home one day and there were _four_ of the old Adventures on the dining table.  She had gone by the game store (I didn't even realize she knew it existed) and talked to the guy there about adventures for Champions, and he pointed out some "clearance" ones (the pre-4e stuff) that were four-for-ten, and she picked them up.  "I didn't want you to stop having fun with your friends, and I thought these might take some of the work off."
 
I was actually kind of _mad_ at the time, but I was also amazed.  She had taken it upon herself to do this for me; she didn't play; she would get nothing out of it but the promise that there would be a day off when I was going to be in Brunswick (we lived in Savannah at the time).
 
I didn't tell her that we played "Champions," but we didn't actually play _supers_, so the adventures weren't any good to me....
 
It did start me doing something else, though: I started looking for adventures.  Published modules, magazine articles, genre didn't matter.  I could take inspiration-- sometimes actual chunks of stuff-- from republished work, and it cut down considerably on the time I spent working on whole-cloth stuff, and increased the already-too-scant time we had together.
 
She graduated (finally!  It seems that getting a couple of masters degrees takes "a while and a pile," to quote my brother.   I'd like to say my work schedule relaxed, but by that time I was half-owner of a DC electrical shop and -- well, I guess I was only putting in sixty or so hours a week at the time, so it _did_ slack up a small bit.  
 
The best part, I found, of pre-built adventures was being able to share them with my wife as if they were stories.  That was a strange kind of fun, and bouncing ideas off each other to tweak and improve them, and work them into my existing world.
 
We got married, had kids, decided we weren't going to raise kids in Savannah, and moved to where we are now.
 
to this day, I play.  I GM, and I build a lot of my stuff.  I haven't built a whole new world in a long time; I keep tweaking the one I have, building it's history.  It seems to be a rather different type of experience to what I see posted here: build a world; play for six to twelve months,; build another world and repeat.   But just like the people I game with, my world has a real history, a tangible past that we all had a hand in shaping, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Seriously: someone could bring me the best damned setting book ever written, and -- well, I won't lie: I'll read it!  It's the best one ever written, after all!    But I'm not starting a new campaign in a new setting.  
 
You know what I do have, though?  I have a group of friends with whom I can game, and some of whom I have gamed with since the 80s. I was so dedicated to the game and to that group that even when I had _nothing_ and a two-hour travel time (actually, I _still_ have that!) that we would meet up somewhere in the middle and play.  I have a couple of nothing videos on youtube.  They are all set on the hood of my beat up old workhorse, which my wife as affectionately dubbed "the Leviathan" after trying to back it up one day.  You know why?  Because it's special to me.  Not the truck itself; just the hood.  I can't tell you how many times we have all met up in Baxley or Jesup (neither town having a community center or game store) and spent four or five hours in the Huddle House parking lot, playing Champions on the hood of that damned truck, rolling dice in the lid of a shoebox (after the metal dice incident that resulted in the chips along the front edge of the hood).  No; I'm not kidding.  I've had more fun _on_ that truck than I've had _in_ it.
 
 I have introduced lots of new people to HERO over the years, and I have a youth group that was so tickled at the their first RPG experience that they have taken it upon themselves to beseech their parents for permission to bother me nearly every Sunday afternoon and we play on the picnic table in my yard.  A whole new generation of kids who have never role played, and their fond introductory memories will be playing Champions with old-assed Mr. Duke and his magical world of superheroes and dice.
 
I still build adventures, but I have less qualms about pulling in things from here and there; there have been a few times when I've straight-up run off-the-cuff conversions of complete adventures and scenarios.  I have straight-up recycled my own stuff from group to gout  or even within the same group, with enough stuff changed to not be terribly obvious.  I no longer have any qualms with it.  And if it's not proper GM ethos, then proper GM ethos can catch me on the hottest day of the year, drag me off of that black vinyl crane seat, and kiss the crack of my sweat-soaked hairy   forehead.   Yeah. That's _definitely_ what I meant.  
 
 
 
 
 
Ditto.  Sort of.  I've learned the hard way that some lofty ideal is not always....   _ideal_......
 
 
 
And me, Dude.  You're going to have to add "and Duke," if everyone else here fits that description.  I'll be sixty come March, but I'm still working just under 80 a week, and i've got two teens at the house, one already in high school.  All those extra-curriculars....  so busy......
 
 
 
 
Do you have any idea how much I would _love_ to have a game story anywhere _near_ me?!  There's one in Savannah, but that's two hours from here.  It's not better than going to the usual place (Jason's house) in Brunswick and playing there.  At least at Jason's house I'm not surrounded by Pokemon crackheads who should, at their age, realize that you don't have to wait for it to appear in a booster pack:  you can just walk into a store and freakin' _buy_ soap.....
 
 
 
 
Gotta level with you:  it doesn't do much for those who _are_ fans of the system, or who _would like_ to build their own stuff (or even used to, and still does on a much lower scale).  It brings back memories of numerous threads over the years of "they say that HERO is all math and it isn't!  Let's launch two-hundred-and-forty-six threads of number crunching to prove something is or isn't "balanced" or "they say HERO GMs / players are all arrogant dicks but it's not true!' followed by "well, you're not a real GM if you need (or just want) something to take a bit of workload off...."
 
(Where's the freakin' tilde on this keyboard?!  I want to sing that Sesame Street song!  "one of these things does not belong here....")
 
 
 
 
 
 
I really like the Trophy / Thanks combo we've got on the rep buttons, but I wish we had a straight-up thumbs-up, because I really, really want to "thumbs up" you.  But, I mean, you know-- in a good way.  
 
 
 

You have a very rare and unusual experience in roleplaying.  
I envy you.
 
 
I entered the Navy right out of high school and my RPG time was scarce and rare except for a couple short tours.  Most of what gaming I did get in was pre-built adventures because we really didn't have the time to work up adventures.  When I did build my own it was usually AD&D where you could do a fast layout and plugins from the monster manual.
 
My most memorable gaming run was when I spent a year in Millington TN at NATTC in school.  I drew on material from that time for years later.  But I have had increasingly less time for gaming each year, not more.  I can only go by my personal experience that is shaped by my life and the people I know, but I have met many people that say they prefer to build their own stuff.  Heck, I prefer to run adventures I made.  But the vast majority of games I have played and most of the gamers I know use prebuilt material, intact or hastily modified.  Hastily because each precious hour of game prep is one less of play.  And an hour of time to actually game is extremely rare these days. 
 
Herodom is a very small niche of a niche market, and I am not referring to the rules. I am speaking to it's approach and player base. 
 
Way back in the 90's a course was decided to not publish premade adventures. 
 
When they did produce a setting, it was almost deliberately designed to be almost unusable with detail.  There is a thread about the Turakian Age where it is sagely discussed how the setting cannot be understood by reading it chapter to chapter.  You need to "study" and "research" and hope about.   It is a beautifully designed document as if it was a text book or historical record or a resource for a collegiate research project.  Perfect if you have a few years to dedicate.  But most gamers need something easier and less time intensive.
 
After stubbornly producing one concept, what we have on the Hero forums are the very small percentage of a micro percentage of gamers with the luxury and time to devote hours and days to gaming projects. 
Also, the majority of gamers here scoff at playing at the FLGS because they have firmly established long term (years) gaming groups which is not the norm.   The FLGS and gaming CONs are still the venues that generate new players and then new GM's.
 
Hero created  a self fulfilling prophesy and now people wonder why Hero is virtually extinct.
 
 
 
It is not aging GM's or that the old DIY ethos are gone.  They are just as common as ever but it is a percentage game.
1% of 100 is 1.
1% of 500,000 is 5,000
I know several GM's for D&D, Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu/GUMSHOE, and Pathfinder that build their own original adventures.
But those same GM's routinely run prebuilt adventures/settings at the FLGS for League Night if the game has one, just as a game if not. 
The ratio of GM's to players in any game is very low. 
It is much much much lower for any game community that heaps derision on anyone that "lowers themselves to using prebuilt material".  
 
Take Turakian Age, awesome setting if written to be unusable to the average gamer.
It doesn't need a re-write.  It needs a, let's call it a digest version for easy entry.  Pick one location, one small town, with one human culture and write a smaller less detailed version based on TA.  Add a CharGen section tailored to the digest, and for all that is holy, build a small no less that ten spells beginning player spell list.  Plus a GM ready adventure. 
 
As I try to build up my idea for an adventure for Hall of Champions I realize that I would not be able to create that digest, but I hope someone with the talent will. 
 
Hero already has great rules and settings.
What it needs are entry paths and publicity. 
Hall of Champions is a great start down that path. 
One day I'd love to see adventures that directly use existing Hero superheroes and supervillains.  
I hope to contribute to building some of those entry paths, though the going is much more difficult that I thought.
 
 
 
 

Been a long time since I read the Hero Universe document. Thanks for posting it. At the time, I was vehemently against the idea that every Hero product was shoehorned into a semi-contiguous timeline. Even now, I have my problems with the idea but I also understand that need for a sense of continuity between settings. It can be very rewarding for the person(s) creating these settings to have that continuity.

And neither do I.  I was a bit surprised by it when I first read it, but it almost never came up in my games (as a player or as a GM), because pretty much everyone had all their attack powers in a multipower, so they could only use one at a time anyway.  But yeah, if you paid full price for a Blast, Flight, and Force Field, you should be able to use them all at the same time, without any restrictions or Extra Time needed, or reduced DCV, or anything else.  And if you paid full price for any three other powers, you should be able to use them all at the same time, even if they're all attacks.
 
My only problem with it is a thematic/realism problem, not a rules problem or a balance problem.  Technically, if the character paid the points, he can do it.  I might not let him buy such a construct, but only for genre restrictions, not because the build is in any way problematic according to the rules - it's a perfectly fine build.  OTOH, I've never actually run a Western Hero game.  I would also let a character buy 2-shot Autofire as a nekkid advantage, requires two guns - one in each hand, to reflect such an ability.

Not gonna lie:  I have a personal distaste for naked advantages in "normal humans" type games.  Fantasy, sci-fi (all permutations), etc-- well, then it's still case-by case, but normal human stuff like Westerns and Daredevils?  I don't know.  I don't generally like or allow it.  No; I am not arguing against the legality: I _know_ it's rules-legal.  I'm arguing partly against the validity, and partly against the over-all feel.
 
That being said, I would like to point out that I am not arguing that the end effect is inappropriate.  I just feel-- much like my Hammer Fanning skill mentioned above (there is a long-gun version of that for the two revolving rifles that were more widespread during the era, but it requires you spend the money to modify the rifle to give you an open hammer.  I can't recommend the rifles, though, as they were famous for burning your bracing hand as the exhaust gasses vented in the open air between the cylinder and the barrel- you know: right behind and aiming at your bracing hand. ;)--
 
sorry; let me re-state that, as the digression was longer than the actual thought  
 
I prefer in "normal human stuff" that the end effect be achieved with a custom Skill that achieves that same effect.  It reduces that feel of "is this a super power or just magic?" and turns it more into a "_damn_ that guy is _good_" kind of feel.  I mean, with a naked Advantage, there's no chance that he's _not_ going to pull it off flawlessly.  Even if his skill rolls is 24 or less, there's still that 18 to wreck his day.....
 
 
--- this one is also a "just me" thing:
 
The only time I'd allow "aiming a ricochet" is if I was playing magical cowboys, comedy western, or freakin' Roy-Rogers hundred-shot revolver type stuff.  
 
Or an actual cowboy-themed superhero in Champions
 
 
 
(you forgot "Indian Wrestling."  )
 
 
 
 
 

Uhhh...

My response to that was the same as yours. "WTF? 4e, p 154 says, 'This is basically an all-out punch, and takes an extra segment to execute.' In what world does that imply that it can be used for lightning bolts, etc.??" And then, on reflection, "Well, the risk/reward is the same either way, so I guess extending it makes sense."
 
Like you, we still don't play it that way, but accept it as valid.
 
And that's one of the hardest things about being online: accepting that your ways aren't the only ways, and that others doing things in other ways that work for them is fine.  

Justify in a design sense. When doing game design, a proposed mechanic needs to be justified on a design necessity basis. Every addition or change should pass a pretty rigorous test for soundness and necessity. That's all I meant.
 
As for sympathetic magic (Duke's example), I don't feel there is a CV-vs-CV combat roll involved in the first place. The vodoo doll is manipulated/damaged and the target feels it. Even if you had an ACV stat for the voodoo priest, there is no equivalent CV on the target that makes any sense to oppose it. There is no "to hit" involved here. An entirely different approach (other than Combat Rolls) is necessary for that, IMO.
 
This really feels like a larger subject: how to use the Hero System to represent magic systems. I don't object on principle to some new stat like ACV so long as it solves a problem that existing stats and powers don't already handle. So far I haven't heard of an example where that's the case.

Therein lies probably the only real drawback to divorcing CV from Characteristics:
 
When I began tinkering with this, I was (and I think we all know this, but just in case: still am) working with older editions; I was building experimental builds derived from Primary Characteristics.  By default, everyone had a defen--well, you use a term well-established in this thread so that we may stay clear, _everyone_ had an ACV, and didn't have to decide to buy it or not.  Today, of course, adding additional CVs-- while perfectly fine in my book, requires that everyone must either buy an entirely new defensive one-of-those or just get flat-out bagged every time someone else used something requiring that particular CV.  Minor quibble, but it _is_ there.
 
To be honest, I rather liked the flavor that this gave in as much as some people were just naturally a little harder or a little easier to affect with magic.
 
 
 
It would be nice to return to a time when they didn't feel like super powers where everyone had the same limitations and special effects; yes.  And of course, working up how the combat could be handled.
 
 
 
I felt like that about ECV for _years_.  Particularly when so many "mental powers" worked on O/D CV: "I use a mental blast!".  Energy blast.  "I use my telekinesis to punch him."  A large number of "mental powers" are SFX for O/DCV based attacks.  Sure, there are some-- "mental paralysis" for example-- that are "of the mind."  At the end of the day, you are using Entangle, and paying for Advantage "versus Alternate CV."
 
 
But I also recall all the things Champions was hailed for when it first came out:  defenses that subtracted from damage!  Real crippling damage and minor, pain-inducing Stun-type damage!  Defenses did not affect the odds of being hit!  (i.e., no THAC0).  Separate combat methodologies that allow wheelchair bound octogenarian mentalists (looking at you, Doctor Arcane!) to stand their ground against super-athletes (Captain America).
 
Looking at this, I, like you, have little issue with the idea that hundred-and-eight year old wizard _should_ be effective as a well-practiced wizard, and have no qualms with a magic-based combat value or system of some sort.  What's the point of eighty years of studying the arcane arts if you still have to fist fight  a twenty-year old viking?
 
 

Nope, still  not overly sympathetic.  I've been there too.  Mine was Killing Attacks.
 
Never saw the issue.  They weren't really a problem in Supers.
 
They were not a problem in our games, because our players "rarely to never" used them against living targets.  Helpful to break out of Entangles, take down automatons, etc. but the living villains were targeted with normal attacks.  So in my mind, they simply were not a problem.
 
Except they were.  It took someone on these Boards, quite a few years back, who made me look at the math.  Sure, the average STUN was a bit lower than a normal attack, but that was before defenses.  There was a breakpoint of defenses where the KA passed more STUN along than a normal attack - and it had a far better chance to stun the target.
 
And then I had to think about all the mooks I armed with KAs because a few will get some STUN damage past those Super defenses when an equivalent  Normal attack never would.  So I was abusing it, I just never realized it (and, of course, as GM it was not my goal to overpower the PCs anyway).
 
I'm grateful to the poster who made me look at the math, and see past my own experience to the reality.  If we want to engage in meaningful discussions, we have to be prepared to have our views questioned.  And even question our own views.
 
Still not a "downvote" fan -  but I can see why other people may use them.   Maybe someone will sell me on those someday as well...but I doubt it.

I get where you're coming from; really I do.
 
But there are options beyond just hitting the down vote.  My favorite personally (and one I have used regularly):  once it's clear that no one's mind is going to be changed, it's clear there's no point in continuing the conversation.  Certainly conversations can bring up related or side topics, and they can often be more productive, so chase those for a bit, as long as everyone involved is civil _and_ more or less enjoying the exchange, what's the harm?  But when you realize there's no point in continuing, and one or more of you can't retain simple respect for each other, end the conversation.  Make the (sincere) Gentlemen's offer of agreeing to disagree.  If accepted, then great: we have both agreed that we cannot agree completely with each other, but respect each other enough not to beat this horse (or each other) any longer.
 
Whether it's accepted or not, stop participating.
 
I'm in a weird position on this one, simply because I _don't_ agree with Christopher, but I _totally_ understand where he's coming from, because I was _there_!  Dude, when I read through those sections in 5e, I was _furious_!  I was like "why call it HERO?!   Why not just call it 'simulated slaughter' or 'win initiative or die instantly!'"  Now he did something I _didn't_ do, and that's ask questions on the board.  I don't know if you remember it, Hugh, but _I_ posted lengthy gripes and complaints about how each successive edition seemed more and more about how to spend the least amount of points to kill the most people, and how the whole focus of the game was shifting from being heroes to simply killing everything on a map.  There's no nice way to say it: I was _pissed_ about what I perceived to be massive changes to a game I'd played at that point for-- well let's just call it "half my life or so."   
 
Yeah....  not the smartest reaction.....
 
I didn't participate much after that, but I did read, simply because there were (and are, but many seem to be gone now) a lot of people I respected and viewed as observant and intelligent, even when I didn't agree with them.   It was reading conversations-- mostly involving Sean, Liaden, Chris Goodwin, Keith Curtis, you, and a few others that i began to think "clearly the didn't read the same damned abomination of a rules book that _I_ read!"  (for the record, I used to enjoy Ghost Angel's stuff, too: no-nonsense common-sense approach to things that I liked, but a short fuse that kept me from interacting with him a lot (I've heard tell that two short fuses are a bad thing  ).
 
The absolute hardest damned thing about the entire process was accepting that maybe _I_ had misunderstood what I read.   
 
No joke; no hyperbole.  That was _hard_.  It was (though hearing it in that voice over and over again in Princess Bride has made me _hate_ this word) _inconceivable_ that I had gotten it wrong.  It was _months_ before I got rid of the prejudice enough to divest myself of everything I _thought_ I knew about it and actually re-read it a couple of times.  Even then, I had to run some scenarios-- not in my head, but on one of my trusty "Roses" maps using some villains from the file....
 
I can't even say it just clicked.  Not until I actually sat down to (go ahead: laugh) "play with myself" and actually roll some dice that it finally clicked.
 
It wasn't even until then that I realized that like it or not, even if _had_ been problematic, the rules have allowed it for _years_:  You can have in use as many powers as you can afford (END-wise) to keep running.  You can be using Flight, ForceField, Life Support, Growth, and Density Increase all at once.  You can even add an Energy Blast in there and no one will even _suggest_ you can't do that.  You can add a Damage Shield to that and _still_ use that Energy Blast!  If  you're still covering the END bill, you can be maintaining an Area Affect Darkness (or fire, or electrical storm, or whatever) with your Flight, Force Field, Life Support, Growth, DI, and Damage Shield and _still_ fire off your Burning Eyes of Justice.
 
The rules have _always_ allowed you to use as many powers as you could fuel whenever you wanted, so long as you can keep them fueled.
 
I felt like an idiot when that revelation hit.  I tried to cover it with "No!  That's something the Harbinger of Bullets slipped in!  If that was always legal, there would have been all kinds of rules balancing the problems it creates!"  
 
To "prove" my point, I had _both_ of my weekly groups (I had two at the time.  Well, if the youth group keeps showing up at my picnic table, I guess I still do.  Sort of.    ) to have a big "prove me right, Dammit!" party, and we played straight-up unabashed arena combat for _hours_.  I was actually _angry_ to discover that----    it doesn't cause any balance issues.  :/
 
As many have pointed out: if you're character is shrugging of 12d6 attacks, he's going to keep shrugging them off.  Hit him with one every other Segment or hit him with six on this Phase, he's going to shrug them off.  The only real "advantage" is the potential for a good tactician to pop in something surprising, like a Flash or a Drain along with his Lightning Bolt.  Even then, you're only setting him up for the _next_ attack, as no GM is going to rule the "Drain: ED" took effect _before_ a simultaneous attack landed, and his DCV was full when you launched that attack, so the Flash (if successful) is only good for the next guy; not for you.
 
 
 
Dude, it's unpleasant to learn someone made you wrong, but I can't stress enough how much it sucks to realize that you did it yourself, or even how difficult it is to admit that the _possibility_ is strong enough to go back and try to "understand differently."
 
For me, it was another "Haymaker moment."  Haymaker was, for us, always, a maneuver you could use with a punch.  Why?  Well because we all know what a haymaker actually _is_: it's an uppercut that starts at the knees; it's a good old-fashioned from-behind-the-spine roundhouse swing.  Hell, the first few editions specifically spelled out "it's a kind of punch that...."
 
I remember reading on the old Red October boards (when I first got online) something along the lines of "but if he haymakered his optic blast" and thinking What the *((^%%% is this jackass talking about?!  You can't haymaker an optic blast!
 
Then I thought "well...  why can't you?  Mechanically, a haymakered punch is a kick.  Why can't you "haymaker" a kick?  Why can't you haymaker something else?  (to be fair, we _still_ don't play it that way, but we do accept it as valid).
 
 
the multi / combined stuff?  It was a lot like that.
 
AND IT SUCKED!
 
Yeah; I agree that he could be a little more civil and less insulting in his reply / rebuttals, but I totally get where he's at right now.
 
 
 
Also:
 
Evidently since Bob Munden's death, his youtube channel has be managed by someone else.  Most of the videos I used to really enjoy are gone, including the one I was looking for where he _explained_ "Sure; everyone knows you can thumb the hammer, or fan it with your thumb.  But you've got four more fingers....."   There are a couple of other guys I was looking for (I promised Christopher I would make the effort to find a video akin to what I was talking about), but one has evidently deleted  his account or had it removed for him, and I just can't find the other one.  I did find some smarmy guy called "Cisko; Master Gunman" or something like that.  He doesn't have a video of himself doing it, but I notice that in most of his fanning videos, he _is_ wearing a glove with metal reinforced fingers, as if he's been practicing it.  (haven't tried it that way, and likely won't, as I don't want to have to stop and say "wait!  Let me get my glove!"  I found him doing one fanning that gives the impression of _starting_ that way, but after the first pass it's straight on index finger over and over and over at ludicrous speeds.  It's like he got two then fumbled the third and gave up trying for that particular video.
 
 
Oh, and Christopher:
 
I missed this when I was reading at break today, but the technique you described is the other way around.  You start with the revolver cocked, and pull the trigger.  As you're pulling the trigger, start the fan; you want to catch it just as the hammer falls for the first shot then fan it for the second.  Doing it the other way just incases the chance your going to try to rotate the cylinder while you're fanning or just bind everything up and have to stop and do some quick smithing.

Just to get terminology settled:  
Combined Attack is what in 5th edition was called Multiple Power Attack, where you can "stack" multiple Powers into a single attack, based on the idea that you can activate any number of Powers at once, even if those are attack powers, and throw them with one attack roll.  Multiple Attack is now the umbrella term for what in previous editions was Multiple Move-By, Sweep, Rapid Fire, and so on, plus Combined Attack.    
In 6th edition, they're both under the Multiple Attack umbrella.  Notable features about this are:
It has a yellow warning symbol The GM can feel free to limit it to 2-3 attacks "The GM can forbid any use of Multiple Attack if he feels the proposed attack defies common or dramatic sense, would cause game balance problems, involves incompatible Power Modifiers or special effects, or the like."  (6e2 p. 73) "The GM may rule that characters cannot use Multiple Attack with some powers or weapons — such as slings, crossbows, and some spells."  (6e2 p. 75) Combined Attack stacks multiple Powers into a single attack against a single target with single Attack Roll.  It specifies that a Multiple Attack can be made with a Combined Attack at the usual penalties for doing so.    
It's 6e2 pages 73-78, for the full section.