Cantriped

This is a fair point, if you only need to be able to use the light personally (or give it to a friend, or have it stolen by an enemy) OIF is fine. It is mostly just when you want to mimic the actual D&D spell Light (as opposed to a generic light-like spell) that you must use UAA. Because of the fact that per its description that spell can in theory grant Images to unwilling Objects (per RAW Objects and Unconscious/Unaware Characters are only ever willing to be granted Defense Powers, and Images is an Attack Powers regardless of how you use it). CE is explicitly prohibited from being able to create Light (or amplify noises/smells/etc beneficially). An oddity to be sure considering it's status as a "Catch-All Power", but I suppose it was to avoid it being used in place of the less user-friendly Adjustment Powers like Aid/Boost. Regardless, the cost of Modifying PER rolls using Images and CE are almost exactly the same. Images simply adds an additional flat cost based on number of senses affected (I suppose to pay for its Illusion-like mechanics), and then pops a mandatory -1 limitation on it that brings the Total Cost back fairly close to what a CE build would look like if it were legal.

Hmm... That was too harsh perhaps. We should feel empowered as Game Masters to make any changes to the system be believe will improve the table's experience. I just want to strongly caution against making any house rules without very carefully examining the ramifications of the proposed changes: That includes comparing the costs and effects of any new game elements to those of existing game elements to ensure your change isn't going to cause yourself problems later.

If we are just going to be trolls: It could equally fairly be said that there is a puzzling tendency for those inexperienced with their wagons to believe that they can do a better job reinventing the wheel than the people who built the wagon (the wagon being the game system, and the wheels being the individual rules that make up that system). Sadly this is rarely the case, which is why we pay professional game designers to produce higher quality games than we can. I'll admit though, It is often easier to just hit "F**k It", and make something arbitrary up. It looks really simple on paper to just type out: Stun Target (11- Roll) as a power instead of some "obtuse build", and if everybody is one the same page it works just fine... However, every element of one of those obtuse builds you complain about has a defined meaning within the game system, and it's function can be understood at a glance by anyone actually familiar with the mechanics of the system. Conversely, there isn't any RAW defining what "Stun Target (11- Roll)" means, how it works, or anything else about it. So one has to consider if it still a more elegant solution if you are still going to have to write up this new power and its mechanics and keep them somewhere the players can reference (which for most Powers takes up most of a page, even in CC/FHC), or else be willing and able to teach and/or remind your players how this new power works over and over again (potentially from memory, usually in the middle of combat, and sometimes weeks or months apart). Not to mention all the inconveniences that house rules can cause when playing under other GM's using the same base system, or when attempting to seek rules advice from a forum such as this one.

There are actually lots of methods, you just have to find the ones that best fit the context you need to apply them too. As mentioned above, Stunned is available as a Combat Effect for Change Environment in the Advanced Players Guide. Change Environment is the power used for almost all of the official "Save-Or-Suck" powers, it can be nice and simple, but is admittedly rather vague. Therefore it is not a method preferred by most of this community. Presence Attacks can easily deprive a character of their Actions, and the mechanical difference between being Stunned and PA'd out of your actions is negligible. Mind Control explicitly gives you control over another's actions (and can easily be limited to simply forcing them to take no actions); it natively works against EGO and Mental Defense, but it can be modified easily using just CC/FHC/6e1&2 to target CON or more common defenses where appropriate. Likewise, Mental Illusions can completely cut a target off from reality, effectively Stunning them. But I hazard a guess that this method will end up more expensive than simply using Mind Control. Mental Entangles (especially with a Time Limit) would be mechanically similar to using a Presence Attack (but both more expensive and reliable), in that the victim can reduce the duration of the effect if they've invested heavily enough in it's defense. If you Flash enough senses, a character is basically Stunned... but enemies with Unique Targeting senses will be immune (or less-affected). Plus the rules for being deprived of your senses explicitly state that they don't prevent the character from taking any particular actions (such as moving or attacking), they simply affect your chances of success...

The first thing that comes to mind is a style based on Axemanship and various orcish axe designs. When I imagine orcish hordes, I can't help but put axes in their hands.

I'm about to run a new Champions campaign, and one of my new player's had a Character concept that stumped me a little. If a Computer is integrated into a Character (or an Automaton that can be Knocked Out), can the Computer be Knocked Out too? If not, what actions can a Computer take while the Character (or Automaton that can be Knocked Out) they are integrated into is Knocked Out? These are some of the specific cases I am contemplating: If a Computer is built with control over one or more of the Character's Powers, can the Computer still activate or maintain those Powers while the Character is Knocked Out? For example, a high-tech robot with a shoulder mounted laser turret controlled by a Computer, or a two-headed giant whose second head is built as a Computer. If a Computer is built with one or more Powers of it's own, can the Computer still activate or maintain those Powers while the Character is Knocked Out? For example, if the aforementioned high-tech robot's Computer paid 15 points to have Radar, or if the two-headed giant's Computer paid 105 points to have a full suite of Normal Senses (including Voice) and how ever many more points to have magical Powers of its own (that most likely only require Incantations to activate or maintain).

There aren't very many adders one might want to switch around. It would be easier to houserule that you can also buy Adders with Variable Advantage if you have enough APs worth of effective advantage available to pay for the Adder. For example: 6d6 Blast, Variable Advantage (+1/2 worth; +1) (60 APs) could purchase up to 15 APs worth of Adders, a +1/4 Advantage and 8 APs worth of Adders, or +1/2 in Advantages. That way a traditional Variable Attack power can buy Reduced Negation alongside Armor Piercing and other combat Modifiers as needed.

I don't think I can recall any of the official examples I've seen using Reduced Negation. To be fair though most of them were converted from editions where Damage Negation and Reduced Negation didn't exist yet. So it isn't something I think about very often. In theory, Reduced Negation being so cheap, and Damage Negation being so expensive (relative to its counter at least) is one of the biggest disadvantages to using Damage Negation. There is a much bigger gamble in using Damage Negation as your primary defense over Resistant Protection. Almost every Master Villain comes with an Attack Framework that could easily have a slot loaded with enough Reduced Negation to render a character reliant on Damage Negation defenseless, and still have a sizeable Attack Power that isn't prorated against a huge Stack of Advantages: Negation Negation Gauntlets: HA +1d6 (Physical), Reduced Negation (15 DCs) (+/-1 DC per 5 APs) (35 APs); HA (-1/4), OIF Universal (-1/2). Total Cost: 20 points Note: Since this gadget is adding Reduced Negation to an HA via an OIF, you end up paying just ~1.14 CP to negate 5 APs of Damage Negation. You also get to add all of your Strength (without proration) to the attack, and none of it gets negated either. It is a bit too expensive to buy at full price on the off-chance a character has a lot of physical Damage Negation, but it will easily fit into most Frameworks.

Like the OP I don't particularly like Damage Negation. However I do see it's place in the toolkit that is Hero System. Instead of trying to 'fix' the tool, I only use it for those few things I consider it to be good at. For example, I use Damage Negation in my version of Seat Belts to reduce damage to the passenger from Collisions. I'd also use Damage Negation to reduce damage from G-Forces in lieu of the defenses suggested for starships and the like in Star Hero.

Using Defensive Attack is also going to be more cost effective than using PSLs (if your GM allows them) for characters with very high DCVs because it changes the penalty from a relative penalty to a flat penalty. However there being an alternate method available in an optional rules supplement is not a "good" argument against the legality of other methods.

I dislike how the bolded section is doesn't actually say what it explains itself to mean. Being restricted to only teleporting whole objects or persons has nothing to do with whether or not you can teleport a person separately from their carried objects, or an object separately from the person carrying it. Further, and to be entirely semantic, the supporting text for that bolded nonsense never actually says I cannot teleport armor off of a person, it merely explains that I cannot teleport a person out of their armor. So it is still entirely legal in 6th edition so long as you target the armor, and not the person wearing it (just like you would target a weapon and not the person wielding it in the parenthetical section after the section you've bolded). Although this may seem mechanically identical, it is not. The former would allow me to not only deprive a character of the object, but also potentially expose them to a Hazard they now have less/no defense against (For example, teleporting Defender out of his armor and into a vat of acid), while the latter only allows me to deprive a character of the object (and possibly expose the object to a hazard, such as teleporting Defender's armor into a vat of acid).

I don't think anyone was overlooking that Foci can be damaged by Attack Powers, per say. There are nice, explicit rules for how Foci respond to BODY Damage. Most of the arguments revolve around which Attack power to use, and which ones work on what kinds of Foci how well. For "Teleporting A Target Out Of Their Armor" (preferably in one shot): Transform works fine, but requires the GM assign a Transform value and approve a recovery condition (also being cumulative by default is a bit odd). Teleport works if you make it an Attack Power (by using UAA), but that requires the GM approve a "reasonably common defense" that doesn't break his campaign (good luck with that). Dispel only works if the GM requires that their armor is built differently than the RAW requires/suggests (by using Extra Time to represent how long it takes to equip a suit of armor), or else house rules it. Whichever option the GM approves should be cheaper than simply using a Penetrating RKA to destroy it in one shot I don't think the description for Foci ever actually says anything about how an Inaccessible can be taken away (that is left to be determined by SFX)... However it does explicitly say that an Inaccessible Focus "cannot be Grabbed, Disarmed, or removed while the character is in combat or resisting" (CC 105). So a "reasonably common" defense for UAA Teleport might be "While In Combat Or Resisting". Said entry also only permits an Inaccessible focus to "be taken away from an unresisting target out of combat (or... otherwise be deprived of its use) in 1 Turn" (CC 105). So per RAW, no attempt to take away, or otherwise deprive a character of the use of an inaccessible focus is legal if that character is in combat, resisting, or takes less than 1 Turn. So the aforementioned UAA Teleport should also have at least 1 Turn of Extra Time at well.

This is the most correct answer.

I justified Minor on the basis that you really only need to make a minor change to the function of a suit of armor to remove it. For example: unbuckling all the straps on a suit of full plate, or triggering the emergency release catch on a suit of Powered Armor. If a Minor Transform is good enough to turn a Dagger into a Sword (literally one of the examples from 6e1 304), than it should also be good enough to unbuckle straps or pop releases. The wording on that section is a little janky in 6e1. But you appear to be correct. CC also stipulates that "When granting abilities with Transform, (CP Granted)/5 is added to the targets BODY..." (It omits the bit about Complications, but the important part is that it never mentions Removing abilities). I must have misread it earlier. Thanks!

I think it is important to remember that one of the "thrills" of Heroic Fantasy is amassing things that make you more powerful. Finding ways to give/take away "Experience In The Form Of Loot" is just a basic part of how a GM maintains game balance in a D&D-like Campaign. So sure, a War Falcon you've spent precious downtime training over the course of months (possibly both in and out of character) with multiple Success Rolls at various steps might be worth a fair few points. The same could be said of a unique Magical Sword you forged by leading the party on an epic quest to gather it's materials and find a place suitable to perform the forging... Or the Ring of Invisibility you plucked from a Dragon King's in an daring heist. Any of which could be lost at a moments notice if the plot called for it (or if they were disrupting game balance in an unfun way). What is important is that everybody is getting rewards that make them equally happy, not exactly how we give them out (or what they are worth objectively).

The Hero System doesn't function very well if your GM behaves like a machine with no subjective judgement, critical thinking skills, inclination to interact with the system, or authority over their own table (if that is what you are looking for, I suggest joining the Pathfinder Society). Likewise I don't think you can have a productive discussion of this system while operating under such harsh hypothetical assumptions. Even if a GM is adhering strictly to the RAW (few do), the Limited and Conditional modifiers provide enough metrics to make reasonable evaluations most of the time (When they can't, there are trolls Herophiles like us on the internet). Further, trying to ban or dismiss the use of using any game elements that require the GM to make a decision is far more drastic than simply performing the basic auditing and adjudication the RAW assumes you are capable of as GM. We did not dodge your inquiry, it was answered it with the RAW that are available. I'm sorry you didn't like the answer.

I might treat it as a "free" Follower acquired by making the appropriate Animal Handler rolls. Then simply give the Follower the XP it would normally deserve, with the caveat that the character must make Animal Handler Rolls (at a penalty equal to the XP expended) in order to spend follower's XP. I might also eventually need/want to set arbitrary limits to prevent the animal companion from growing super-powerful, such as limiting CVs to no higher than twice their starting value, same for maximum damage, BODY & STUN, etc.

I haven't seen the new Gun Fu book, but I like my old Dark Champions sourcebook for cinematically appropriate rules for firearms (most of which require little to no conversion to 6th edition since the modifiers and powers commonly used for weapons haven't changed that much since Fifth (Hand-To-Hand Attacks are a notable exception). The Hero System Equipment Guide has lots of firearms, but the tables and rules for how certain elements are built are inconsistent.

Not always. Charges sometimes comes out to (or caps at) a value of -0. Normal Equipment is often required to take -0 modifiers (such as STR Mins of 1-3, or One-Handed) which do limit the power, but it's generally okay because you get that stuff "for free", so it being points efficient is irrelevant.

I suggested Minor Transform because I was also suggesting the Rules For Adding And Removing Powers as the basis for determining the threshold of the Transform's success. Which means you'd need a huge number of dice of transform to "teleport their armor off", at 5 CP/die that will get expensive fast if you want to remove powerful equipment quickly enough to be of use. For example: you need 24 points of Transform to remove a normal suit of Full Plate from a Normal Person (requiring 7d6 of Transform to do so in one shot), 48 points of Transform to remove Esper's Armored Costume (CC 204) (14d6), or 492 points of Transform to remove Defender's suit of Powered Armor (CC 192) (141d6)... although at that point it's probably cheaper to buy a Severe Transform and turn him into a newt instead.

I couldn't use them directly because my next campaign is going to be Low-Powered Superheroes, but I did take some ideas from your examples when I wrote my own Low-Powered examples. For example, my speedster can similarly just barely break the sound barrier, but has a lower Combat Velocity (which is reasonable considering the difference in point totals).

I also liked the mental powers route mechanically, although only some SFX are appropriate to those mechanics. Regarding UAA Teleport, naturally the defense condition would have to be "reasonably common" to get approved, but what constitutes "reasonably common" would have to be very carefully contemplated to match the style and expectations of the campaign.

I take issue with the idea that you believe that the Limited Power is somehow not part of the RAW. Limited Power isn't an Optional Rule, it doesn't have a Caution Sign, or a Stop Sign, and it has been published in every version of 6th edition (6e1 382; CC 108; FHC 128). It is not like we are telling you "there isn't a modifier that does that, just have your GM make something up". No there probably isn't any RAW that explicitly states that the specific modifier from the Body-Affecting Powers section of 6e1 applies elsewhere, and the fact that it didn't make it into CC/FHC (officially the most recent versions of the 6th edition rules) indicates it was an optional rule anyway. But that doesn't matter, because we can point to RAW from multiple credible sources that provide fair, if subjective, guidelines and metrics for determining the value of any limitation or condition which hasn't already been defined elsewhere; said sources even provide us with numerous common examples of each. So if a character wants a Hand-To-Hand Attack Power that Cannot Be Reduced (like a Beam Attack), the RAW provides explicit support for this, and guidelines for what the value of said modifier should be. Although yes, the GM does have to approve the value you assign, just like they have to approve an Unbreakable Foci's destruction condition, a Transform's recovery condition, or the defenses of NND/UAA Powers. As for your counter argument regarding the value of Beam. It is true that it's list of effects indicate that each of those effects is individually worth less than -1/4. However, in practice separate Limited modifiers such as Cannot Be Reduced and Does Not Leave Holes must be worth at least -1/4, because few are going to pick out (or accept having forced upon them) a -0 Limitation that actually limits their powers in a way they care about. However, I could see the soundness of the argument that when combined back into Beam (or some Melee-friendly variant of it), Cannot Be Reduced and Does Not Leave Holes are still only worth -1/4 (because rounding and minimum values are inconvenient like that sometimes).

I don't think Must Be Used At Full Power made it into CC/FHC. However, the Limited modifier is RAW Support for any odd specific limitation they didn't think to publish in advance. Corner-Cases are why Catch-All powers and modifiers exist. I generally consider the "Cannot Be Reduced" modifier to be worth -1/4, and is generally only applicable to Attack powers that cause BODY Damage (which complications like CVK might prevent you from using because they are too lethal). I also generally prohibit such attacks from being reduced by other means such as Pulling A Punch.

The other way to have fuel consumption be relative to usage would be to use an Endurance Reserve to power to equipment (using less of your maximum blast uses up less of your reserve).