GreaterThanOne

Edit! 
 

That does sound less OP than the Trigger version (FH Complete: Riposte) which is basically a free counter-attack whenever you successfully block.
 
You could use the exact same model to just Trigger a counter-attack each and every time you're attacked in melee range for more cheese.  Convert it to a Triggered RKA for even more fun.

I'm looking through some of these and am thinking: are these book legal? Yes. Are they powerful, even very-powerful? Yes. Cheesy? Mmm, not really.

How about Doc Brown for his time genius.
 
Indiana Jones is 80s, right?
 

Good Morning Steve,
 
 I was just curious of a rules question. I understand that if I grab an opponent and immediately throw the opponent I can do that in that phase. If I want to use the opponent as a missile to hit another opponent, then I need to wait till my next phase. I hit me (yeah I’m going to use that pun) though if I really wanted use that opponent in the same phase as the Grab, I could declare a multiattack-since I’m allowed to mix HTH and Ranged attacks. I’m just checking to see if I got a handle on MultiAttack as RAW.
 
Btw I finally got 6th Vol 1&2, 👍. I really enjoy your philosophy on gaming. (Which I had a sense of before). 

Hi,
 
I am the developer of Hero Combat Manager.  The purpose of the program is to help a GM manage combat.  Here are the specific things you can do with it:
 
Using Hero Designer (HD) - you can export characters you have created using HD into a format that Hero Combat Manager (HCM) can use HCM will track when each character can act depending on their Speed and Dex With HCM the GM can: Handle all dice rolling and damage management for NPCs.  This includes Normal, Killing, Mental, Presence, Flash, Entangle, etc. and apply the damage to the player character information.  You will always know how injured your player's characters .  The players still have to keep track of the damage which the GM will provide Handle all damage that the NPCs receive when the player character's hit an NPC Handle held actions Buff/Debuff per Aid/Drain or the GM can adjust.  Be prepared this part of the application has always been a bit flaky (sorry) What can't be done with HCM: You can't create a character on the fly in HCM.  You have to use HD and then export the character It doesn't interface with the Hero System Mobile (we have talked about it but I am too busy and technically not savvy enough to figure it out how to do that - yet) Quirks and issues When I was a full time paid developer I worked on embedded software systems.  A UI was the raw data being dumped out an RS-232 port to a dumb terminal.  We didn't need no stickin' UI.  So that means HCM's UI is primitive I haven't done an update in a while.  Too busy.  I will answer questions and I am going to set aside time in 2020 to do some major bug fixing. This project grew out of my need for a tool to help me track combat.  I have done it with pencil and paper and real dice in the past.  That worked but in a big fight someone would get missed.  I tried doing this with a spreadsheet and a fancy VB macro but that failed pretty quickly.  The program grew out of my own needs.

The two big ones are Champions Now and the Hall of Champions (community content program at Drivethrurpg.com).

"deeply stunned" is the description applied to 0 to -9 STUN (IIRC), and I believe it notes that, even then, the character does not necessarily fall down.  I prefer the interpretation that, absent Knockdown or Knockback, a Stunned character, or KOd to -9 STUN character, does not lose their footing.

I joined this group and have gotten some absolutely incredible maps including animated maps for people that play on screen tables. This is just one was one that I am going to use and fairly time/genre generic but there are hundreds of all types. The Reddit group is r/battlemaps/ 
 
I am not in any way associated with the Patreon or even know who they are. I just grabbed one of the maps I downloaded and liked to show an example.
 
Enjoy!
 
 

Yeah its always good for people to know their players and what they will best respond to.  Gnome is right in that you need to set patterns that will encourage the best out of your players, but every group is different.
 
And Epstein didn't kill himself.

maybe he has just run out of additional rules?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
              
 
 
 
ahhh....   I kill me......
 
 
 

That's why I like to remind people that, despite it being roughly in the crotchal region in terms of where it lies on the chart, "vitals" refers to any particularly vulnerable and weak hit location.

Dangerous assumptions that will kill a superHERO game faster than you can spit. 
 
Supervillians escaping is a basic supers trope.
Just like superheroes getting captured.
 
If the supervillians do not escape, you will never have recurring villians, and without that you will never see an archvillian.
 
Just like your heroes will never be able perform a thrilling escape from the villainous deathtrap if they cannot be captured.
 
When you say that some of the heroes will circumvent the law and impose their own justice.  You have stopped talking about Heroes.  Instead you are discussing "people with powers". 
 
There is a distinct difference between Superheros and People with Powers.  Both are completely viable games, but thay are completely different in tone.  Superheros are, well Heroes.  People with Powers are vigilantes that may or may not follow the law or do the right thing based on their personal opinion at the moment.  A super that assaults police is not actually a superhero, they are at best a vigilante.
 
It is true that there are players that cannot stand for their PC to be captured.  For them it is a dealbreaker.  Which is cool.  Some people simply cannot play in heroic thrillers.
 
I know D&D players that are pure murder hobo's.  A perfectly fine style of play.....in a murder hobo style campaign.
 
@Tryskhell
If you are running a supers campaign, you need to establish tone and flavor from the opening gate.  If your players are going the PwP route instead of playing heroes, make sure you campaign is designed to flex that way.  In addition to villians, you may need to have NPC Superheros for when the PCs get on the wanted list.

Maybe this will help as kind of an example.
 
Session 1 -- The intro
 
The PCs are all presumed to know one another.  Even if they aren't a defined "team", they have all been operating in the city for a few months and they are at least on speaking terms with each other.  Now we just need a reason for them to get together.  So we'll say there's a bank robbery.  Two of the players are there in their secret identities.  The other players happen to be close by (let's say they can arrive within a turn of combat starting). 
 
The supervillain Ogre busts his way into the bank, flanked by a squad of masked goons.  The goons have generic comic book blaster guns, which they point at the people in the bank.  Ogre makes his way to the underground vault, and starts yanking on the door, trying to rip it off its hinges (Ogre is not quite as strong as he thinks he is, this will take him a minute).  One of the tellers hits a silent alarm.  The players who aren't at the bank will be alerted that something is happening, and they'll start to make their way there.  The players who are at the bank now have the opportunity to find a place to change into their costumes and either attack the goons, or attack Ogre.  Neither the goons nor Ogre should be tough enough to stand up to two heroes for very long.  If the heroes learn to cooperate, this will be a quick fight ("Thanks GM!  Now I know!"  "And knowing is half the battle!").  If they don't cooperate, things can get embarrassing.  Even if the heroes split up (one takes Ogre, the other takes the goons), they should do okay as long as they aren't getting in each other's way.
 
You might try putting the most inexperienced players in this initial encounter.  It gives the GM a chance to baby-step them through a fairly unimportant combat, and you've already got reinforcements on the way (so it won't feel artificial when the cavalry shows up).  Once the rest of the heroes show up, Ogre and the goons are done for.  If the first two heroes have already won, then when the rest of the team shows up, they see a high-tech looking van parked out in front of the bank.  There are also some goons standing outside of the van, also with blasters.  The van has some kind of radar dish and laser cannon on top, big reinforced side doors (for Ogre to climb out of), heavy plates of armor, and can outrun a police car.  It also transforms into a submarine, which was their escape plan (drive right off a bridge into the river below, and cruise away underwater).  The laser hits hard enough to knock a hero for a loop, probably around the campaign max (12D6 or so for an average game).  It gets a bonus to hit on the first shot because the heroes don't see it immediately.  If Ogre and friends won the fight inside, they'll come running out of the bank right now with the money.  They'll pile in the van and try to drive away.  The goons may leave Ogre behind as a distraction (they can always break him out later if he gets caught).  If Ogre and friends were defeated in the bank, then when more heroes show up, the van will take a pot-shot and drive away.  The heroes will need to decide who chases the van and who stays at the bank.
 
Regardless of whether they catch the van or not, or if the villains succeed at the robbery or not, it should be immediately obvious that someone else is pulling the strings.  Ogre is not known for his brilliant scientific mind, and the goons you capture are just career criminals with some high tech guns.  Somebody is supplying these guys.  Don't feel the need to help the bad guys escape -- these guys are all losers, and the master villain doesn't really care if they get caught or not.  If the players do well and capture the bad guys that's great, it's good for them to succeed.  If they do poorly, the bad guys are just after money.  They won't stick around to boot-stomp the heroes, they'll just leave.
 
Now you've got to rope the heroes into being a team.  Exactly how you do this will depend on your specific players.  I'd suggest leaving a clue that ties it to one or more of the players' backgrounds.  One of the unconscious goons has a weird tattoo that means he works for a rival ninja clan.  Or maybe there's a mystic symbol on one of the guys' forehead or something.  Anyway at least one of the players realizes that he's personally connected to this.  Or if the bad guys got away, maybe they kidnapped one of the PC's girlfriends or something.  So one or more of the players realize that this is a bigger deal than it appeared at first glance, and they need to request the assistance of these other heroes.
 
If this adventure takes up all the time you have that evening, then that's a wrap for your first session.  If the players rocket through it and you've still got half the night left, then another villain encounter will be handy.  It can be completely unrelated to the first one (not everything has to tie to a larger meta-plot).
 
Session 2 -- The Villain Team
 
This could serve as a continuation of the first session if it goes fast enough, or it can be saved for the second time you play.
 
A group of loser villains have come together to commit some type of crime.  You'll want a change of scenery from a bank robbery.  These guys have attacked the local hydroelectric dam, or high tech science lab, or whatever.  They have an evil plan they'll shout out at the top of their lungs ("With this blah blah blah, you'll never stop me from blah blah blah...").  The villains are roughly on par with the heroes, except for a few shortcomings.  Maybe one of them has a harsh vulnerability to a particular hero's powers.  The killer robot has a x2 vulnerability to Captain Lightning's attack.  Or perhaps they're fairly even, but they average about 1 point less Speed than the heroes.  Or maybe one of the villains doesn't have a real movement power -- he gets left behind during the fight and can't catch up.  Perhaps the villains all have about 10 less Stun than the heroes.  Or some combination of all these.  The villains have the same number of characters as the heroes, one villain per hero.  In a straight-up fight, each villain should lose, even if the heroes aren't that coordinated.  Don't play the villains as exceedingly deadly or vicious (maybe they're beginners too, and they're very overconfident in their powers).  Your players can still lose this battle even if everything is stacked in their favor (never underestimate the players' ability to waste their time with ineffective tactics).
 
If you can work in the scenery into the battle plan, that's even better.  A fight on top of a hydroelectric dam is awesome, particularly if somebody gets blasted off of it and falls a long way.  Or if a hole gets blasted through it and the heroes have to spend some time stopping a massive water leak.  Playing with the environment around you in a way that fantasy characters can't is part of what makes superhero games so much fun.  
 
Anyway eventually the heroes defeat the villains.  The PCs get to wait around for a bit until the PRIMUS team (i.e., the government agency who investigate supercrime, are ineffective at fighting villains, and run the revolving door superprison) shows up to take the bad guys into custody.  Agent Jerkface is in charge, and he doesn't like superpeople.  He's going to bitch and moan to the PCs, and try to intimidate them.  He might actually have a heart of gold, or he might just be a jerk.  It's up to you.  He'll complain about having to "clean up your messes", while conveniently ignoring the fact that his PRIMUS team was woefully incapable of stopping this minor supervillain team.  Hopefully one of your players makes a comment about leaving him some sloppy seconds, and the PCs can have a wonderfully antagonistic relationship with the people who are supposed to be helping out.  Regardless, PRIMUS will load the defeated supervillains into some armored cars, or maybe an armored helicopter, and take them to some detention facility.  It's perfectly okay to have Agent Jerkface be halfway through a holier-than-thou speech about "competent professionals" being better than a bunch of amateurs, and then there's a loud BANG in the distance as the doors are blown off the helicopter and the villain team jumps to freedom.  It should be far in the distance, so the heroes don't really have the movement to get over there, nor do they feel like they're supposed to (it's clearly the crushing force of irony coming down on the agent -- don't worry, he won't learn his lesson).  Perfectly silhouetted against the setting sun, these tiny little figures jump out of the side of the smoking helicopter, and they fly away.  Agent Jerkface about chokes on his cigar, and the players have a good laugh.
 
After the fight, the PCs meet Doctor Von Scientist, the man responsible for whatever thing the bad guys were attempting to take.  He's a nice guy, but lacks wisdom.  He of course had zero foresight that anybody would want to steal his Mega Ray or whatever it was.  "Oh, the consequences of that would be catastrophic!"  Of course even if he destroys the prototype, he knows how to build a new one.  Anyone with the ability to read minds and a massive technical lab could capture him and get the secrets from him.  We call this "foreshadowing".  He's okay for now, and he's friendly to the PCs.  But he's going to be more of a pain in the ass than an actual asset.  Have him be an expert in some field that the players don't have covered.  That way if something comes up later, they can go bother this guy about it.
 
----
 
Anyway, that should give a general idea of how Champions games feel.  The "metaplot" doesn't have to move forward each session.  You can have nice little self-contained stories each week.  And occasionally you'll refer back to something that happened before.  Just plant some seeds and give them enough time to develop into properly develop.  Feel free to steal from cartoons, movies, old comic books, new comic books, other people's campaigns, etc.  Old Ninja Turtles cartoons are almost superhero stories, the same with Transformers and GI Joe.  An evil organization works great, particularly if they've got some super-powered enforcers on the payroll to stop those meddling heroes.

My apologies for taking so long to respond to your question — real life snuck up on me and got in a Surprise attacking, Knocking me Out for several Segments until I could recover.
 
1. The Linked rules on 6E1 383-84 discuss the Linking of two or more powers to a single greater power.
 
2.  Sorry, but I don’t answer questions about previous editions of the rules here.

Quoted for truth and signal boost. This basic technique has been at the core of my GMing style for many years. 

You thought about listening to a podcast.  Chimpions is a decent play podcast (UK based) using Champions and playing through some of the modules available to buy (like the Coriolis Effect).
 
http://chimpions.co.uk/
 
Doc

I know this is going to sound odd, and I'll try to get something more explanatory up tomorrow night (too late tonight), but I would like to offer something that has served me _wonderfully_ over the years:
 
If the players, by accident or by intent, offer up a better plot, better twist, or better behind-the-scenes activities than you had planned-- and _especially_ of they are surprised (in a positive, excited sort of way) that either they have "figured it out" or that you "really managed to pull that off without us knowing!", then _by all means_ abandon what you had planned and run with it.  Even if you worked two weeks on your idea, and you actually like it a bit better, if the players are stoked by something they _think_ you're doing, then do that thing.  Always.  Excited players are happy players, and have solid, positive memories of their time at your table.  Plus, since they really think that they-- either as themselves of as their characters-- were invested enough and clever enough to figure it all out---  well that just increases their willingness to invest themselves in the game.
 
Steamroller them into what you had planned, and-- while it may be an even bigger success-- you are risking two things:  their disappointment at being wrong (and perhaps being wrong "yet again") and the possibility that what you had in mind ends up having less appeal to them.
 
 
Hell, I've built my entire setting that way, over the years.  I've got two players left from our original "'82 Crew" that have been adventuring in Campaign City (on the shores of Lake Campaign) since Day One, and while there are, _today_, maps, institutions, cultures, backstories, people and personalities and venerable old traditions-- even those two players from way back when have no idea just how much of this place they built themselves.  The best part of that is that they _like it_ here.  
 
The same can (just "can;" it's not a regular thing) happen with your plots and stories as well.

I base low end "heroic" level combat on relative human ability.
 
For example, when a normal person hits someone, they do 2d6 damage (10 STR), roughly.  How do you respond to that?  Well a regular person (2 PD) takes a pretty good hit from that, an average of 5 stun or ¼ of their total STUN.  They're 3 hits from down on average.  They aren't going to be stunned, even a 12 only does 10 STUN through their PD, but they feel it.  But a boxer, someone really tough or trained to take a hit -- one of those guys you give a good shot and they kind of chuckle and take off their jacket -- they can take a hell of a shot from a normal person and it doesn't really bother them much.  They can take that hit all day long.   Or a really skilled fast fighter can duck a shot so it doesn't hit them very solid, it just doesn't do much to them.
 
In other words, I try to build creatures and characters around the sort of attacks they'll be facing and how much I think it should affect them.  That's how PD works in my mind, and I think in the game,  Someone has 8 PD, they can take a hell of a hit from an ordinary person and shrug it off.   That guy is tough as all get out.  He's like that hulking German sergeant in Indiana Jones, the guy that gets chewed up by the prop.  Indy was a pretty good fighter, and threw everything he had at this guy but he was still coming and not really hurt.   Its not just fiction, there are guys really like that out there.

Which brings me to the second point I wanted to address about confusion, but it's far too late tonight to tackle it.  Short version is that I found something in the bestiary with a PD of 20.  It was a gigantic thing that weight something like a quarter-million tons and stood --- was it eighty meters high?
 
I will give a short version, though:
 
There are levels within levels:  "Heroic" isn't a one-size fits all.  Just because a Fantasy character might, by genre convention, go around sporting a 10 PD and a bit of armor to boot doesn't mean that this is appropriate within all kinds of "Heroic."  
 
There are no (still!) real guidelines for a world-- with the exception of supers and fantasy, there aren't even any "official" worlds which we can look at to pin benchmarks.  Sure, we all say "bit the beauty is that we aren't shackled, either!"  And trust me, I agree with that.  But _still_, if I want to build a campaign around around the French trenches in WWII, what should my guys look like?  Should a tough guy have a PD 5, able to soak up blows from pretty much any normal guy he encounters?  Or is it "reasonable" in some way to justify him having a 12 or a fifteen because "he's a big ol' boy?" and "it falls within "normal characteristics Maxima!"
 
The only things we have for benchmarks, really, is damage itself (what can he ignore?  What's it take to drop him?) and whatever genre-appropriate beasties might already be written up.  I've got to level with you, the only thing that I really appreciate about the last two editions has been that most of the bestiaries and equipment were written by the same guy who wrote the rules, so I can at least feel justified in accepting some sort of consistency there.  But it's not the same as having actual "official worlds" with "official guidelines."
 
I submit that maybe it wouldn't be a _bad_ idea to further divide power levels:  Super, Heroic, and Realistic.
 
Just a thought mind you, but one I think is worth thinking.

Well it's pretty damned obvious the quote boxes did _nothing_ for clarity!  
 
 

I am somewhat okay with the concept of these two powers, just not as officially written up talents.  When its a "pick from" list, it becomes a matter of people grabbing them just because "dude, this is powerful!" rather than "I have an idea for my character..."  When they have to come up with the build or work with the GM to make it, its going to usually be more character and concept- based rather than going down a list and getting the broken parts to make your l337 Goblin Pwner

I discuss this topic a bit in these documents:
 
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/armamentsNotes.aspx#DEADLY BLOW & http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/armamentsNotes.aspx#COMBAT LUCK
 
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/shrikeLethalityOptions_BuiltIns.aspx (a couple of paragraphs at the bottom)
 
-------------------
 
That aside, a few stray thoughts...
 
Deadly Blow / Weapon Master are IMO best in lower pointed heroic level games where the cost of them relative to a character's total points helps keep them in check and gear doesn't cost character points. In campaigns that allow powers, consider making characters buy a KA based power instead. For instance, if the character is paying character points for their "sword", defined as an HKA, it makes more sense for the character to just buy the HKA higher vs buying Weapon Master (6e) / Deadly Blow (5e). 
 
Combat Luck works pretty well in both heroic and superheroic level games, but in superheroic situations a character that relies entirely on Combat Luck is playing with fire so to speak...very brittle in clutch situations. In a non-lethal superheroic level game it isn't necessarily that big of a deal if the player is ok with their character sometimes getting pasted into GM's discretion land. In a lethal superheroic level game, it isn't necessarily a problem if the player is ok with the idea that they will likely end up needing a replacement character. When combined with some other form of defense which in combination brings the character into "competitive" range for the power level of the campaign, it can work well to model a basically survivable but somewhat squishy character and maps well over the idea of an "exceptional normal"...for instance some not-ridiculous combat armor plus some combat luck is a pretty common and plausible set up for a superagent or gadgeteer.
 
A character with a lot of Deadly Blow is basically just a burst damage / boss killer as long as the Deadly Blow applies to point target attacks; such a character can still be mobbed up on and challenged by mooks because the amount of damage beyond what is necessary to remove a single combatant from the equation is X and anything beyond what is needful is irrelevant and they are not much better at grinding thru a lot of weaker opponents one at a time than a character with less total dice but enough to reliably meet or exceed X. Beware of allowing a character who can easily translate Deadly Blow / Weapon Master into multi-target attacks.
 
 

I've found this problematic in Fantasy HERO when the killing attacks hit 3d6k and higher.  An average hit to the stomach/vitals does 44 stun and are fairly common.  This even with 8rPD/8PD - maxed out normal in full plate - results in taking 28 stun.  Then you're stunned and the next average blow to the chest/shoulders gets another 17 stun in and the fight is over.  The flip side is strikes to the arms/legs/hands do 6 stun and are easily ignored.
 
Granted 3d6k is a horrifying amount of damage in a heroic campgain as it represents and incredibly strong man (str 22 ish) using a great sword with 4 levels on damage.
 
It's hard to get just the right feel, but I very much enjoy that in Fantasy HERO campaigns the characters are actively blocking, dodging and trying to avoid face-tanking.