PhilFleischmann

Money.  And complexity--wrangling artist royalties and copyrights is not fun.

A friend of mine wrote an adventure (part 1 of 3) taking place in the Under Dark and the presentation and artwork (1 man show using some free artwork from the internet) are better than what I'm used to in HERO books.
 
I'm at a loss for words as to why my favorite RPG ever (by a lot!) never upped their production values over the decades.
 
 
  
 

 

For anyone who doesn't want to make that big of a change, there is a reasonable compromise:  Let the rMods for attacks remain the same: -2 for each doubling. and let rMods for perception be -1 per doubling of distance.
 
And Re: the super-smart person having better perception, I think the model for this is Sherlock Holmes.  I don't think his eyes (or any other sensory organs) were any better than any other normal human, but he observed a lot more and took in more details because of his high INT.  Yes, there is the "absent-minded professor" type, that walks down the street thinking about theoretical physics problems and falls into an open manhole because he's not paying attention to where he's going.  I'd say that's a Psychological Limitation.

I was so determined not to wade back into this....
 
...but I cannot resist getting on my old hobby horse.  The reason we have so much problem agreeing on this in game terms is because we cannot agree in real life.
 
As far as HERO goes, I think we would be in a better place without characteristics, they smear across skills and powers and are the source of our problems.
 
We say intelligence and, depending on context, we mean sharpness of mind, perspicacity, understanding, knowledge or a range of other things. 
 
Personally I would get rid of characteristics from the system.
 
There.  Said it.  Am going to retreat to watching again. 😄
 
Doc

I don't really see what the difference is.  You can't process information if you don't have any.  It's possible someone could have a 20- roll in "KS: Soft Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature" without having any knowledge whatsoever about how real science works, or real history, or any other useful information about the real world.  But even that knowledge of literature is something, and it indicates some level of intelligence.
 
Which to me, would indicate that the person who constructed the character has a low INT.  100% of everyone I've ever played HERO games with uses INT to mean intelligence, regardless of whatever vague and confused explanation the rulebooks might give.
 
Completely agreed.

If no one objects, I'd like to continue my exploration and elaboration of Ambrethel, this time examining the Ulimar Jungle. The largest jungle on the continent of Arduna, it forms the southern border between Mhorecia and the Westerlands. It's described on TA p. 93 as "a thickly-forested, rainy region where even few Elves care to dwell. Although some tribes of barbaric Drakine live within the Jungle's confines, for the most part the Ulimar is home only to wild creatures." Yet p. 47 notes the Ulimar as holding one of the largest populations of Seshurma (lizard-people) in Ambrethel. Less than fifty miles off the coast lie the Elrune Islands, three relatively small islands forming a "kingdom" of Elves, which is tributary to the nearby realm of Men, Besruhan.
 
In the contradictions about the jungle I saw an opportunity to add some diversity and character/story potential. First I filled up and divided the Ulimar among the different races in its vicinity. I expanded the kingdom of Elrune to all of the presumably more pleasant southern coastal region of the jungle. Besruhan once attempted to conquer the kingdom, but found themselves caught in a protracted guerilla war against foes adept at fading in and out of the thick growth. Eventually Besruhan agreed to withdraw their forces and allow the kingdom self-governance, in exchange for annual tribute from Elrune, and the establishment of a trading post by Besruhan on the outermost of the Elrune Islands, now known among Men as "Traders Isle." The post supplies shipping between the Westerlands and Mhorecia, and provides a site for Elrunean Elves who wish to trade with the outside world and interact with other races. The GM's Vault section of the TA source book notes on p. 93 that raids by the Sharthak (shark-men) on the Elrune Islands have grown more frequent, for unknown reasons. With the arrangement above, both the Elruneans and Besruhani would have vested interest in investigating and stopping them.
 
The northwestern part of the Ulimar Jungle is the home of the Seshurma. Although some of their tribes are hostile and aggressive toward outsiders, others engage in trade with the Elves or the neighboring Tornathian city-state of Sarkund (see TA p. 78). That contact sometimes encourages more adventurous Seshurma to travel out into the wider world as mercenaries or adventurers.
 
To the northeast is the territory of the Ulimaran Drakine. Descendants of those Drakine who fled into the jungle to escape the wrath of Men during the Drakine Wars, they've reverted to a more "barbaric" way of life. Their sahishas (alliances of families which are the foundation of Drakine society) have evolved to become more like tribes controlling particular areas. The Ulimaran Drakine remember how their ancestors were driven from their homes, and hold a xenophic hatred toward all other races. They frequently skirmish with the Elves and Seshurma, and sometimes raid the settlements of the Besruhani, or trading caravans to or from the Cheldar Pass into Tornathia, for both loot and revenge. They distrust even Drakine from elsewhere, and usually kill members of other races who enter their jungle on sight, or more slowly if they're in the mood for "entertainment."
 
 

I'm out of likes for the day, but LL echoes something I've been tired of pointing out since 4th ed.  The writing quality of Hero books is stellar.  The art direction is not.  The pages of Hero books look like Word documents.  Compare them to any book from WotC or GW.  In fact:
 

 
 

 

 

 
 
Colored headings.  Page backgrounds. Atmospheric yet readable fonts.  Table borders.  Icons to convey game concepts.  Margin art.  Full bleed printing.  I mean, I get that Hero has never had anything like a competitive budget and all these things are expensive, but I've always dreamt of having Hero books that were coffee table quality.  Instead, we got well-written but hard-to-read blocks of italicized text.  I will always love Hero as the best game system ever devised, but the art direction has always been disappointing, especially for a game that is based.  On.  Comic.  Books.

Dazzler = Feb 1980
Xanadu = Aug 1980
Bedazzler = 1970s!  <--  Winner!

Turakian Age is a very rich setting with so much good stuff in it, that you could take out 75% of it and still have enough to run a fully-immersive, and long-lasting, and far-reaching campaign.  You could probably run a good long campaign without ever going more than 100 miles from Aarn.
 
But setting books don't sell well, and books providing more details of settings sell even worse.  Oh, well.
 
But the main thing that is needed, IMO, is art.  Granted, art is expensive, even if it's only black & white.  More illustrations might have helped TTA sell better (or maybe not).  But regardless of the marketing decisions, art can really help bring a fantasy setting (or character or monster or whatever) to life.  I think even more than a book of additional details, a source of good illustrations of the Turakian Age would be helpful.  And some captions would help too, so we know what we're looking at.
 
I want to see a picture of Kal-Turak's Wall.  I want to see the Colossus of Aarn.  Or a city-scape of Aarn - maybe a view of King's Hill from The Processional.  A picture of Ildra Borala, Cyradon, Odellia, Dyvnar/Voitaigne, etc. Pictures of the Valley of the Sixteen Stones, the Stone Tree, the Tower of Bone, the Thaleran Wall, the Living Statues, etc.  And no, I don't want to see a picture of a generic castle or a generic mountain or a generic city - I want to know what *this* specific castle/city looks like, and how it differs from *that* castle/city.  In the entire 114-page Realms of Ambrethel section, there is not a single illustration.  Maps are great, but it's like trying to get a feel for the culture and flavor of a place by flying over it in an airplane.  Mardi Gras from six miles in the air is not as much fun as Mardi Gras on the streets of New Orleans.  Mount Rushmore doesn't look as impressive from out the window of a plane as it does from the ground.  You can't put your feet in the footprints of the stars in front of Mann's Chinese Theater unless you actually walk down Hollywood Boulevard.
 
Meanwhile, there are illustrations that don't seem to connect to anything.  For most of them, the reader has no idea what or who they're looking at.
 
Page 10:  Who are these people?  Where are they going?  And why are they wearing their goggles on their foreheads instead of over their eyes?
Page 13:  OK, a small skirmish between Men and Sharthak in a coastal town.  But which coastal town?  When did this happen?  And how often does this happen?
Page 14:  The Lord of the Graven Spear, looking like a generic fantasy warrior.  Why not show him actually doing something, instead of posing for a portrait?  Show him leading an army, holding court on his throne, striking down his enemies - anything!  The guy on the facing page has more personality and we don't even know who he is!
Page 18:  What's going on here?  Holding a meeting is already boring - but it would be less so if we actually knew who was meeting and why.
Page 23:  An impressive-looking guy, but who is he?
etc., throughout the entire book.  Oh, and pages 205 and 209, I assume these are gods, but which ones?
 
A picture is worth a thousand words.  Unfortunately, the thousand words usually cost less than the picture.
 
OK, I know I'm being harsh.  TTA really is an excellent book.  If I had the talent, I'd illustrate these things myself and post them here.  And yes, I'm fully aware that everything I'm suggesting is easier said than done.

For anyone who doesn't want to make that big of a change, there is a reasonable compromise:  Let the rMods for attacks remain the same: -2 for each doubling. and let rMods for perception be -1 per doubling of distance.
 
And Re: the super-smart person having better perception, I think the model for this is Sherlock Holmes.  I don't think his eyes (or any other sensory organs) were any better than any other normal human, but he observed a lot more and took in more details because of his high INT.  Yes, there is the "absent-minded professor" type, that walks down the street thinking about theoretical physics problems and falls into an open manhole because he's not paying attention to where he's going.  I'd say that's a Psychological Limitation.

As opposed to "hey, let's have a guy grow big feathered wings and be able to fly - we'll call him Angel"?
 
I think she was a disco-based character when introduced because most of the music industry was disco-based, so a musician looking for that big break was pretty likely to go for a disco look.  Roller skates were enjoying a resurgence, so she had roller skates.  The roller skates didn't last all that long, unlike the very serious, street level "Night Thrasher" using a skateboard throughout his published career.

You express your issue most eloquently, Phil. A great deal of the artwork in the TA book is indeed quite generic. Aside from pictures representing individuals, and the geopolitical maps, most of it has no explicit context to any particular place or event described in the accompanying text. In a few places there is implicit context if you've already absorbed some of the book. For example, p. 10 which you mentioned, since the previous pages discussed "The Earliest Days" of the setting, and we see three groups of people apparently separating, I always assumed it represented the division of the Ardunans under Khor and Ordon leaving Sirrenos and his followers behind, as they set out to find new homes away from the Drakine. Another would be p. 273, of a man in a rugged, frozen land approaching an ominous-looking tower, which I figure represents someone trying to sneak into Darkspire. As for the cover to the book, it could very well refer to a plot seed from p. 291, "The Archway To Iluria," a time-travel adventure to that great city before it was destroyed.
 
But all of that relates to what IMO is probably the greatest weakness of the book in terms of presenting a playable setting: vast breadth, but shallowness in bringing specific places to life. There's more than enough here for a GM to build such things for a particular campaign, but they would have to invest the time and energy themselves, or else crib from other published sources for art, city maps, and the like.
 
I know you appreciate that art is among the most costly components of a game book. I don't know whether commissioning a lot of art illustrating specific things would cost more than generic, but it would certainly require more intensive logistics in layout. And as the kind of artist/draftsman who draws a straight line when he's trying for a crooked one, I sympathize over your longing for more such talent.

Turakian Age is a very rich setting with so much good stuff in it, that you could take out 75% of it and still have enough to run a fully-immersive, and long-lasting, and far-reaching campaign.  You could probably run a good long campaign without ever going more than 100 miles from Aarn.
 
But setting books don't sell well, and books providing more details of settings sell even worse.  Oh, well.
 
But the main thing that is needed, IMO, is art.  Granted, art is expensive, even if it's only black & white.  More illustrations might have helped TTA sell better (or maybe not).  But regardless of the marketing decisions, art can really help bring a fantasy setting (or character or monster or whatever) to life.  I think even more than a book of additional details, a source of good illustrations of the Turakian Age would be helpful.  And some captions would help too, so we know what we're looking at.
 
I want to see a picture of Kal-Turak's Wall.  I want to see the Colossus of Aarn.  Or a city-scape of Aarn - maybe a view of King's Hill from The Processional.  A picture of Ildra Borala, Cyradon, Odellia, Dyvnar/Voitaigne, etc. Pictures of the Valley of the Sixteen Stones, the Stone Tree, the Tower of Bone, the Thaleran Wall, the Living Statues, etc.  And no, I don't want to see a picture of a generic castle or a generic mountain or a generic city - I want to know what *this* specific castle/city looks like, and how it differs from *that* castle/city.  In the entire 114-page Realms of Ambrethel section, there is not a single illustration.  Maps are great, but it's like trying to get a feel for the culture and flavor of a place by flying over it in an airplane.  Mardi Gras from six miles in the air is not as much fun as Mardi Gras on the streets of New Orleans.  Mount Rushmore doesn't look as impressive from out the window of a plane as it does from the ground.  You can't put your feet in the footprints of the stars in front of Mann's Chinese Theater unless you actually walk down Hollywood Boulevard.
 
Meanwhile, there are illustrations that don't seem to connect to anything.  For most of them, the reader has no idea what or who they're looking at.
 
Page 10:  Who are these people?  Where are they going?  And why are they wearing their goggles on their foreheads instead of over their eyes?
Page 13:  OK, a small skirmish between Men and Sharthak in a coastal town.  But which coastal town?  When did this happen?  And how often does this happen?
Page 14:  The Lord of the Graven Spear, looking like a generic fantasy warrior.  Why not show him actually doing something, instead of posing for a portrait?  Show him leading an army, holding court on his throne, striking down his enemies - anything!  The guy on the facing page has more personality and we don't even know who he is!
Page 18:  What's going on here?  Holding a meeting is already boring - but it would be less so if we actually knew who was meeting and why.
Page 23:  An impressive-looking guy, but who is he?
etc., throughout the entire book.  Oh, and pages 205 and 209, I assume these are gods, but which ones?
 
A picture is worth a thousand words.  Unfortunately, the thousand words usually cost less than the picture.
 
OK, I know I'm being harsh.  TTA really is an excellent book.  If I had the talent, I'd illustrate these things myself and post them here.  And yes, I'm fully aware that everything I'm suggesting is easier said than done.

Interesting situation. It strikes me that you are building encounters where the PCs can easily overwhelm a small set of opponents, who may be at varying power levels, with very focused paralysis spells.
 
I would recommend the following:
1. Increase the number of opponents. They don't have to be more powerful, just more numerous. This will keep the PCs on their toes and open opportunities for the villains to actually strike back, protect, counter-attack. Don't forget to apply the multiple attacker penalty on their DCV.
2. Include among your villains casters who can do the same things: have the PCs be mentally paralyzed and sent to the hospital for a few months.
3. If the PCs are known for these tactics, clever opponents will arrive prepared: consider spell reflection abilities or wards, or spell nullification preparations. I would pay good money to see one of them cast that spell and have it reflected back on them. The look ought to be priceless.
4. Consider having the villains have exotic pets: have some unearthly monsters with high mental immunity - constructs, high powered enslaved undead - things that will generally be immune to mental powers. 
 
Overall, the players are acting out a specialization with that power. All you need to do is create a setting in which the specialization does not apply. That should put them over the flame for a while.
 
Just my $0.02.

People understand percentages differently: you know if you have a 45% chance then 1-45 is good, anything over that is bad.
 
The problem with Hero 3d6 rolls is not, to my mind, that it is a low roll system per se - people rarely fuss about getting less that 14 if they know they have to roll that, the problem is that in combat you have to add 11 to your OCV then SUBTRACT the 3d6 roll.  I know, I know, 11+OCV-DCV as a target number to roll under, but that is not how it is written in the rules.
 
It is all about presentation though.
 
"Roll."
 
"I got an 18!"
 
"Oh bad luck..."
 
Is much worse perceptually than:
 
"Roll under 14."
 
"I got an 18."
 
"Oh bad luck..."
 
The problem with the shortcut is it tells the player information they (maybe) shouldn't have.  Roll high, it is easy.  OCV+3d6-10 gives you the DCV you can hit and you can shout that out and the GM can say whether you hit.
 
Roll low, the calculation is OCV+11-3d6.  Same result - you shout out the DCV you can hit but it just does not look or feel as good or as straightforward.  You are adding eleven rather than taking 10 and subtracting 3d6 rather than adding it.  For most people addition is less daunting than subtraction unless, you know, 10.
 
In fact you can shortcut it further.  If you record your DCV as DCV+10 then the calculation is just OCV+3d6.  Sure you can 'just' record OCV as OCV+11 but then subtraction again.

Anyone with passive sonar would have an area "illuminated" by someone using active sonar.  I would say that, similarly, anyone with passive sight would have the area illuminated by someone using active sight. 🙂

You know what I like about Chris's 1d6 Blast suggestion? 
 
It reminds me that we give away light for free. 
 
"what three senses (two, for 6e players) can detect your EB?" 
 
Well, it's a bolt of lighting, so I was thinking a brilliant arc of electricity, an electric 'sizzle' noise, and the smell of burnt ozone. "
 
Got it; it appeals to four senses. 
 
No; that's three. 
 
Does it hurt when you get hit with it? 
 
Of course it does!  It's lightning! 
 
Touch is a sense. 
 
Fine.  So I'll drop-
 
No; you don't have to drop one.  You can have all you want.  But if you drop touch, you're wasting a lot of points. 
 
You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? 
 
"_No, he's just smug about pointless crap.  You'll get used to it-_" 
 
Knock it off, Mark!   Anyway, Loren, tell me about your other powers... 
I
(f I wasn't jonesing so hard for a game....) 
 
Later:  
 
Yes; you recognize the voice talking into the radio.  That shadowy figure in the darkness is definitely him. 
 
I take my time; he doesn't know I'm here.  I really line up the shot, making sure I stay focused squarely on him. 
 
Roll to hit. 
 
SWEET!  Got a seven! 
 
The warehouse flashes for the briefest instant into crisp, clear focus, instantly yet briefly filled with a flicker of brilliant light as your lightning strike sizzles through the space between you,- for the briefest instant, you can see he is not alone! Then you mighty zigguraut of untamed electrons strikes Doctor Nair Duwell perfectly in the chest!  The scent of burnt ozone reaches you just about the same time his screams of rage ring in your ears-
 
Wait:  what did you say? 
 
The scent of burnt ozo-
 
No; before that
 
That shadowy figure is definitely him? 
 
You said " The warehouse flashes for the briefest instant into crisp, clear focus, instantly yet briefly filled with a flicker of brilliant light." 
 
Yes...?
 
Take it back. 
 
Excuse me? 
 
Take it back. 
 
.. Uuuuuhhhh..... _whyyyy_? 
 
Because it can't.  I don't have Images. 
 
What the hell are-
 
You said that I have to buy images to make light! 
 
Yeah, sure, but that's to have light that actually, you know, lasts more than two eyeblinks! 
 
What about Terri?  You said that "the glow of her forcefield was sufficient enough to let her sneak through here without banging into stuff.  Why? 
 
It glows!  When she built her character, she specifically said" soft yellow glow from the forcefield!"  Glow means light! 
 
She doesn't have images, either! 
 
Dude, it just makes sense that if it glows she would be able to see what she is stepping on or into, right? 
 
I want a flashlight 
 
You sure?  That's like thirty-two pointa.  Have you banked 32 points? 
 
Fine.  Can I kind of cycle my lightning, like arc it between my fingers or something?  
 
Sure!  Presence Attack? 
 
No,  I want to see if I can generate enough light this way to read the blotter on this desk; I'm hoping it might name the buyer. 
 
Oh sure, that could work!  Make a Power Skill roll. 
 
Hi-yeah!  Nat 3, Baby! 
 
You are able to modulate your electrical powers so cleanly and perfectly, what with that 3, that it's almost like to had a hand-held arc light.  You have manged to chase almost all the shadows back to the edges of the room or into the shadows under the desk or across the filing cabinets... 
 
Yeah.  So how much was that flashlight? 
 
Thirty-two points.  Want to save up for it? 
 
Nah...   I think I'm good.... 
 
You know what I like about Phil's astute observation that normal sight should cost the same as blindness? 
 
The reminder that for twenty-five points, I shoukd be able to see from where I stand to the horizon with no penalties other than range. 
 
Ever wonder what that area was?  You science guys probably already know that it's about 3.1 miles to the horizon at sea level.  That means in sweeping from the horizon dead ahead to the horizon over your left shoulder, you have taken in, in a glance, 9.61 square miles. 
 
Figuring your peripheral vision to stop just a tiny bit before your shoulders, let's say you can stand staring forward and potentially perceive 4/3 of that (2/3 of the left and right fields.  A quick Google suggests your periphery is a bit more than what I am suggesting, but I'm trying to keep this simple. I am also not going to suggest getting in an airplane thousands of feet above the Earth and noticing that you can _still_ see to the horizon). 
 
4/3 of 9.61 is 12.8133333 etc. Square miles. 
 
This gives us the handy round figure of thirty-three million, one-hundred eighty-six thousand, three-hundred and eighty point nine-eight-two-eight. 
 
You know, I'm feeling like we should round in the character's favor here. Let's just call it an even 33,186,390 square meters. 
 
So we divide that by the twenty-five points we "sort-of-paid for not being blind? - - and we see that a single point spent on light should allow us to illuminate one-and-one-third _million_ square meters. 
 
It's no _wonder_ we give that crap away for free!   We'll have to start burning off the surplus if we expect it to ever be worth anything at all! 
 
Which takes me back to Chris's other suggestion:  if you really want to charge for it, charge somewhere between 1 and 5 pts.  Personally, if you spent a _whole point_ for the ability to light up a 10m X 10m room, you got _screwed_.... 
 
 

I'm an incorrigible punster, so don't incorrige me.

We split ours up based on weapon type for flavor.  Two-handed weapons can sweep adjacent enemies (no multiple hits on single target).  Dual wielders can hit a single target twice.

in 5e (or was it 4e) UMA designing new styles/maneuvers:
 
Guy made his own martial maneuver:  Something like a block +2 OCV +3 DCV, +4d6+v/5 damage, full move, grab 4 limbs +20 str, target thrown to the ground.  All for only 27 points.
 

At need, you could simply shout and use your sonar to see where the sound waves bounce.  It would be a bit "noisy" as the sound would not be clean and pure but it would work as long as the sound could be maintained....like using a flickery candle rather than a decent electric light.
 
Doc

Doing a bit of comparison... 
Change Environment:  -1 to PER costs 2 points for one Sense or 3 points for one Sense Group Enhanced Perception:  +1 to a character's PER costs 1 point for +1 to one Sense, 2 points for +1 to one Sense Group, or 3 points for +1 to all Sense Groups Nightvision:  5 points, for +4 against natural darkness penalties.   Images:  +/-1 to viewers' PER costs 3 points regardless of what Senses/Sense Groups, which are bought separately (10/Targeting Group, 5/Nontargeting Group, 5/Targeting Sense, 3/Nontargeting Sense) CE is single target; Images is a base 1 cubic meter.  It's assumed that both of these will be bought with Area of Effect if needed.  I'm ignoring the Darkness Power as I don't think it's relevant.  
 
For Images, my assumption is that if it's used for light, it acts as a spotlight effect in whatever its area is (thanks to Phil for that, btw).  If the AoE you've bought it to is bigger than the area you're in, it will illuminate the entire area (i.e. room lights).  
 
Which is good, and all, except that as @dsatow and others have pointed out, it's expensive for what it does.  I'm not certain that it's worth the points for something that we're pretty sure is free (points-wise) as a "standard" item (battery powered flashlight, burning firebrand torch, lantern or lamp of whatever tech level, etc.).  
 
I'm inclined to just go with my original instinct: a custom Power.  Maybe 1-5 points for the ability to create light on demand as a Power (spell, etc.), which can be built through a Focus if desired, but a light source of some kind (torch, flashlight, etc.) is usually free, points-wise.  And if you already have light-based Powers, using them like a flashlight is as free as a character with flame powers using them to light a candle.  (Analogously, a character with sonic powers can act as a "sonar flashlight" for Sonar, infrared likewise with IR light, and so on.)

I'll fess up on a cheesy-munchkin build on an NPC - although he was mainly an ally of the PCs.
 
Many campaigns ago ( in 4th edition rules / Champions Universe), the heroes rescued a man from Malachite's clutches.  This NPC was seemingly completely normal, albeit with normal maxima (20 STR, 20 DEX, etc.), eidetic memory... and amnesia.  The man they dubbed John Doe also could use any weapon (had every Weapon Familiarity), and had Find Weakness, AOE (cone), for any attack, with a good enough roll that he could generally get 2-3 successes on most people.  Thus, he could pick up a normal pistol and find / target that one chink in a foe's defenses that allowed him to hurt even superpowered foes.  The heroes adopted John Doe as an associate member, with one of the players generally running that character in combat, although since he didn't have major defenses he tried to avoid combat situations.
 
All of the heroes efforts to find out who John Doe was failed completely.
 
Toward the end of the campaign, the heroes went to the Malachite Islands and faced off against Malachite himself.  During the fight, Malachite revealed that he had created John Doe - he was a test-tube baby, genetically engineered and rapid-aged to adulthood, hypnotically implanted with certain knowledge / skills - as well as a Berserk condition.  And his "rescue" was planned, since Malachite wanted John Doe to spend plenty of time with the heroes, learning all their vulnerabilities, susceptibilities, and weaknesses.  Malachite's spoken command word activated John Doe's Berserk , causing him to attack the heroes.
 
And the heroes, any one of whom could have fairly easily put John Doe down for the count, instead opted to restrain him and talk him down, because to their minds he was one of them.  It took some doing, but they succeeded.  Incredible role-playing on their part.  I was very proud of my players and how they handled it.

I disagree that this is how we must represent lack of natural light.  Lack of natural light existed as a condition long before Change Environment existed to give us the means to build a Power to replicate it, or before Dispel or Suppress existed to give us a means to dispel Powers.  
 
I'm perfectly fine with a Change Environment creating low-light conditions via a Sight PER penalty, and having those low-light conditions be mitigated via whatever means we're using to represent light.  I don't think that means that Dispel or Suppress Darkness is necessarily it.  It would be approximately as effective as my previous, "1d6 Blast (light), AoE, Constant, Does No BODY, Does No Stun, etc."  
 
We don't need a Power construct to replicate everything.  
 
 
As does light:  Images.  That we're having this discussion, trying to figure out what else to use besides Images, doesn't change the fact that Images is a nice clear mechanism, and in fact is specified in the rules.  
 
 
The capital-D Darkness here indicates the Darkness Power.  And I can think of a number of SFX for the Darkness Power that wouldn't be Dispelled by light.  Smoke cloud, for instance.  Cloud of crystalline shards.  Field of bright light.  Darkness vs. Hearing, Radio, Taste/Smell.  
 
And, again, going back to the first post in the thread, we don't seem to be talking about dispelling the Darkness Power.  

The general Limited Power covers a lot.  I see no reason you couldn't look at the Time Limit Limitation from 6th and import it into 4th via Limited Power.