TranquiloUno

On the whole, I'll give it to 6th by a whisker.
 
I say that, realizing that as I thought about my answer, that my personal house rules cleave closer to 5th for the genre I use Hero for 95% of the time:Champions. So read my answer with the knowledge that any time I discuss a change, I look at how it affects all genres and favor that which works best in Champions  for the most part.
 
The biggest change, removal of Figured Characteristics, is a net plus for the system. While it made benchmarks more nebulous(and created more work for the GM), it eased the necessity of purchasing STR, DEX and CON to levels out of concept for many characters and pretty much removed any incentive to sell back a Characteristic. This does make Champions characters more expensive but in this case the good for other genres is just too much.
 
Characteristics also had two(perhaps more ?) changes that i disagree with. Negative Characteristics were removed and the Normal Characteristic Maxima Limitation was removed. The first makes Adjustment Powers too powerful and the second effectively removed benchmarks from the game.
 
Removal of the doubling rule for adding damage(Still an optional rule so there must be some skepticism). Yes, it enables some concepts but it doesn't really improve any and opens the door to sinking battleships with pocket knives or handguns. Absurd but rules legal.
 
Damage Negation is a great addition to the game.
 
Growth is something i'll give 6th credit for. It's still broken but a good try was made.
 
Transfer being broken up is also a net plus for the game. Yes, it now twice as wordy, but the ability to have differing fade and recovery rates is so much of an improvement that it runs right over my objections.
 
Change Environment having the option to impose rolls on powers is so horribly broken that I can't conceive the thought process behind it being rational.
 
Elemental Control removal and Variable Power Pool change. Elemental Controls were mainly(not exclusively!) to address the imbalance in character generation that Figured Characteristics gave to STR-based concepts. 6th removed one, so the other was a natural consequence. VPP's are now too inexpensive considering they are the most versatile concept in the game. There is no justification for a  5 or more slot Multipower costing increasingly more.
 
There are most of my high and low points. Even though I have more negative than positive point, I still feel that 6th is a design improvement over 5th. Most of my quibbles are easily fixed with house rules(Using 5th Edition VPP's. doubling not optional etc) or are more philosophical.
 
These are just my opinions and I won't debate then in this thread per the OP's request. Anyone who wants to discuss with me or ask questions, please start a new thread.
 
 

I prefer the 12d6 Blast AoE Battlemat personal immunity detection power.
 

To me it's more the skillset required. 
Anyone can clean a room decently, and unless they're sloppy about it nobody but a perfectionist is going to complain. 
Anybody can try to destroy evidence, but the cops are a heck of a lot better at finding evidence than John Q Notamastercriminal is at getting rid of it.  A fast mundane cleaning is still as likely to leave evidence as a mundane-speed mundane cleaning. 

Call me a heretic, but isn't "Very high SPD, movement, and DEX" already enough to clean up a room super fast?  Does everything need a unique writeup? 

Here's an idea I'll be trying out on Saturday to spice up the initiative order a little while still giving the advantage to high DEX types.
 
Initiative order will be based on by how many points each character makes or fails their DEX roll with ties going to the character with the highest DEX.
 
Static initiative order is a little stale.

LIght should be part of Enhanced Senses. Just make it a + PER with Area and the SFX of Light.

You are seriously overthinking this.  You don't need to buy water to drown somebody.  Environmental rules already exist.

You need to know how tough your players' characters are.  Generally in Champions (completely dependent on the campaign, but generally), PCs will have attacks around 12 damage classes (like a 12D6 Energy Blast).  Their OCVs/DCVs will be around 8-9, and their Speeds will be 5-6.  Characters traditionally have defenses between 2 to 3 times their number of damage classes.  So a PC on the lower end of defense might have 25 Def or so, while someone on the upper end might have about 35.  They'll also normally have a Con score that is high enough so that whatever damage gets through their Defense (on an average roll) won't Con-Stun them.  They normally have enough Endurance for a full Turn of combat, and enough Stun that they can stay awake through 3-4 average hits.
 
So a normal PC might look something like this:
 
Bob the Brick
Str 60
Dex 18
Con 25
Speed 5
PD 35 (25 resistant)
ED 25 (25 resistant)
Endurance 50
Stun 50
OCV 8
DCV 6
 
That's a pretty tough starting PC, probably too tough for some people's games, and too weak for others.  He'd need skills and other abilities, of course, but this is a good example for our purposes.  So let's say there are 3 basic types of opponents that Bob the Brick might have to face:  agents, other supers, and master villains. 
 
Agents have to team up to defeat a PC.  One on one, player characters should cream them, often with a single hit.  An agent might have a special weapon or something that can harm the super (Bob the Brick doesn't have any Flash Defense, so agents with flashbang grenades might be able to temporarily blind him), but it's work to do so.  Agents usually need the element of surprise, and they have to coordinate their tactics, and maybe even with all that they have to get lucky as well, to be a threat to the PCs.  Agents generally have lower Speed scores, way less Defense, less OCV and DCV, way less Stun, and they don't hit as hard as PCs.  Some GMs like to take agents and power them up, making two agents (or even one) a threat to a PC, but I think this is a huge mistake.
 
Sample Agent Man
Str 10, Dex 14, Con 13
PD 10 (5 res), ED 10 (5 res), Stun 25
OCV 5, DCV 4, Speed 3
Blaster rifle -- 9D6 Energy Blast, 32 charges OAF
Flashbang grenade -- 6D6 Flash vs Sight & Hearing, AE Hex, 1 charge OAF
 
Bob the Brick can take on 4 or 5 of these guys without too much worry.  Theoretically they could drop flashbangs on him as soon as his eyes clear from the previous one, and you can drag this fight out over the course of a few turns.  You can whittle down Bob's Stun total by blinding him, then having everyone coordinate their attacks and blast him.  Just remember that agents are there to make heroes look good, and they shouldn't operate as a perfectly coordinated team -- they aren't the main characters.  If Bob picks up a delivery van and hurls it at a group of agents, even if they dive for cover out of the way, they're as likely to drop their guns and run away as they are to stay and fight.
 
Other supers can be built on roughly equal points to your PCs.  Remember that villains usually aren't as fleshed out as PCs.  Villains normally don't spend points on wealth, or a lot of skills, or other roleplaying elements.  So make sure that a 400 point PC isn't totally outclassed by a 400 point villain who only bought combat abilities.  Ask yourself -- how often will he hit the PCs?  Can he Con-Stun the PC in one shot?  Does he have attacks that they don't have defenses for?  How long will it take the PC to chew through this guy's Stun total?
 
Other supers can be brought to heel by some critical weakness.  Let's say you have The Titanium Terror, some cyborg super-robot thing that is a carbon copy of Bob the Brick's stats.  Well that's going to be a real rough fight for Bob.  He's 50% likely to lose.  But remember, we don't want Bob to lose, because he's the hero.  There is a player who created Bob and that's his character, and if Bob loses then the player has nothing to do and now he wants to go home.  You're the GM, and if Titanium Terror loses, you've got a lot more villains where he came from.  He's not your only character.  So maybe you give your cyborg robot-thing a Vulnerability: x2 Stun from electrical attacks.  Now Bob doesn't have electrical attacks (he's just big and strong), but when you set up the battle you make sure to set it near a substation or a power plant or something.  At least put some high tension lines nearby.  And then you can drop a hint in your description that when Bob punches the robot, sparks come out or something, and maybe that makes a light-bulb go on in the player's head.
 
Master villains are designed to fight the whole team.  I'd recommend getting copies of your players' character sheets, taking them home, and running a few mock combats against your master villain ideas.  If the villain cleans their clocks really easily, then he's too tough.  If he loses within 2 or 3 phases, then he's probably too weak.  I'd actually recommend cheating a little bit.  Give him +50 Stun, "only during the first turn" or something like that.  That way if they players do really well and KO your guy in the first phase, he stays up anyway.  You clearly underestimated them.  On the other hand, you might want to put him in a big explosive lab as well.  If he is taking your heroes to school, blowing them apart with no problems, maybe you give a hint to one of your last heroes standing that Professor Executioner is standing right in front of that big glowing reactor...
 
Master villains will usually have a few more points of Defense than the average hero, 2 or 3 more damage classes, 2 or 3 higher OCV, and maybe 2 extra Speed.  Give them 50% more Stun since they're fighting a group of heroes, and that should be about right.
 
Professor Executioner
Str 60, Dex 25, Con 30
PD 35 (35 res), ED 35 (35 res), Stun 75
OCV 10, DCV 8, Speed 7
Executioner Beam -- 14D6 Energy Blast
Energy Field -- 7D6 Entangle
Rocket Boots -- 30 meters Flight
 

Don't overcomplicate.
 
Simulate Death  Usable by Others for the suspended animation.
Healing with Damage over Time flavored to suit your time constraints.
 

Heroic Action Points?
 
As for a 7th Edition? 
Take 5th Edition Revised, place new cover reading 7th Edition.  Viola!!  Mission accomplished.

What I would do with a hypothetical Seventh Edition is avoid it like the plague.
 
By this point the rules have been combed through, deconstructed, revised, game-balanced, clarified, optionized, and hair-split to within an inch of their lives. There are no more pressing problems in the system that need to be addressed. Any further modifications would simply reflect the personal opinions and preferences of whoever was given responsibility for creating a new edition; and we all already modify the RAW to suit our preferences anyway. For alternative ways of doing things, we have earlier editions to draw from.
 
I see no need and feel no desire to invest time and money learning yet another iteration of Hero.

How often do we have discussions about players refusing to follow genre tropes?  How often does it work out that their refusal to follow genre tropes leads directly back to being "punished", in-game, for following genre tropes?  If we want these to be used, they need to be neutral at worst, and ideally rewarded.
 
When we want everyone to display higher moral ground and not kill opponents, or show restraint and not fire off full-power blasts at every unknown target, or actually role play rather than looking for the absolute best tactical choice in every situation, and forget the reality that people are seldom guided by a detailed analysis of every possible alternative, selecting the best one with logic and efficiency their sole guide, what do we get?  "Well, my character is a tactical genius who hates to lose and is utterly remorseless in his fight against evildoers, so it's IN CHARACTER for him to only make the best tactical decisions, to hit the bad guy with everything he's got and to kill him off if he thinks the justice system, or poor prison security, will just put him back on the streets."
 
Why?
 
Because the GM rubs the players' faces in the return of defeated foes because a tricky lawyer got a "not guilty" or Stronghold was nowhere near strong enough to hold them.  Because the Hero fires off a low-power Blast that plinks off the unknown villain's defenses, and that villain then fires a massive counterattack that Stuns the Super.  "HA HA - the press runs humiliating stories of your crushing defeat.  All your PRE attacks are -3d6 for the next month due to this negative press."  Because EVERY KO'd villain gets a recovery, gets back up and blasts the heroes in the back, so "screw honour and hit him one more time when he's down, just to be sure".
 
If Cover means that the opponent probably just break cover anyway, why would the player be motivated to take a penalty to OCV and a delay to damage?  ANSWER:  They would not.  They would be motivated, instead, to rationalize why they strike first, and hard, so that they defeat that opponent,  not have him break cover, so they just wasted their action anyway.
 
A desire not to shoot them?  Sure.  But all Covered means is, if they don't cooperate, I either shoot them anyway or I back off.  Maybe I should have Grabbed "Bad Grandma" and restrained her instead of pulling my UberGun, or engaged the mooks using my attacks at less than full DC, or taken that OCV penalty to Pull my Punch instead of Cover.
 
 
If the goal is to show how Super the Super is, yes.  If the goal is to have that Normal still capable of a dramatic threat, no.
 
Looking at the source material, how often has MightyMan heard "Back off, buddy, or I'll shoot Nellie, here, in the head" [Nellie is Covered by Gunman] and thought "Hey, I'm virtually certain to win the DEX roll-off anyway, and even if I don't, a handgun can't do enough BOD to kill Nellie in one shot anyway, so my teammate with Healing powers can save her."?
 
I see a lot more thought bubbles like "For all my power, he's rendered me helpless - I cannot allow harm to come to an innocent girl like Nellie!"
 
We accept that, in the time it takes MightyMan to ignite his heat vision, his opponent can activate his force field, go Desolid and Dodge, Dive for Cover or Missile Deflect (all by Aborting - ha ha, that always goes first).  But we can't accept that Cover means the attacker has a "priority abort" to roll his damage?
 
Now, I would classify the hero doing something with no visible cues, that the attacker could in no way expect, as being a potential "distraction" that provides the potential for breaking cover.  Maybe that should require a Stealth roll, or an Acting roll, against the attacker's PER roll (with bonuses if the power he wants to use has Invisible Power Effects).  The attacker already took a penalty to OCV, hit anyway and delayed his damage.  It seems reasonable that this should not mean "no problem - the target can easily avoid the attack".

Adjustment powers against characteristics are pretty common in the source material (spells, superpowers, drugs).  Affecting powers is more hit and miss, although abilities that prevent, say, Teleportation or Scrying come up.  One could assert these are against a specific SFX (e.g. superscience; magic) given the genres they tend to appear in.
 
If we want adjustment powers that are more focused on SFX, the rules certainly provide for it.  Campaign ground rules that adjustment powers must have Variable Effect, allowing any one power of a given SFX to be affected.  We could even go so far as to require they also take, say "four powers at once (+1 1/2) for a total of +2 (triple the normal cost) and campaign-define 4 at once as being "all powers of that special effect".  Yeah four is a pretty tiny number for all magic powers in a fantasy game, but +2 is a pretty huge advantage cost.  In a typical Supers game, restricting to one SFX is much more restrictive, so it feels like the advantage of affecting multiple powers is very much offset by the drawback of only one SFX.

I'm in the camp of adjustment powers needing to be against specific SFX. Anything else leads to my brain hurting.

Especially considering that the attacker takes a -2 OCV penalty for daring to not shoot right now. 
 
I personally don't see the merit in the maneuver existing. 
If Captain Cover has taken Timmy Target by surprise and held him at gunpoint, I'd hold off on using the combat engine until combat had started and have it begin with Captain Cover's surprise attack or whatever prevented Captain Cover from keeping his surprise. 
If Captain Cover tries holding Timmy Target at gunpoint during combat, I already have delayed action rules to handle that. 
 
Moreover, I feel the mechanic is a feelbad mechanic.  Hearing "You can't do anything without getting shot before your defenses come up" sucks.  Hearing "Your hostage just escaped, you can't do anything about it since you lost the roll, that action you took is wasted now" also sucks. 

I don't think anyone in our group has ever used the cover maneuver even once.  I do like it though, at least thematically.  My own house-rule, if anyone ever bothered to use it, would be that covering someone would negate their Combat Luck.  When the bad guy holds James Bond at gunpoint, Bond doesn't just run around shooting like he did before.  Suddenly he's in actual danger.

If you wanted to be weird, how about lots of Growth, 0 End Persistent, Invisible, with like a -5 custom limitation "provides no benefits at all" and another -2 "only to be bigger when electrical powers are used".  Buy enough so that you fill up multiple hexes.  So if somebody shoots a lightning bolt that travels near your hex, they end up hitting you accidentally because you're just in the way.
 

I could dump 100 points into faster-than-light travel and not have a superhero. The first time the character activated her power, she'd be off-planet without a spacesuit.
 
You could run a Typhoid Mary plot with someone who is unknowingly giving other people FTL but can't use the power herself. The victims disappear without a trace

I remember facing a villain whose standard MO was to
 
1) Make himself Invisible,
2) Project an Image of himself,
3) Use all his Attack powers bought with Indirect - they come from the Image.
 
So all attacks against him have no effect at all.  You have to figure out how he's doing it, and be able to see and target the invisible guy to defeat him.

The first step in any successful tactic is assessing the situation.  Part of assessing he situation is understanding your opponent, but it also includes being aware of your surroundings.  You also need to be aware of your own abilities and those of your teammates.  Once you have assessed the situation you can start looking for opportunities.
 
Hugh is right about all tactics having a counter tactic.  That is why it is so important to conceal your tactics from the enemy.  This is what Sun Tzu means when he says “All war is based on deception”.   
 
Forcing your opponent to abort his action is often a good tactic.  Not only does it prevent you opponent from attacking it can allow your teammates to take advantage of the situation.  For example if the villain aborts his 2 to dodge my attack in 1 I can move back to allow my teammate to use his area of effect attack and the villain cannot dive for cover because he has already acted.  It can also allow a teammate to get off his haymaker.  It also creates a situation where now the entire team can go all-out offensive in phase 2 because the villain cannot act.  At this point I have forced my opponent to act and have created an opportunity for my team.  Whether my team can exploit the opportunity is another thing, but at least I created the opening.
 
The large group of low powered opponents is using the same tactic against me that I used in the first example.  The first example was based on the idea that I am attacking a smaller number of more power full foes.  There defenses are higher including DCV so I have to work harder to affect them.  This is not the situation when I am facing a large group of less powerful opponents, so I will need to adjust my tactics.   I should have an easier time hitting the weaker opponents and my attacks will be more effective.  At this point I switch to a defensive stance putting more into defense while still being able to attack.  Areas of effect attacks are particularly useful in this situation.  I also use the terrain to try and limit the number of opponents that can attack me.  This will be along drawn out combat.
 
In each case I assessed the situation and adjusted my tactics appropriately. 

Well, disregarding for the moment that several of the examples I cited are sophisticated combination moves that are specific to characters' strengths, rather than "general," and reduced to brief expressions for ease of recognition and efficiency of execution... the example you gave, of someone yelling, "Hey, Speedster! Ripoff! RIPOFF!!" while "pointing madly at an enemy with a focus" strikes me as extremely amateurish execution. The character is warning the opponent exactly what is about to happen, so he/she has a chance to prepare for it. OTOH if the team leader identifies that the opponent is using an Accessible Focus, points to him once and calls "Ripoff!" which the speedster already knows is his cue to go in for a Grab, the heroes can get the benefit of Surprise. Yelling, "I'm going to use my gas attack now, you guys!" would be the same kind of advance telegraphing.
 
Perhaps you, or your GM if it's not you, runs the villains in your games as too dumb to recognize those signals. But Aaron Allston wrote that he noticed his players weren't using the kind of trademark teamwork moves that supers in the comics do -- no Fastball Specials, no hammer-and-shield combos. So he pitted them against a team of villains of equal number, but built on significantly fewer Character Points than the heroes, but using rehearsed maneuvers and code words. The heroes got their butts kicked, which humiliation prompted them to develop their own codes.
 
If you don't consider such things "tactics," I'm afraid I'm not clear on what kind of examples you're looking for, and I doubt I can offer anything to benefit you.

Personally, I base it on the liaison itself.  That is, the connecting sounds.  If it ends in a fricative sound, like "earth," or "Snarf," I go with "Ling."  If it ends in an S, change it to an "Sh" sound-- Mars to Martian.  anything else is something of a toss-up between "ian" or just "an."  (Witness the occasional episode of Star Trek where Spock is "Vulcanian" as opposed to "Vulcan").  As a quick and dirty rule of thumb, if it ends in a simple syllable, I go with "an".  If it ends in a dual-vowel syllable, "ian," to preserve the pronunciation of the root word.  If it ends in a vowel, either "Ling" (uncommon) or just slap and "N" on that bad boy and let it ride.
 
 
I have no idea why, but I feel if you dig back far enough (in years) amongst some old grammar text books, you'll probably run across actual rules for this sort of thing.  
 
 

One older (pre-Fourth Edition) book was very useful to me in providing specific examples of tactics superheroes might use: Strike Force by the late great Aaron Allston, detailing his extensive personal campaign. They were inspiration for developing special maneuvers and code words for teams in my own campaigns. The team would practice strategies and maneuvers for particular situations or to maximize their collective strengths. Let me just transcribe the examples Allston gave in his book (occasionally paraphrased for clarity):
 
Air-Lift: Emergency evacuation. Fliers, teleporters, speedsters, grab everyone you can and get out of here!
Blind Swing: A brick not engaged with a villain begins a Pushed Haymaker. A teleporter sneaks up on the villain and teleports him right into the path of the swinging fist at the precise moment the Haymaker is supposed to land.
Blue Dot: Warning you're about to use a Flash attack.
Delta Vee: A teleporter or flier with Martial Arts waits until a fast-moving villain is passing near a hard surface. The hero moves into his path and Martial Throws him into the surface.
Express Train: For exceptionally tough non-flying villains. A teleporter and a flier grab an enemy. The teleporter 'ports as high up as possible. The flyer then dives straight down at maximum velocity with the other two. Just before impact the teleporter 'ports himself and the flyer back up where the flyer will have space to decelerate.
High Guard: Take an aerial position for reconnaissance or sniping.
Jackhammer: At a signal from the team leader, everyone (who can afford to) ignores his current opponent and uses a ranged attack on the opponent selected by the leader.
Mustard: Warning you're about to use a gas attack, or gas is being used against us.
Napalm: Use an explosive attack.
Nuke Him: The kid gloves are off -- use your nastiest attack.
Peeping Tom: Scan the target with all your sensors.
Pigeon: The opponent is a weakling -- restrain yourself.
Pop-Tart: Evacuate civilians from the area.
Ripoff: Steal Accessible Foci.
Sandwich: Two bricks with fast movement converge on the same target from opposite sides to perform a Move-Through.
Shield: Someone with high Defenses, stand in front of the designated person.
Tangler: Used on high-DCV targets. At a signal, everyone who can Holds their Action. A hero with an Area Of Effect Entangle throws it on a target, who is momentarily at 0 DCV even if he could normally shrug out of the Entangle. The other heroes then blast the target.
 
Some other tactical examples appear in other Champions books, which I'll post here as I have time.

Like I said in the previous thread about tactics which was mostly stuff you can do with maneuvers and situations, not builds, it depends a lot on the characters in question.  What you can do with teleportation is much different than what you can do with flight or telekinesis.  Its going to be about creative people with the abilities they have working out teamwork and interesting ideas, and a GM who doesn't feel bitter that the party 'cheated' to defeat their favorite bad guy.
 
The GM can encourage this kind of thing by making battlegrounds interesting (how many fights in the street or warehouse can you really do?  One of my favorite Viper 4th edition scenarios is when Viper holds a very thinly disguised Planet Hollywood restaurant full of celebrities hostage by levitating it into the air.  In my game, part of the battle was inside the falling restaurant.)  I had a fight and evacuate scene within the Hindenburg as it burned (It actually took a while, in Champions terms, to burn all the way, and there was time for the heroes to get people from the back out the front before it all went up due to the construction of the thing.  It was fun working out the timetable in terms of phases and turns based on the exact events when it burned for real).
 
Having an interesting battlefield with unusual contents encourages creative players to come up with good ways to make the battle more interesting.  Throw the villain into the power plant.  Drop the girders on top of them.  Lure them into the wet cement, etc.
 
Second, give them battles where a straight up "hit them in the face til they drop" isn't a realistic or rewarding option.  I had a bunch of PCs faced with a necromancer who was holding a young prince hostage.  He cast a spell where any damage done to him was instead done to the prince.  They had to figure out how to defeat him while he cast necromantic spells at them, without harming the hostage too badly.  Making the bad guy so powerful they have to try something new or so unusual the old tactics don't work can force people to become creative.
 
But as always it takes a team of players who are willing to be creative to work that out and make it happen.  If they aren't all they will do is be frustrated and angry at you for kicking their ass with a bad guy that was "too powerful"  Remember a lot of younger players today are only used to computer games where everything is tuned exactly to your level and equipment and its just a matter of either beating them down or finding the One Amazing Trick That Your Ranger Doesn't Want You To Know.
 
And sometimes I've found that even a good group can get kind of hynotized and lose their ability to analyze sometimes.  Example: I visited some college buddies playing Champions.  The GM threw a powerful enemy at them they couldn't' seem to harm.  Every time they hit him the GM went out of his way to point out that the talisman around his neck glowed brightly.  When the GM went to a bio break I suggested someone attack that talisman, take it, try to break it because its, you know, pretty obviously a focus.  It just hadn't occurred to them because they were so focused heads down on their character sheet instead of what was going on in front of their characters.

Hmm, seems like I needed to give myself the old RTFM advice.
 
It's actually under the Usable by Others advantage writeup in 6E1.
 
"Characteristics: Characters cannot buy Characteristics
as Usable By Others without GM’s
permission; they should use Aid to achieve that
effect."
 
/facepalm