ScottishFox

In my campaigns I have generally required a pyramid scheme of skill levels.
 
After you have two 3pt levels you cannot get another until you have a 5pt level.
After you have two 5pt levels you cannot get another until you have an 8pt levels.
and so on.
 
Still, you have to cap overall skill levels or CVs or players will go nuts.

Yes, and in fact I put an absolute cap on CV, no matter what combination of abilties you use; you will never exceed this point until the cap rises later in the campaign.

It's been a fun campaign so far.  Currently the crew is taking a Dungeon Crawl break from the mass setting absorption in the classic In Search of the Unknown.  I believe it's the first adventure published by TSR for Dungeons and Dragons.
 
It's so old nobody at my table (besides me) knew what it was. 
I slightly predate D&D, electricity, pyramids, fire and other modern novelties...
 
One other aspect of the setting that was a big change from convention is that there are no known Gods.  Almost everyone worships The Light and fears The Dark.  Much smaller numbers of people worship (secretly) spheres of influence rather than specific named deities such as The Harvest, The Wind, The Sea, The Hearth, etc.
Shepherd Flynn worships The Storm (Tempest Cleric template) and his access to unconventional spells has lead to some suspicion from his fellow Shepherd.
 
In one episode Shepherd Flynn heard the name Varkuul in the rolling thunder of a lightning strike and upon inspecting the impact point - found a spiraling image of lightning burned into a tree stump.  He carefully cut away the wooden disk and carries it hidden on his person.
 
A plot point that won't get exposed to the players until very late in the campaign is that the old Gods are as sheltered / imprisoned by The Hold as the humans are.

I want better candidates to vote for. Same as I did in 2016.

Well, I was watching TV coverage away from my keyboard so I ran over quickly to update the thread.
 
If it's any consolation, I beat out NBC TV news by two minutes.

That’s a fair point, there has been so much noise and it’s deafening, drowning out most positivity and hope. It really does a disservice to the whole process and pollutes the discourse. To be honest, there may not be a reconciliation between the “sides” but I also don’t believe that there needs to be one. Based on the actions and the ideas that I’m seeing there’s a group of people who believe that the function of government is primarily the protection of property, and another group who believe that the goal should be the common interest. Simply put, we need both to function as a society and refusing to recognize the merits of either defeats the whole point of the exercise. 
 
But that’s all beside the point. I believe that people matter, and I believe that all citizens deserve to be represented by people who believe that they matter. No matter where on the divide you fall, each and every one of us deserve to be treated with respect by our government. We deserve to be told the truth by people we have elected to be our agents. We deserve to have the services we pay for operate at a functional level. We deserve to be able to trust that our representatives are working in our best interests, no matter where they fall ideologically. And for me personally, even if I get nauseated, I’m going to vote for the person who can uphold that basic agreement. The only way to guarantee this new status quo continues — i.e., the venomous horror we’re all witnessing —  is to refuse to believe that an alternative can exist.
 
And an alternative can exist, but it only comes to fruition if we all vote in the people who we believe are going to balance what can be competing interests, but who, above all else, see the needs and inherent value of the people first. I have no issue with “conservatism,” i.e., the value of institutions, but what seems to be happening is that rather than act as agents for the people, but for themselves. As an example, defunding the Post Office is not in the public interest. It only serves a very small group under very unique circumstances.

Problem is I want better choices.  I feel like my options are belladonna or ricin.
 
I don't want these options.  I want good ones.

And I want to go back to the office without risk of getting a life threatening illness; I want my daughter to grow up in a world that doesn’t involve fascism. I want a leader who isn’t bull horning for racism, and who at least at the basic level, can get through 5 sentences without lying. 
 
I want a pony.
 
The options are what they are. I get it. But. This is the system. These are the current rules. We have to play by those rules and we have to play to win. The only way to achieve that, currently, again, from a non-Trump point of view, is to vote Biden/Harris or, preferably a straight blue ticket. Again. Hope I did that without triggering anyone.
 
If you want to change the system, then elect people who will fight for ranked voting, so we can get away from the first past the post/wasted vote mechanic (no offense meant to the intent of your vote, as much as the way votes are tallied). So in a ranked system, you could put Libertarian first, then Democrat, and when the LIbertarian is mathematically eliminated, your vote moves to the next viable candidate. However, that won’t happen in a Trump/GOP administration. Shoot, it might not happen in a Biden/Harris administration, but Maine did it. Which means your State can do it and enough States do it, then Federal law will change.
 
Separate thought, but I thought a valid point, considering.

This one!

I LOVE THIS ONE!!
 
Warning: I’m up a little late and when that happens I tend to ramble. So I’ve put my answer to your question up front, where it’s easy to see:
 
Answer 1: It actually doesn’t matter as long as you’re consistent. You’d be surprised how much punishment the HERO system can take and still put out a balanced game experience. To go back to @Ninja-Bear, it’s easiest to make all weapons free, because the cost was paid by the player when they invested in the Martial Art to use it. For example, Kusari-Gama. If I pick one of those up, I’m going to smash my own skull. Someone trained in it, however, is going to have the opposite experience. This is how I did it in Persona; you pay the points for what you want, you have the thing more as a manifestation of the point investment, rather than the other way around. If a bunch of points are paid for magic, great. Here’s your spell list based on the rules laid down for this system, etc.
 
Answer 2: There are a number of other things to consider before you can answer it. And based on the question, I’m making a couple of assumptions: That you’re doing some kind of high fantasy setting, that said setting involves the collection of gear and loot, and that said gear and loot is plentiful enough that it prompts the question. So if Kage, the Shadow Mage, doesn’t have 33 points available, he can’t pick up the enchanted hand crossbow? Or the bracers of archery? It’s downright skull breaking. So how else do you solve for it?
 
You can do this: Each character can soul-bind/befriend/attune (to use the 5th Ed D&D word) to X number of magical items. This is a campaign rule and costs zero points that the players can see, but you can see them. If you want to be hard and fast with it, you can give everyone their build cost in magical attunement. I build a 200 point Rogue, I can equip up to 200 points of magical gear. Or if you’re concerned, just, “gear.”  This can include spell books, spells as well as swords and shields. Going this route removes all of the messy player level book keeping from the equation, and leaves the GM free to run a game that plays like it should. 
 
Alternatively, each player may be limited to the Rule of 9; head, chest, arms, legs, two weapons, two rings and a necklace.
 
There’s no “canonical right way” to do it. In ... FH 5th Ed? Steve put forth the idea, as an option, gear is gold, magic is points. But that’s not always the case. And, more importantly, ignoring that is not necessarily going to create any kind of imbalance in your campaign. Your best bet, IMO, is to ignore this question entirely, and instead drill down to stat spread, skill selection, core powers/abilities, damage dealt, and damage that can be sustained, in addition to any other non-combat abilities that your casting classes are going to have. So let’s break down the reasoning:
 
In a traditional fantasy setting, there are three and a half core classes; Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard/Cleric. I say 3.5 because there’s a ton of campaigns and systems that just go with “magic” and that includes healing, there’s systems with all kinds of different ways to tap into other worldly... or natural but normally inaccessible... or... you get my point. The more critical question, in my mind, is not about point assignment or gold spent, but functionality and general balance. To that end, I would say that those three classes don’t really provide much framework. Whereas tank, blaster, scrapper, controller, etc., more traditional super heroic tropes, do the job much better.
 
The tank wears heavy armor, carries some variety of weaponry, has a shield. Do those cost points? Someone brought up: things paid with gold are fungible, things paid with points are not, however, there’s a counter to that, and that’s “everything has a point cost.” There’s a nasty rabbit hole you can fall down trying to reconcile the cost of a shield against gold against real cost in points to the character. Meanwhile, your casting classes have to spend points on their spells — unless you say they don’t. And you treat spells like equipment. Also an option. My late night rambling aside, here are my hard learned lessons from years of GMing Fantasy HERO:
 
1) Power level is, broadly, a lie. After a while it becomes nearly impossible to do a decent audit. I became much more interested in this question: Does everyone have roughly the same points invested in base stats and core skills? Do they all fall within the guidelines for CSLs, and are they utilizing the tools provided accordingly? Last, but not least, is their general DPR (damage per round) equivalent? A fighter who hits every round may not be as sexy as a Rogue with extra dice in Backstab, or a wizard who can throw chain lightning through an entire group, but that just means they’re doing their job. Standing up front, drawing fire, surviving, and dealing out punishment. The Rogue should be able to outpace the fighter in damage, because that’s the rogue’s job.
 
2) Damage output caps are critical. Decide early what your max number of KA dice is, AND your highest Active Point cost, and hold that line for a while as you continue to balance encounters and defenses. 
 
3) Remember: Defense wins championships. Unless you let someone buy an NND Killing Attack that’s disruptive, or the Wizard can call down oodles of Meteors every round. You don’t want that to happen, that gets gnarly.
 
4) This in a very looping way comes back to my point, and your question: when is it appropriate and how do you do it? My answer is “ignore the common application, and approach it differently.” We can math everything to death. Doesn’t mean we should.

All that debate did was confirm to me that while I felt my choices in 2016 were godawful - they were not as bad as my choices in 2020.
 
It's unbelievable how bad that debate was.
 
At one point in the debate I was wishing Trump would just shut up and stop interrupting so much that I mentioned it to my wife.
 
Me:  He's interrupting WAY too much.  Like - this is hard to watch.
Wife:  Joe Biden looks weak.
Me:  That doesn't bother you?!
Wife:  I like that he's taking it to him.
 
Somehow, impossibly, my three-decades-of-voting-Democrat wife is now more conservative than I am. 
I am probably going to join my fellow Vote Giant Meteor 2020 friends and vote Libertarian again.

All that debate did was confirm to me that while I felt my choices in 2016 were godawful - they were not as bad as my choices in 2020.
 
It's unbelievable how bad that debate was.
 
At one point in the debate I was wishing Trump would just shut up and stop interrupting so much that I mentioned it to my wife.
 
Me:  He's interrupting WAY too much.  Like - this is hard to watch.
Wife:  Joe Biden looks weak.
Me:  That doesn't bother you?!
Wife:  I like that he's taking it to him.
 
Somehow, impossibly, my three-decades-of-voting-Democrat wife is now more conservative than I am. 
I am probably going to join my fellow Vote Giant Meteor 2020 friends and vote Libertarian again.

Hit locations did not change with the 6e change to 1d3 stun multiple. 
 
I believe that's because hit locations also multiply normal damage, and because the stun lotto was  never as pronounced in the heroic games that tend to use hit locations.
 
I'm not aware of an alternate chart, but it seems like you could just make 4-5 be 3x; 3x becomes 2x; and 1-2x = 1x

As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy, than to create -  Spock

All that debate did was confirm to me that while I felt my choices in 2016 were godawful - they were not as bad as my choices in 2020.
 
It's unbelievable how bad that debate was.
 
At one point in the debate I was wishing Trump would just shut up and stop interrupting so much that I mentioned it to my wife.
 
Me:  He's interrupting WAY too much.  Like - this is hard to watch.
Wife:  Joe Biden looks weak.
Me:  That doesn't bother you?!
Wife:  I like that he's taking it to him.
 
Somehow, impossibly, my three-decades-of-voting-Democrat wife is now more conservative than I am. 
I am probably going to join my fellow Vote Giant Meteor 2020 friends and vote Libertarian again.

No plans on watching tonight. I am too worried this is going to turn into Wallace vs Trump, which will do the voters no good. And irritate the hell out of me.
 
Hopefully, my blood pressure will thank me.

Tweets:
 
Well, I was going to tweet about how the ballot that I just received is so poorly designed they must not want you to actually vote, but then I noticed that @BOENYC sent me someone else's ballot. What am I supposed to do now? (Actual question)
 
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My mail-in ballot also has someone else's return envelope. This is gonna be a real huge problem, huh.
 
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I received someone else's return envelope in my #AbsenteeBallot. I just got off the phone with an operator at .@BOENYC and they said this has happened to a lot of people. Double check your ballots. .@NYCMayor .@NYGovCuomo @Gothamist @nytimes @NY1 @NYDailyNews @nypost
 
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Called the BOE, they’re sending a replacement ballot, but, uh, had me in their system with the wrong birthdate. (It’s always been fine before!) I’m absolutely going to vote in person now.
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PSA: brooklyn absentee voters! I received my absentee ballot today with the wrong name/address/voter ID on the ballot envelope. brooklyn BOE says this mess up affected at least 500 voters but up to 123k. please *check your envelopes* and call your BOE if you find anything amiss!!
 
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I received someone else's return envelope in my #AbsenteeBallot. I just got off the phone with an operator at .@BOENYC and they said this has happened to a lot of people. Double check your ballots. .@NYCMayor .@NYGovCuomo @Gothamist @nytimes @NY1 @NYDailyNews @nypost
 
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Imagine my surprise, @BOENYC, to have opened my absentee ballot envelope today, only to find 1) a military ballot (does not apply to me), 2) with someone else's name and address on it. This is of grave concern.
 
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/518682-new-yorkers-report-receiving-ballots-with-wrong-name-voter-addresses
 
Voters are required to sign their names on their ballot to return it to be counted, meaning the mislabeled return envelopes would likely be voided if mailed in because the names and signatures would not match. 
 
(Note that their state law says the mismatched ballot is supposed to be voided. The only way these ballots would be counted is if the counters didn't follow the law or if there was a post-election lawsuit which ended up making such ballots be counted, regardless of what the state law says.)

Haven't worked on it, but absolutely loved that game and setting.  It felt like Catholic D&D - praying to the Saints actually did something and the forces of Satan were everywhere.
 
It captured the feel of the kind of fears medieval Catholics would have had.
 
I wonder if its possible to get that game running on Windows 10?
 
EDIT:  Oops!  I though he said Darklands. 

Not sure if this should be in Fantasy Hero or not.  I am thinking about running the Deadlands Hero style.  Anyone ever do any work on this?

True, some were independent contractors.

I have something to add here.
 
That answer was freakin’ epic. *slow clap* @mallet Bloody good show.
 
Get it? Vampire? Bloody? Because they drink blood? Amirite? Guys?
 
Where are you going?
 
Hey wait up!!
 
Moving on!
 
If I’m understanding the rule right, upon summon you get assignable tasks based on EGO, your Necromancer can purchase EGO, Only to Assign Tasks to Summoned Creatures, (-1). Why -1? Because he’s going to use it freaking constantly. As an aside to that aside, I generally don’t allow purchasing of stats over and above beyond 2x the base; so in a world of NCM, where they bought to 20, I’m going to keep the total possible at 40. One thing I learned early in HERO — you must set limits. Because players be like ‘wooooo!’ And you have to be all ‘noooooooo. Seriously, Chris, no, you cannot do that. Because it’ll break the game, that’s why. No, we’re not going to test it. Dude, seriously...”
 
(actual conversation, actually held multiple times).
(with the same freakin’ guy).

I believe archer was referring to the fact that Clinton was charged with perjury for giving misleading testimony regarding his affair with Lewinsky as part of Paula Jones' civil suit against him over sexual harassment. No legal action was ever undertaken against him in regards to the Lewinsky affair itself.

I think I am following this, then you would use the advantage/disadvantage element you described before based on class/race/items.  I assume that characters can get bonuses to saves to reflect items or increased proficency modifiers?
 
I appreciate you sharing what you are doing.  I have always been intrigued by the toolkit nature of HERO, but rarely see someone overhauling it so much to fit their needs. 

Ok- I was asking cause I was looking at older stuff to convert.  So I think I’ll have to go by feel. For example Star Wars D20 has Bounty Hunter at CHA 9. So if I use CHA = PRE well that’s kinda sad. Anyways thanks!

Grabbed three new converts by eliminating some of the world building overhead by keeping ALL of the 5e character creation and class rules and simply using HERO to play the game.
 
Kicked off the new Dark Hold campaign where all of the known world was conquered by an invading horde of life eating horrors from the shadow realms.  All that remains of humanity is the Dark Hold.  A circle of onyx mountains closing off the last villages and cities of mankind.
 
Even there, when the light of day fails, night terrors stalk the lands for human souls.  Only the presence of the Shepherds keeps them at bay (think dark elf + slender man).
 
Our band of intrepid heroes start off as a group of problem solvers working under the guidance of Shepherd Flynn.
 
Things are going well until the day of the eclipse when strange things begin to change for the heroes - and others throughout the land...
 
30+ Years of Fantasy HERO and I still love it.  Best system ever.

Wow I would love to hear more about your campaign setting and details, details details.  This is deep deep deep and I love it.  It would be great if you could do a knowledge dump on us.  I would love to read it.