Gnome BODY (important!)

The value of those limitations is going to depend greatly on what power they're attached to. Could you explain the power(s) you're building?

A character in a modern Champions setting should buy a smartphone with points by not taking any Disadvantages related to poverty. If a character wants a superphone, they should define what ways it's superior to a normal phone and pay for those differences.

I'd hardly call myself a narrative player. I just don't like it when applying the rules to a situation and describing the outcome results in nonsense.

Here's my reason for objecting to that. If Robert sees the heroes knocking out his fellow criminals and turns to take a shot at Sally, InvincoLad can charge into the line of fire, Teen Tornado can blow the bullet off course, or Barrier Boy can put up a forcefield. In mechanical terms, one of the heroes is Aborting to a defensive action to protect Sally. This makes narrative sense to me. If Robert sees the heroes knocking out his fellow criminals and turns to point his gun at Sally but doesn't fire, InvincoLad can't charge into the line of fire, Teen Tornado can't be ready to blow the bullet off course, and Barrier Boy can't put up a forcefield. In mechanical terms, the Cover maneuver is proposed to prevent Aborting. This makes no narrative sense to me. Why does Robert taking longer to fire prevent the heroes from reacting? If anything, it should make it easier!

Is the suspended animation supposed to be advantageous or disadvantageous? If it's an advantage, the above builds seem good if all you need is a single "hit" of healing. If it's a disadvantage, I'd suggest making it a Side Effect.

It prevents anyone from Aborting to defend. That's pretty huge.

No, in response to the Cover being declared. Especially since a Block or Missile Deflection makes zero sense at that time.

Robert declares a Cover action. What stops Teen Typhoon from Missile Deflecting the bullet, InvincoLad from Dive for Covering into the line of fire, or Barrier Boy from making a Force Wall between Robert and Susan? Do they somehow lose the ability to Abort because a Cover was declared? Alternatively, if Robert is already holding his gun to Susan's head when the heroes show up, why bother with a maneuver? Just say "Well InvincoLad, you could punch him but he'd pull the trigger first unless you can get him distracted or the gun away from Susan's head. Got any heroic plans?". It's a great dramatic tool, but it doesn't need initiative time mechanics.

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 feel Drain [mechanic] works fine for universals like SPD, PD, REC etc since those generally have the same SFX. Beyond that I'm in agreement with you. Drain [particular game abstraction] is nonsensical unless the SFX is pure handwavium.

Pardon me if I'm missing something obvious, but is there some reason to fabricate prices instead of just looking up real world prices?

Permanently providing an increase in defense to your teammates is best modeled by saying "Hey guys, my character does [thing] and I think it'd be really cool if some of your defenses were because [thing]!" during the character creation process. There are other options, like Transform, but I'd expect most GMs to be iffy about anything that results in permanently handing out free character points to other PCs. I certainly wouldn't permit it.

The 5s are worthwhile because and only because of the arbitrary restriction that you can't put Limitations on anything smaller.

Emphasis mine.

I've personally houseruled that Life Support is Innate, because: A - turning off water breathing in Atlantis basically means the target dies. Way too much impact for a tiny effect. 3d6+1 Drain is enough to turn off any individual Life Support, and the impact from doing so when it's in use is staggering. B - it's honestly not very good. It defends you only against things that explicitly say it does, so it's a mother-may-I defense. It comes up if and only if the GM or a PC has just the right thing for it to matter. C - there's a major category of character that "needs" to have total or heavy Innate LS to make sense, and that's a massive concept tax. I'm probably going to sit down and adjust the points on LS someday, it's way too expensive if you're buying a lot of it.

And if you've only got one or two attack powers that aren't Frameworked, you can make this even more effective by buying +s to those powers. And don't forget that CSLs are Constant, so the OCV and DCV slots can have their cost pulled down that way. The high cost Skill Levels are just a horrible trap unless you can swing some pretty creative Limitations to get the price under control.

Sure, but what's the first thing Lex Luthor would do if he had such a death ray? I figure he might start hitting people with it to see if they're a Kryptonian. Because for Lex Luthor, just knowing if somebody is or is not a Kryptonian is valuable information.

In idealistic theory I'd like to say it depends on the SFX. A Delayed Effect RKA designer virus that kills by targeting the Y chromosome obviously doesn't work on women, a Flash that short-circuits the eye with a swirl of carefully-chosen colors obviously doesn't work on the color-blind, etc. Things like that don't feel like they should need a Detect to (not) function. At the same time, something like a rocket that disarms the warhead if it's about to hit a cop-bot feels like it should. But in practice, I feel it should depend on if the power can be used as a Detect (and if that's valuable). If the campaign prominently features vampires disguising themselves as humans, then a sun-laser that only hurts vampires is super useful since you can administer vampire tests with it. So you should pay for that utility, though maybe with a Linked or Obvious Limitation. And conditional Images is most certainly usable as a Detect.

Yeah, I spent around ten minutes combing through FRED looking for where it said you could do it and all I really found was the section in Power Frameworks that specified when you can't do it. It's clearly allowed, I just don't think it's ever clearly stated that it's allowed. Maybe it was explicit in an earlier edition but didn't get passed forward? I would be very careful with this, because I think you'd start seeing a bunch of Nd6+Nd6 attacks. Somewhat less flexibility in reducing the output isn't something I'd expect to come up often, so I feel people would think of it as free points.

The fact that you bought it as +4d6 instead of 4d6. It's different because you said so (and had another Blast to add to). Sounds like a Partially-Limited Power to me. See FRED 282 or 6E1 366.

Naked Advantages cost END because Advantages adjust Active Points which determine END cost. Limitations don't alter END cost so I don't see any reason to make a naked buyoff cost END except to screw over people for going that route instead of making a custom "Must have OIF (Visor) or IAF (Glasses), otherwise Eye Beam is Always On" Limitation.

I once built a character who had nothing in the Powers tab, but he had the skill Power: Rituals at 22-, 12 DCs and 11 CV through Martial Arts and Skill Levels, and a pair of 300 pt magical Followers (who had Powers). Does he count?

The big thing that HERO does it that it's all about a set of reused building blocks and modifiers. Once I know what Drain, RKA, Blast, Armor Piercing, AoE, and Autofire do individually, I know what any combination of them do because their meanings don't change. There's a finite pool of things to learn, and a much smaller pool of things that come up frequently. Once I know them, I know them. Contrast this with things like D&D, where every feat, spell, magic item, and monster ability is a brand new and totally unique thing. No amount of playing in a cleric-less party will let me the player pick up what cleric spells do. The instant a new monster comes out, the GM has that many new things to learn and keep track of. So on and so forth, with each new splat or module pushing the rules larger. HERO might seem complex at first (it is) but as soon as you're over the hump, you're a master since it really is all in the core book(s).

Depends on how you buy it. Sight Sense Group images cover the entire sense group, but if the base Sense Group affected isn't Sight, the power could have some single sense in the Sight Sense Group also purchased to be affected. That said, SFX are important. An illusion spell might "fill in the gaps" to make an infravision illusion look real even if the caster's never had infravision, but Doctor Disco's full-spectrum illusoprojector should likely have Not Believable if Seen With Infra/Ultravision (-1/4) until he spends some time toying around with some infragoggles. Additionally, FRED has a section explicitly stating that Images is IPE to all senses it doesn't effect but still obviously (to those sense(s)) emanating from the user. I don't see that verbage in 6E1 though.

If you're trying to keep things simple, I'd suggest Physical Manifestation and Extra Time to reactivate if "destroyed". Maybe also Unified Power Source if you're in a 6e game. Shouldn't strictly need any Advantages, though your GM might want you to buy a little Indirect. E: With regards to it having its own mind, a Physical Limitation stating "Source of powers has INT x, EGO y, PRE z, and the following skills only" should do it. Or put limitations on some of your INT, EGO, PRE and skills.