Gnome BODY (important!)

I'm confused by why this post is worded in a strongly argumentative manner when I can't see any way it disagrees with mine. What am I missing?

It's highly relevant: PRE attacks being effective indicates PRE useable for that purpose has not lost "almost all of its overall effectiveness". The math of inverting a limitation frequently doesn't work out, same for segmenting a power or characteristic. PRE makes a pretty good example here. It provides PRE attacks, PRE defense, and interaction skills. Buying an interaction skill level is 5 real per +1, but that's silly so let's use the 6E price of 4 real per +1. PRE attacks are vaguely similar to Mind Control, so compare them to that. But they've got AoE that ignores allies too. Mind Control with AoE Any Area (+1), Set Effect (PRE attack results) (-1/2), Noncumulative (-1/2), Instant (-1/2) seems like a reasonable simple approximation and comes in at 4 real per d6. PRE defense thus sounds like Mental Defense Only Against PRE attacks (-1), so 2.5 real per 5 points. Summing those, we get a cost of 10.5 real per 5 real of PRE. Which doesn't make sense until you realize that, much like how a noncom skill level is cheaper than buying one each of agility, interaction, and intellect skill levels, you're getting a discount for the package deal. Attempting to split things out based on the final price frequently results in unbalanced prices because of those unwritten discounts. An equally direct example would be attempting to invert Only Against Foo applied to any defense power.

I have never been anywhere I didn't hate the drivers. It's degrees of hate, relative measures of incompetent expletiveheaded know-nothings who menace everyone on the road. School age drivers are generally the worst though, I detest driving near schools with students old enough to drive.

Presence attacks are terrifyingly effective. Remember that they can be used at absolutely any time, even if your initiative hasn't come up yet or even if it's not your phase. Add to that that presence attacks can easily keep an enemy without proper defenses (very common) locked down for multiple phases and still keep them at partial actions for a while afterward. And don't be too quick to take Steve Long's word as sacred truth: Consider if the values in the book are right for your group. For example, a power doing STUN Only is normally a -0 but if your campaign is lousy with automatons and the character has no equally powerful attacks it can and should be worth more. On the flip side, if the GM intends for live capture of supervillains to be difficult but rewarding, STUN Only might be an Advantage!

A: My entire point is that HERO is not real-life. B: But the same risk assessment is fine when Sergeant Spandex is deciding if he should start punching The Caped Crook until he passes out? Playing a hero, or HERO, game requires acceptance that the world works under different rules.

A villain who respects the law is possible, but needs more than just "this man is a bad man". The law isn't necessarily good or just, and blind adherence to it can result in horrible things. Captain Hans, no-nonsense American police chief isn't a villain. Captain Hans, no-nonsense police chief in 1943 Germany could be.

I'm not saying it's good and proper heroics, because it's not remotely heroic. I'm saying it's not metagaming.

Acting upon an observable consequence of the laws of reality isn't metagaming, it's basic pattern recognition. Unless bystanders have some physlim or optional rule making them more fragile than PCs, people in a world run under HERO system don't die from that sort of fall, and that's everyday life for a HERO-dweller. A HERO world is one where punching somebody unconscious is in fact perfectly safe, where a paramedic can save a gunshot victim in six seconds flat, and where falling from a office building roof means you can walk to the hospital afterwards. A HERO world is a world where people don't die easily. When the rules dictate things about the game world, acknowledging those things isn't metagaming. Refusing to acknowledge them because they're derived from the rules, however, is metagaming.

Christoper's point was that if the power can make the most expensive weapon then you're good. What exactly that price is is immaterial, so in the absence of the OP posting their GM's weapon table one book is as good as any.

5e allows power constructs wherein the power that is UBO has one set of modifiers and the UBO itself has another set of modifiers. It's under Differing Modifiers on page 276 of 5ER. If 6E has something comparable, using it would massively decrease complexity.

Isn't 6E Transfer just Aid linked to Drain? I seem to remember it being cheaper too.

For NPCs, ignore points and focus instead on their CV, DCs, and defenses. How they perform in combat is important. How much they cost is irrelevant. What you really need to care about is how often they'll hit the heroes and how hard, and how many attacks it'll take the heroes to take them down. You can math it out by taking your PCs average damage and CVs and seeing how many attacks result in hits against a given DCV and then how many hits it takes to KO a given STUN and defense. Or you can run a fight against your PCs and just keep track of who hit who for how much while saying "around now this one should drop" and then using those damage numbers to determine defensive traits. Likewise, give them whatever complications you think are fitting. Focus on things that will make the game interesting, such as a weakness the heroes might be able to exploit.

Remove all the #s from power and list names. They're what's causing the issue.

I edited that post shortly after making it. The components of Flying Dodge when put together should not grant movement when you abort to it. But the long-form description given in 5E's Ultimate Martial Artist contradicts this by explicitly stating that someone who aborts to a Flying Dodge can make a full move.

Guess we'll use Merriam-Webster then, it's the first result that's not a music video. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dilemma Oh, gee, look at that. Not a single word about "must be x or y", just that the choice is unpleasant or difficult. So if you're going to be petulant about definitions, you might want to propose yours instead of assuming everyone is using the one true holy version that exists only inside your head. Tech quite clearly stated his problem, and it's not the one you're describing. Unless, of course, you feel he should just stop playing completely. That's what your suggestion of removing anyone who didn't like how he handled luck would entail.

Cite your definition. Regardless of semantics, splitting the Gordian Knot is a perfectly valid solution here. Premade villains have Luck, Luck on villains doesn't work well in GM's group, so GM replaces the problematic power on the villains. I see absolutely no issue with that solution, and if you do please point it out.

I'm a 5E player and so leaving this thread since it's blindingly obvious that not having memorized the edition I don't play is leading to me being edition-differenced to death.

Alright, that puts the problem into much better context. If you and your players don't like the GM-fiat aspect of luck, definitely ditch it off any premade characters you use. I'd say ripping it out in favor of overall skill levels, combat luck, and some miscellany like danger sense could be a fun replacement. Then glue an activation roll on all that to make it excitingly random again.

I'd suggest back-calculating the "value" of a success on Luck. Each dice costs 5 and has a 1/6th chance of working. That's basically equal to a 7- activation roll. Also, Luck does always choose the "right" thing. So call it a +1 for "always helpful", a -2 for "only in dire straits" and a -2 for the activation roll and we can back-calculate that a success on luck should be worth about 12 points of effect. Therefore, before rolling, decide what power the Luck will be emulating. Keep it simple, few to no modifiers on it so the math is fast. Then roll the dice, put 12 points into that power for each 6, and apply the result. So if Black Tabby is about to take a really bad hit and you roll the Luck dice, each success might be 12 PD or 8 PDr. If Black Tabby really needs to take out Pound Hound so he can get away with the gems, each success might be an extra two and a half DCs or points OCV. If Black Tabby needs a distraction so he can hide from the cops, each success might be three DEX skill levels. So on and so on. The hard part though is determining when to roll Luck at all. If you use the -2 figure above, I'd say only once or twice per scene tops, and only when it's the only thing that could change horrible failure into glorious success. So if the villain is a single phase away from success, roll it! If the villain would need to beat three entirely undamaged PCs and finish off the fourth that's only taken one blow, don't bother. Roll it more often and it should be less effective. Roll it even less often and it should be more effective.

Man, do you remember back when you got games on these little square and circular thingies about the size of a palm and you could just keep installing them and installing them and never needed to use an internet to get the game you paid for on your computer? Those were the daaaaays.

The programmer in me is screaming "GET GIT" right now. Putting your documents up on github is free and will let you do proper version control, I'd highly recommend it.

The idea was that everybody makes a couple characters and you play it like a small-scale wargame with persistence of units. Fighter B is just Fighter A with a different name for the same reason you don't give your queen's rook a backstory every time you set up the chessboard. It's a wonderful style of play, but it takes a lot of getting used to.

It doesn't have to be, but if it isn't then the cost will be at least 22 real. The only way to get the reserve to cost less than 20 real would be to put a limitation on the reserve that applies to all the slots, or some really esoteric limitation on the reserve only, so I'm trying to figure out how he's getting his 15 real estimate.

I don't have anything new to say. Like I mentioned, I don't know the first thing about these characters or their series so I'm just taking it a big statblocks and only finding a few things I find disagreeable.

Emphasis mine. If it becomes more balanced, then it's starting at a point of imbalance. When I said "core" I meant 6E1 and 6E2 only. The bare minimum needed to play HERO 6E. If "core" normally has different meanings in HERO discussion, my apologies for my miscommunication. My argument is that a group with the basics needed to play will have no access to anything that indicates ranged MA is available. Strength can be used to throw things and add dice to HTHAs and HKAs that were bought with range. It's only 6 points of PSLs to negate the worst possible modifier for unsuitable thrown object, too. A strong character is by no means restricted to HTH. This is a contradiction. I am advancing multiple lines of argument. Substitute in Defensive Strike, +1 DC, Weapon Element if you insist on 6E1/2 material. That's 22 AP 20 real of power there, you can't pack that into 10 real without some pretty extreme limitations that the MA just doesn't have. What limitation are you proposing for the MP reserve? I can't think of any that seem valid given how different the slots are.