Scott Ruggels

I have a mechanism I came up with that I have never playtested to address the first part: reverse 'pulling a punch'.  Instead of taking a penalty to try to do less damage, you take a penalty when you try to do more damage.
 
So, you take a -1 OCV per 5d6 damage penalty and deal full damage.  If you do not, you take no penalty to OCV and deal half body damage.  SO the default is four color "I don't kill" superhero stuff.
 
But yes, I agree that player mentality is "I built a powerful character to be powerful and I don't want to feel like a wuss."  And it feels like a failure if you take your phase and do nothing.  GMs can really be bad about trying to "win" or at least challenge the party that they fail to carry out one important task for GMs: give them cannon fodder.
 
A lot of computer games and movies etc do this where they give the hero a huge challenge right away, barely able to defeat the enemy.  You have to give the heroes regular yard trash to mop up on to help them feel powerful.  Then the real challenge by contrast feels impressive.  Give them weak, easy to hit bad guys to just mow down and feel triumphant about.  Regularly help them remember how powerful they are compared to just regular folks.  Then you can give them the big guns, but always with at least some trash around to mop up on because that helps them remember their power.

Dude, as soon as you grab 3d6 and ask for DCV, we'll recognize it. 
 
 
 
 
 

Scott and BJB beat me to it, but to adress the question directly:
 
A skills chart like the language doesn't work because only a handful of skills are described, and even then, their granularity is entirely up to the playgroup: Security Systems does what it says it does, but is that all it does?  If it defeats computerized security, does it also allow some level of computer programming or hacking?  Or is a person clueless without buying computer programming?  Must he also have a familiarity to be a computer user?  If it defeats a common deadbolt, is that because it also imparts the knowledge to build one?  That answer is entirely up to the group.
 
Some people want a granularity that results in a college professor or an auto mechanic having spent eighty-six points on Professional and Knowledge Skills.   Some people want PS: Scientist, and want it to mean everything it meant in a 1950s drive-in sci-fi horror show.  As you might imagine, there are infinite points in between.
 
As someone above commented, I tend to let the character's background decide what he does or does not know to a situationally-useful degree, though I do like them to buy their "signature skills," such as Detective or medical doctor or south american historian.
 
I dont need many: a job (or two), a hobby (or two), and anything they might consider to be their Schtick.  After that- we pull it from the background, perhaps influenced by other skills or even similar situations in previous adventures.
 
I can't take credit for the idea, though: I sat in the audience for a Q and A session with Mark Miller decades ago and several people asked him why Traveller had so few skills.  His response (heavily paraphrased owing to the limits of memory) was that the skills you gained,in Character generation were your specialties; these were things you were trained in and drilled in and which may have saved your life a hundred times; these were the things that you could be almost positive that you knew better than most of the people you were likely to meet.
 
They weren't limits.  Anyone could know how to do anything; have some training in any concievable skill.  Because it was impossible to make an inclusive list, he never considered trying.  He made a system that generated the sorts of specialties that gamers [at that time, at least] tended to feel most important for their games- which, at that time, were pretty much operating vehicles and killing things.
 
HERO, being what it is, took the exact opposite approach (eventually) and handed you the tools to make stand-alone skills out of absolute minutiae (PS: lecturing on the development of porpoise navels).
 
HERO fans being who _they_ are, someone is carrying specificity _this_ far:
 
No.  Yes; you _do_ have 'drive a car' skill, and yes; that _does_ include a familiarity with the 'start the car' subskill, but in this instance, you need 'start a carbeureted car in sub-zero temperature' skill, and you just don't have that. 
 
I am _sort_ of kidding....  _sort of_...   I have seen some pretty grim skill requirements from some GMs.
 
Me?
 
Okay, my Character is a former restraunteur and is an _excellent_ cook.  I took PS: cooking 16- as one of my signature skills; amazing food from very little to work with is kind of my Schtick.
 
Some GMs:
 
The dwarf lord is horrified and disgusted at  and by the near-bile you attempt to feed him!
 
But... I have cooking 16-
 
Yes, but you are a human; that is for feeding humans!
 
Duke as GM:
 
Okay, you said you are a restraunteur.  Was this your father's profession?  
 
No; we were farmers, but when I was young, I would help take the crops to market, and I was always fascinated by the strange and exotic smells and tastes of the food some of the vendors were selling!  Travellers from two or three days beyond the market were here, and sometimes elves and half-orcs and Norwegians, and ....  Sorry; I am boring you.   
 
Nonsense!  Norwegians are never boring!
 
Anyway, I would sneak off and sit where I could watch them cook and I would smell the delicious aromas...  When I left the farm, the first thing I did was to apprentice to a family that made rhe most heavenly-scented fish-and-pea dish....  I apprenticed to others, and I travelled for several years, earning money as a cook, until I could start my own resta-
 
I have heard enough.  You are clearly just as good with any kind of ethnic dish or racial preference-
 
It was a point of pride!
 
Okay, roll your cooking....
 
The dwarf lord is amazed.  He looks at you- seven feet of reptilian giant, from a sun-loving jungle people, and his eyes are wide and confused...  "How could you....   It's not possible...  You know nothing of stone and darkness and growing tubers..."
 
Was it.,.  Satisfactory, Sir?
 
"This dish- not the recipe, but this dish prepared and served by an outsider....   It feeds my very soul....    You truly understand our people...."
 
All people eat, Sir.  I am glad you liked it.
 
 
Etc, etc.
 
Alternatively:
 
Yeah, there was a pub in town, and we ran a short-order kitchen- you know: fish, frogs, fried veggies, the occasional squab.  I got quite good at sliced pork and eggs; it was a local favorite when the snow season started.
 
Well, your food is undoubtably delicious, but what the dwarf lord has requested...  You have never even heard of some of the _ingredients_, let alone the dish.  Still, you have an excellent sense of combining flavors and knowing _exactly_ when something is cooked to perfection...
 
Perhaps if you could ask a few quesrions of him, you'd have a shot at nailing this.
 
Roll your cooking, but at -4.
 
 
And on the most extreme of extremes:
 
No.  You can cook bacon on 16-.  That's the skill.  If you want to cook liver, then buy "cook liver" at a reasonable level.  However, the corn is in season, and free for the taking where the field abutts the woods... Do you have "cook corn" as a skill?
 
Anyway, _all_ of this is why there just cant be a skills overlap chart for HERO without some hard and fast rules for skill breadth and overlap.
 
 
 
 

I gotta go with the others here, I would prefer the skills system be LESS complicated and granular, and more general.

You make a Security Systems roll.   The first sentence of the description of the skill states it allows you to locate, recognize, evade and build various types of alarms and traps.  It even lists retina scanners and tripwires in the examples of what it covers. Finding and Disarming traps is what the skill does.
 
Background skills cannot be used for things that are covered by other skills. If you want to fly a plane you need the skill combat piloting, not professional skill pilot. Background skills are designed to cover things that rarely affect combat, but a character by concept should be able to do.  If what the character does is covered by a full skill you need to have that skill to be able to do the task.  The background skill may be as complementary skill, but without the actual skill your character cannot do the task.  
 
The complementary skill rules allow you to use another skill that may be related to the task to boost the chance of success in the primary skill.  So, if a character with both security systems and electronics is trying to disarm a trap that is using electronics, he rolls first makes the electronics roll.  If he makes the electronics roll it gives him a bonus to his security systems roll to disarm the trap.  The bonus is +2 for making the roll and for every 2 points he makes the roll he gets an additional +1 to the roll.  You can have multiple complimentary skills.  So, if the trap also involved a computer, computer programing would also be complementary.  It is the GM’s call as what is complementary.     
 
The rules for skills are actually very well done in the Hero System and does not really need any modification.  Most people who try and make them better don’t really understand them and usually end up trying to solve a problem that does not exist.  About the only thing that may need to be done is to create a new skill for something that is specific to the game you are running. 

One of the mistakes made with  GURPS as it developed was the continual adoption of skills and subskills. Overwhelming, in the end. Hero benefits from a smaller, broader selection, I feel.

I would really not want to make skills even more granular. A lot of the skill categories were set in early Champions editions. Then they exploded with Espionage.  But skills in 6e have gone from the general “television episode” level to professional level granularity, especially medical skills. The difference between a retinal scanner and a trip wire may be vast, except both will succumb to a wire cutter just the same. I think the whole concept of skills has been subject to overthinking and legalism lately. 

I would really not want to make skills even more granular. A lot of the skill categories were set in early Champions editions. Then they exploded with Espionage.  But skills in 6e have gone from the general “television episode” level to professional level granularity, especially medical skills. The difference between a retinal scanner and a trip wire may be vast, except both will succumb to a wire cutter just the same. I think the whole concept of skills has been subject to overthinking and legalism lately. 

I would really not want to make skills even more granular. A lot of the skill categories were set in early Champions editions. Then they exploded with Espionage.  But skills in 6e have gone from the general “television episode” level to professional level granularity, especially medical skills. The difference between a retinal scanner and a trip wire may be vast, except both will succumb to a wire cutter just the same. I think the whole concept of skills has been subject to overthinking and legalism lately. 

Playing a translation of Dungeon Slayers ( a European OSR Revival set of rules that feel like 1985), and I had forgotten how quick combat can get.  The background for this game is home brew, and the Roll20 implementation is solid, even if some of the pop ups are in German.  The rules are skills light, but initiative is fixed, like Hero.  Having a good time with it.  One has to be careful as there are so few hit points.  

Playing a translation of Dungeon Slayers ( a European OSR Revival set of rules that feel like 1985), and I had forgotten how quick combat can get.  The background for this game is home brew, and the Roll20 implementation is solid, even if some of the pop ups are in German.  The rules are skills light, but initiative is fixed, like Hero.  Having a good time with it.  One has to be careful as there are so few hit points.  

If there is one thing that I've taken away from the Arrows vs Armour videos its that plate is great vs arrows and chainmail not at all. But this ties in perfectly with the "Bashing, Slashing, and Piercing Damage" options (FH6Epg 205). So chainmail would only offer a 3rPD vs arrows if the archer makes a STR/DEX roll when they attack.
 
So (for Jolrhos) perhaps these (optional) rules are already there, just need highlighting to include them?
 
 
As Hugh said earlier, there are gameplay vs realism considerations, but having played 1E HarnMaster way back when - that had extensive rules for fighting against the multiple layers that something like a plate or chain wearer would have - it was incredibly drawn out and the nitty gritty was simply too much for me.

For what it is worth, I liked Prime-Ape, though I would pluralise it as a team name.
 
I like it because you have Ape-X as a team already, and you said that this group was a splinter group, so the inclusion of "prime" in the name also suggests they find rhemselves to be superior to the other group.
 
So, if you were so inclined (as I have already forgotten all the names save Harangatan (which I only remember because of the Venture Brothers character of the same name)), they could be The Prime-Apes, lead by the Prime Ape.
 
 

This is true. But, I have moved out into the boondocks, and am more than 100 miles from my old gaming group, and don’t behave a car, so online is currently my only option ( until I can teach the crows in the Redwood free in my back yard to play TTRPGs) 

I'm personally not a fan of giving the armour an Activation Roll, simply because that makes it all or nothing. That simulates a hit to the face with an open helm or direct visor hit but doesn't work for hitting 'between the plates' where a chainmail hauberk and haubergeon should stop at least some of the trauma. I prefer the gaps in the armour being simulated by the actual damage rolled, so with the 1 1/2d6 medium bow maxing out at 9 BODY it has hit between the plates (or maybe penetrated slightly through the plate due to a 'perfect storm' of circumstances). 
 
 

I'm sure many moviegoers unfamiliar with the comics will think so. Ironically, Pierce Brosnan is on record as claiming Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Strange was one of the things that inspired him to take on the role of Fate.

Any character that can wear armor, swing swords, and sling spells.  Paladins, arcane knights, hexblade warlocks, tempest/war clerics, and some other more recent variants I'm forgetting.

https://screenrant.com/dungeons-dragons-gish-character-build-meaning-magic-warrior/

And perhaps that at least is the OSR charm. Instead of changing what it is, embrace it for what it is. 

Yes, sir. This insistence on placing "balance" on a pedestal is groan-worthy at best.

The third member of the rocket news trinity is Felix Schlage of “What About It” This cheerful German moved to the space coast of Florida to be closer to the action.
 
 

Apparently, WoTC has failed Market Research 101. Their survey of recent changes may pull One D&D on a different direction.