Duke Bushido

Dude (the gender-neutral one that my generation picked up and I failed to outgrow); I _wish_ I knew how to answer this.  So far, I am with Taylor:  "yes."    
 
 
I...  I dont know what to tell you.  I just sort of throw some things on the table in the first couple of sessions; whatever piques the player'a curiosity, I run with.  When the game bogs down or they show signs of losing interest, I make hard turn and see what happens.
 
I start with an investigation of a robbery of a museum by costumed villains who have recently been seen scoping out an observatory, and we end up in an abandoned silver mine where an ancient Aztec God is being stylistically summoned by masked luchadores.   Then dog-sized robots are terrorizing the city, ripping up sidewalks and taking up soil samples then disappearing down the storm drains which leads to very disoriented clones showing up to their doppleganger's jobs- even when their dopplegangers are there, which just kind of naturally leads to hibiscus plants spitting incendiary seed pods because the local gymnasium is a front for an area-old breeding program attempting to selectively breed immortals, but only because a mastemind villain my players killed in the '80s is involved.  Of course, no one knows that until  the boring stone stolen from the Neanderthal tool display at the museum is found hanging from the branches of the Christmas tree that was wreaking havoc downtown, and suddenly one of the heroes finds a flyer for an old fish cannery in a hobo camp full of zombies and remembers the old cannery is now some zany new-age cult and decides the party needs to investigate their church and learns there may be a connection to the abandoned submarine base out in the lake, and now it is time,to tie everything together, somehow, because someone has discovered the hypo recorder and is steadily screaming to his fellow players "Do _not_ put me in the comfy chair!"
 
 
yeah.  Not kidding.  That's how it goes, almost every time.  But I can't tell you how it happened, or where it came from; just that it's a lot of fun.
 

 
 
 
 
Oh dear!
 
I left out the bit where to clones started exploding.
 
 

And, if tradition holds, will be discussed in 6-9 months hence.
 
 

 
 
My standard answer is "it depends _entirely_ on the feel I am going for at the time."
 
  

That's a perfectly accurate depiction of a Venusian tiger. 

I will let a player pay points for a special item and if the item is taken, destroyed, etc they can then over time repurpose those points into something else or a replacement.  But just regular gear you can get off the rack?  No.

Try looking up the the Black Hand from Minaria, the setting of TSR's old, old board game Divine Right.  Minaria got a huge (for a hex-and-counter wargame) amount of worldbuilding background and was obviously someone's homebrew D&D campaign at some points, most of which was published in early Dragon issues that can be found online.  The Black Hand is your classic necromancer-liche type, magically bound to his cursed tower stronghold but occasionally wandering afield on military campaigns with hordes of skellies and other undead.  One of his signature spells/creations was a conglomeration of zombified flesh and bone the size of a small hill, which was pretty much a smellier version of the giant bone construct you're describing.  In game terms he could only create the thing by moving into a hex marked as a "recent battlefield" where one or more armies had been destroyed during the game - the source for all the semi-fresh corpses used constructing the thing.  "Old battlefields" (permanently marked on the map, from historical battlefields) were recruiting ground for skeletons, of course. 
 
Haven't played that game in decades but the Hand came to mind the moment I read your description.  Good memories. 
 
In a swords & sorcery game he'd fit nicely as either a legendary-but-static menace to overcome at home, or a threat to a whole kingdom if he's taken to the field and started raising his legions of undead   Or go more creepy/weird horror with it and have your heroes sent on diplomatic mission to recruit his aid against another kingdom.  That'll work out great, I'm sure.  Don't forget to to include the token sacrificial royal offspring for the players to save from a fate worse than undeath - or not, if they're that kind of heroes.

The bone golem.  Some vile sorcerer that drains the life from his victims likes to add their skeletons to his giant mindless shambling anamaton.
 
Sorry; I just totally blanked on ideas for the sorcerer himself.
 

This could fall under Funny, Creepy, or Foods threads...
 
 

I have been away for a few days- suprise company-
 
But when this thread got rolling, there were things I wanted to say, but at this point Hugh and Simon have hit on the biggies.
 
My own experience with it (yes; I have toyed with it) is that affects those od us who run map-heavy games the most; Mind'a Eye Theater types won't see a lot of difference between, as Hugh rightly pointed out- this, or holding and aborting.
 
Map- heavy gamers (like myself, and I have always- and perhaps incorrectly- assumed Scott Ruggles) will see some interesting changes in tactics with regards to maneuveing and working range modifiers (as I see other folks have mentioned).
 
Does it break the game?
 
Guys, the official rules list what? Seven hundred options?  No; it doesn't really break the game.
 
What it _does_ do, if you aren't careful, is eliminate the penalty for Multipower, Multiform (if you use that) and Duplication.  By that I mean that these power constructs all get deep discounts (some cheaper than others) because of an implied disadvantage:  Bruce Banner can't lift lift a burning support beam off of himself, or bounce rocket fire off his chest.  Oopsie.
 
There is, if you simply declare "each of your phases has two half actions; use them as you will," to allow Zero-phase actions to occur 'whenever.'  So now you can tofgle your form eight times in a Phase, and allocate your MP points at will.
 
_this_ is what you nees to avoid.  If you declare that allocations / toggles are Zero-phase actions and must be declare at the start of the Phase, period, then it really,doesn't make much difference in actual play (if you don't do a lot of mapping).  Otherwise, as Simon pointed out, there is no real drawback or sacrifice to the most common build strategies.
 
 
Yes; corner cases can be found.  Corner cases can _always_ be found, and for pretty much any topic.  However, I am willing to bet that _none_ of us have ever participated in any game composed entirely of corner cases, or run into a significant corner case that we couldnt adjudicate in the moment.
 
 

Well, there's nothing I can add after that.
 
Thank you, Sir.
 

You're right in that there's nothing but word of mouth out there, but that word of "mouth" is now spread electronically. 
 
I feel comfortable saying that there is no person getting into the HERO System who doesn't have access to either an experienced player -- otherwise whose mouth is the "word of" coming from? -- or the Internet in some way.  I'm happy to be proven wrong. 
 
And any person creating a character intended for actual play in a game is going to have a GM who is going to look their characters over, check their stats for viability and whether they meet the campaign guidelines, and advise them where they don't. 
 
And if they do?  If they happen to create a character that somehow slips through? 
 
The world dies in nuclear fire --
 
No, it does not.  Nor does the patient die on the table.  Nor do the Gaming Police show up and haul everyone away to Gaming Prison. 
 
We admit that we made a mistake, and we fix it. 
 
My first two Champions characters were made using just the rulebook, without reference to a GM or an existing game.  I'm fairly certain they weren't viable in play, mainly because I didn't have a clue where the stats, including the Figured Characteristics, came in relative to any particular set of campaign guidelines.  In my defense, they weren't intended to be; they were me playing with the character creation mechanics in order to learn them.  (I'm pretty sure Feline came to about 180 total points -- this was third edition).  I showed them to my friend, who by then had been playing Champions for a couple of years, and he told me -- nicely, in case anyone was wondering -- why they wouldn't be viable.  My third character was as viable as a character could be that was created using only the third edition corebook and none of the supplements, which everyone else in the group had...
 
Figured Characteristics aren't an automatic protection from non viable characters, nor do they allow you to disclaim decision making for each one.  (Unless you've gone full Goodman School of Character Efficiency, and have built your characters with way-out-of-any-coherent-concept levels of STR, DEX, and CON, but if you're that person then nothing in any part of this discussion applies to you.)  You're still looking at them to decide whether the 8 base ED from your 38 CON is enough or whether you need more. 
 
I'll tell you what eliminating Figured Characteristics did do: it made it so that we don't need 28 DEX or 38 CON to hit the minmax breakpoints on CV's or Figured Characteristics, which means we build to concept rather than arms race, with housewives or grad students gaining energy powers and 25 STR and 23 DEX.  SPD 4 and DEX 15 are viable in play in a 375 point Champions game. 

Of all the published Champions villains, it would have to be Fleshtone (Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains). His powers involve "biokinetically" reshaping living flesh in practically any manner he desires, with attacks expressed through Drain, Transform, and Blast or RKA NND Does Body, with SFX that are grotesque and hideous. He's powerful, murderous, sadistic, very difficult for most heroes to defend against, and his attacks can leave someone disfigured and/or crippled permanently. He can also use his power to make himself look like anyone, so he can easily lose himself in a crowd, or sneak up on someone in disguise.
 
I've never had the nerve or the cruelty to actually run him in a game.

Did....  Did we do it?  Did we save the daylight?  Is the daylight okay now?
 
 

Wake up, remember how dead they are in rhis universe, schedule some therapy, and get dressed for work.
 
 

Some portions of Canada don't make the time change. For that matter the majority of the world doesn't. The change is well documented as causing health issues and accidents, while the benefits are widely questioned.

Seems like a custom limitation "Movement through substance reduced 2m for every +1PD above 6PD".  You simply then have to consider how much that is worth.  +1/2??
 
I think people sometimes look for complexity rather than reach for the obvious solution but this looks nailed on to me.
 
Doc

Did....  Did we do it?  Did we save the daylight?  Is the daylight okay now?
 
 

Did....  Did we do it?  Did we save the daylight?  Is the daylight okay now?
 
 

Did....  Did we do it?  Did we save the daylight?  Is the daylight okay now?
 
 

Most of my characters would immediately inform my only character to ever encounter CLOWN. Who would arrive at the parade with a minigun, flame thrower, and rocket-propelled grenades.

They should be subject to one week's incarceration for every day before Remembrance Day (including that date), with their own Christmas muzak played non-stop throughout their incarceration.

I realize this is a fictional weapon from a fictional setting, but human v human, batleth versus sword, I see sword coming out on top more often than not, simply because of how humans have culturally-ingrained responses in melee combat.
 
I expect that Klingon v Klingon melee, armed with batleth or whatever, features a lot more forward pressing and aggressive corner thrust and even short slashes- each attempting to press an onslaught against their foe.  Granted, that is based on my personal "understanding" of a compltetly fictional culture.  I accept that I can't really think of a relatively safe way to spar that way, but I would really like to see it.
 
Now; for the record, I think the batleth is as goofy and cumbersome as anyone else does, but again-  I am thinking about based on what we humans do with weapons that are used entirely differently.
 
 

For me, Fifth Edition core rules hit the sweet spot of rules completeness and clarity, while still being an interesting and readily digestible read. 5E Revised went a little farther along that first axis than I liked, but remained manageable. Sixth Edition makes me feel like I'm studying to pass the bar. Even over a decade later, I still haven't read through the whole thing.