massey

You don't actually need the "real" Fu Manchu. The character is a walking talking stereotype. Just call him something else and you're fine.

Well, the thing about diversity, it needs to happen organically or it ends up feeling forced. It makes sense that if there are superheroes, then there would be black superheroes and female superheroes and asian superheroes and gay superheroes, etc etc etc. But the characters also have to be interesting, and the stories have to be good, and that's not something you can just snap your fingers and accomplish instantly. Without good stories and good characters, it just feels like you're checking a box to fill a quota, and that's how you get Apache Chief and other ultra stereotype characters. And then sometimes when they take an existing character with a good story, and they change them to make them a minority (just to make them a minority) they can screw up an existing good character. I think the Marvel movies have done a pretty good job of avoiding those problems, but every once in a while the "girl power" moments fall a little flat. My biggest problem with the scene in Endgame when all the women come together is, well, Captain Marvel didn't need any of them. She's like "oh gee, I'm really glad I've got Gamora and the Wasp here to help me blast all these mooks". What she really should have done is just grab the gauntlet and then fly off into space.

They should exist in the Deadpool-verse.

Oh yeah, Bucky knew. I mean, I basically knew he was going to stay behind. It seemed kinda obvious to me. I think Bucky felt the same way and just knew that Steve was going to go find his lost love.

Post-12: Everybody gets recoveries. Turn #2 Phase 2 (2:25 to 2:26) Now there's a little half-swing that one of the Hydra guys does and Cap does something with his arm. It's hard to tell from the camera angle but it looks like they're kinda hand fighting with each other. I'm going to consider that incidental contact that doesn't really need an OCV roll. I'm not considering those to be actual "attacks". Dex 26 - Cap sweeps with a jump-kick and hits the guy who just got the shock baton and Rumlow (who is just standing back up). Apparently Cap did more than Stun him last time, I think Rumlow had dropped to 0 Stun and had to use his 12 Recovering. But that means he had 2 Recoveries in a row so now he's feeling pretty good (actually now he's feeling less good because he just got kicked in the face again and appears to be Stunned again). Phase 3 (2:27 to 2:28) One of the agents attacks, Cap does a block/counterstrike and knocks him into the wall. Phase 5 (2:30 to 2:33) Cap finally breaks free of the Entangle. Presumably he's been slowly putting a Body or two on it every time he's tried to break out. Now he finally manages to destroy it (freeing his arm from the wall) and does an acrobatics check to land with a backflip. Rumlow is presumably taking another recovery now. Phase 6 (2:34 to 2:37) Cap sweeps again, hitting the two agents standing near him. Visually he hits each one multiple times, but game mechanics wise it's just an Offensive Strike. Cap is now focusing on damage because he doesn't need to worry about so many attackers at once. Phase 8 (2:37 to 2:44) Rumlow makes a soliloquy, taking no time. Cap is holding action. Rumlow attacks and rolls really well. Cap uses his held action to block, but he blows the roll. Visually, Rumlow throws a combo of blows and the last one hits, a shock baton to the gut. Game stat wise, Rumlow hits and Cap fails his block. After so many good rolls in a row, Cap gets a coupe of bad ones. Phase 9 (2:46) Cap swings and it's a miss. Rolls like a 17 or something. Phase 10 (2-47 to 2:48) Rumlow goes. He rolls well again and hits Cap with the shock baton. He's starting to think he might pull this off. Phase 11 (2:49) Cap hits Rumlow with a Fast Strike. Phase 12 (2:50 to 2:51) Cap grabs Rumlow and performs a stylized Crush maneuver, hurling him into the ceiling and taking him completely out of the fight. Rumlow is very negative Stun. Post-12 (2:52 to 2:58) Cap gets his free Recovery and takes the opportunity to make a soliloquy of his own. He then retrieves his shield and smashes off the (now basically broken, but not yet visually broken) Entangle from his wrist. ---- Anyway, this was pretty fun, though it was time consuming. Comments, thoughts, disagreements? Anything I got really wrong? I'm sure there will be people worried about giving Cap an 8 Speed, but that seemed to fit the flow of his actions verses those of the other guys the best. I'm sure if other people had a 3 or something that Cap could operate with something lower, but I based the agents on the Viper HTH specialists. I suppose if Rumlow was the only HTH specialist and everyone else was a regular agent that might work, but I dunno. I kinda like it this way.

Okay, so picking up where I left off. Let's say the base Hydra agents are Dex 18, Spd 4 and 2 HTH levels. I'm gonna assume Rumlow has an extra combat level and a 5 Spd. Cap has a 26 Dex, 6 Spd and 4 HTH levels. I'll be trying to match it to Hero as I type, so I'll be as surprised as you to see how things fit in. I may adjust stats halfway through the analysis if something doesn't feel like it's playing right. pre-combat: Cap makes a perception check to notice the odd behavior of the people around him. One of the guys who gets on with Rumlow has his hand resting on a weapon. Other odd behavior, and the continued arrival of other clear combat-focused SHIELD employees puts him on his guard. A few more perception checks basically confirm what he fears -- they intend to attack him. pre-phase 12: Cap tells the GM he is holding his action until someone attacks him. He attempts a Persuasion check to convince these men not to attack, but the GM has decided that no matter the result, they can't be swayed from this course of action. They are pretty confident that they can take down Captain America, and their psych lims go strongly against the idea of backing down. Cap gives his short statement, letting everyone know that he's on to them. Phase 12 (1:49 in the video to about 1:58) Dex 18 - One of the agents attacks Cap with a shock baton. OCV is 8. Cap uses his held action to do a combined Martial Block + Martial Throw. Total bonus is +0 OCV, +1 DCV. Cap blocks and throws successfully, sending the first agent sprawling into Rumlow and two others. Agent Big Guy (+5 Str and has Martial Grab and Chokehold maneuvers) moves behind Cap and attacks him at 1/2 DCV. We'll assume Cap has his levels evenly divided (2 in OCV, 2 in DCV) at this point. While Cap has Defense Maneuver 2, he hasn't used it because he was holding action. Agent Big Guy goes all OCV (base 6 + 2 levels - 1 grab) and hits Cap's DCV of 7 (base 9, halved to 5, +1 Martial Throw, +2 combat levels) with an 11 or less. Cap gets half his Str to resist (not sure how much that is, but Agent Big Guy is trying to hold him with a Str 35 (20 for combat agent, +5 cuz he's really big, +10 for martial grab). Cap is grabbed. (Note: Phase 12 appears to be pretty long here. We can cram everybody into this phase, or say that certain people are surprised, or say that they're holding action to act in later segments, but I think this is a situation in which the camera just needs to show each person doing something. For game purposes, this is pretty much all taking place in Phase 12, even though it takes about 10 seconds on camera) One guy can't reach Cap and so hits the emergency stop button on the elevator, presumably to keep Cap from "escaping". Ha. Another guy also grabs Cap's arm (1/2 DCV) and tries to help hold him. One agent hits Cap with a shock baton, doing some Stun damage but not dazing Cap. Last two agents pull out the mag clamps (1/2 phase action) and attempt to trap Cap's arms. One misses (can't seem to get it on him before camera switches away) and the other connects. The mag clamp appears to be a moderate Entangle, "one limb only, requires metal surface to connect". Let's call it 6D6 for now. He hits Cap with it, and attempts a Str contest to force Cap's arm into the wall. Or at least, he and the other guy holding Cap's arm will do that, once they have an available phase. Phase 2 (1:59 to about 2:06) Cap goes. First, he breaks free of the existing arm grab. Two agents (both Str 20) were holding his right arm and were exerting their strength on their last phase. The GM rules that two Str 20 guys will effectively be Str 25 (theoretically double the lifting ability of Str 20). They have martial grab as well, so they're holding him with an effective 35 Str. Cap pushes his Str by 10 points, and focuses on just freeing his one arm (optional +5 Str to the roll, 5th ed pg 423), and uses Martial Escape (+15 Str, although visually it looks like he does it with sheer muscle power). So Cap has +30 Str to break free, which is good because unless he doubles their Body on his escape roll, it burns his entire phase. Let's say he has 2 martial arts DCs as well, giving him another +10 Str. If Cap has a 30 Str, that would give him 14D6 to escape. Cap rolls average and breaks free from their arm grab, leaving him a full phase still to act on segment 2. Cap now has a full phase action and performs a sweep maneuver, targeting 3 opponents -- the two who grabbed his arm and the other guy with the mag clamp. Cap takes a -4 OCV from targeting them, meaning he's going to go with something like a Fast Strike that gives him an OCV bonus. He leaves his combat levels split, so Cap attacks them at OCV 9, doing 30 Str + 2D6 + 2 DCs = 10D6. All 3 targets are Stunned, but none unconscious. The guy with the mag clamp drops it and it secures itself to the wall (GM ruling based on special effect). Phase 3 (2:06 to 2:10) Well... it looks like my estimate for Cap's Speed was too low. Cap goes again before any of the other agents. Does Cap have an 8 Speed? Damn that's fast. Cap performs another sweep and a multiple martial arts maneuver. He Fast Strikes four people (Stunning all of them by the looks of it) and then performs a martial throw on Agent Big Guy. Kick, open hand strike to the chest, punch to the face, reverse headbutt, followed by a throw. The GM starts applying penalties and decides that's -8 to Cap's OCV. Cap has a base 9, so he switches all his levels into OCV, and goes with a Fast Strike. That's 9+4+2 for OCV 15, - 8 for a total of 7. The agents have all their levels in OCV because Cap is hard to hit, so he's trying to hit 6 DCVs. Cap needs three rolls of 12- in a row (Agent Big Guy is at 1/2 DCV since he's holding Cap), followed by 2 rolls against the big guy. He's only got a 40% chance of hitting 3 times in a row on that. So... it looks like Cap needs another combat skill level. 5 combat levels mean that Cap is hitting on 13s, and he's got a 58% chance of hitting the first 3 guys (I won't figure the odds against the big guy, because his DCV is only 3 and so Cap should hit pretty easy). Cap stuns all 4 people he hit, including Agent Big Guy. He then uses his Martial Throw to toss Big Guy onto the ground. ...Crap... Multiple martial arts attacks use the lowest bonuses of all the manuevers. Cap isn't getting his Fast Strike +2 OCV bonus against those guys. I may have to raise his Dex and/or OCV levels. Or maybe the two guys who were grabbing him are at reduced DCV, since they were grabbing. So if they're only DCV 3 (half because they were performing a grab), then Cap only needs to hit one guy who was at full DCV. His odds improve considerably now. So let's say 9 OCV base + 4 levels, - 8 for a total of OCV 7. Attacking two agents at DCV 3 (15-), one at DCV 6 (12-), and then the last one twice at DCV 3 (15-). A 3D6 probability chart I found says that's (.95 x .95 x .74 x .95 x .95) a 60% chance of hitting. So he's okay with his existing 9 OCV and 4 levels. Good. He's now Stunned 7 dudes who will miss their phase 3. But not everybody is Stunned. Dex 18 Rumlow attacks Cap's hand, aiming to knock his wrist into the wall and activate the Entangle mag clamp. The GM rules that he doesn't really have to do knockback since he's just trying to move Cap's arm. Rumlow goes full OCV (=3 levels) and does a martial strike. OCV 9 vs Cap's halved DCV of 5. Rumlow hits and overcomes Cap's casual strength in this "not really a normal combat manuever" technique. Cap doesn't take damage, but his right arm flies backwards and locks onto the steel elevator wall. Phase 5 (2:12 to 2:14) Now it's just Cap and Rumlow for a few segments and things start moving pretty quickly. Dex 26 - Cap has just had his arm Entangled, trapping him at effectively 0 DCV. This sucks, so Cap spends his 5 (with his new 8 Spd, he goes on 2,3,5,6,8,9,11,12) to try and break free. He rolls poorly and does nothing to the Entangle. Dex 18 - Rumlow sees how tough Cap is, and how he's shrugged off the earlier shock batons. He hesitates for a moment... (Okay, now we've got a slight problem. Rumlow swings at Cap with the baton (who blocks), then punches wildly at Cap and misses, then follows up with a lengthy shock baton blow to Cap's back. This all happens in the span of about one second. So what happened here? It doesn't seem to match up with the Speed chart at all. So we're going to work around a bit to make it fit right. I've had to retype this section because my initial idea, that Rumlow haymakered so it landed on 6, didn't work out at all.) Rumlow hesitates for a moment and decides to hold his phase. He wants to get a Speed advantage on Cap if possible and wants back to back phases to attack. Cap isn't going anywhere, so Rumlow holds until segment 7. Phase 6 (still 2:14 to 2:15) Cap is still trying to get his arm free. He spends his 6 yanking at the Entangle, then looks worriedly at Rumlow. Phase 7 (2:15) Rumlow attacks Cap with a multiple martial art maneuver, a swing with the shock baton and then a swift punch. Cap aborts his segment 8 to block. He successfully blocks the shock baton, and the GM rules that the punch is therefore blocked as well. Special effect is a swing and a wild miss. Phase 8 (2:16 to 2:18) Cap aborted his 8, so Rumlow goes again. Rumlow swings his shock baton at Cap and connects. He rolls good on the damage, doing a lot of Stun but not enough to make Cap loose his action. Phase 9 (2:19-2:20) Cap sweeps again, hitting Rumlow and then the first of the other agents who has recovered from being Stunned and moved toward him. Effectively Cap sees the guy beginning to stand up (they're basically all in the same hex) and holds his action until the guy is within arm's reach. Cap uses a creative special effect Offensive Strike to Stun Rumlow (losing his 10) and hurl the other guy into the security camera (putting him down for the count). Phase 11 (2:21 to 2:22) Now we cut to people watching on the security camera. Cap is back to yanking at the Entangle. Other people are staggering around, trying to get to their feet. Phase 12 (2:23 to 2:24) Cap sees two guys coming towards him and asks the GM if he can use a modified martial block to redirect the shock baton into the other guy. The GM likes this idea and says okay. Cap holds until one makes his move, then the GM has him roll OCV vs OCV to block, and then OCV vs DCV to hit the other guy. Cap succeeds both times. Next up... Turn #2

So I'm going to assume that all the characters are holding their actions when the fight begins. Cap has figured out what is about to happen, but the Hydra guys don't know that he knows. Cap attempts a Persuasion roll/Presence attack to try and discourage them from the fight, but it doesn't work. Cap is holding his action until after the first guy makes his move. I can't keep track of who gets punched when. A lot of the Hydra agents blend together, and much of the time I can't tell who is getting hit or how many times they've been hit before. There's an asian guy, the big bald white guy, and Rumlow who are distinctive enough that I can recognize them, but in the blur of combat it's really hard to tell who is who (except for Rumlow). So I'm not gonna bother tracking when agent #6 gets hit as opposed to somebody else. By my count, there are about 18 distinct "attack" actions by Cap in this fight that are not directed at Rumlow (in other words, verses generic mooks). Since there are 9 mook guys, that's two hits apiece. From an overhead view of the elevator, it appears that it's only somewhat larger than a single hex. To give a little more room, I'll say it's 2 hexes by 2 hexes, but basically some of the corners would be cut off (effectively the hexes extend outside the walls of the elevator). I'm not going to calculate the strength of the glass or the walls -- nobody gets knocked through them. --to be continued-- We've got a rain delay here. Big hailstorm is coming through and the office is closing up early. Have to continue the analysis of this later.

Okay, I figured I'd try something new. I have decided to start going through various movies and plot out their fight scenes in Hero. Who knows how long this will hold my interest, but I thought it would be fun. I'll pick some fairly well known films and well-known fights, watch the videos several times, and try to represent what we're seeing on the screen in the Hero system. There will be some judgment calls, of course, and people are free to disagree with how they interpret the action on the screen. When available, I'll try to link to a video of the fight and include some time stamps for the action. I'm not going to try to directly match the speed chart to the time of the film, especially when you've got dramatic pauses, dialogue, or switching the camera to bystanders, but I'll make an effort where I can. I will try and note whatever assumptions I make so that people can better determine if they agree or disagree, and why. Generally in cinematic action movies, I tend to give higher stats than a lot of people are comfortable with, so don't get too upset if I give a guy a higher Dex than you would. This is all just for fun. Oh, and obviously spoilers if you haven't seen it. First scene -- the elevator fight in Captain America: Winter Soldier Okay, so here are my starting assumptions. By my count there are 10 Hydra guys in here with Captain America. Brock Rumlow is a named character who gets his own stats, and the really big guy probably has higher stats as well. All of these guys are going to have at least the same stats as a Viper agent, probably melee combat specialists. In 5th edition that would mean they've got 20 Str, 18 Dex, and 4 Speeds, plus 2 levels in hand to hand. Looks good for a starting point. Cap would of course be stronger and faster, how much so is sort of part of the discussion. My quick notes of the important aspects (basically the "actions" of the characters) of the video:: 1:49 guy attacks with baton thing 1:51 cap dodges, throws guy into other people, other guy grabs cap from behind one of them kicks emergency stop 1:54 thrown guy blocks off two other guys, other guys start grabbing for cap 1:56 three guys have hold of Cap, one of them shocking him with baton thing two guys trying to clamp his arms with magnetic things 1:58 attempt to clamp his arm 2:01 Cap struggles to break out and keep it from clamping 2:04 cap yanks arm free and kicks dude in leg 2:05 cap punches guy in face 2:06 cap elboys other guy in face 2:07 cap kicks other other guy 2:08 cap palm strikes another dude, elbows another 2:09 cap backwards head-butts guy holding him, throws him over his shoulder 2:11 rumlow kicks cap's arm with mag clamp so it latches onto wall 2:14 rumlow attacks cap with baton thing, cap blocks 2:15 rumlow swings with fist and misses 2:16 rumlow hits cap in back with baton 2:19 cap elbows rumlow 2:20 cap grabs and flings dude into security camera 2:20 cut away to people in security room 2:23 guy attacks cap with baton, cap redirects into other guy 2:24 cap hits guy with baton 2:26 cap kicks two guys 2:28 cap blocks other guy then kicks him in the face 2:30 cap yanks clamped arm free from wall and does backflip 2:34 cap elbows one guy then ducks under another's punch 2:35 cap uppercuts the other one, then flings first one through the air 2:37 rumlow talks to cap (breathing heavy -- taking recovery?) 2:43 rumlow swings at cap with baton and misses, swings again and cap catches his hand 2:44 rumlow hits cap with second baton 2:45 cap knocks rumlow's hand free, swings and misses 2:47 rumlow hits cap in stomach again with baton 2:49 cap punches rumlow then throws him up into the ceiling 2:51 fight over Coming soon... a breakdown of what the fight means in Champions terms.

I always presumed that superpowers confer a certain amount of protection. In real life, unprotected flight would be very dangerous. You really shouldn't be able to survive flight at high distances or speeds without appropriate life support. But in the game, that's not really a factor. Likewise, Tunneling would be presumed to bring along an air bubble, and for the tunnel to not fall in and crush you, and that applies to whoever you're carrying as well. I'd play it that yanking a dude underground, even if you fill in the hole behind him, would effectively create a roughly 1 hex-wide stable hole for you to leave him in. Yeah, he's gonna be hurting for air in ten minutes or so, but he's not going to be taking damage in combat time.

Thunderbolts would be awesome. I'd definitely pay to see that. I don't want them to jump into the FF or the X-Men just yet. Give it a few years. I don't need another reboot of those characters yet.

As far as the MCU goes, I think the Avengers are done. Everything has built up to this, I think things wind down significantly from here. We didn't see Thanos until the end credits of Avengers. There's no reason to introduce a new major villain now. I think they'll flesh out the universe with new characters that we haven't seen much of yet. They can let things build naturally for a while. The reason Thanos worked so well is because they built to him gradually, with films that stood on their own. But I don't think the Avengers will be the main focus from here on out. Their story is over at this point, they got the big send-off. My guess is that Marvel will have a few sequels (Spidey, Black Panther, GotG 3, etc) while they figure out how to (or whether to) incorporate the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. They'll try a couple of smaller movies with new heroes, sort of like they did with Ant Man, and see if those catch on or not. But I think the story will really shift away from the Avengers. You'll still probably have Nick Fury poking around in the shadows, connecting everything though.

It's not sexism. The movie is called Ant Man and stars Paul Rudd. Therefore Ant Man has to be the hero. The fact that a female character within the story is more capable than the male hero is not sexism. It's supposed to be female empowerment. You may not like the movie, but it's certainly not sexist.

Forgot that part.

When I did this, the very first thing to disappear from the screen was a line of pictures of all the DC comics heroes. Not sure if that was intentional or not.

Just saw it last night. I was on vacation last week and got home Sunday night, figured I could wait until this weekend to see Endgame. Then a bunch of people just couldn't wait to spoil it for me. I had to get up and walk away from one guy at work because he apparently thought "hey I haven't seen it yet, don't spoil it for me" means "start explaining the movie". Wow, holy crap. That was a fantastic movie. They really gave all the original Avengers a great conclusion to their character arcs. I can't say that there was a "best moment" in the film, but seeing Cap using the hammer almost made me jump out of my seat and cheer. I told my wife that I finally have that superhero body she always wanted me to get. Thank you, Thor! Other thoughts: --The "Hail Hydra" moment made me laugh out loud. Great scene. --I liked Tony getting to bond with his dad, to bury the hatchet even if his dad didn't know that's what was happening. --I had a strong suspicion that Steve was going to choose to stay in the past and grow old once they said the stones have to be returned to their original place in time. --I loved that he finally got that dance with Peggy Carter. Cap deserves it. --Are there now two Nebulas running around? --Thor threatening kids playing video games was pretty funny. --When they made a point about only having so many Pym Particles, I wondered "why don't they get more when they're back in time?" Glad to see Tony and Steve thought of it too. --The look on Thanos' face when the good guy army steps through the portals was great. --Cap struggling to his feet and walking towards Thanos and his army, alone, was a great homage to Cap confronting Thanos at the end of Infinity Gauntlet #4. --Hulk hate stairs. Too many stairs!

High strength characters with lots of movement are fun. Grab an opponent and then perform a move-through on something that doesn’t get out of the way, like the front end of a bulldozer. Of course you angle it so that only he impacts the object, while you go over it. OCV penalties don’t hurt as much that way. Characters with high strength and Tunneling can have fun pretending to be the monster from Tremors. Grab somebody who sucks in hand to hand and down they go. If you can fill in the hole behind you, it’s a super awesome Entangle too.

Give him a +1 bonus during the day, and a -1 penalty at night. Don't charge any points for it, since it cancels out.

Well, I think there are real world Olympians and fictional ones. Depending on my mood, I'm not always particularly impressed with people in the Olympics. Don't get me wrong, I can't do any of it, but they're well below the level of ability we see in movies or comics. Michael Phelps would blow me out of the water in swimming, but watch the judges in the background of this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejFVFtJdP3s He's all the way up to the speed of "regular guy walking mildly quickly". In Champions terms he might be a Speed 2 with a mighty 4 inches of Swimming. Maybe. But that absolutely sucks, and it crams normal humans into such a tight range that it's basically impossible to differentiate. In a cinematic game, Michael Phelps should have a Speed 4 and 6 inches of Swimming at least, even though he doesn't really.

A lot of it is genre dependent. After all, Dick Grayson was a world class acrobat, and that's the excuse for why it was so easy for Batman to train him up. It's not uncommon in the comics for people with high levels of athletic skill to suddenly bust out the kung fu moves, training or no. A real world Olympic gymnast would probably have like a 13 Dex, Acrobatics and Breakfall of maybe 13-, then PS: Gymnast at 11- (so you know what kind of routines the judges like, etc). Your coach makes a bunch of supporting rolls with PS: Gymnastics Coach, to try and give you bonuses. You take extra time on your PS: Gymnast skill roll (practicing your routine ahead of time to try and get it flawless). Maybe you have a 1 point perk (really like a limited bonus) for a particular type of event. You'd hear the announcers say "she's very good at the uneven bars, her coach says this is her strongest event". Then you take your whole team of like 8 different people, and you roll the dice and hope you roll low. Whoever makes their roll by the most gets the gold, second most gets silver, third gets bronze. But you could just as easily have somebody go out and roll a 16 and fall down on their face, as they could roll a 5 and get a bunch of 9.8 scores and take home the gold. Sometimes the announcers will be like "oh she did much better two months ago in Greece, she looked really unstoppable then, but you can see today her concentration is just not there."

I think this tread should actually be titled “dissenting views NOT welcome”.

It’s his word for his avatar, a two headed camel that’s the same forward and backward.

This is an interesting discussion, but I’m not going to be able to respond fully to anything. I’m headed off on vacation now and only have my phone.

Well, the big problem with Con in 6th is that it really only has one use, and it functions in a way that it's really a binary state. You either have enough, or you don't. That means the cost structure is all jacked up because of it. The Con that doesn't prevent you from being Stunned is worthless. Suppose you are in a 12D6 game, and you've already decided to purchase 20 PD/ED and no special defenses. How much Con should your character buy, and how much should you be charged for it? Well, to be effective, you should probably have at least +12 Con. That will prevent you from being Stunned by an average roll. But of course, not every roll is average, and not every attack is a straight 12D6. Buying +5 Con is only going to protect you in extremely limited circumstances (i.e., when the opponent has a really low power attack or rolls really poorly). The points that don't actually protect you from being Stunned should be worth less. Buying +35 Con is also going to protect you in extremely limited circumstances. If your opponent rolls great, even on a haymaker, they probably won't get 45 through. Since it isn't actually giving you anything, shouldn't Con past a certain point be virtually free? I'm not going to fool around with bell curve charts to determine what the appropriate cost should be, but I think it's clear that there's a problem. This doesn't even address the automaton power "Cannot Be Stunned", which seems to indicate that Con should never cost more than 15 points, no matter how much you buy. When Con added to figured characteristics, there was still a reason to buy it higher even if we all knew the cost wasn't quite right. Of course, the costs of some of those figured characteristics have been lowered in 6th edition, so perhaps the old cost wasn't as out of whack as people thought. +10 Con (20 points in 5th ed) with 6th ed figured pricing would give you +5 Stun (2.5 pts), +2 Rec (2 pts), 2 ED (2 pts), and +20 End (4 pts). So were 5th ed prices actually off base?

Yup. That's correct. The purpose of that is to show that the GM has to figure out how poison works in their game before you can make a defense for it. I didn't quote him, but I was trying to back up the two-headed camel's point a few posts above mine. 100% on board with you here. Of course, pre-5e, Life Support didn't have poison resistance either. Life Support specified it didn't provide protections against attacks. So we drop one special effect dependent defense and add another. I agree with all this too. I think we are on the same page, and just took a different method of illustrating it.

I believe you are overthinking this. You're adding in an Advantage where there doesn't need to be one. Invisibility Zero End (+1/2), Persistent (+1/4) 11- Activation roll (-1) Limited Power: roll for each target individually each phase (-0) Done. The limited power is a -0 because it's not particularly advantageous, nor really extra limiting. A basic 11- would mean that some phases, nobody can see you, while other times everyone can see you. Rolling individually means that it'll never be as good as when you're invisible to everyone, but it'll never be as bad as when you're invisible to no one.