Surrealone

Only if there's a weak GM that allows that kind of domination. Solid GM's nip that crap in the bud while still maintaining flavor and campaign feel (i.e. without invoking GM fiat). I got the sense from the rest of your post (not quoted, here) that you simply don't want to deal with that, as a GM ... and would, instead, prefer to shield yourself from it by using/choosing mechanics that normalize things to the point that you don't have to do it -- hence a preference for Hero's mechanics, as they do precisely that. (If I misread that, then I apologize, but that's how I perceived what you were saying; certainly no offense intended.)

Since you are hanging your hat on equating a super character being 'less than normal' in any stats/resistances to munchkinism, I take it that means you must feel that Professor X is a munchkin character since he has running bought down to zero, and above average (i.e. 8) STR (and likely CON) at best? Let's just say I can't agree with that perspective ... at all. Let's also just say that not all games played with Hero System are superheroic ... meaning 'less than normal' stats make a lot of sense in 50, 100, 150, 200, and other similar low-point agent/heroic level games. Since you seem not to be accounting for such things, I think perhaps you should re-assess. So, umm, watch any of the new Flash episodes, lately? Cisco Ramon (aka 'Vibe') is average (i.e. 8) in most physical attributes, I'd expect. If you take a look at the AVERAGE INDIVIDUALS table in Champions Complete, it shows straight 8's for STR, DEX, CON, INT, EGO and PRE. These are all less than the normal 10's one starts with. And agents commonly have an average stat here/there ... if not several. Only 'noteworthy normals' (to quote 6th Edition) have straight 10's as an example -- and those can of course be apportioned differently for desired effect (high PRE, low CON, oratory type; high CON, low STR wiry Irish drinking type, etc). The 'skilled normal' table shows 3 or so of those things higher than their bases of 10, but it's an example -- and clearly the points can again be handled differently (example, high STR, high CON body builder with only average DEX and INT). The 'skilled normal' is, by the way, a 50pt character. Then the 'competent normal' is 100 pts, and has yet more improved stats, which could, again, be handled differently if desired (i.e. all brains/ego, no brawn ... or all muscle/physical traits and no brains/ego). Sorry, but I think you're imposing YOUR idea of munchkin on sellbacks that, very clearly, are not only common, but expected if 6th Ed. references around the term 'average' equating to a stat of 8 is to be followed. With that in mind, if the vision for a super happens to be an average (i..e 8, not 10!) guy in terms of physicality ... who has insane intellect/ego ... and mind powers ... and is crippled such that he must use a wheelchair ... who people call 'Professor X' ... I think it's perfectly appropriate for him to have 8 (or even less) STR, DEX, CON ... and maybe even PRE (until you realize he has mental powers, then his PRE spikes way up). But he's 'munchkin' to you ... because he has 'less than normal' stats. Quite a view you have there. Clearly the comic book world ... doesn't agree with you. Nor do the 6th Ed. guidelines when it comes to what an 'average' stat score is...

Strange that the ultimate bad asses noted, above, seem to entail brick-like chartacteristics. I can also see badassery in terms of Bruce Lee (high speed, high dex, insane DCV) or Clint Eastwood's characters in spaghetti westerns (high dex, high OCV, insane DCV). Some heroic level thoughts that could be scaled up for supers: Three For All: +3 SPEED when facing four or more attackers Sun at Your Back: +9 DCV due to instinctive positioning of one's body with a light source at one's back such that opponents' abilities to properly target are hampered Eagle Eye: No range mod naked advantage for all man-portable ranged weapons that use 'iron sights' (i.e. that do not use telescopic or computerized sighting systems)

Yup, the flavor/feel is, I believe, the key reason why people use other systems rather than honing a generic one to simulate them. A GM can certainly create templates and do it all with Hero System, but it's a pile of work to flesh out the backdrop/setting. It's also fair to include mechanics in flavor/feel to some extent -- as playing a d10 game has a different (and simpler, in terms of math) flavor/feel to Hero's 3d6 (and d6/DC) approach ... which is yet again different from old school AD&D's chest-o-dice approach using d2-d100 (which, could all be expressed in d100 if you recall). I point this out because a common complaint about Hero is how 'mathy' it is. Personally, I am not bothered by its math, but there IS a lot more of it than in other systems -- specifically due to the precision of the system as compared to others. i.e. Hero feels precise enough to model something in wargaming fashion ... because it is ... whereas WoD, AD&D, etc. don't feel that way ... because they aren't. (A round is 10 seconds? Seriously, 10 second increments versus 1 second segmentation??? No competition in terms of precision... but it comes at the cost of more effort.)

Probably because there's a lot of work involved in creating flavor -- and people don't like to needlessly reinvent the wheel. As an example, I feel that Whitewolf does a much better job of modeling vampiric/magic/werewolf roleplay than Hero Systems. Part of this is that magic tends to entail a lot of loose mechanics (i.e. handwaving) -- i.e. it's imprecise but still within player-agreeable tolerances. By contrast, Hero System is a very granular/precise system in terms of builds, powers, capabilities, and mechanics -- making it ill-suited to a game that feels like Whitewolf's do ... unless the players are mostly VPP users (and are proficient at modeling appropriate capabilities) -AND- the GM spends an asinine amount of time pre-building clan templates, discipline tree templates, and special pre-built handlers for things like diablerie and paradox. ​Why would a GM spend a LOT of needless time/effort to recreate flavor when there's a system that's already built and balanced for it? Frankly, if you want to play a game that feels like Whitewolf's do -- it's probably worth the investment in their products to conserve the time/effort of remodeling them... Now if the game doesn't have a specific flavor to it -- meaning it's not intended to feel like VTM, MTA, CoC, D&D, etc ... then a generic toolbox is probably the way to start. And as an aside, while Hero Systems is suitably generic, the very names of its powers naturally lend themselves to a Superhero feel ... which is why it's commonly cast in that mold even though it can do/be so much more. (That's really its origin shining through, even today, I think...)

And what about game play at the agent and heroic levels? You DO realize that people play this game at 100, 150, and 200 pts (total, including complications), right? And you understand that at those levels, the characters are more likely to be in the company of Shield agents or James Bond than they are to be chumming around with the likes of Superman or Wolverine, right? i.e. In plenty of games, characters are commonly less than normal in some ways while better than normal in others ... but still 'normals' and not 'supers'...

Spot-on.

I suspect GM failure to incorporate background items in meaningful ways stems from a propensity to look at character sheets as a list of combat stats. In my experience, this seems to vary directly with the point level of the game. (And this may also play a part in why I seem to prefer Heroic level games...)

Strangely, I prefer Average Heroic and Powerful Heroic games to even Low Superheroic ones. There's just more grit and fun to be had when you're that much more likely to die from standard gunfire, IMHO. (I guess I feel that a chance of death in any/every combat makes every choice within it that much more significant/meaningful.)

I find it interesting that this mirrors my own experiences fairly closely. That said, I have had the occasional GM who made the little things count, but in three decades of playing I'd have to say that, overall, that type or approach has been kind of rare...

"And what just happened is -why- it cost you less." But back to the GM communicating with the players ... the scenario you just mentioned wouldn't happen if the GM running the show actually talked to the player about the limitations, sell-offs, etc. on the charcter sheet. Such a discussion would allow the player to inform the GM of the what/why of things on the sheet ... and allow the GM to inform the player of any implications and/or concerns .... as well as correct any misunderstandings.

I don't think anyone's bitching. Rather, I think some GM's are being offered player-side perspective on why they might want to communicate directly with their players about the meaning of things on character sheets ... rather than making assumptions about what's on character sheets.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that approach as long as both you and your players discuss and agree that what you think was meant ... is what was actually meant. As an example of why: I'm presently playing a character who can't swim. I didn't buy off his swimming to indicate I wanted my character to be thrown into a body of water (which is how you, the GM might interpret it) to 'challenge' him. Rather, I bought it off because the ability to swim made absolutely no sense to his backstory. It's a futuristic campaign in which planets made of mostly water are rare, and he's from a place where there simply weren't adequate bodies or even quantities of water that would justify being able to swim. (Much like it would make no sense for the fremen in Dune to know how to swim.) If it comes up naturally (i.e. in the unlikely event that crash land on a water world with nothing to stand on), I have no issue with that -- but I would take issue with a GM tossing the character into a lake because his interpretation of the swimming buydown was that I wanted an Olympic swimming challenge for the character. MCV is no different really; there may be scenarios where it makes sense for it to be sold off. If the player has a solid reason for it (i.e. backstory), it should be a non-issue. And if the team happens to come across a mentalist that bowls over the whole party ... and the character who did the buy-down is all-the-more-susceptible, that's one thing. But if the mentalist somehow magically knows the character's MCV is lower ... and the character is singled out -- that's clearly punitive, and quite another thing unless, of course, the character took some other limitation and/or complication that would make the situation obvious.

Tasha, I take it you didn't read posts 12 and 13 in this thread?

67 Active point power (not sure where you came up with 82). Yes, it's STUN only because it's a NND -- intentionally so since it fits the special effects. Not sure why you called it unsound, as a character going last can pop solid, take the shot, then abort back to desolid on the next segment, if needed. Tactically, it's very sound, as the period of 3 DCV while solid ... is minimal. I understand your commentary about desolidification being visible -- but in combat, with range penalties to PER rolls as well as penelaties due to various combat conditions (smoke, debris, effects of characters using change envifonment, partial cover, etc.) ... I don't think desolidification would be as immediately apparent (at least for the first shot) for all opponents as you seem to indicate. Then again, perhaps you and/or your players don't model your combats to account for and/or take/make full advantage of environmental conditions... If you want to handwave desolidification being the same as Martial Dodge, that's your call. However, since performing one of these (activating Desolidification) is a Zero phase non-attack action and performing the other (Martial Dodge) is a half-phase action that counts as an attack action ... I don't agree with that handwave -- specifically because you can use Desolidification as a defense in your own phase ... and still attack in the same phase -- and I just showed you an example of how. (Aborting is a different matter, entirely; they're actually comparable, but so is any defense when aborting to use/raise it.) Frankly, I see it as a hole in which Desolidification is ripe for abuse -- since your weighting system doesn't properly account for it (IMHO).

I know, right?!

Food for thought: ​Personal Immunity can absolutely be used to amazing effect to impact how someone hits. Consider: Our Desolid hero, from above, can control matter at the atomic level -- which allows him to interleave the particles of his being into the spaces between the particles that make up atoms (hence his Desolidification). His ability also allows him to move matter around, at will -- and one of his tricks is to create a momentary vacuum in a given space. He is OCV 3 with low natural/normal defenses but he's got the weird stuff going on. His vacuum attack basically boils the blood of living beings within it for one second, doing little/no BODY but a pile of system shock (STUN). The attack power would look like this: 67 Active, 33 Real Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6, Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Attack Versus Alternate Defense (NND w/ defense being able to exist in vacuum [i.e. Life Support: Safe Environment - Low Pressure/Vacuum and Self-Contained Breathing]; All Or Nothing; +1/2), +10 Increased STUN Multiplier (+2 1/2), Gestures (Requires both hands; -1/2), Limited Range (-1/4), Limited Power: Does not work in Vacuum (-1/4) ​This character needs 11- to hit a DCV 3 hex and has a 62.5% chance of doing so on 3d6. But wait, adjacent hexes (and the hex in which a character is standing) are DCV 0, not DCV 3. Since our Desolid hero is immune to his own attack, he half-moves up to his previous attacker (with Desolidification on), shuts it off (zero-phase action, permissible after a half-phase non-attack action), and creates a 4m radius vacuum right where he's standing, needing 14- to hit his own hex, and having a 90.74% chance of rolling it on 3d6. If we assume an average roll of 3 on the BODY die and 3 on the STUN die, our hero just did 36 STUN to his opponent and anyone other than himself within the 4m radius/8m diameter ... unless they have Safe Environment: Low Pressure/Vaccum AND Self-Contained Breathing. In this example, Personal Immunity is the key to the character's OCV being the equivalent of 6, instead of 3 -- and is responsible for increasing hit probability by a whopping 28.24%. Personal Immunity also made complete sense for the character and his special effects ... and it cost 3 active and 1 real while having the effect of 15 active points of OCV! Granted, solid tactical play was involved, but still... In a nutshell: Personal Immunity can absolutely impact a character's ability to hit... and you may wish to consider it very carefully when you see it. I still don't see this one -- because I can use Desolidification as a defense in my Phase ... and still attack in that Phase (by shutting off Desolidification). If I'm Desolid and DEX 10... and a DEX 20 guy shoots at me, it'll pass right through me ... and on my DEX I can shut down Desolidification and bust him up ... effectively allowing me to use the defense AND an attack in the same phase ... something I couldn't do if I had to abort to a Martial Dodge at DEX 20 to keep from getting hit by the DEX 20 guy.

It wasn't clear to me what was meant by "Desolidification is dealt with as a defense hat takes the place of an attack." -- which is why I inquired about it, specifically. Unlike Martial Dodge (as outlined in the original post), one can passively use Desolidification as a defense (during one's Phases as well as during segments on which one has a Held Action) and still attack after something has passed through him/her (provided s/he hasn't already consumed his/her Action) -- specifically because Martial Dodge counts as an Attack Action ... but turning on Desolidification (or simply standing there with it already on) is NOT an Attack action. Example: Consider that a high-DEX character attacks our Desolid hero on our Desolid hero's phase (or on a Segment across which s/he is holding an action). The attack passes through harmlessly. Our Desolid hero then half-moves up to his/her attacker, drops his/her Desolidification, and whops his/her attacker in the very same Phase. (Or, have him/her drop the Desolidification, then half-move and attack -- your choice.) That wouldn't be possible if our hero had to use his/her action to Martial Dodge the attack from the high-DEX character, as the Martial Dodge would count as an Attack Action and our hero wouldn't have an Action to take on the same Phase. I hope this explains why it wasn't clear to me what Deadman meant with his answer -- since the "defense that takes the place of an attack" example he gave in his original post ... entails maneuvers that count as Attack Actions ... while Desolidification's use does not. So what's the math that translates Desolidification into a defense? Convert its Active points to however much rPD/rED it'd buy and call it that? Divide it by the cost of Damage Negation and call it that many levels of Damage Negation? Something else? I think Growth and Shrinking were adequately considered when asked about, but I think the response given on Desolidification didn't quite make sense ... or I just didn't understand it.

Interestingly, I've never had a GM allow multiple defensive actions -- all have permitted exactly one action. My current GM is going to raise an eyebrow if/when I stack -- but he plays strict 5er RAW, so this will be an interesting rabbit to pull out of the hat when it's needed. The verbiage bigdamnhero quoted is also buried in 5er (I dug it up). It's always good to learn new things!

The game I'm presently playing in treats RAW much like fundamentalists treat the Bible's text -- if it's written then it's RAW and applicable (no omissions). It's kind of interesting, as there's zero hand-waving and it has a wargaming feel to it, which I like. Lots of rules lookups, though... lots. (Usually by players before needing to cite them, so little slowdown.) Thank the powers that be for searchable PDF's! It also helps that it's a low-SPD heroic power level.

Nice find! I interpret that to mean that you could perform a skill, and a maneuver, and activate a power (or several) all at once. I also feel that I stand corrected, as a CSL shift would certainly fall under this. Clearly Block and Dodge are mutually exclusive. Dodge and Dive For Cover obviously are, too. Can you think of any maneuvers that qualify as DEFENSIVE ACTIONS that aren't mutually exclusive?

Or Desolidification?

IMHO, leaving out optional rules (or making some non-optional rules optional -- just because it makes sense) tends to fall apart unless it is clearly stated from the start which ones will be omitted ... and then that list adhered to from start to finish of campaign. I've just seen too many GM's state certain rules were out, and then omit things in ad-hoc fashion as the games progressed -- frustrating players because the omissions/changes that came later were ones they felt would have influenced some of their early-on build and/or exp expenditure choices had they known up front.

I'm with you on that Nolgroth. But the original question entailed being able to shift CSL's -and- Dodge during an abort. Obviously if you sacrifice the entire next Phase to shift CSL's, you can't also sacrifice that same next Phase to Dodge.

I don't believe that's RAW. I agree it makes sense if the CSL's are somehow TIED/linked to the manuvers. It's probably less relevant in high speed games (say average speed of 6 or more), but in games where average speeds are 2 or 3 ... that's a pretty serious allowance ... specifically because you're stuck doing whatever you aborted to for a (comparatively) LONG time -- which means you gain the benefits of the CSLs -and- the maneuver for that very long time. That's ripe for abuse...