Tholomyes

That's pretty much how I like to do it too. 1 XP a session, usually, 2XP if it seemed like a particularly momentous occasion, either in character or just an especially fun session. One thing I'd add is that I tend to do a mix of episodic sessions and plot arcs, so for the end of a plot arc, I'd up that to 3-5 XP, depending on the length and importance of the arc (and maybe for mid-arc climaxes I'd throw in an extra XP point or two, if it's a longer or especially pivital arc). The important thing I've found is that it seems fair and proportionate to the impact of the session. For the first bit, that might vary depending on the group: giving a player extra XP for good role playing works well for many situations, but if I have a group where one or more players are new to RPGs or the specific genre (players used to D&D dungeon crawls trying to figure out a Supers game, for instance), it might not seem fair to do so [with the adendum, so long as they're trying; I may end up doing so if it seems like the players might need a bit of a nudge towards the genre conventions of the game]. For the second bit, it's a bit more of an art than a science. One thing to consider, based on your concern about rewards becoming unbalancing, is if you use Active point/DC/whatever caps or guidelines, is that extra points doesn't necessarily mean those guidelines shift. It's going to be a lot less unbalancing if that XP goes into breadth, and it feels more organic, too, that experience doesn't necessarily make you any stronger or faster, but is more about adding a few more tricks to the character's toolkit.

This doesn't seem too dissimilar to the running build earlier, which as eepjr mentioned, doesn't really do what you want it to: In HERO, while it's not true that the simple answer is always the best, more often than not, it's the right jumping off point. If the effect you want is, effectively, invisibility, then modeling it as invisibility seems to be the right way to go, likely with no fringe. Depending on how you want the power to work, the Psionic limitation in APG II might be right for the build, if you want to only not be noticed by other people, but be detectable by computers or the like (I believe that this limitation would also make it so that someone watching through a CCTV monitor would also notice the character, but the book lists an option, if reduced to a -1/4 lim to work with "mental traces". While not a direct parallel to CCTV, or similar circumstances, I'd allow something like that to affect people perceiving through CCTV, while still making the character visible to an AI detection system, for example). Obviously, with the logic that a limitation that does not limit the character is not worth any points, if the campaign features no (or very few) remote surveillance systems or machine classes of minds, this limitation would be a -0 limitation. As far as the difference between being invisible, vs not being noticed, I'd probably just make that fall under the purview of special effects granting minor benefits and hindrances, so long as they generally don't swing too far in one direction or the other. An invisible character can't really move about in a crowded city, even with no fringe, people will still feel the character when they bump into them, and will notice that they bumped into something that isn't there. An unnoticed character will still be recognized as a physical being, so in a crowd they don't have to worry about being noticed when touched, but unlike the truly invisible person, sneaking into a secure area will be more tricky, because a guard can notice the character and alert other guards to their location, even if they can't quite remember any distinctive features about them.

While I don't dislike the way HERO handles initiative (I'd consider myself neutral) having an initiative roll, something as simple as make a DEX roll and go in order of how much you succeed/fail by (with tiebreaks being done by dex score, or possibly INT or EGO, or something), does not change the concept of Tempo, as the order of the characters in the initiative list, barring things like blocked attacks, or the like, doesn't really change from round to round. The addition of a Roll only changes the variability of the turn order from fight to fight; it is no more about "choices" if there is a die roll or not (except perhaps the choice to spend points on DEX). It's essentially the same as two chess players flipping a coin before each game to decide who plays White and who plays Black. In fact, I'd argue that the existence of the Speed Chart (as well as, more indirectly, any disparity between the total number of Hero and Villain actions per turn) blurs the Tempo parallel a bit. In chess, Black gets as many moves as White, but must react to White's moves unless White makes a mistake and gives Initiative to Black. In Hero system, the DEX 10, SPD 7 Speedster might start off without initiative, vs the Dex 18 SPD 4 Brick, but since the speedster gets nearly twice as many actions, and will quickly gain initiative. Unless the Brick can Stun (or in certain phases, Block) the Speedster, the speedster will retain that initiative, and even if they lose it, they will regain it fairly quickly.

As for general books, your list generally covers what I think are the important ones. Depending on your genre interests, or what you want out of the books, there are some other ones I might pick up, but as far as a "jack of all Genres" checklist, that's a pretty good list. I've found for Superheroes that the Champions sourcebook is fairly useful, even if you have Champions Complete. I don't own Fantasy Hero Complete, but the Fantasy Hero sourcebook may very well be similar in that aspect (but If I'm wrong, other posters, correct me on this), and the Grimoire can be even more useful than Champions Powers, if you want to run a Fantasy game with certain styles of magic systems (such as ones where each spell, or a handful of related spells, is treated in a similar vein to Weapon Proficiencies). The Champions Universe book, as well as others like Champions Beyond, Champions Villains Volumes 1-3, ect, are largely dependent on how much you like the champions universe as a setting, and how much interest you have in worldbuilding, so I personally don't get much use out of them, but I will admit that they are fairly well done, if not really my cup of tea. Really the only major Hero Games publications that I would say probably aren't worth the money are the Basic Rulebook (especially with the advent of Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete), the Bestiary (Even running Fantasy games, I've found I rarely end up using it), and possibly even the Advanced Players Guides (I've used a few rules from them, here and there, but all in all, they don't see that much use). Otherwise, it's more of a question of "Do I need what this book provides?" As for Vehicle Books, to my knowledge there isn't really a 6e Vehicle Book, even though it is mentioned in some 6e books. I assume there just wasn't a great demand for it, so it just wasn't economically feasible to do a print run of it. There is a 5e book (here) but I don't own it, so I can't speak to the quality of it, or the ease of adapting it to 6e, but it's an option.

For me, it's about Dramatic Realism, and the flexibility that Hero's point buy provides. GURPS, while similar, in many ways, to HERO, cleaves too much towards it's own vision of "realism" for my tastes (for example, Neuroscience is priced highly, not because it's an important skill, but because "in real life" it's a hard skill to learn). HERO, however, recognizes that it's probably not even as useful to your average adventurer as standard First Aid. So Neuroscience would be a Science skill, with the pricing of 2/1, while Paramedics is priced 3/2. If someone wants to do a "realistic" people game (or any other genre conventions, since in many ways "real life" is a genre as far as RPGs go), that's up to the GM and Players, but as far as characters go, things are priced based on their value to a character. The fact that HERO blatantly states that it's not intended to model reality, but instead to model the reality that exists in fiction, means that threads like one might find on D&D forums, for just how many arrows an archer can actually fire in 6 seconds, (and whether that number is even accurate because of the need to put sufficient power and aim into each shot) don't really matter with HERO. The question instead is "Could Legolas [or insert whichever other fantasy archer here] fire X arrows in 12 seconds" and I like that, especially because often times the rules reinforce these genre points fairly well (one of my favorite aspects of the way rules interact with Genre is that in Superheroic games, Stun is more important than Body, whereas in Heroic Games, the opposite is usually true. As a result, the fact that Superheroic games tend to have higher speeds makes sense from both a narrative and mechanical aspect, since higher speed means fewer recoveries per action, which means a greater emphasis on Stun over Body). Additionally, the flexability aspect cannot be understated. While many point buy games can be quite flexible, none have matched HERO in my eyes. I've played plenty of Mutants and Masterminds, which is a fine system on its own, and it's plain to see just based on the number of unofficial character builds on their forums, that it is a very flexible system in its own right, but it is still head and shoulders behind HERO in system flexibility. As an honorable mention, the mathematical effectiveness of the mechanics is really quite great. Perhaps it's taken for granted how often systems' mechanics are either inelegant, scale horribly, or are essentially a treadmill of ever increasing numbers, where the only thing different between level 1 and level 11 are the 10s digits of your skill bonus and the DC of the check. It's an Honorable mention, because HERO is by no means the only or best system to do the system math well and elegantly, but it does it better than most.

Increasing damage on rolling well is an idea that is highly flawed, but has the potential for merit, if the "i"s are crossed and "t"s are dotted, as far as the cost structure and interactions with other rules, such as CSLs and spreading an attack, and taken care of. Increasing damage by adding more dice, but capping it, is functionally identical to just adding more dice. Technically, there is nothing wrong with the concept of adding more dice and capping it, but it throws up a lot of red flags, because a) the way it's described implies that it is (for the 10d6+2d6 capped at 60 STUN example) treated as a 10d6 attack (both in the way the build is formulated, as well as its description of "increasing damage") and the fact that the 2d6 dice are being treated like they have a limitation: Can't increase average damage. For a) the attack is a 12d6 attack, as I have mentioned. "Increasing average damage" of a 10d6 attack by 2d6 means making it a 12d6 attack. If campaign limits or guidelines or anything of the sort are in effect, or the power needs to be benchmarked to villains, or whatever, it needs to be treated identically to a 12d6 attack. (Furthermore, in such an event your idea doesn't even do what you say it does: your idea is to "increase average damage", then, by however miniscule a margin, it runs at an opportunity cost to a 12d6 attack). For the only reason I could think of that part a) would not be the case is if you were treating it like a 12d6 attack, but having a limitation on the last 2d6, decreasing the real cost. However since the limitation doesn't functionally do anything, it shouldn't be worth anything. This is, admittedly, not textually supported in your posts (there is nothing I can see to indicate that you price the extra dice at anything lower than 5 points, but it was intended both as a safeguard, in case I was misunderstanding you on part a) as well as a cautionary aspect, in case you decided to treat it, going forward, like 12d6, with a limitation, which would also not be correct) But I've stated this ad nauseum in the past, so instead, I want to see your answer: What does 10d6+2d6 (capped at 60 STUN and 20 BODY) do that 12d6 does not? What is its purpose as an idea? What circumstances would someone take 10d6+2d6 (capped), and not 12d6? Are they allowed to take 10d6+2d6, but not allowed to take 12d6? What gives the idea its value?

I don't see how any of those criticisms follow from a Rule of "X". A rule of X has absolutely nothing to do with a class-based system, to the point where I can't even fathom where that sentence is coming from. All a rule of X does is set a limit on certain aspects of the character (CVs, DC, DEF, SPD, ect). It is actually less restrictive than most campaign limits, which involve Active point caps, or the like, because it is more lenient about each individual aspect, so long as the total of the aspects (after certain weighting) come out to the "X" or under. Or to put it more concretely, a character in a game with a 60 Active point cap can never have an attack higher than 12DC (at least, not without GM's Permission). A character in a game with a rule of "X" can choose to have an attack with higher DC than 12, they just need to be willing to decrease some other aspect to compensate. One of these is more restrictive than the other, and it's not Rule of X. As for being absolutely useless in any scenario that isn't directly tied to the specific X formula, I have never seen a Rule of X that doesn't just focus on combat numbers. So I don't see how a Rule of X that involves DC, CV, Def, and SPD, would have any bearing on, for example, a skill contest. There's still, perhaps, the issue of gaming a Rule of X, by, for example buying every attack with +1/2: Accurate AoE 1m (though truth be told, the numbers work out that even this is hard to game: a character with 12d6 Blast, CV 9 hits just as hard and often as a character with 12d6 Blast [+1/2 Accurate AoE 1m], 3 CV, which both cost the same and have the same "X" value), but a rule of X doesn't negate the "GM's approval" step of the character creation process. Lastly, HERO system has no inherent guidelines or limits for characters' power levels, due to the freedom and point buy nature of the system. But that's not the same as saying an individual campaign shouldn't have guidelines or limits for power levels. In fact the books often assume, either implicitly or explicitly, the possibility or even likelihood, of such limits. The Rule of X, for example, didn't just come from the aether, it is specifically mentioned and described in the 6e2 as an option for such campaign limits (along with 5 pages specifically focused on designing and tuning campaign limits; quite a bit for something the game doesn't "count on or use"). But even assuming no campaign limits, you have essentially two options: Either all characters have the same CVs, DCs, DEFs, SPDs, ect, or they don't. If they do, then I suppose any such rule regarding hitting well providing damage bonus won't disproportionately affect anything. However, what I suspect as the far more likely option is that there is some variation between characters (even if not defined by rule of X). In that case, (let's ignore fluff for a moment, since it seems to be a sticking point to you that for some ungodly reason Superman might hit harder than the Flash), you have two characters, Character A and Character B. Character A has higher OCV than Character B, but lower Damage. Against an average opponent, Character A hits X+Y% of the time, while Character B hits X% of the time. Character A does Z average damage on a hit, while character B does Z+W average damage on a hit. Between the two of them the ratio of their average damage per attack is (X+Y)*Z:X*(Z+W). Because they aren't under any campaign limitations, this ratio isn't necessarily 1:1, but it's in rough proportion to the ratio of the points spent on offensive combat applications, because the pricing of things in a point buy system such as HERO more or less guarantees that. Suddenly the GM decides to add a rule where damage is now a function of both DC and how much the character hit by. This shifts the ratio to be something like (X+Y)*f(X+Y, Z):X*f(X,Z+W), assuming the partial derivatives of f are positive over all reasonable values of X and Z (as the rule would imply), the ratio has suddenly shifted to favor Character A, and shifted away from the proportion of points spent on offensive combat applications. While a simplistic model, which doesn't even figure any other areas in the rules, besides costs, where OCV and DC interact, it makes it obvious that any such rule, as it stands, will be disproportionately favoring OCV over Damage. Edit: I'll let these just stand for themselves.

That's why I'm against it. (Not the fact that it doesn't increase max damage, but the fact that it increases the average). Max damage doesn't matter. The fact that you can theoretically roll 10 6s on a 10d6 doesn't really change the phase-to-phase damage that a character can do. But if you have characters based around the idea that 10d6 is the average damage that a character can do, and you have a character who, because of your rule, can do (effectively) 12d6 damage, without some sort of trade off elsewhere (such as via a Rule of X), that exceeds those expectations. Any situation where a 12d6 (capped at 60 STUN) damage character would be allowed, a 12d6 damage character should also be allowed, because the 99.95% of the time, the result of 12d6 is 60 or under (and thus the capped damage wouldn't even be worth any limitation, because a limitation that does not limit the character is worth no points). The construction of it as 10d6, plus 2d6, only to boost average damage, seems very intellectually dishonest, because it's a 12d6 attack, and should be treated in all ways like a 12d6 attack. In point cost, in campaign caps, in everything. The difference is so minuscule it can be safely ignored. I feel like a broken record, because I can't think of any fresh or more clear way to put it that I haven't already said. Increasing average damage is the domain of adding extra dice. Adding extra dice is, in nearly all cases, limited by an active points cap, a DC cap, a Rule of X. If your goal is to increase average damage, beyond what the current campaign limits allow, then that's a sign that the campaign limits should be adjusted to allow for that. Otherwise those limits aren't really limits because they don't actually limit anything. (And in the case where there aren't campaign limits, this logic still applies. Either it's not actually increasing the average damage, since 12d6 could be taken for the same points cost, or if you're not making it a -0 limitation, you're providing a points discount for a limitation that doesn't actually limit anything). Ok, my apologies for assuming you were replying to me. However, to answer your points: 1) With skills, there are no effect rolls. The degree of success from the skill roll is the only way to determine the degree of success at that skill. This makes sense because for skills, your ability at that skill generally is a single parameter. While there is perhaps a reason to justify to create two parameters, similar to attack and damage rolls, to simulate the difference between an inexperienced, but naturally talented character and a character with experience, but no natural aptitude: someone with experiential skills will succeed more often, due to greater practice, but their successes won't be as great, because they don't have the necessary aptitude for the skill. The person with natural talent, but not much experience, will fail often, because of their inexperience, but when they succeed they have greater results, because they have a more intuitive understanding. An easy example would be math. Someone who's done a ton of rote math will mess up less often, but might not be able to solve problems as elegantly. Meanwhile someone, for whom math is intuitive, but who hasn't done rote memorization, will mess up some, but their approach will be stronger because they aren't necessarily blindly following the steps, but they have some intuitive understanding of why certain mathematical formulas or properties work. However, this doesn't really add much, and the greater abstraction of skills probably serves the system better. For attacks, however, this single parameter paradigm does not hold. There are characters, such as Bricks, who can't hit the broad side of a tank, but if they land a hit, they hit hard. On the other side, there are Martial Artists, or Speedsters or the like, who tend to hit with more of their attacks, but who don't do as much damage on a hit. Changing damage to be a function of how well a character hit skews the balance between these two ends of the spectrum towards the OCV-high characters. This isn't really warranted. It would necessitate a change to the cost of OCV/DCV/CSLs/ect, as well as necessitate a change to the way CSLs can be used to boost damage, how spreading an attack works, and so on. For what reason? What is the goal? If the goal is to give High OCV characters a boost vs Low DCV, High Def characters, there are already RAW options: Haymaker (including the optional Offensive Haymaker), Offensive Strike, ect. If the goal is the "gut feeling" that an especially low attack roll should somehow correspond to high damage, then you've lost me completely. The notion of separating a glancing hit from a full hit from a critical hit (or whatever) is not something that I think adds anything to the game. RPGs, by their nature, feature abstraction. One aspect of that abstraction is the notion that hitting and damage are separate rolls, a fact which isn't just unique to HERO. And it's baffling that this is even an issue in an effects based system like HERO. 2) I suppose it's just my tendency to use a "Rule of X" for my games. Bricks hit less often because they shift more of their "X" from OCV, DCV (and often times SPD) to DC and DEF. Speedsters do less damage, because of a shift in the opposite direction. But go ahead and think it's "absurd" and "offensive" that characters might not have identical combat values, because they chose to invest more in combat values that make sense for the archetype, and less so in ones that don't. Last Point) Whenever you want to make a rules change that impacts basic assumptions about how the game works, it is generally best practice to at least know the consequences of making those changes. "Crapping all over the idea with statistics" as you put it, is simply doing just that. This thread is filled with rules ideas that come from a basis where it seems the consequences are ignored based on what 'feels right' by some dubious notion of how the game should work. Statistics are an empirical way to show those impacts free of personal bias over what 'feels right'. But pros and cons, if you wish: Pros: -OP's solution Selects dice from a pool, which has the benefit of skewing the results, without simply shifting the average, which results in a more manageable increase in average damage. (Still probably worth a recalculation in terms of cost, but it's not the massive increase it might otherwise be.) -The method by which the rule skews damage for lower DC characters allows for higher defenses (a higher defense/DC ratio generally works better with a lot of the other mathematical assumptions of the system, but can make low DC characters struggle to get any damage in). Since the distribution of damage is skewed, the impact of the shift works differently for the median and mean (which is nice, since it means even after other fixes to bring the cost structure of OCV/DCV/ect in line, and such, there will be fewer "feel-bad" moments where you hit but do no [or a piddling amount of] damage, even when average damage isn't too far off the other characters) Cons: -Cost structure requires extensive changes due to the relative importance of DC vs CVs as well as existing links between Damage and CV (CSLs, spreading an attack, ect). Any balance structures need to be changed as well, such as caps, Rules of "X", or the like, and it will be generally more difficult to match the right values without some statistics. - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it": even with a careful eye and some statistical analysis, messing with something as intrinsic as calculating damage will have unforseen side effects. Suddenly certain characters or actions or whatever will be a lot more or less powerful, and running around duct-taping everything fixed seems like an unappealing proposition when RAW works pretty effectively as is.

If Joe the Barbarian gets the 1-in-2 Billion Dice roll, then I don't care if I look silly, that was a 1-in-2 Billion shot. I'm taking Joe's player to Vegas. Seriously, though, if I wanted to worry about things that happen a minute fraction of the percent of the time, "the barbarian one-shotting the dragon" isn't high on my list of concerns. I'm more likely to get struck by lightning within the year than anyone at the table rolling max damage on 12d6. Which is why I recommended the "realistic Maximums" someone at the table may roll really well and get a 56, or so. It's unlikely, but within the realm of a reasonable assumption. If you care about the dragon getting one shot, make sure they can take a "realistic Maximum" hit, and maybe throw in a couple extra STUN or BODY for a buffer. but planning around the max, when the max (and numbers approaching the max) occurs a bafflingly infrequent percent of the time is just absurd to me. I think you are misinterpreting the post (or else confusing the post that I took issue with; I was responding to Ninja-Bear). He gave the example of "I.e. if you had a 10d6 blast, you could buy +2d6 but you could not exceed 60 Stun or 20 body, the max on 10D6" which reads pretty clearly to me as 10d6+2d6, capped at 60 STUN and 20 BODY. If it is choosing the best 10, it does about 5 more damage than the straight 10d6, which would still give me pause, but I'd be more likely to allow it, depending on other factors (highest 9 of 11d6, for example, would be nearly as balanced in a 10d6 game as certain other RAW legal options, so I might allow that for instance). As for the notion about preventing a good attack roll from doing poor damage, the specific implementation doesn't look too damning (hitting by 3+ will only boost damage by about 5%, an would only occur about 37.5% of the time, or about 50% of hits, even assuming favorable OCV vs DCV, and hitting by 6+ would occur about 10% of the time, or 12.5% of hits, and would only boost damage by about 14%; hardly enough to matter. However, I see nothing wrong with the idea that you can have a good attack roll and poor damage roll: in building a character there tend to be certain trade offs. A brick will tend to do good damage but not hit as often. A speedster will tend to hit with more attack rolls, and hit more often with speed, but won't do as much damage. Removing those trade-offs, or diminishing them means (at the very least) the cost structures must be adjusted, and (probably more likely) the game would have to accommodate low OCV-High DC concepts.

The problem with this is that is (assuming 12d6), the Maximum Roll occurs about 1 in 2 billion rolls (even assuming 10d6, it's still 1 out of 60 million). If you're concerned about realistic maximum damage, I'd just tend to set a cut off percentage. For example on a 12d6 you're only ever going to see a 50 or higher about 10% of the time, a 52 or higher about 5% of the time, and 56 or higher 1% of the time.

While I agree in general, there are some "single-origin" universes (the Wild Cards example springs to mind, and also, I believe Gestalt, but I'm not too familiar with that), but even then you can have gadgeteers or magic users who, on the surface appear to be gadgeteers or magic users (albeit with certain aesthetic shifts to match the universe), but whose true power source is based in the setting's single-origin. Though I do agree in general: The problem that I have with a question such as the OP's is that it's not really a mechanical choice, so much as an aesthetic or flavor one. True, there might be some concepts that the OP might think should be "Magic only" or "gadget only" or whatever, that doesn't mean much mechanically, in an effects based system like HERO (E.g. perhaps "phasing" is only the domain of magic, but Desolidification is so versatile it can be used for phasing, damage avoidance, squeezing through small spaces, ect, and many characters could use the Desolidification power without describing it as "phasing"). Perhaps if the OP described it as a worldbuilding brainstorming post, some of the initial confusion over the purpose of the post would have been resolved, but even so, when dealing with the aesthetic or flavor of the world, there really isn't much of a direction to go without knowing what the OP wants out of it.

I'm comparing it to 12d6, because my point is, if a 12d6 attack isn't allowed in the game, a 10d6 attack, with 2d6 extra (capped at 60 STUN and 20 BODY) shouldn't be either, as they're nearly identical (they differ by a fraction of a percent). In either event, the "limitation" that caps max damage at 60 STUN and 20 BODY should be worth no points, due to the "If a limitation doesn't really limit anything, it's not worth any points". Furthermore, I don't know if our definitions of average are getting misunderstood: In referring to average damage, I'm referring to the mean, which is probably the most important for balance (at least, when adjusted for post-defense damage). Based on what I'm reading from your post, it seems you want to avoid lower rolls as often, which implies you're likely more concerned with the median or possibly mode. Thus a skewed distribution where the mean damage (again, after subtracting average defenses) is approximately the same as standard damage's mean, but where the median damage will be higher might suit your tastes. I don't know how to get such a distribution, but I can most assuredly say that 12d6, capped, is not it.

It doesn't change much. For the stun, as you might expect it reduces the damage by about 1 (so it's 1.000072 STUN lower and .0000007 BODY lower than 12d6, on average, but that's still about 6 STUN and 2 BODY higher than 10d6), which means it would still only be acceptable to me, and I suspect most GMs, if the campaign limits were set such that 12d6 were acceptable. Capping maximum damage just doesn't work in HERO, due to the approximately normal distribution of dice rolls. Even with 3d6, you can note that the tail ends of the bell curve are very small probabilities: 0.46% for 3 and 18, 1.4% for 4 and 17, 2.8% for 5 and 16, and these tail-end probabilities only get smaller as you add more dice. Thus the chance that you roll near enough to the cap that the extra dice would matter is very small. Even using the 3d6 example, the average roll on 5d6 capped at 18 (16.21) is far closer to the average of 5d6 (17.5) than the average of 3d6 (10.5). And this impact is only further heightened when you consider defenses (in that the extra dice of damage may only be 20% more damage, assuming the 10d6 baseline, but after, say, 20 points of defenses, the difference in actual damage taken is about 46% extra)

This would be identical to just having 12d6 in 99.95% of cases (and that number only goes up as the base damage value increases, to the point that with 12d6, it's identical in 99.995% of cases). The average damage differs by only .001 point of STUN and .0000078 point of BODY . At best it would be a -0 limitation, and even then I probably wouldn't allow it unless the 12d6 (or whatever number of base dice+Extra dice) fit within campaign limits. It's too bad +1/8 advantages don't exist, because mathematically. that would be almost perfect for this type of advantage.

Mechanically, magic in my games are no different than any other source of powers. No "Suggested Limitations" or anything like that. It's more to do with special effect than anything. However Narratively, my setting has different magical dimensions, where the rules of physics work differently, and casting magic essentially involves tapping into those dimensions and making localized rifts where the rules of those dimensions overlap with the "normal" world. Most characters only tap into a single dimension, though Doctor Strange/Doctor Fate types exist who can tap into more or all of them. While no characters in my games have used magic as their power source, a couple NPCs I've made have magical (or magic adjacent) power sources (though they tend to be secondary magic-users, namely, a shadow-magic using Question homage, as well as an archer who uses alchemical arrows as well as a small VPP for alchemy and ritualism powers).