Gnome BODY (important!)

Yes, unless he has relevant Disadvantages like Does Not Know Own Strength.

The brick already bought STR. His fingers can tear through concrete the way mine tear through the sand at the beach, just because he's that STRong. I don't need Power Skill: Ordinary Human Things to write my name in the sand, why would he need a skill to write his name in concrete?

Why would it need a Power Skill?

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?

We'd need more description than just "drones" to give you anything meaningful beyond a page number for the automaton rules. Which are page 182 of 6e2 or page 457 of FRED.

In that case, I think you'd be better served with a Very Precise advantage.

Three options stand out. 1: Have him buy a Multipower of EB and EB Only Vs Entangles (-0). 2: Have him buy Only Vs Entangles as a Naked Advantage. +1/4 sound around right to me, since it's close to the price of the Multipower version. 3: Have him buy the EB with May Be Only Vs Entangles (+1/4). I do question the idea of "only functions against this specific game construct", though. Are you and he sure he's not looking for Only Against Inanimate Objects or Only Against Nonliving?

No, things that are currently represented as Stunned and Presence Attacks happen in the source material. They can be represented in other, less bad ways. Presence Attacks for example could be moved from "I gave this guy 60 PRE, half of you don't get your first turn" to "Social combat! During normal combat!".

I like HERO System, I'm just highly critical of the systems I like. HERO System has the second-best combat model I've encountered (absolute best for big fights), great char-gen, wonderfully modular mechanics that make learning the system easy, and a great deal of flexibility. It's easily the best superhero system I've played, and the only one where combat is both interesting and mechanically sound. It just doesn't hold up well under certain fairly specific circumstances and has some nasty traps for new players, and unfortunately some of those are very easy to blunder into or the sort of thing I instinctively look for.

Recalibrate the STR table. You don't need that granularity. Reducing the DEX spread doesn't change the fact that DEX is initiative and makes the initiative maneuvers actually useful. Or be really daring and rip out initiative too, it's not used in an interesting manner so switching to something more dynamic like popcorn initiative wouldn't hurt. Stunning is a terrible mechanic and should be excised. "I'm sorry Billy, but you didn't take a superhuman CON because it was out of concept so now this 6d6 NND is going to also remove your next turn and half your DCV so you're gonna get dogpiled and KO'd" is another hot load. The current win instantly or do nothing model for mental powers is a terrible mechanic and should be excised. Presence Attacks are a terrible mechanic and should be excised and replaced with an actually functional social system.

I'll use INT as an example. Currently INT costs 1AP/point. There is no difference between having 8 INT and 12 INT. Only points 3, 8, 13, 18, etc provide any benefit. Every point in between is just padding that pretends to matter. To fix this, remove all the intermediate points. Assuming INT was fairly priced, this means that INT should now cost 5AP/point, and every point improves your INT-based skills and PER roll by 1 instead of every fifth.

Kill the sacred cow of the current Characteristic ranges. One point of a characteristic meaning different things based on which point it is is a hot load of cow excrement. Price them based on what five points right now should cost, then make that what one point costs and does.

I'm not sure what you're looking for. Do you want to be able to see invisible entities as though they weren't invisible? https://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/97998-see-invisible/?tab=comments#comment-2700554 Do you want to just know when something invisible is near? Build a Detect Invisible sense or Detect Ghost sense with whatever modifiers such as range make sense. Do you want to be able to fight invisible entities? Make one of your other senses Targeting (maybe the aforementioned Detect).

16 points for 2 overall CSLs is a bargain compared to the 6e pricing, yes.

I don't agree with you that CSLs should exist. I hold that CSLs have no business existing in 6e and are garbage left over from DEX determining CV. Bob wants to take his OCV from 7 to 9? Then he should buy another two points of OCV. That's even simpler than mucking about with having OCV be both its own thing and a skill thing. I also don't believe that any price variation from breadth of CV applicability is good for the game. If Laser Eye Larry can buy +1 OCV for 2pts while Swordgun Fistkick has to pay 5pts for the same effect, certain character concepts become cheaper for no good reason.

I think we'd be better off not having two different ways to buy the same thing, and telling players that if they want OCV they should buy OCV by buying OCV (with whatever Limitations and Advantages they and their GM think make sense).

Why not just Limited Power: Power only activates if to-hit roll succeeds by margin of NUMBER (-something depending on how big NUMBER is)?

Perceiving things from a place other than oneself is generally Clairsentience. You could hack it with N-Ray UBO limited to things the granter perceives, but it'd be a kludge.

Tone, text, etc. Sorry for the hostility.

Wouldn't it still be better to buy a 5pt DCV level and a 5pt OCV level?

The real problem is that there's one list of adjectives that tries to be universal. "Legendary" DEX is pretty legendary in a 50pt game. As the point scales go up and the numbers start to inflate accordingly, "Legendary" needs to move up with them or it stops being legendary.

I understand that, but why does "The box is DEF whatever BODY whatever, the dirt is DEF whatever BODY whatever, you've got whatever Turns of air" not provide the same? Please spell this out like I'm an idiot if I'm overlooking something obvious.

I don't get it. What makes "This box is an Entangle with DEF whatever and BODY whatever, the lack of air is a Continuous Drain whatever whateverd6 from a SPD 2 enemy" any less escapable than "The box is DEF whatever BODY whatever, the dirt is DEF whatever BODY whatever, you've got whatever Turns of air"? Why is this distinction necessary? What am I missing?

So why do you need anything beyond the DEF and BODY of the box and dirt?

So he's just putting an unconscious person in a box and burying it, via purely mundane methods? I wouldn't represent that as a power. Not everything should be a power, this is just an application of a box and the environment.