massey

Yeah, normal characteristic maxima is usually for heroic level games.  Indiana Jones instead of the X-Men.
 
Defenses should generally be scaled to the attacks you'll have in the game.  Somebody who has 1.5 times the average dice in Defense is going to be fragile.  If you've got a 10D6 campaign, then a guy with 15 PD and ED (including combat luck, armor, force fields, etc), is going to take a lot of damage really fast.  In my experience, somebody with that level of defense should probably have something else as well to make them more survivable.  It's okay to have 15 PD and ED if you are a shrinker (whose DCV will normally be extremely high), or if you are mostly invisible (so people generally don't shoot at you), or are mostly desolid (so their attacks pass through you).  But otherwise you're gonna be face down in the dirt most of the time.  If you want a character who is fragile that's fine, but fragile they will be.
 
Somebody with 3 times the average dice in Defense is going to be tough.  In a 10D6 campaign, the guy with 30 PD and ED will take forever to go down.  Blast him and blast him and he'll just shrug it off.  I've found that between 2x and 2.5x the average dice gives you a good range of defense.
 
When you're building a character, you also want to make sure that they won't be Con-Stunned by the average attack roll.  If it's a 10D6 game, every character needs to be able to take at least 35 Stun without it passing their Defense plus Con.  So if you've got 20 Def, you need a 15 Con at a minimum.  18 to 20 is better, because sometimes people roll above average.  Losing an action because you got Stunned is a great way to remember how awesome your iPhone is and start checking Facebook during the game.  You don't want it to happen too often.

This is precisely what I want to avoid in my games.  I refuse to accept that Batman is responsible for the Joker and what he does when he escapes from prison.  He only escapes because the author wanted him to, he only has thousands of murder because we insist on taking a continuity of 50 years as canon.  If we could escape from the prison of continuity, we could appreciate each story for its own merits, we know the Joker, we can assume lots because the author chose to use that villain, we do not need to castigate the hero for acting heroically.
 
I think the thing that makes superhero games superheroic is the iconic nature of the protagonists and anything that work against that iconic nature diminishes the genre and makes the superheroes merely heroes and often not even that.
 
Doc

I'd gauge it, it being END, by your group. 
I took the advice of "no END" once and all it did was piss off the group later.
 
END and the Speed Chart are two of the primary things that makes Hero, Hero.   Leaving them out and you really aren't playing the game.
Explaining END as your energy pool is not hard and if you mention it the first few times, players are not dumb and will catch on. Quickly. 
 
I usually explain those two items from the get go. 
END is not a problem if you prepare for it.  I always introduce the game using pregens and I strip all the build mumbo jumbo off of the sheets.  I also stay simple in the pregen builds.  Powers are written/described in plain language and a quick list of END costs.
 
For Example:
Electro-Blast. 
A ranged electrical energy blast that does normal physical damage.  You can change the intensity of the blast from 1D6 to 10D6. 
The END cost is 1 point for every 2D6.
 
And I guide the speed chart. 
Me: "OK, segment 8.  Who is next?"  Pause "Bob?  Isn't that you?"
Bob: "Right, that's me."
Me "What are you doing?"
Bob: "Well.....I'll blast him with my.......Electro-Blast!  Yah, that's what I do."
Me:  "Cool, how big a blast do you want an how much END will it cost?"
 
Easy.  And the players catch on fast if you treat it as easy.  Act like it is hard and they will have problems.
 
I mean seriously, it is 3d6 roll low for EVERYTHING.  Powers, skills and so on. Every RPG on the market uses modifiers and half the RPG's I play now are roll low. 
 
The simplest I dumb down the rules is this. 
"Hey everyone, for the first few sessions we are not going to use modifiers.  See the Combat Maneuvers block on you sheet? We'll ignore it at first.  It and range mods.  As soon as we all get comfortable with the flow of the game, we can add them in." 
 
When the players decide they are ready I usually run a small combat that "didn't happen in the game" so they can play around with the maneuvers and modifiers. 
 
Playing Hero has never been the problem.
The build rules are what chase new players away.  Especially if they are expected to create their PC before they get a chance to play. 
 

I'd suggest the following:
 
1)  Don't worry about overly complicated designs just yet.  Focus on having a simple character sheet that is easy to understand.  New players won't be impressed by a character that's too complex, they won't get it.  Keep it simple and don't be afraid to fudge things in their favor.
 
2)  Build everybody a starting character and let them modify it to their tastes if they wish.  Let them be as involved as they want to be, but have a functional character for everyone.
 
3)  Keep all OCVs and DCVs within 3 of each other, and keep all Speeds within 2 of each other.  If the fastest guy in the group has a 10 OCV and a 6 Speed, then the slowest guy needs at least a 7 OCV and a 4 Speed.  Otherwise people can't hit and they don't get to go enough.  Likewise keep damage within 2D6 of each other, and keep defenses within 10.  If the brick has 30 PD, the weak guy needs 20.
 
4)  Don't worry about certain things at first.  Endurance, range modifiers, and body damage can all be disregarded for a while without causing a problem.

I'd suggest the following:
 
1)  Don't worry about overly complicated designs just yet.  Focus on having a simple character sheet that is easy to understand.  New players won't be impressed by a character that's too complex, they won't get it.  Keep it simple and don't be afraid to fudge things in their favor.
 
2)  Build everybody a starting character and let them modify it to their tastes if they wish.  Let them be as involved as they want to be, but have a functional character for everyone.
 
3)  Keep all OCVs and DCVs within 3 of each other, and keep all Speeds within 2 of each other.  If the fastest guy in the group has a 10 OCV and a 6 Speed, then the slowest guy needs at least a 7 OCV and a 4 Speed.  Otherwise people can't hit and they don't get to go enough.  Likewise keep damage within 2D6 of each other, and keep defenses within 10.  If the brick has 30 PD, the weak guy needs 20.
 
4)  Don't worry about certain things at first.  Endurance, range modifiers, and body damage can all be disregarded for a while without causing a problem.

If you're doing a swarm, the advantages "Indirect" and Area of Effect (even a small one)" are going to be your best friends ever.  The Limitaiton: Reduced Penetration can help simulate a lot of "swarm of things"-type attacks as well.
 
Easiest thing I've found (and if you're not shopping for advice , well just skip all this.  ) is to _not_ focus on "what does the book say about swarms?!"  Hell, remember the book is written by the guy who wrote entire other books on a single simplistic archetypes (the Ultimate Brick, the Ultimate Metamorph, etc, etc,).  The book has a _lot_ to say, and on _everything_.
 
Focus first specifically on what you want the power to do:  what is the absolute end-purpose of this power?  Then go backwards-- you're still not thinking about swarms of things, okay?  Go backwards.  What Advantages or Limitations do you want the power to have?  Not because it's a swarm of things!  Ignore that!  What Advantages and Limitaitons do you want the power to have because _that_ is the power you envision?  Does it have reduced Penetration?  No?  Fine.  But keep in mind that a large attack with a couple of Reduced Penetrations is faster and easier to handle than a small attack with an Autofire, particularly if you're just starting out with the system.  Just sayin'....
 
Sweet!  I want him to have an 20d6 Energy Blast: PD with double reduced penetration.  It's pretty close to having 4d6 on auto fire, but with only one attack roll and less fiddly adjustments for each roll.  No; it's not the same, but the tradeoff is it's a lot faster to manage during play.
 
I want him to have 30" of Flight as well.
 
I want him to have an entangle.
 
 
 
By now you should have-- or very nearly have-- the powers you want this character to command. _NOW_ you can figure out how you want to do it with bugs.
 
The Reduced Pen Blast is a swarm of hornets.  Hey, you know what?  Maybe I can squeeze an AOE: one Hex in there to simulate how easy it is for someone else to get tangled up in it by coming too close!  Yes indeedy!    Okay, he flies by commanding an even larger swarm of winged thingies to carry him aloft, and his entangle is --well more hornets.  They surround an opponent, but they don't actually attack him unless he moves.  Hmm...  I should find a way to make Breakout dependent on a CON roll instead of an STR roll.  And they're hornets-- little short stingers.  Maybe add in something about how it doesn't work against rigid defenses?
 
 
See?  The special effect came _last_.  This is what the book calls "reasoning from effect:"  You can not clearly build it until you know what it does, because until you know exactly _what_ it does, you have no idea how to start building it.  Once you get to the point where you're tailoring your SFX, you can tweak the power modifiers for flavor then, but not before.
 
 
With a little practice, you'll be pulling characters out of the air in no time.
 
 

Sorry, GB(i); 
 
Still having some phone weirds after my last update..
 
 
Moving along:
 
 
 
I'm going to get booed for this, I suspect, but I have _never_ been able to view that as a valid reason to endorse the backwards to-hit roll.  Unless your entire group is some kind of thick, it isn't going to take too many hits and misses for them to have a pretty clear notion as to just what their opponent's DCV actually _is_-- at least, as clear as they would have the other way (no solid way to account for Levels, after all).  I mean, if they are only math savvy enough to do "eleven plus one other number," then they have more than enough knowledge to figure out the rest....
 
 
 

Taking a Recovery and recovering from being Stunned are two different things.  For one, recovering from being Stunned isn't capitalized.  It's not the same game term. 
 
For two, the timing is different.  Suppose I act on Speed 5, Dex 20.  On Segment 2, I get hit for more Stun than my Con score.  I am Stunned.  When Segment 3, Dex 20 comes around, I am no longer Stunned.  If I get shot again on Dex 15 of that same Segment, I am not Stunned any more.  Once my Dex has passed, I'm good.  But let's say I'm taking a Recovery.  If I take Stun damage at any point during the phase (including after my Dex), then I don't get any Stun or End back.
 
They are two different things.

Long story short, 6th edition is chasing the white whale.  Players have complained about small cost discrepancies with things like figured characteristics.  "Strength is too efficient!"  Yeah... kind of.  Buying your strength up is efficient, except unless you're a brick you're still paying for dice damage that you aren't going to use.  In a 12D6 game, buying a 30 strength isn't abusive, because a 6D6 punch isn't enough to get through anybody's defenses.
 
Buying up primary characteristics to boost figureds tends to result in a small point savings, relative to the overall cost of the character.  A 350 point hero with high primaries may end up saving 20 to 30 points versus a character with lower primaries who bought up his figured characteristics.  This is a real discrepancy, but it's less than 10% of the character's cost.  6th edition separated primaries from figureds, but then they were faced with the idea that maybe figureds were overcosted to begin with.  So Stun and End became a lot cheaper.  But then the cost structure of Endurance Reserve was all screwed up, because you could just buy regular End for really cheap.  The limitation Increased Endurance became an easy way to save points, because the price on that didn't change, but End itself is way cheaper.  Which means that the value of the Charges limitation is all screwed up now.
 
You can't change one fundamental aspect of the system without affecting the others.  And that's what they did in 6th.  Recovery became 1/2 cost, Endurance became less than 1/2 cost.  That means I can pump both those stats up higher than a 5th ed character, and take x2 End cost on all my powers for a -1/2 (or x3 for a -1) for significant savings.  You went from somebody saving 20 to 30 points (between 5-8% of total character cost)  by buying up their primaries to saving between a third and half on their primary power set.  6th edition is rife with problems like that.

I jokingly answered earlier in the thread, but now I'll answer for real.  This is going to come across as kind of rude.  Sorry.  No offense meant to anybody here.
 
 
 
6th edition is inferior because it is designed by a committee, based upon a false promise, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the underlying system.  It's the product of endless tinkering without an achievable goal or a clear direction.  I'll try to flesh out what I mean by all that, but some of it is conceptual and may be rather hard to explain.
 
Everything up to 4th edition was led by the original designers, and there's a logic to how everything was costed.  Power X is about twice as good as Power Y, so it should cost twice as much.  There's a basic concept of balance built into it from the very beginning.  All the powers and characteristics are roughly scaled with one another.  It's not perfectly executed, but it's pretty close.  Moreover, there was a philosophy to how it was balanced.  They valued certain abilities more than others, and so those were costed higher.  These ideas were internally consistent with each other.  Combat abilities are more valuable than noncombat abilities.  Flexible powers are more valuable than those that are more limited.  Therefore these things cost more points.  If you built characters as they intended, and played the game as they intended, it had a wonderful balance.  4th edition Champions was almost perfect.  And again, it was true to its philosophy.
 
Now with a system as complex as Champions, you'll never get a perfect balance.  There are just too many moving bits and pieces, and a powergamer will find the most efficient builds possible, while a person who has never played before will waste points on things that may never come up.  That is unavoidable.  But later editions didn't understand that.  5th edition, 5th edition revised, 6th edition, Champions Complete, all of them have tried to tweak the system to achieve some perfect balance that just isn't possible.  And the biggest problem is, these changes didn't follow the original pricing structure of the system.  The changes were made by people with a different philosophy of how the system should work.  And those changes don't quite mesh with the underlying system.
 
As an example, let's go to 5th edition, written by Steve Long (somewhat prophetically named when you see the size of his manuscripts).  He had his own ideas about how the Hero System should work, and he modified it.  Adders became much more common.  The pricing structure for some powers was changed, but not for others.  And while some of these changes were arguably good, others were not so great.  It was clear that he was seeing the system in a different way from the original authors, but it was a modification of their system and not one built from the ground up with his own ideas.  Long's philosophy appeared to be based around trying to make everything fit around a certain core set of game mechanics.  Instant Change was removed as a Talent and modified to be a "My clothes only" Transform.  Shapeshift was turned into a sense-affecting power.  But one of the most glaring examples here is Damage Shield.  In 4th edition, Damage Shield was a +1/2 advantage you applied to a power.  If anybody touched you, or if you touched anybody, they were hit with that power.  When 5th edition hit, it suddenly required you to purchase the advantage Continuous (+1).  But, you didn't actually get the benefit that Continuous granted, which is that somebody hit with a Continuous power will be affected by it every single phase.  No, you had to pay a +1 advantage tax because now you've got to change your Energy Blast to a Constant power before you can apply Damage Shield.
 
Why is this a problem?  Because it's a different game philosophy stacked on top of the previous one.  While both follow the idea of "you get what you pay for", 4th edition was more focused on comparative effectiveness, whereas 5th added costs with the idea of making powers conform to a certain format.  A 10D6 Energy Blast with Damage Shield in 4th edition was 75 points.  That's the same as a 15D6 Energy Blast.  Quite expensive, but you got the benefit that you could hurt your enemy when it wasn't your phase, without an attack roll, depending on what they did.  Still might be too expensive though.  In 5th edition, you had to buy it Continuous first.  So now that power became 125 points, the same as a Twenty-five D6 Energy Blast.  No power-gamer in the world would choose a 10D6 Damage Shield over a 25D6 EB.  The two aren't remotely comparable.  There are other problems as well.  The cost of Major Transform had previously been based upon the cost of RKA, the logic being if you can kill them, you might as well be able to turn them into a frog.  5th ed wisely dropped having Cumulative be a +1/2 advantage (RKA is cumulative by default), but it added requirements that you had to pay more to affect different types of targets.  Instead of "turn target into frog" the standard Transform became "turn human into frog".  To affect any target, you had to buy another advantage. 
 
In this way, the cost structure of 5th edition became less consistent, more concerned with form than function.  Abuse wasn't eliminated at all, the nature of the abuse just changed.
 
I wasn't active on the boards during the time that they were soliciting suggestions for 6th edition.  I think I had an account here but I had wandered off.  But as I understand it there was a lot of discussion about what changes people wanted to see made.  And while I like most of you guys just fine, good lord do I disagree with a lot of you over how the game system should work.  I see questions on the Hero System Discussion page, and many of the suggestions are overly complex and extremely point inefficient.  But some people feel like they've got to dot those "i"s and cross those "t"s.  Again I wasn't involved in any of the discussions, but when I flip through the 6th edition book, I'm reminded of the adage "too many cooks spoil the broth".  6th compounds some of the mistakes of 5th edition and doesn't look back.

Hero's real core mechanic, the foundation on which all the other ideas are built is divorcing Mechanics and Special Effect.
 
Which is why it's a toolkit to make a game, not a ready-play game. Even systems like Fate can't completely divorce these two. Fate does do an excellent job by being almost entirely narrative in nature, but it becomes extremely abstract when it does that. Hero leans more on the crunch.
 
If you want to reduce Hero to the foundations it's asking two questions: What happens, How Does It Look.
Remove Special Effects and most characters are Attack; Move; Defend; Skill Set. But Heroes granularity is the elegant (if mathematical) way it allows you to define those elements.
 
Which you can get in any system, even abstract one's like Fate, where things like "how far do I move?" are answered as "Plot Distance" unless you have an Aspect or Stunt that specifically defines you moving "Extra Plot Distance"; And if you're group isn't very narrative in nature, well, Hero with the nuts & bolts & numbers is the best at defining the idea that What Happens & How It Looks are two radically different things.
 
How many actual rules can you remove from Hero before you stop being Hero? A lot probably, as long as you don't remove so much the core concept of Mechanics & Special Effect are Two Different Things That Work Together.

This'll be unpopular, but there's no reason to switch.  There is no way that Hero does D&D better than D&D.
 
You switch to Hero because you want a system that does superheroes well, and if you are going to do fantasy or sci-fi, because you want complete control over how to do weird things you can't do in other systems.  But if you think role-playing is just a normal dungeon crawl, there's no reason at all to use Hero.

I'm sure I agree with Chris Taylor on this, but I kinda spaced out by the second paragraph.

I'm sure I agree with Chris Taylor on this, but I kinda spaced out by the second paragraph.

Not a problem at all. 
 
The only noteworthy change between 4e and 5e was the nitpick minutiae of detail that 5 and subsequent books went into about how every possible thing works with every possible variant of every possible other thing, and as sings advantages, limitations, Adders, and other costs to a great deal of what 4e either took for granted or gave you free foreign over. 
 
In the end, the difference is that it costs more to build pretty much anything in 5e, simply because the examples and the overall tone of the rules suggest that if a modifier _can_ be applied, then it _must_ be applied.   Don't get me wrong: it doesn't actually _say_ that, but it leans on it damned hard. It's also really easy to completely ignore. 
 
Ignore that, and it's pretty much 4e with more in-depth discussion,  shaded art, and those irritating margin notes. 
 
Pulp HERO is a genre book: the bulk of it is background info, notes for inspirational material, the kinds of people, place---  Nouns.  Motes on the kinds of nouns that define the genre.   there really isn't a lot mechanically to fuss over, and you shouldn't have any problems
 
If it helps, I picked it up for use with 2e, and the differences are a real non-issue.  You see, unlike a lot of (but not all) games out there, HERO has left the basics of the game (except for how long an inch is) completely unchanged since 3e anyway (yeah, 3: the one right after the one I love the most), so compatibility backwards _or_ forwards is assured, and _almost_ guaranteed. 
 
 
So pick up Pulp HERO,  and have fun with it! 
 
 
Duke

I would cut back on exercise completely while combining a large intake of carbs, fat and alcohol.
 
Deep dish supreme pizzas and beer - several times a day - will have them buoyant in no time...
 

I'd buy 1" Swimming, 0 End Persistent.  Since you're naturally buoyant, you don't need to be awake to do it (hence the Persistent).  Since you aren't actually flying, I don't think you need Flight.  Swimming is the appropriate power for movement in water/liquid.

I'd buy 1" Swimming, 0 End Persistent.  Since you're naturally buoyant, you don't need to be awake to do it (hence the Persistent).  Since you aren't actually flying, I don't think you need Flight.  Swimming is the appropriate power for movement in water/liquid.

This'll be unpopular, but there's no reason to switch.  There is no way that Hero does D&D better than D&D.
 
You switch to Hero because you want a system that does superheroes well, and if you are going to do fantasy or sci-fi, because you want complete control over how to do weird things you can't do in other systems.  But if you think role-playing is just a normal dungeon crawl, there's no reason at all to use Hero.

This'll be unpopular, but there's no reason to switch.  There is no way that Hero does D&D better than D&D.
 
You switch to Hero because you want a system that does superheroes well, and if you are going to do fantasy or sci-fi, because you want complete control over how to do weird things you can't do in other systems.  But if you think role-playing is just a normal dungeon crawl, there's no reason at all to use Hero.

I think there's a difference between routine everyday life, the real world, realistic action, unrealistic action, and comic book.  And probably several gradations between those.
 
The highest stat you're likely to encounter in your everyday life is a 13 to 15.  These are normal people.  Normal normal people.  Even if the pharmacist at the local drug store has a higher Int than a 15, she's probably not actively using it everyday.
Example characters:  The Office
 
Then you've got the real world.  Here the normal stats begin to go up to 20, and in extreme cases can go above it.  Generally these people are in challenging careers that require them to maintain their high stat with constant work.  The athlete with a 20 Str only keeps it as long as he's working out two hours a day.  The process of using a high stat actually requires effort and discipline (yes, even Intelligence -- there are lots of examples of smart people doing really dumb things when they don't use their brain).
Example characters:  Big Bang Theory, live sports
 
Next we get realistic action.  This is what people with decent stats can achieve when they've got stunt coordinators, fight choreographers, and the ability to try something 50 different times and use the best take.  The ability to cut and splice different takes together will convincingly add +5 or +10 to a stat (when Arnold flipped over a car in Commando, they'd stripped the engine and transmission out of it).  25s are easily achievable here, maybe a little higher.
Example characters:  Die Hard, Predator, Bruce Lee movies
 
Unrealistic action is completely unconvincing.  It may look good, it may be entertaining, but we know there's zero way that a human could actually do that stuff.  Everything is ridiculous and over the top.  Stats up to 30, and maybe even higher can happen here.
Example characters:  Anything starring The Rock or Jason Statham, The Fast and the Furious sequels
 
Comic book action has no upper limits.  The justification is the person has super powers, and isn't at all limited to what a person could do.  Sometimes it can look good, and sometimes it can look fake, but there's no attempt to even pretend that it's realistic.
Example characters:  Winter Soldier, Superman
 

This'll be unpopular, but there's no reason to switch.  There is no way that Hero does D&D better than D&D.
 
You switch to Hero because you want a system that does superheroes well, and if you are going to do fantasy or sci-fi, because you want complete control over how to do weird things you can't do in other systems.  But if you think role-playing is just a normal dungeon crawl, there's no reason at all to use Hero.

I can't disagree with Massey.  There are things D&D does not do well, but there are also things it does well.  D&D is prepackaged - Hero requires more work.
 
As has been set out well above, Hero provides more options and greater flexibility.  WIth this comes an unavoidable increase in complexity.
 
If the players are happy with their elves, dwarves, wizards, clerics, fighters, rogues, etc. all advancing on pre-designed paths, selecting from pre-designed feats, paths and spells, etc., then there is no reason to change.
 
If the players are asking why their Dwarf can't be more skilled in woodcraft than mining (he's just a dwarf raised in the forest) or their wizard can't wear heavy armor, or their fighter can't know three spells (a first level, a third level and a seventh level) and  no more magic, or they can't attempt to trip, or block those incoming attacks, or Dive for Cover to avoid that dragon's breath - if they are looking for greater flexibility - then a change merits consideration.

This'll be unpopular, but there's no reason to switch.  There is no way that Hero does D&D better than D&D.
 
You switch to Hero because you want a system that does superheroes well, and if you are going to do fantasy or sci-fi, because you want complete control over how to do weird things you can't do in other systems.  But if you think role-playing is just a normal dungeon crawl, there's no reason at all to use Hero.

But can usually be treated with a round of antibiotics.