Gnome BODY (important!)

a) Unless it's a dedicated image hosting service that encourages such behavior. b) My web programming experience is modest, but I don't see what the benefit to blowing a lot of storage like that would be. It seems silly to rehost everything. c) Agreed. d,e,f) I don't see the relevance. What bearing do these have on the correctness of my statement? Of course, this is a moot point now that I'm poking around in the page source of the new thread and finding that yes, some people are uploading directly to herogames.com while others are linking.

Defend your "giant paragraph" claim or relinquish it, sir.

That's horribly verbose. "Drain STUN 3d6 + linked triggered (no time, immediate) Aid STUN 3d6 self only, both Unified Power, 30+36 AP, 24+13 real" is a third that length and conveys the same information.

Picture heavy shouldn't have mattered unless images were being stored on herogames.com. A link to an image is just text, after all.

"Aid foo xd6 self only linked to Drain bar yd6" is a giant paragraph of text? Misrepresenting things doesn't help your stance.

I am arguing that NCM does not provide any assurance that a high value will be permitted. I am arguing against your implication that it does, with your DEX 30 character scenario. NCM is an alternative pricing model, it has absolutely nothing to do with GM acceptance or denial of characters. I would very much like to know why you feel it does, because that makes no sense to me.

Christopher, are you seriously arguing that NCM replaces GM oversight and that a GM will never veto a NCM-legal character?

The math is not kind to it, and I imagine few players would voluntarily take it. The first purchase adds 1/6th of a point of STUN per die at the cost of +1/4. Further purchases improve more, but are always less efficient than just adding dice. A 60 AP attack averages 42 STUN. A 60 AP attack with +stun multiplier under this system averages around 30-35 STUN (it varies, but is in the ballpark). That's less STUN and BODY for the same cost.

Hit Locations: A quick-and-dirty fix that comes to mind would be shift hit locations to "general multiplier" and "specific multiplier". The general multiplier is always no higher than 1 and applies to all damage, the specific multiplier is always no lower than 1 and applies to STUN for normal attacks and BODY for KAs. Thus, a hit to the head with a normal attack would deal more STUN but no extra BODY, but the reverse for a KA. A hit to the foot would do less STUN and BODY always. Increased Stun Multiple: I'd suggest reworking this into something more along the lines of attack 8d6 + 2d6 (Adds STUN only -1). Add extra dice of STUN or BODY as appropriate to skew the desired outputs. I'm aware that STUN only is normally -0, but that's because it fully nonlethalizes an attack. Partial nonlethalization is nowhere near as useful. Penetrating: Why not just divide penetrating BODY by 3?

You are incorrect because your opinions are opinions and my opinions are facts. As proof, I am of the opinion that my opinions are facts, therefore it is fact that my opinions are facts. Furthermore I am of the opinion that 6e's removal of the Lack of Weakness power was terrible since no longer can the GM respond to "I use Find Weakness on him" with "FOOL, DOCTOR DEFENESTRATION HAS NO WEAKNESS!". Therefore 5e is objectively and unarguably superior to 6e in all ways.

Seeking love. "I'll take her away from him, then she'll come to love me!" or "He said he loves strong women, so I'll beat Gynamo and show I'm the strongest woman!" Being in love. "She said she wants diamond wedding rings, and the jeweler won't miss just two." or "He'd be crushed if Stanford didn't accept him. One mind-control won't hurt anyone, right?" Political motives. "They can't outlaw swords, my entire family of sword-trainers will go bankrupt! I have to make them stop!" or "In national news, Mister Everywhere has continued his sit-in of the entire state of Delaware, which he says will continue until Governor Naemhear resigns or is ousted." Religious ideology. "The holy book clearly says that lending money with interest is a sin. I have to save Wall Street's souls!" or "Those new-new-reformed-new-Christians that set up a church are ungodly blasphemers and need to leave." The thrill. "There's no sport in fighting normals, and these do-gooders won't throw a punch without me giving them a reason." or "Getting away with it is the best feeling in the world!" An old mistake. "I didn't know I had super-yelling, I didn't mean to hurt that cop! But now they're shooting at me!" or "I was young and stupid, and they saw my face. I'm still wanted in half the world, but a superman's gotta eat." Also remember that motivations can easily be changed. A motivation only needs to hold long enough for something simpler like 'revenge' or for the villain team to finish their relevance and fade into the background.

You're equally sound-effected if the GM is communicating that poorly, Christopher. If you build a wonderful character and then the GM suddenly dumps NCM on you, you're rebuilding that character to save a bunch of points. If you build a wonderful character and then the GM suddenly dumps a hard cap on you, you're rebuilding that character. If you build a wonderful character under NCM the GM still might tell you he doesn't want anything above a 25 and didn't expect anyone to go that high with NCM but sorry you have to change that. Your example isn't a case of NCM being better, it's a case of not getting blindsided.

On further thought, magic that duplicates equipment should cost money. Magic that cannot be duplicated with equipment should cost points. Magic that straddles the difference should cost some of both. So the spell Claudif's Cantrip of Conjure Cudgel should be a gold cost. Same with creating light, shooting magical bolts*, running at horse-speed for long distances in straight lines, etc. But spells like teleportation, fireball, see future, ask god questions should all require points, since you can't do that with equipment. No Billy, tying a halfling to a 10' pole does not make it equipment. Spells like killing cloud, really good armor, shoot super magical arrow, those should cost both money enough to cover the equipment they're outdoing and then some points to cover the further advantages they have. *: If ED is commonly much lower than PD, any ED attack should have a point surcharge since it's basically AVLD at that point.

But this power gets you more sword more often. But swords don't cost points. But this power should cost more. Therefore this power should cost more gold than a sword.

I think I'd suggest buying it as a buyoff of limitations assigned to the corresponding equipment. Scaly skin (that doesn't stack with armor) might functionally be armor minus OIF plus Visible plus Always On (-0). A claw-growth spell might functionally be a sword minus Real Weapon minus STR Minimum minus OAF plus IAF. So on and so on.

I can't say I understand the point of an Aid construct. If the person wanting to implement racial characteristic shifts is the GM, they can just waggle their hand and announce that yonder pluses be not included for NCM. If they're not the GM, I'd expect the GM to ask some very pointed questions about this strange Aid construct and tell the player to just buy the insert-favored-expletive-here stat.

I disagree with both those, actually. Longevity should be free unless NND Longevity attacks are reasonably frequent (IE, going to come up). Any benefits from living long, such as knowledge, should be bought normally with the "very old" SFX. Even if NNDs are in the equation, 1 point is about all I'd support it costing. The +2 to Concealment should come with a mandatory purchase of Concealment so it actually works. Or just be replaced with a mandatory purchase of Concealment.

The problem I have is that the increased maxima is either always worth points (it gets used) or never worth points (it goes unused) for a given character. This directly contradicts the idea of getting what you pay for.

Be careful with "behind" in a turn based system, it's very easy to have two people each circling the other for constant backstabbing. Likewise, there's very little a character can do to restrict enemy movement in HERO so you get 1v2s having constant backstabbing. Just to offer an alternative to Lucius's excellent suggestion, you could build the backstab as a Martial Arts maneuver or power with a bunch of extra DCs but a stiff OCV penalty: They would then be encouraged to use it only when they had surprise or some other advantageous circumstances.

I don't feel there's any fair way to price the NCM point, just because if the stat isn't above the normal NCM it becomes wasted "points". Also everything Lucius said. If you're really intent on differentiating races by characteristics, why not give characteristic bonuses from race template that apply after NCM calculations? So an elf has +5 DEX, and that gets added after the character pays points, including NCM points, for their other points of DEX.

Blue text indicates you have manually edited the skill description. It will no longer automatically update so as to not erase your manual edit. To restore it to default, whatever the program suggests the text should be, clear the description field. I will also note that this is in the manual.

How did you get this value? I'm not matching it.

I've found that telling the players "you are, so far as everyone knows" works a lot better. It lets people make their "mutant" a gadgeteer or wizard or alien or whathaveyou but still keeps the general tone consistent. Another good alternative is "Years ago X happened and everyone was there, then your personal Y happened (you make his up) and you got superpowers, then recently Z happened and everyone got together to do something about it". By letting players write their own middle, they get to define their origin and source of powers. By defining some history, you ensure everyone's got enough in common to make plot hooks and team cohesion easier.