Ockham's Spoon

I allowed it as an option for many years in a variety of genres and it works very well in execution, at least in my opinion and that of the players in various games who used it. It makes its usefulness quantifiable and puts it entirely into the control of the player. It is direct probability manipulation as opposed to hand-wavium.
 
Don't get me wrong, I think that the vague version of Luck in the HERO System offers something as well, as a sort of deus ex machina power. The Intervention ability in Here There Be Monsters is a direct re-casting of the by-the-book Luck power for instance. It's essentially a "miracle" power; roll the dice and hope for the best.
 
However for most "lucky" sfx characters, the direct dice result manipulation version is more practical and gets less tiresome, again in my opinion.
 
A good indication of it's efficacy is that in my experience back in the day players who knew what was up did not bother taking the standard Luck power in RAW, instead relying on skill bonuses or skill levels with the sfx of "lucky" and other such crab-wise attempts to model luck as succeeding more often than average at various tasks. The occasional newb might take Luck, but would invariably be disappointed with it in practice and regret taking it. I offered up the original version of the point based variant for a player wanting a probability manipulating super, and it worked out well and became available for later games. Players started to take it here and there...not so many as to indicate that it was too good and not so few as to indicate that it sucked...it sat nicely in the "goldilocks zone" of providing good value for the cost but not so much as to make it stupid to not take some.
 
 

There was a random dungeon generator that I had as a kid for D&D that was supposed to be helpful for creating dungeon adventures but as you might guess they tended to lack any cohesiveness.  But at one point when I was home sick with chicken pox, I randomly generated a dungeon for my fighter character to go through just to pass the time.  It actually turned out to be a pretty good adventure, up until the very end.  Having cleared out the dungeon, he was heading back out and was literally within sight of the exit when a wandering monster check turned up a ghoul.  My fighter blew his saving throw, got paralyzed and then eaten by the ghoul.   Bummer.

Click the image for a brief animation.
 

I really like Ockham's Spoon's idea of tying the codename to the individual's function on the team, though this might make things difficult for those who previously had a codename that doesn't fit the Alphabet Squad's listing.  Using OS's example, what if the techie with x-ray specs was already going by another name (say, EyeSpy) when he was recruited to fill the Alphabet Squad's vacated X-Ray position?
 
RE: Amorcka's suggestion of the phonetic alphabet, I wonder if he was referring to the radio phonetic alphabet:  Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.  Some of those don't seem they would work well (November?  Quebec?  Yankee?) but others might.  For example, "Mike" could be the radio / communications position. "Kilo" may be the heavy lifter, "Alpha" could be team leader, etc.

One of my daughters is transgender so I know that having representation out there is important, and I appreciate everyone who puts themselves out there, because it isn't easy in today's society (esp. since Nov. 2016).  My daughter is having a difficult time as is, but without the people who came out before her to raise our collective consciousness of transgender issues it would be so much worse.  Thank you for positively expressing who you are despite the possible negative consequences.

Using names from languages other than English makes sense for the UN, but then the whole concept of the Alphabet Squad gets called into question when you ask which alphabet you are using.  Even nominally Latin alphabets differ slightly from language to language, to say nothing of Greek or Cyrillic alphabets.  As such, I could see rationale for all the code names being in English as a standard with the English version of the alphabet, if only because English is more widely spoken than other languages.  Which would likely tick off some of the members of the Alphabet Squad, but that could lend itself to fun role-playing opportunities.
 
As for the names, it seems to me they should be codes for the function that they perform rather than a set of powers, esp. if turnover is high.  That way you could have different folks with different power sets (technological, mutant, or magical) that fulfill the same role.  Say for X you have the (terribly unoriginal) agent X-Ray, whose role is primarily providing reconnaissance into normally inaccessible areas.  The first X-ray agent might be a psychic with clairvoyance.  After leaving they replace him with a sorceress with a scrying spell.  Then she leaves and they introduce a techie with literal X-ray specs.  That offers maximum flexibility, but still ties the name to something rather than just a random code name.

Variable Special Effects would work well in this case.

There are standard limitations for partial coverage of armor listed in the 6e2 rule book on page 212 which essentially gives you an equivalent activation roll for partial armor.  As a GM I would probably grant a slightly lower limitation to a helmet than for armored boots though; even if the odds of hitting each location are similar, protection from a head shot is more valuable than protecting your feet if you are allowing hit locations.
 
I don't know if there are any official rules on sectional armor and area affect attacks, but I would probably figure out the percentage of the body the armor covered and give them that percentage of the armor for defense.  So if Halfjack has 10 rPD/rED armor on half his body (Act 11-) then he would get 5 rPD/rED vs. an explosion.  I might allow for an abort to a defensive action to get more benefit, so Halfjack could turn sideways so his armored half took the brunt of the explosion. 

I like the background for Durkon, but I am dying to see where Mr. Burlew is going with this.  Not dying the way the members of the OotS seems to be dying, but still.

The Indirect advantage might be closer to what you want than Invisible, since the object doing the damage is pretty obvious, it just may not be clear she is the source.  The Invisible rules in 6e have an Inobvious step between fully visible and fully invisible, so you might still what that depending on the effect you are going for.

I have done a few module conversions on my website from AD&D (and Warhammer Quest) into Fantasy Hero.  They are kind of rough but playable quick converts.  I have done the following:
 
N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God
N2: The Forest Oracle
N4: Treasure Hunt
U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
U2: Danger at Dunwater
U3: The Final Enemy
G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief 
G2: Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl
B2: Keep on the Borderland
I3: Pharaoh
A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity
 
I have work started on A2, I4, and G3, to continue and finish those series, but are there any other modules people would really like to see?  Hint: I don't care to rebuild any of the S series.
 
 
 

I dislike the idea of granting skills of any sort (including skill levels) to others because they are so inexpensive the UBO+AoE construct becomes super-cheap due to the nature of stacking advantage costs on top of a low point base.  If I were a GM, I would expect someone to use a variable effects AoE AID to improve the output of others in some way, as I think that better represents enhancement of something the character possesses … rather than giving them something they completely lack on the sheet.  I also think it more accurately reflects the appropriate cost of granting things to a massive number of people … since enough Aid to be effective will not fall into the easily-exploitable window of SmallBaseCost*HighAdvantageCost.

I always liked the idea of representing that with Overall Levels, Usable by Others at Range.

This is a 5E construction.  One thing to note is that Damage Shield doesn't affect me if I stand right next to you and don't attack you, or you attack me.  
 
I might add, very, very few D&D critters have a drain-life kind of aura that I can recall, and anything that does, is VERY high level.  Fear aura, more common.  Ghasts have the stink.  But an aura of negative levels would be a major, major problem.  So I really don't have a problem if this comes out to 75-100 active even if the dice involved felt rather low.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0991.html
 
The father died taking down an exceptionally dangerous Troll.
 
Lucius Alexander
 
The palindromedary says there are still unanswered questions there....

We put up with George W for 8 years, complained but ultimately accepted it.  So apparently this is something that we can do, and have done in the past.
 
Trump is different. 
 
I could write books on why Trump is different than a crappy president like George W, who was very crappy indeed, but I don't think going on and on about Trump's myriad of flaws would do anything beyond cause your friend to entrench further.   So just let your friend know that we have been there and done that, but find Trump to be a horse of a different color.

+CON, "only to prevent or recover from CON stun"?

2d6 Healing can only heal a maximum of 6 BODY, since Adjustment powers only have half effect on 'defensive powers' like BODY, STUN, CON, PD, ED, etc (see 6e Vol 1 pg141).  And it can only heal 6 BODY if you roll 12 on the dice which isn't likely in the middle of combat, although out of combat you can keep trying until you get it.  While 2d6 Healing would probably work for this concept, you still have to link it to a Killing attack of similar or higher active cost, so we are looking at a 50+ Active Point spell.  Since combat spells can't usually take a lot of limitations without making them useless in combat, this ability gets pretty expensive in terms of Real Points.
 
Regeneration at 4 points only gets you 1 BODY/day.  If you want 1 BODY/turn, that is 16 points, which is a lot for a fantasy level character.  Also, you can't use Regeneration on others.

My favorite version of this happened on Babylon 5. A shady character told Mr. Garibaldi something like, "You and I have something in common." Garibaldi responded with, "We've both slept with your sister?"

In some of the cheaper pictures I have noticed a lot of swearing for the sake of swearing

So, recently on the Politics thread, I mentioned that I'm transgender. When I came out a couple of months ago, I changed my gender field on my profile to female, and put real pic of me as a profile pic. But I didn't post anything here. I'd considered doing it at the same time I was coming out on social media, but I didn't. I'm not sure why. I only brought it up in the politics thread because it was relevant to the argument I was making.
 
But this evening, when I was watching a show with a trans character, I started thinking about how important representation is to me, and to all people, really. I was thinking about the fact that, until someone says something otherwise (or their name indicates otherwise) on these boards (and on the internet in general) , I tend to imagine them as a straight white male. I think a lot of people do that. I mean, I don't think we even do it consciously, but I'm aware of the times when someone says something that reveals that they aren't a SWM, and I'm a little bit surprised. I don't like that. It bothered me when I identified as a straight white male, and it bothers me now.
 
And that's why I'm posting this. Representation is important. I want any other LGBTQ folks on the boards to know they're not alone. Also, if anyone's curious about what it's like to be trans, and to transition, I way overshare on my Tumblr, or feel free to ask me any (not too personal) questions here.
 
 
 

"Hero" was a top assassin or master thief but now after a change of heart will use his abilities for good.  Because those skills sets just scream righteous behavior when applied correctly.
 
The villain or hero being able to kill large numbers of people with little apparent consequence (well the villain gets killed in the end by the hero of course).  The police must be too busy issuing traffic tickets to investigate mass killings (except during the aforementioned car chases, because the police can never catch main characters).

"Hero" was a top assassin or master thief but now after a change of heart will use his abilities for good.  Because those skills sets just scream righteous behavior when applied correctly.
 
The villain or hero being able to kill large numbers of people with little apparent consequence (well the villain gets killed in the end by the hero of course).  The police must be too busy issuing traffic tickets to investigate mass killings (except during the aforementioned car chases, because the police can never catch main characters).

As you say, eyesight already has discriminatory built in, but I like the idea and here's how I'd run it:
 
Watch the TV show Sherlock or the Downey jr Holmes films, not so much for their accuracy to the character and stories, but for how his perception and ability to pick up clues is depicted.  That's how I'd treat it, a sort of super-perception that picked up information better than those around them.  You see blue eyes, he sees certain patterns of blue that are distinct to a kind of genetic condition.  You see a raincoat, he sees stains from a kind of mud and a pattern of wrinkles that indicates sitting for a long period of time.  Discriminatory Sense on eyesight for humans allows easier and quicker gathering of information that is technically available to everyone, but only really noticed by the person who bought it.

I'm also against the different rules for draining different types of stats. Keep It Simple Stupid, I like to tell myself.
 
I'll go so far as to say I like the idea that drains et.al. ARE especially dangerous types of attack that bypass normal defenses. This allows my fantasy settings to have truly scary necromancers with horrible "death touch" spells and what have you. It keeps the uber muscled barbarians on their toes, which seems genre appropriate.