TranquiloUno

In my current campaign of modern guns and knives and martial arts, I did make the rule that if a KA does not penetrate Hardened Defenses, it does no stun... flat out. Basically to simulate the "bullet hits the reinforced plate in your vest, you don't even notice" aspect that is duly documented in modern combat. It has served, when it comes up, to speed things up because the Body damage is clearly stopped by that particular hardened hit location... don't even bother calculating Stun.

This could be modified to something like "If Body done is less than half of the resistant defense, no Stun is done." Probably calculates out to be similar in effect as calculating the Stun for a bad body damage roll and have it be absorbed or minimal. Again... would speed things up.
 
Level II vest (7rPR without plates) gets hit with a 9mm, bad roll of 3 Body... "thwap, it hits, you barely notice" and move on.
 
On the other side of things, the low Stun multiple for limb shots and such is good for "unlikley to knock you unconscious" aspect, but bad for "holy $%!^ that hurts!" aspect. I'm loathe to increase the Stun multiple, because this is more a matter of Hero struggling for the effect of "Stunned" without taking lots of "Stun damage". That has been argued and debated in many other threads, but I think applies a lot to the "I just got stabbed and it hurts like hell and I'm staggered and not fighting back for the moment, but I'm not really close to be unconscious". 
 
It falls under the "Just how much simulation is good for the game, vs. bogging you down?" question.

Yeah, it's getting to Rifts level stupid in terms of all the options.
 
Officially I say "Just Core rules," but I inevitably slip.
 
I slipped a lot in the case of the Mythic rules. But I had no choice with that one. You see that's the game I play with my wife. (She's the only player, I GM.) She'd bought the mythic rule book and she really wanted to use it... What's a husband to do?

Tangential to YOUR point I do wonder if in fact this isn't the issue.
 
Class\level progressions are so darned standardized in the gaming mindset. Power progression, enemy progression, spell progress, MORE AND BETTER MAGICAL ITEMS, all of that.
Most other games (CoC, WW, SR GURPS) revolve around pre-provided lists of advancement so that even though you aren't improving everything all over all the time (like the archetypal D&D standard) you are only improving discreet and pre-defined aspects of existing rules. 
So where you are still "spending XP" like you do in Hero the things you spend it on are....kinda prebalanced and limited and the XP progressions themselves usually limit things.
 
In Hero I can buy +1 OCV ("to-hit") for 2pts. And then another for 2pts. And then still another for 2pts.
 
In WW or SR (the older editions which I'm familiar with) the XP costs scale as the thing being improved scales. So my guy with the +3 OCV (equivalent) would pay 4pts for his +4, then 5pts for his +5, and so on and I don't know why I'm explaining this really, we're all gamers here and I'm sure the point I'm making is evident already, but...because of that increasing cost (and often a top level cap as well) XP spend balancing isn't quite the chore it can become in Hero. 
 
In Vampire (for example) I can boost my weak skills and stats for cheap, but if I want to continue to pump my already top-line combat stuff I'll reach diminishing returns and start to incur some serious opportunity costs. Should I leave my weak spots unprotected so I can continue to pump my main ability for marginal increases in utility? Or should I shore up weak spots because my XP dollar goes farther?
 
Hero doesn't (quite) have that same dilemma.
 
But, wait, then, the other thing: The ideas of what progression means are all built in to those rules\settings.
 
Hero doesn't have that..."problem".
 
Like most stuff in Hero the GM\players get to do all that work and I think there's a lot of emphasis (for reasonable reasons) on initial setup, initial concept, and, of course, CHARACTER CREATION, and then also, how you want to play the game (Wounding? Impairing? Hit Locs?) and so on.
 
Which is fine. And good. And very Hero-ey.
 
But it kinda leaves that whole entire "What happens after chargen\session1" stuff...well...also up to the GM\players also to decide and that's something that...I mean, really...do most games ever touch on this? 
 
Like D&D..you fight things, you get stuff, you level up, WIN!!! That's the game!!!!
White Wolf stuff is the same, you make your tragic vampire, you do your tragic vampire stuff, you get XP!
 
There's no real discussion in most games about how the progression works out, or is supposed to work out, or, generally, any end-state at all (hitting 20th level in D&D maybe) and since the "how should stuff progress?" question is handled by the rules, in an indirect way (the answer to the question: How does it progress? Being: Well instead let me just tell you what\how you can spend XP on....) then...nobody ever has to address it.
 
Hero often seems oriented around the idea that, "You can make ANYthing!", and spends all it's time on making the thing, rather than what happens after ("Whatever you want, maaaan!"). 
 
 
 

The math wasn't "better" per se, it was just different, but it made some situations that I didn't like less common, and introduced some beneficial aspects which I did like. It was more of a sidegrade / tuning.
 
A few things. First, it sped up combat a bit and simplified the PD / rPD and ED / rED STUN math considerably. Secondly, it become a bit more likely that a character might be at negative BODY but positive STUN which is a feature of the Hero System I've always appreciated but which doesn't actually happen very often RAW...it creates really clutch and gritty situations when it does happen. Killing attacks were less likely overall to just knock targets out but it still sometimes happened which was particularly well suited to fantasy and urban games. Coup d' grace were rarely necessary; k dmg combats tended to be decisively lethal rather than end with one side or the other knocked out. It prevented the situations where a character took 1 or no BODY and got knocked out from a KA, which I never liked the feel of...the coma inducing paper cut. It moderated stun lotto without getting rid of it entirely, and it also made attacks vs an opponent without rDEF even more effective which was again genre appropriate for gritty heroic and gritty cinematic play. It was friendlier to the PC's, who are in more combats over their lifespan than NPCs, as they were less likely to get one shotted into stun comas. Combats tended to last a few phases longer with more back and forth body exchanges, but they were resolved faster so it didn't "slow combat down" in real time.
 
Basically the main theme there is it adjusted the propensity of k dmg to be more effective at knocking people out than actually killing them without getting rid of it entirely. Lets say someone is throwing a 2D6+1 K vs a target wearing Chainmail 6/6 rDEF. Average damage is 2 BODY past defense ad 6 STUN but sometimes the dice come up above average with a fat x5 STUN multiple cherry on top and you're looking at say 5 BODY and 25 STUN past defenses or worst case scenario max roll 7 BODY and 35 STUN. Meanwhile at the low end, attacks that fail to generate at least 6 BODY do no STUN preventing the death by a thousand cuts. 
 
I liked it, the players liked it (except for one player in my "Nine Arrows of the Machtig" fantasy campaign who complained about it, so I let him play his damage using RAW but damage dealt to him was also handled using RAW. He lasted one session after which he begged to go back on the house rule).
 
I'd suggest trying it for a session or two or do a fight club simulation and see what you think. It's an easy to implement adjustment as it doesn't require modification of character sheets or power builds and its commensurately easy to drop it again if you don't like it. 

For a very long time (over 20 years), in 4e and 5e campaigns I often used the house rule that the STUN multiple applied to BODY that got past defenses but the target took all of the STUN without applying any PD / ED against it.
 
So for instance if 12 BODY were inflicted on someone with 6 rPD with a xSTUN of 4, the target would take 6 BODY and 24STUN.
 
This was on of several tweaks I tried to normalize stun lotto and also to streamline play. Of the various approaches I tried, this one proved to be the most successful.
 
I feel like some of the concerns that I had w/ k vs n damage in earlier editions have been addressed well enough in 6e, so I have not used this or other house rules for k dmg in 6e so far, but the method would work the same if I did decide to use it aain.

Not a bad idea.
 
Personally, I wouldn't use it because I want to keep bookkeeping to a minimum. But I like the idea.

Oh god, don't remind me.
 
I'm running two(!) high level Pathfinder games, one with 14th level characters, one with 10th level+2 Mythic tiers characters.
It's a fricking nightmare.

My suggestion for examples would be Talislanta, a unique fantasy game setting noted for its huge number of distinctive, non-cliche races and creatures. The game has gone through five editions over more than thirty years, and a copious number of published source books covering a wide range of subjects. One of the greatest things about Talislanta is that its creator's home website now hosts almost all that published material as free downloadable PDFs, completely legally.
 
Because the player-character races don't closely match any of the common types found in other games (their most common promotional tag-line is, "Still No Elves!"), every race needs enough description for a player to understand how to play a character from it, and to make it sound interesting to play. But because there are so many PC races (thirty alone in the core players' book, plus dozens more optional ones), their write-ups need to get to the point fairly directly to save space. That would seem to match what it sounds like you're looking for.
 
For your purpose I recommend downloading the Talislanta Fifth Edition Players Guide. "Chapter Three: Character Creation" has all the core PC race descriptions and game stats. But there's a great deal more cool stuff to explore in that book and on the website, should you have the inclination and time.

Regards the flavour stuff:
 
I'll be honest I find most of the published fantasy race stuff kinda crap. Cliched rubbish.
 
A lot of it is clearly based on other generic fantasy race stuff from other games, that itself is based on stuff from yet other games, etc. Very little ever goes further back than the stuff that was written early DnD.
 
Laziness is not the only reason it's like this. There's a desire to appeal broadly, to keep everything generic, to avoid specific styles that might only suit some campaigns.I'm guilty of having done it myself in my Fantasy Hero Basic pdf.
 
I find that the amateur stuff you get on world building forums much more imaginative. Not always good, but at least it's different.
 
Re. mechanics:
 
Something that bugs me is how many (not all, but many) designers seem to think that being a given species comes with innate skills like knowing how to use a longbow. I really appreciated how 4th ed. Fantasy Hero broke races up into physical and cultural packages.
 
When it comes to physical traits of a species it occurs to me that, given the nature of HERO, it doesn't really matter if you say Dwarves get +2CON. A player will buy up the CON if they want high CON, or buy it down if they don't. The only reason to include stuff like that is to give an idea of what a generic version of what the species looks like.
 
Other abilities (actual powers) like Light Sleep, Infravision, etc. are much  more indicative of a given species' uniqueness. At least to me.
 
 
Sorry, but I can't really think of any really good examples of this sort of thing.
 
 
 
 

Tangential to YOUR point I do wonder if in fact this isn't the issue.
 
Class\level progressions are so darned standardized in the gaming mindset. Power progression, enemy progression, spell progress, MORE AND BETTER MAGICAL ITEMS, all of that.
Most other games (CoC, WW, SR GURPS) revolve around pre-provided lists of advancement so that even though you aren't improving everything all over all the time (like the archetypal D&D standard) you are only improving discreet and pre-defined aspects of existing rules. 
So where you are still "spending XP" like you do in Hero the things you spend it on are....kinda prebalanced and limited and the XP progressions themselves usually limit things.
 
In Hero I can buy +1 OCV ("to-hit") for 2pts. And then another for 2pts. And then still another for 2pts.
 
In WW or SR (the older editions which I'm familiar with) the XP costs scale as the thing being improved scales. So my guy with the +3 OCV (equivalent) would pay 4pts for his +4, then 5pts for his +5, and so on and I don't know why I'm explaining this really, we're all gamers here and I'm sure the point I'm making is evident already, but...because of that increasing cost (and often a top level cap as well) XP spend balancing isn't quite the chore it can become in Hero. 
 
In Vampire (for example) I can boost my weak skills and stats for cheap, but if I want to continue to pump my already top-line combat stuff I'll reach diminishing returns and start to incur some serious opportunity costs. Should I leave my weak spots unprotected so I can continue to pump my main ability for marginal increases in utility? Or should I shore up weak spots because my XP dollar goes farther?
 
Hero doesn't (quite) have that same dilemma.
 
But, wait, then, the other thing: The ideas of what progression means are all built in to those rules\settings.
 
Hero doesn't have that..."problem".
 
Like most stuff in Hero the GM\players get to do all that work and I think there's a lot of emphasis (for reasonable reasons) on initial setup, initial concept, and, of course, CHARACTER CREATION, and then also, how you want to play the game (Wounding? Impairing? Hit Locs?) and so on.
 
Which is fine. And good. And very Hero-ey.
 
But it kinda leaves that whole entire "What happens after chargen\session1" stuff...well...also up to the GM\players also to decide and that's something that...I mean, really...do most games ever touch on this? 
 
Like D&D..you fight things, you get stuff, you level up, WIN!!! That's the game!!!!
White Wolf stuff is the same, you make your tragic vampire, you do your tragic vampire stuff, you get XP!
 
There's no real discussion in most games about how the progression works out, or is supposed to work out, or, generally, any end-state at all (hitting 20th level in D&D maybe) and since the "how should stuff progress?" question is handled by the rules, in an indirect way (the answer to the question: How does it progress? Being: Well instead let me just tell you what\how you can spend XP on....) then...nobody ever has to address it.
 
Hero often seems oriented around the idea that, "You can make ANYthing!", and spends all it's time on making the thing, rather than what happens after ("Whatever you want, maaaan!"). 
 
 
 

The easy way to do this would be campaign maximums of various kinds.
 
I do think the superhero legacy fits in there since (for the most part with plenty of exceptions and special cases and all of that) most heroes are more or less static in the source material (again with exceptions, special cases, and other caveats).
Cyclops has eyebeams, Wolvie has claws, Punisher has guns, and so on.
 
I think this is also emulative of other genre fiction. James Bond rarely picks up entirely new martial arts. Legolas didn't decide he'd be a bit more fun to play with a small VPP for elf-magic tricks. King Arthur doesn't usually decided he needs more points in Bases because Camelot is getting boring.
We can certainly say that maybe Samwise Gamgee leveled up of the course of LOTR, but...he didn't really acquire anything new. Or we can say that Picard\Worf\Kirk go though character growth and change but...did they really "level up"?
 
But then also I think it works in the reverse. The D&D expectation is that folks will improve *dramatically* over time. And part of the reason for that is because the badguys are going to scale up dramatically themselves.
 
That doesn't have to be true in Hero. Aragorn doesn't have to spend XP on CSLs and more stats and more stats and more stats. James Bond doesn't have to pick up some weird OIF Regen and Combat Luck x3 just because he's got points sitting around.
 
Same for the lich stats. Are there even "normal human" fighters at that point level?
 
 
But I do agree that the rules themselves are, as is typical, unhelpful in that regard. "You could do anything you can imagine, maaaaaan!", isn't actually useful guidance for much of anything.
 
I don't have any of the books "running the game" sections memorized but...is there discussion of this anywhere? How\what\why to limit\use\shape advancement over the course of a game?
 
 

I'll second what Massey and TranquilUno said.
 
It would be good if guidelines like these were made clearer. I'm sure guidelines exist somewhere in the body of work that is the HERO system, all editions. But it'd take a while to find it.
 
Okay, found something. In HERO 5th Ed there's a few paragraphs on it. But no in-depth discussion. (fair enough, it's already a huge book, space is limited, etc.) One can also infer certain things from the guidelines on campaign caps.
 
Clearly, it's one of those things that could do with more space dedicated to it. Half a page on "encourage players to make their character's grow more broad in their skills and areas of expertise, rather than more powerful" would be good. With some detailed examples.

The easy way to do this would be campaign maximums of various kinds.
 
I do think the superhero legacy fits in there since (for the most part with plenty of exceptions and special cases and all of that) most heroes are more or less static in the source material (again with exceptions, special cases, and other caveats).
Cyclops has eyebeams, Wolvie has claws, Punisher has guns, and so on.
 
I think this is also emulative of other genre fiction. James Bond rarely picks up entirely new martial arts. Legolas didn't decide he'd be a bit more fun to play with a small VPP for elf-magic tricks. King Arthur doesn't usually decided he needs more points in Bases because Camelot is getting boring.
We can certainly say that maybe Samwise Gamgee leveled up of the course of LOTR, but...he didn't really acquire anything new. Or we can say that Picard\Worf\Kirk go though character growth and change but...did they really "level up"?
 
But then also I think it works in the reverse. The D&D expectation is that folks will improve *dramatically* over time. And part of the reason for that is because the badguys are going to scale up dramatically themselves.
 
That doesn't have to be true in Hero. Aragorn doesn't have to spend XP on CSLs and more stats and more stats and more stats. James Bond doesn't have to pick up some weird OIF Regen and Combat Luck x3 just because he's got points sitting around.
 
Same for the lich stats. Are there even "normal human" fighters at that point level?
 
 
But I do agree that the rules themselves are, as is typical, unhelpful in that regard. "You could do anything you can imagine, maaaaaan!", isn't actually useful guidance for much of anything.
 
I don't have any of the books "running the game" sections memorized but...is there discussion of this anywhere? How\what\why to limit\use\shape advancement over the course of a game?
 
 

Good chart with the 3D6 distribution.  I need to save that.
 
My point with regards to mathematical consistency is not that the bell curve gives it.  I know it doesn't.  It's that you only get the illusion of consistency by going to a set minus.  You can make the 11-, 12-, 13- look consistent, but the actual percentage odds of success will still vary wildly.  You can make one set of numbers look nice and even, but the others aren't going to match it.
 

 
 
Professor Executioner has a 12 OCV.  He targets Captain Amazo (normally DCV 8).  He needs a 15- to hit, meaning he should expect to succeed (looks at chart) 95.4% of the time.  But Captain Amazo is Stunned from the last time Professor Executioner shot him, so his DCV is halved and is only a 4.  The Professor need only avoid rolling an 18 to hit him.  His chance of success rises to a mighty 99.5%, but only a 4.1% increase.  What if we make it a set -3 DCV while Stunned, instead of 1/2?  Same exact odds, still a 99.5% chance of success.
 
Compare this to Viper Agent #3, who opens fire on Captain Amazo.  #3 has an OCV of 6, and he's shooting at a DCV of 8.  He needs a 9-,  for a 37.5% chance of success.  If Captain Amazo's DCV is halved, then he needs a 13-.  His odds go up to 83.8%, an enormous 46.3% swing.  That's over 10 times the benefit that Professor Executioner got.  If we make it a flat -3 penalty, it's still a 12-, or 74.1% chance of success.  Still a 36.6% improvement.
 
The point is, the average odds of success are going to vary wildly.  The odds of hitting aren't consistent, even when we're talking about one character with a set DCV.

I'd have to artificially insert something into a campaign that otherwise wouldn't have such items and the characters who sold off their MOCV would all turn to the mage and bard in the party who have actually raised their MOCVs and just hand it over.
 
There would be zero inconvenience unless I further contrived an encounter where the bard & mage get - say Webbed - where their spell casting is shut down and their low STR scores prevent them from escaping and then follow it up with making such an item only be within reach of the characters who sold it off and.. barf...  it would be so obvious I was targeting the character for the sell off that it would likely irritate the player.
 
And while I wouldn't characterize myself as lazy I do have a full time job and a family so the two tables a week I run are based on ready made campaigns (one Pathfinder the other D&D) that I convert on the fly.  I may sprinkle in some ad lib material here and there, but I lack the time for a fully home built campaign.
 
 

If I were going to run a fantasy hero game, I'd try and establish some clear character benchmarks for the world, and then make sure I didn't exceed them.  Characters buy up combat skill levels because it makes them more effective.  They don't buy +20 OCV just for the hell of it -- there's no benefit once they're hitting most targets on a 14 or less.  If random orcs are showing up with 8 levels in all combat, the players will respond by buying more.  But let's say that enemies are going to top out at around a 7 OCV/DCV.  Players probably won't go to much more than a 10 total, regardless of any hard limits imposed.  And if you do impose a hard limit, they probably won't feel restricted since they're still able to hit effectively.
 
Aragorn is at the top end of the OCV/DCV paradigm in LOTR.  It doesn't matter what that exact level is, just that Aragorn is there.  Nobody is going to show up and best him in hand to hand skill.  Likewise you won't have players dumping points into tons of damage if you don't have ogres or trolls with 30 Body that you have to slowly hack your way through all the time.
 
Once they're satisfied with their level of combat ability, and they aren't facing the constant "monsters get tougher and hit harder" progression, then they'll be free to expand their characters in other directions.
 
I toyed around with the idea of having wizards who only know like one spell.  What about a necromancer who is a powerful fighter, has an array of henchmen and a gloomy castle, has a magic scepter that lets him bind spirits (mind control vs ghosts), and knows the ancient ritual "Summon Undead Army" (summons 10,000 skeletons at 75 points each, but can only be cast under a full moon with rare components).  In some ways he's more powerful than any D&D wizard, but he's also far more limited.  It's something you wouldn't see in other fantasy games.
 
If you take off the D&D shackles, Hero offers a whole lot of possibilities.

Hi Folks,
 
I've been running a fantasy hero game for the past few years (may run a mechwarrior variant next)  and I''ve noticed what I consider to be a serious lack in the hero books. And this applies to every genre.
 
Specifically character advancement. Yes a trip through the bestiary or any book shows characters at various point levels. but actually advancing characters is another story entirely. Sure, I can look up a lich (powerful undead wizard - 900 points Turakian Age page 302) but what would a normal human fighter look like at an equivalent point value within the "canon"? For example I've got human normal fighters running around with CSLs of +20. And DCVs even higher. There's not a critter in any of the books that could even touch my players.
 
Now I can obviously adjust things (and have) so it's all good, and we're having fun. But that's not the point.
Excluding characters that have to put all their XP into "spells" where would fighters and thieves put their experience? Especially since in a heroic game equipment and magic items don't cost character points.
 
We're currently using 5th ed, but the 6th ed books have the same limitation.
 
It's as if the game is designed for the characters to remain relatively static. Am I just seeing things? Or is this (as I suspect) the legacy of the "superhero genre" origins of the system.
 
JohnBear
 
 
 
 

I think you've got to keep in mind that by the time your characters have that many combat levels, they're the D&D equivalent of probably 20th level.  They should be able to tear through all the monsters in the book.
 
There are a few ways to control their character progression, depending on who you ask.
 
--Cap the amount of combat skill levels (or other abilities) that the characters can have.  Make them spend their points on something else.  If the best swordsman in the world has +10 levels with his sword, then no, the player can't have +12.  Best he can ever get is +10, and maybe he needs GM permission to go past +6.  Like he can't spend his first 30 XP to go to +10, he's got to bulk out his other stats, and buy KS: Swordsmanship School or something (possibly roleplay out some exceptional training) before he can do that.
 
--Encourage people to branch out beyond their D&D character classes.  Why be a simple fighter when you can be a sword-mage?  Maybe the fighter has an intelligent animal companion (like a talking horse or something).  Or perhaps he's a prince, but he didn't know it before.  All these are great point sinks for characters.  You can steer them towards things that cost a lot of points, and are cool for the character, but don't throw the OCV/DCV system out of whack.
 
--Give some XP as predefined bonuses.  They complete an adventure where they help the Elf King, instead of getting +15 XP for that story arc, maybe they get 3 XP, plus Contact: Elf King on an 11-, plus they learn an elven protection spell, and they get a magic charm.  A lot of XP in fantasy games could take the form of magic items they find.  This steers the character advancement in a way that you choose.

6th edition problems...

Actually a good example of this in my bi-weekly game last night. Three PCs infiltrated the penthouse of a Milanese mob boss, got into a shoot out with some hired killers... named bad guys. One of the killers was surprised, out of combat, by a PC, who hit with 2 9mm rounds, one in his chest one through his arm... no Combat Luck as it doesn't apply when surprised out of combat. Bad guy was badly wounded but alive, but CON Stunned, so the follow up two shots to the head were, again, no Combat Luck applied (character incapacitated, even temporarily) and bad guy is gone, dropped without getting a chance to act.

In another part of the Penthouse, another bad guy made his Danger Sense roll and was prepared... started blowing holes through the walls with a .460 S&W. None of the characters had body armor, but all named characters have 1 level of Combat Luck. In this fight, the bad guy got one good look at a PC (lots of dodging down hallways, grenades going off, blowing through cheap interior walls going on... took a while for the fight to get face-to-face)... and hit... it was a leg shot, rolled badly... so with CL and 1/2 damage for hit location it ended up being a 2 body damage "nick" rather than blowing the limb off. Later, when the combat got in close, a PC got his 9mm close up and headshotted the big (very big) bad guy, but he had CL, so instead of likely dead and at least CON stunned, it was a bloody crease across the scalp and not enough to CON stun.

This fight was one of the most cinematic and fun fights, and it worked because we had nominally "unarmored" characters simply not going down with the first lucky hit. Nobody "wanted" to get hit and a decent roll to a dangerous hit location would still be really bad, but the difference in CL vs. non-CL is huge in actual play.

My biggest problem is not that players take it but the characters act as If they have armour (because the player knows - bad rpg-ing, right).
 
The characters in books that have combat luck do not act as if they are armoured, they "know" a bullet will take them out.  The player knows a bullet will not.  The cowboys of legend did not walk down the middle of the street, trusting to their combat luck.  
 
Their is something missing from the build that makes the players act properly, it should be more reliable than 14-, and I don't want additional dice rolls (what a bore for everyone) but I want moments when it is obvious.  I think I might be happier with instant one off regen "I'm hit!  Just flesh wound though", you get more of the impacts of combat but less fatality.  Of course the regen would come with resurrection adder, the character goes down, dead until someone checks them "he's still breathing!!!"
 
Also does the Die Hard bit of walking over broken glass but sprinting after the bad guys a few scenes later.

I feel like the tourney helm basically turns areas 3-5 into a x3 stun multiplier as almost all of the force is transferred to your breastplate and shoulders.

The power isn't different, the discussion is.  The only reason this discussion is even taking place is that people take Combat Luck reflexively for just about every character because "hey, extra defenses, and they're cheap!"  If it were not a power in the book, then only people who had a specific build reason would be getting a similar build and the GM would respond to their build as with all characters -- how's this going to affect caps, balance, etc.

But selling back the Common sense group is enough for a 15- in PS: Internet Arguer AND  a 15- in KS Internet Arguments.  Come on man, leverage those points. 

Dispell / suppress Invisibility