Grailknight

That's just teleport with an SFX and a Limitation. I doubt the Shadow Clones will leave LOS. Like I said, incredibly expensive but I think it covers what he wants. Sometimes HERO is like that. Thank you, I had a mental block that kept me from recalling that one.

I think I've figured a way to do this, but it's really complicated and expensive. Zed chould buy all the Powers that the Shadow Clones will have access to first. Then buy Auto-fire and Indirect on all of them as Naked Advantages and add a Custom Limitation based off Retrainable to allow for them being destructible and perhaps an Extra Time to manifest them. I think that covers everything, but I wouldn't want to have to write this up. Or with GM permission, he could make use of the 5-point doubling rule to make copies of a Multipower bought through a Focus and just have them be Fragile.

It's a matter of campaign utility. If none of the other PC's have Enraged/Berserk, then just used the guidelines for Emotions only. If, however your group has one or more members that constantly go out of control, the utility greatly increases, and I'd knock -1/4 off the Limitation. It's still a Limited power but it's no longer niche.

Cellular is for fooling things like DNA scanners or blood tests not changing appearance. You'd need Sight for sure and if there's going to be close interaction, you'd add Touch, Hearing and Smell/Taste.

Nah, you can only accelerate to 25 on your first movement from 0. You'd need to add Noncombat Acceleration to cover the distance in two moves.

Who's using it and on whom?

I'm scared of your campaign. Just how did they beat him?

Hugh covers most of it very well. Here's some other options. Just like Aid isn't permanent, neither is Drain. Buy an Aid with a Fade Rate equal to that of the Drain and limit it to Healing Drained abilities only. If that's too much, buy Power Defense with a Custom Limitation that makes it work similarly to Delayed Effect/Damage over Time. The defenses kick in over time.

I'm just saying that you should give your VPP a SFX and then make all powers therein conform to that SFX. I tend to be a restrictive GM because I've seen what happens in HERO with a group of players that were all engineers and programmers. How you want to do AVAD's is on you.

It's only abusive if you allow that Magic Fire to trigger Vulnerabilities and Susceptibilities to fire. If it only affects magic limitations, then there's no issue. The hardest and most important thing for a GM is to learn when to say "NO" in a consistent and fair manner. Reward creativity but not gamesmanship. By the way, 6th does say that any character should have no more than one type of AVLD, but the writer then proceeds to violate that repeatedly in the villain books.

Many powers are OP on villains. Trying to make a PC within the campaign guidelines using that power will show its flaws.

No, if your SFX when you design the VPP is magic or cosmic energy or nanite technology then that's what it is. It may look like something else but that's purely cosmetic. If you want to be able to change your SFX buy the Cosmic Advantage on your VPP or buy Variable SFX on individual powers. The ability to alter SFX varies from niche to instant win. It's a powerful ability and shouldn't be given for free with VPP's.

Actually, the part you're all ignoring is the Limitation to make Damage Negation only affect Normal damage and AVAD's. That makes it ineffective against all Drains and KA's. There are already rules to limit effectiveness in RAW. . Damage Negation versus AVAD's is merely an all-inclusive method to not take full STUN from them. And it's still restricted to matching damage type, (Physical, Energy or Mental) so it has to be purchased for each category. Yes, if you invest in all three types you can mitigate all AVAD's, (There's no such thing as a damaging power that doesn't fall into one of them no matter how convoluted you twist the SFX.) but the cost is high. Using Damage Negation as a character's main defense takes a larger points investment than any other method by percentage. I've never seen a PC use it for anything other than being able to shrug off attacks that share their SFX.

It'll be extremely difficult for that villain to ever regain the respect lost. He'll always be that guy we beat when where just beginners, playing catch up to the PC's rather than the major player he was intended to be.

There are times when these come into play such as when you want to create a ravening monster or a loyal slave. I usually handle these by requiring both a Physical and Mental Transform. If you're using Damage Negation as your main defense, it's actually pretty expensive in a Supers game because you have to protect versus both physical and energy-based attacks. And Damage Negation can be pretty risky when that boss or mastermind shows up with attacks 4-6 DC's beyond what you're immune to especially against KA's. Damage Negation takes away dice before they are rolled. For example, a 12 DC Blast against 4 DC Damage Negation would only roll 8 dice.

Yes, but always with the understanding that the heroes will be able to overcome them eventually. If you indirectly stop the plans of a vast shadow organization that's a heroic victory. Do it often enough and you can erode their power base to something you can shut down. Beating a villain that can't be directly faced sounds like the objective for an epic quest. Destroying a power source or freeing an antithesis are pretty standard tropes. Maybe the heroes can't beat the villain now, but after a campaign's worth of experience, training, alliances and equipment improvements, we're ready. The real worry is a supposed campaign mastermind that gets trounced by beginning level PC's because you didn't make them powerful enough on their first character sheet.

So, it should cost the same to turn a targets' hair fluorescent purple as it does to turn them into a statue or a mushroom? I can see reducing it to Minor and Severe because the spread of effects under Moderate is so great but there should be categories. Damage Negation is the easiest way to grant immunity to a specific level of DC's that exists in the game. Its utility was diminished somewhat because the STUN Multiplier was fixed. It might be a tad overpriced (I'd set it at 4 points per DC stopped.) but it has plenty of utility.

I've had experience with that third one, the Ahab complex. A character who does not have Psych Limitations to mandate this decides "I'm not letting this guy escape." even though they are the only member of the team that can keep up and has to pursue the literally demonic serial killer into tunnels where their team comms don't work when all the other players are shouting after her in game that this is a terrible idea. Even after I told her as GM that this won't end well, she persisted. But she was a good sport about it and admitted that it was really stupid next session before she began a new character. Still friends, 30 years later.

I'm fond of many of these but I use a more subtle baddie also. A sorcerer whose main area of influence is the mind and who sets himself as leader in the vice industries. He runs several brothels and gambling spots, attempts to slowly corrupt vulnerable NPC's to his cause and generally stays in the shadows. He's not a world-beater but can comfortably defeat a single PC and is always surrounded by minions, has a large information network and fabulous wealth hidden in smaller locations. He plays the long game and may never cross the PC's unless they make nuisances of themselves repeatedly.

What DC levels and velocities are we talking about in these cases? I can see the how it could happen in the first case but the second baffles me. Your defenses last until the end of the segment when stunned so the crash shouldn't be fatal unless you are moving at NCM speeds (which I wouldn't allow or attempt in a forest) and didn't strike something until the next segment. In scenario 3, you're again moving at NCM speeds and hitting each other is ... challenging. Also, unless you were descending at speed, it takes 45 seconds to fall 10 km. You'd have to have been knocked out to -21 or more to not get a recovery. I'm not saying these things are impossible because I know the game is played and not scripted but I don't think that AP was the direct cause of the deaths in the second and third cases.

For the overall campaign, it can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. You need to set up the basic blocks of friendly and antagonistic NPC's with individual capabilities and background organizations. Make 2 or 3 possible storylines and let the PC's follow their inclinations. They will do things you haven't planned even so. Be adaptable rather than forcing them back to one path. For a session I usually take 2-4 days to write the involved NPC's. Some may just be names with personalities and skills to be developed to flesh out the background. The opposition of the week need full sheets for the mains, but the nameless minions can be just a list of combat relevant abilities. As you build up a catalog of NPC's this time will shorten especially if you have one or more recurring mains. Work on your capability to go from a concept to a complete campaign balanced NPC and you'll shorten this time. I'd also suggest an initial session 0 to create and modify the PC's to fit the campaign. This may require you or them to adjust. Supers range from things like the Super Friends to The Boys in tone. Other genres can have the same spread. Make sure you and your players are anticipating the same thing even if both sides have to compromise.

I think you've misinterpreted my post. My reasons for the pricing AP and Penetrating differently have nothing do with frequency of use. Penetrating KA's are better at consistently doing BODY damage. They break Barriers better and ignore the DEF an entangled target gets from Entangle. That's why I agreed with Christopher R Taylor it should have one price for normal damage and a greater price for killing. My only mention of frequency was to the defenses for these powers and how it related to their different costs.

Well, that's 37 DC if Penetrating is a +1/4 advantage and 45 DC if it is +1/2. The only genre I've seen that I might place at that level is anime akin to DBZ. And yes, you want Penetrating to be a +1/2 advantage on killing damage at the low end of the power scale. Entangles give you some DEF against AP attacks but they are transparent to Penetrating. Barriers generally fall faster also. Since AP is only 1/2 the cost on Penetrating, Hardened is slightly more than twice as common as Impenetrable. I like the balance but YMMV. And there our experiences differ. I've seen STUN from AP and rarely BODY. Penetrating KA's have been the cause of far more BODY damage over that same span.

Possibly true balance wise but remember this game is played, not scripted. There can be sessions with incredibly skewed die rolls and an unintentional character death could result. Remember, Penetrating does 1 BODY per die on average. Lowering the price ups the number of dice rolled, making it more deadly, and that is usually undesirable in Supers.

And in my interpretation, adding STR to HA and HKA is baked into the rules for those powers explicitly and is separate from the rules of all the other powers. We are parsing at different levels. No, each power is its own mechanic. Possession would simply be another with its own set of rules within the framework of the game. But as my newcomer pointed out, you can say the same of every power. It's not a bad thing each that power works differently. STR adding is just the way HA and HKA work by RAW. Other powers work other ways. So, on this point we do agree that there' a place in the game for adding characteristics to powers. Unless we want to write a complete 7th edition though, we'll have to go with adding the non-STR options in an APG type book. Agreed.