Christopher R Taylor

Yeah its going to be a really, really rare circumstance, but maybe some villain creates the flash gun that does killing damage to anyone without resistant flash defense.  As a GM I would probably bop with a nerf bat any player who tried to buy that sort of build, but its theoretically possible.

"Defense is Resistant Flash Defense or being one of the Three Stooges."

That sort of thing is why they don't make flashcubes any more. 
 
Or better yet, one of those old-timey cameras where you put the flash powder in a pan loose. 
 
"Beware my doomsday device, you Gen Z slackers!  Its technology is far too outdated for you to even comprehend!"  - the Sesquicentenarian

Yeah its going to be a really, really rare circumstance, but maybe some villain creates the flash gun that does killing damage to anyone without resistant flash defense.  As a GM I would probably bop with a nerf bat any player who tried to buy that sort of build, but its theoretically possible.

Because you can apply the Advantage, "Attack Versus Alternate Defense" (Resistant Flash Defense) to a Blast or Killing Attack, or even Strength if you want.

Updated versions of the characters for Hero System 6th Edition can be found here: Legends of Camelot

Hi, everyone! I just posted Hero Designer files and PDF writeups for King Arthur Pendragon, Queen Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot of the Lake in the downloads section from British legends. If there's sufficient interest, I may come up with writeups for some of the Knights of the Round Table and assorted villain knights they faced such as Mordred, Turquine, etc.
 
https://www.herogames.com/files/file/526-king-arthur-queen-guinevere-and-sir-lancelot/
 

1. It's +2 DCs.  The following is the definition from the template:
<MANEUVER DISPLAY="Basic Strike" DEFENSE="NORMAL" DOESDAMAGE="Yes" DOESKNOCKBACK="Yes" DOESBODY="Yes" DURATION="INSTANT" TARGET="DCV" USESEND="Yes" KILLING="No" ADDSTR="Y" ACTIVECOST="15" CATEGORY="Hand To Hand" OCV="1" DCV="0" BASECOST="3" PHASE="1/2" EFFECT="[NORMALDC] Strike" DC="2" WEAPONEFFECT="Weapon [WEAPONDC] Strike" > </MANEUVER> 2. It has the same DC bonus as Martial Strike with a smaller CV bonus.
3. If you follow the rules outlined in UMA to build a martial maneuver, you'll find the cost works out to 3 points (similar to the cost for Martial Strike working out to 4 points).
4. That is the cost listed for Basic Strike in the rules.

Nicely done.  Good visual explanation of armor. Not the first time I’ve seen that Mycenaean pipe armour. Must have been baking hot in the sun.  Or was indoor armor. 

Takes No Stun is in the powers section under Automaton; No Hit Locations and Does Not Bleed are just in the  powers section.

Spidey had his Wheaties for breakfast?  😃

Starting with limited elements of the game is a good teaching mechanism.  You could also design a game (Hero is less a game than a system for building a game) that carves out a lot of elements.
 
 
I'm not sure that this is any greater variety of concepts than a d20 game, other than the one element of rolling low rather than high to hit/succeed on a skill roll.
 
 
I'd stick with d6 thanks - much higher average per point spent.  Even if you made it 6 per die, it would still be marginally better than a d8 for 8 or a d12 for 12.

Its amazing anyone learns to play D&D based on that standard.  The truth is, all games look complicated and confusing when just reading the rules.  But when you sit down and start to play, they fall into place easily enough.  That's how 99.99% of us learned how to play ANY of these games: a buddy invited us to play and we dove in, learning as we went.  Almost nobody learns to play a game by reading the rules and thinking them over.

This is the problem with trying to emulate the comics; The Hulk held up the Himalayas in Secret Wars.  Now, he's very strong, but it doesn't matter how mad he gets, he's not going to be holding up billions of tons of rock.  Every so often writers get a bit crazy in what they have characters do and you have to hold those outliers as mistakes or exceptions rather than how to build a game or a power.  Spidey could easily uproot a small tree but I don't know how big a tree it was (don't recall that issue).

Its amazing anyone learns to play D&D based on that standard.  The truth is, all games look complicated and confusing when just reading the rules.  But when you sit down and start to play, they fall into place easily enough.  That's how 99.99% of us learned how to play ANY of these games: a buddy invited us to play and we dove in, learning as we went.  Almost nobody learns to play a game by reading the rules and thinking them over.

Late coming in, but I'd like to comment on the original thread.
 
I agree with @Chris Goodwin that it many ways it has become less complicated for all those reasons, but also the complexity has increased. That is, the rules are generally more consistent and clearer than previous versions, but wow dandy, there's a lot more of them!
 
Complexity is good because it's robust and flexible. But still, like many I haven't made it through the 6E core rules yet; I keep finding little unexpected differences.
 
I have only glanced at the simplified books (I guess that's Champions Now?) not sure how well those scan to a new reader...
 
That said, I recently ran an all-newbie intro session using pre-made characters from the MCU Defenders and it worked very well. But going in, I drastically simplified the character sheets and the game mechanics. No END, no killing attacks, no noncombat movement, combined PD/ED, everyone at 4 SPD (except Spider-Folk at 8), no point costs or any math elements on the sheets. I basically just had them decide on actions and roll.
 
Going through that process made me realize just how complex and flexible the system is, and in many ways, how it's still too complicated. All the different types of rolls is very confusing for new players especially.
 
Roll low, now roll high what? Presence attacks what? Ego attacks what? I mean, there are two ways to break things! No, wait, three including killing attacks. You have to ask the GM which one to use.
 
For a long time I have toyed with the idea of re-scaling Hero game mechanics to support one type of aim-high roll. Then you could let characters buy bigger dice for mutant abilities! d12 for 12 points base, d8 for 8pts, etc. (d6 still costs 5: you get a discount because anthropocentrism 😉

Same answer as the previous thread about Blue Eye Samurai cutting through a tree trunk: a tree has 5 DEF, 8-11 BODY, so 13-16 Killing Damage will do the trick to break it. Bruce Wayne kicks a tree down in Batman:Year One in three blows (at an estimated 8d6, which scans).
 
Uprooting would be harder, yeah: Perhaps require a STR roll with penalty of -13 to -16 (somewhat agreeing with @unclevlad's calculation of 80 STR).
 
I seem to recall a comic book page where Spider-Man (43 STR canonically) uproots a tree. But he probably begged a bonus for Clinging from the GM...
 
To the pedantic thread: I live in a forest with hundreds of uprooted spruce and other conifers; even hardwoods will rip out sometimes in a hard wind. Some trees have taproots, some don't. Even planted fruit trees might not where an apple grown from seed might. Trees be complex!

What exactly is uprooting trees and what is it doing with them?  Depending on what you want to do you might not even need to worry about the STR needed to uproot the tree.   If this is some mythical creature that can use trees as weapons you could use trees as a inaccessible focus for the attack power.
 
This is also the Hero System discussion forum.  Assuming the question is for a Champions game is not a given unless specified.  This could just as easily be a Fantasy Hero game and be about a giant instead of a superhero.     

I would probably approach this as the tree using STR to hold on to the ground, and the character trying to use STR to pull it up.  So you could just do a simple formula, like 5 STR per meter of height gripping strength with the roots, and its a simple STR vs STR contest.  That makes an apple tree of around 7 meters have 35 STR to hold on to the ground, and a sequoia of 92m have 460 STR.  Mind you the Hulk could probably rip up a redwood and beat you over the head with it in the comics, so there probably should be a cap of some sort to make it possible to emulate the comics.

Once again, the reason the Joker has to be taken out now is not because of anything innate in his character, but because of the way writers have been writing him. Each new writer thinks they have to top the previous one. Frank Miller tried to show Joker at his most unhinged, most horrible so that Batman had to take extreme measures to stop him -- and later authors took that as a base line and wanted to make THEIR Joker story even more awful.
 
In the end, they turned a sinister, somewhat deadly clown who did tricks like turn every fish in the harbor into Joker fish... into a mass murdering psychopath who slaughters by the dozens, or hundreds.  THAT Joker has to be taken out.  The Joker he started as, no.

Yeah, 4d6 HKA is enough to cut through your average tree and it's where I usually cap the DC's in a fantasy game. You could also go to an old school game rule that's not seen much today: types of damage. Trees are probably tougher against bashing than piercing and even weaker against slashing.

Yeah, it worked in the movie for batman to not save Rachel, because it got her out of the picture and gave us Two Face.  But it was a bad Batman story, because Batman utterly failed and Joke won (over and over).  Its like Superman murdering Zod by twisting his neck slightly after a 10 minute battle where he couldn't harm Zod at all, next to people too stupid to get up and walk away from the death beam.  Heroes find a way.  Especially Batman.

Classic Batman story with Neal Adams art
 

If I am, I am doing an incredibly bad job of saying things!! 🙂
 
I have read a LOT of Batman and fewer Joker stories.  I have read great Joker stories and some awful ones.
 
I think, in the good stories, more than any other member of the rogues gallery, Joker is the antithesis of Batman. It is that direct contrast that often makes the story a good one, the opposite throwing the heroic into sharp relief.
 
I agree with @Christopher R Taylor that writers got into a bit of a bidding war in how far they could take chaotic evil and a lot of that almost glories in the anarchy rather than in the heroics necessary to remedy it.
 
In the Dark Knight film, when Joker left Batman with the dilemma of which of two bombs he would choose to defuse, who he would allow to die, classic Batman would have had a contingency to cut the Gordian knot and prevent both bombs.  THAT is why he is a SUPERhero, not one of your run of the mill heroes.
 
The Joker gives the writer free rein to imagine excesses, it is his job however to ensure he gives the Batman a way to rein that it.  any sacrifice should be personal. If it came to it, Batman would die and save both people.  I hate that they wanted to make drama by having the Hero fail.  If I pulled that crap in a fame, my players would string me up and it demonstrates to me, again and again that the big studios fundamentally do not understand superheroes.
 

Once again, the reason the Joker has to be taken out now is not because of anything innate in his character, but because of the way writers have been writing him. Each new writer thinks they have to top the previous one. Frank Miller tried to show Joker at his most unhinged, most horrible so that Batman had to take extreme measures to stop him -- and later authors took that as a base line and wanted to make THEIR Joker story even more awful.
 
In the end, they turned a sinister, somewhat deadly clown who did tricks like turn every fish in the harbor into Joker fish... into a mass murdering psychopath who slaughters by the dozens, or hundreds.  THAT Joker has to be taken out.  The Joker he started as, no.