Lorehunter

This week's session played over Roll20.
 
<On finding out that local law requires cutting off a thief's hand for a first offense>
Assassin-subclass Rogue: Oh man I'm sure glad that I'm just a professional killer and not a pickpocket.
 
The eldritch knight can't show his face in town, but his shield was recently broken. For reasons that defy all sense, the cleric and druid have decided that this shield -must- be repaired, not replaced. They polymorph the eldritch knight into a rat, keep him in a bag, and go to the armorer. They work out all the details for payment, materials, delivery, they come up with alibis and needlessly complicated stories of how it came to be broken in the first place.
Shopkeep: Okay, so where's the shield.
Druid and Cleric: stare dumb at each other.
DM: was it on the Knight when you polymorphed him?
Cleric: ... yes.
DM: So now it's part of him until he reverts to his own shape?
Druid: ... Yes.
Shopkeep: So... the shield?
Cleric: Ah, we, uh, forgot it. We've got to run real quick, we'll bring it right back to you.
 
DM: Okay, so you're looking for the beggar's dog. We're gonna take this quick and easy, just a couple of up-down investigation rolls. Give me all the results and we'll see how you do.
Druid: Okay, so I bombed it. But, uh, I can use the probability warp of my clockwork pendant to change my roll to a ten, so... ten?
Sorceror: I rolled a one. But, I have advantage because of this magic item, so .. a twenty.
DM: Uh-huh. One more for each of you, you're getting close.
Druid: A one. I'm spending inspiration to re-roll. And... a nineteen.
DM: Double-You-Tee-Eff with these rolls.
Sorceror: I know, right? Okay, that's a nineteen.
DM: Roll again for your advantage, you may get a crit after all.
Sorceror: Nope, it's a one.
DM: Hmm. One more investigation roll. Either of you.
Sorceror: That's a two, and... a four. Screw it, I'm spending the sorcery points to succeed automatically.
DM: Fine. Okay. Let me describe what you see. First, have any of you seen the movie CATS?
<Full round of horrified screeching and protests from all the players>
 
No specific quote for this one, but the cleric blew out most of his good spell levels curing a homeless roughneck going through drug withdrawals and severe malnutrition. Asks the down-and-out-er how he came to be this way, NPC reveals that he used to be an acolyte of the evil god that is opposed to the cleric's god. Lots of pointed glaring at the DM over that.
 
<Evil cultists barge into inn room, looking for good-aligned priest.>
Warlock: What? Who? No, I'm... uh... Carrie. <gives name of prominent local family that is known by every resident of the town>
other player: Good trope: when someone is just AGGRESSIVELY bad at lying.
Druid: Oh, yeah, we'd love to help you find those good-aligned priests. Hey, Carrie, why don't you help these guys get some tea?
Warlock: ..
Druid: -Carrie-, go get them some tea.
Warlock: ...
Druid: -ahem-, -Carrie!-
Warlock: Oh, me?
other player: AGGRESSIVELY BAD AT LYING
<good-aligned priest in the next room over tries to escape through the window, rolls a hilariously bad stealth check>
DM: That's a loud crashing noise.
<Simultaneously> Warlock: I throw myself down the stairs to cover up the noise. Sorceror: I cast minor illusion of a crash to cover up the noise.
DM: So, let's look at this. The cultists have heard a loud crashing coming from this direction, this direction, and over here, all at the same time.
Player: SO BAD AT LYING
Cultists go to investigate the noises. Sorceror, Warlock and Druid all roll Deception checks. Druid rolls high af, convinces cultist that that busted window frame was always there. Sorceror rolls high af and convinces that cultist that he's a wild mage and always wakes up with a sound of thunder. Warlock rolls hilariously poorly, tells cultist she had never seen stairs before.
Player: I'm dying.

Linking three powers together is discussed on 6e1 p. 383.  The two "lesser" (lowest cost) Powers would both take the -1/2 Linked Limitation, and would both be linked to the "greater".  Ordinarily, Linked only applies to the lesser Power(s), and only restricts them; the greater Power could be used with or without the Linked Powers.  With GM permission, you could make the greater Power "jointly linked" to the lesser Power(s); ordinarily this would be a -0 Limitation on the greater, but some GMs might be willing to allow up to a -1/4 Limitation to the greater Power, if the combination is deemed to be more inconvenient to use.  (Also 6e1 p. 383.)  
 

If I'm understanding the question correctly, it's largely academic and answered in gameplay.  Let's take an example:

Character A acts on DEX 18 during Phase 4.  He chooses to use an Attack Power with the Gestures Limitation (specifics don't really matter here).  This presumes that the character is able to perform the Gestures (i.e. not Grabbed, Entangled, or otherwise restrained).  Just like any other Attack Power, it's going to work unless another character interrupts them.  Without the Gestures Limitation, the options to interrupt Character A and prevent them from using the Attack Power are somewhat limited. With the Gestures Limitation, another character could have Character A Covered and use an Entangle or other restraint -- if they win the DEX roll-off (so that their Action goes before Character A's) and hit with the Entangle or other restraint, the Gestures automatically fail and the Power cannot be used.
 
For a non-Attack Power (that activates as a Zero Phase Action) all the same logic applies -- the activation itself can be stopped if another character acts before our intrepid hero...or the Power can be deactivated at any time if Constant (e.g. a force field) and Gestures are required throughout.

Hello!
 
The short version (without referencing the text) is that a Limitation defines a power, and an Advantage enhances the efficacy of a power; the use case you’re referencing speaks to the special effect of a power.
 
For example, a -0 Limitation (or a limitation worth no points) means that something that would otherwise be worth points becomes flavor text for an ability, but it’s also a permanent fixture. So if it has -0 Perceivable, it always generates a roll if the player attempts to be sneaky, which for fire makes complete sense. A +0 Advantage is rarer, but similarly is doing something that reasonably aligns to the special effect.
 
Let me know if that answers the question, or if you would like to deep dive on the topic, you can always post your question to the broader Hero System Discussion forum and the rest of the community can weigh in. 
 
Edited, now that I’ve eaten and I’m not merely existing between meetings: Your example, where it can have a -0 Perceivable Limitation, or, a +0 Provides Light Advantage, is actually an “and” construction; those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, so both can exist simultaneously and in fact, support each other. Just an additional point of consideration.

Triskaideka

"Trixie" to her team, Triskaideka (Greek for 13) is, as far as she knows, the only super-patriot Witch in the United States. She is a middle-aged, olive-skinned, dark-eyed woman who wears a costume in an aproximation of late-18th century colonial style, a long, generous red & white striped skirt (7 red & 6 white, of course), an indigo-blue blouse adorned with 13 pentacles, and a yellow bonnet circled by a disturbingly realistic beadwork rattlesnake (that actually rattles when danger is near). She rides a litteral witch's broom (a bough taken from a tree infected with basidiomycetes) named 'Old Hickory' which seems to have a bit of a mind of it's own, flying her with apparent reluctance, sometimes, enthusiasm others, and even attacking enemies on it's own. She always starts out carrying an olive branch, with which she can use mind control to enforce peaceful behavior - until an affected mind breaks free, then it bursts into flames - after which she produces a sheaf of 13 arrows and conjures a 'moon bow' to shoot them. She continues from there, conjuring various weapons and magical paraphenalia, often with only very obcure patriotic symbolism ("what does a brass mace have to do with America?" "it's the clapper from a really large bell!"). In spite of all her magic, she is as vulnerable to gunfire and other forms of violence as an ordinary person, and it's not too unusual for her to be killed outright in a super-battle. However, her body vanishes, and she 'reincarnates,' the next time "the clock strikes 1" (the 13th hour) - standard time, mind you - waking up in a random "National Historic Site," /usually/ in the same State. In addition to flight and combat magics, she can use Clairvoyance to see to any place US currency is exposed to the light (as if she were looking out the eye on the pyramid) - which is less than you might think, most bills being in a wallet, purse, cash register, vault etc, most of the time.
When, like any super-patriot, she waxes elloquent about her beloved country, she tends to emphasize Freedom of Religion, of Speach, and of /Choice/, and, like a hokey PSA, the importance of voting rights.
And, of course, she is very big on the 13th Ammendment, especially while beating on so called 'human-traffickers.'

Absolute 0
 
The Universe will end in either Fire or Ice it has been said. For Absolute 0 it needs to be ice. He is attuned in one way or another to every atom and every molecule, everyone of them, everywhere. It can feel when a sun goes nova, when one mortal does harm to another, when a planet is poisoned and corrupted. It knows when the fabric of time or space are torn asunder by powerful interdimensional beings. It can not escape this pain, these feelings. The only thing it wants peace and quiet, an end to all the endless noise that is existence. The only way to do that is the way it did it in the last Universe it was in : stop all the motion in all the atoms so that everything dies, everything becomes silent, all the buzzing and humming and thrumming finally stops and it can once again know peace until the next Universe starts.

Absolute 0
 
The Universe will end in either Fire or Ice it has been said. For Absolute 0 it needs to be ice. He is attuned in one way or another to every atom and every molecule, everyone of them, everywhere. It can feel when a sun goes nova, when one mortal does harm to another, when a planet is poisoned and corrupted. It knows when the fabric of time or space are torn asunder by powerful interdimensional beings. It can not escape this pain, these feelings. The only thing it wants peace and quiet, an end to all the endless noise that is existence. The only way to do that is the way it did it in the last Universe it was in : stop all the motion in all the atoms so that everything dies, everything becomes silent, all the buzzing and humming and thrumming finally stops and it can once again know peace until the next Universe starts.

The Burning
 
Some universes end in ice...others in fire.
L'uok was a scientist and explorer in his universe. It was he who discovered that the stars were converging, he who realised that soon they would coalesce into a primordial monobloc. Recognized as the greatest of his people, they sacrificed for him, provided him with age-eliminating drugs, and he lived a million lifetimes in his search to find a way to prevent the elimination of his people and all their long history from effectively having never been.
He failed.
At the end he drove his ship, the last ship, straight into the coalescing monobloc, hoping to explode it early, prevent the formation of another doomed universe.
He Failed.
Instead he found himself here, in this universe, empowered by heat...eternal, unbearable heat. He has sought many ways to end his existence and eternal torment.
HE FAILED.
Now, as The Burning, he believes that only by being within another dying universe can he cease to be. He will do anything to accomplish this - after all, nothing actually matters.

Pop-Scare

Bárðarbunga Hvannadalshnúkursdottir is /Huldufólk/, one of an ancient tribe of peaceful other-dimensional fairy-like beings living, from the earthly perspective, in large rocks. When Bárðarbunga's rock was blown to bits for a road-cut, she was, fortunately, out shopping ( /Huldufólk/ do all the same everday things as humans), but when she returned home to find herself homeless, she was miffed. After driving the unfortunate construction company out of business with unexplained accidents, she wandered off in search of a new home. Sadly all the nice big lava rocks on the island were taken, or had exhorbidant rent (again, they're just like people), so she headed overseas. After much wandering, she found a "haunted house" somewhere in North America and participated in the humans' amusing ritual of scaring eachother. It was fun, but it didn't last, so she went looking for similar places, putting several fun houses out of business until Ring Master recruited her.
In her natural form, at least, on the earthly plane, Bárðarbunga is a three inch tall pudgy humanoid with frizzy bright red hair that stands on end prettymuch all the time, and, superfluously, she can turn invisible or shunt herself into the otherworld if she really doesn't want to be seen. In combat, she uses limited telepathy to intuit a victims instinctive or childhood fears and briefly grows to an appropriate size to assume the form of that fear, then vanishes again. Enemies who spot, or worse, hurt her, and those she can't read fears from, she'll attack in a human-sized warty-green-skinned black-haired (still standing on end) superhumanly-strong 'troll' form, preferably employing 'growth momentum' to really wallop them.
While it's a really low bar, Pop-Scare is probably the most dependable member of the group, able, for instance, to patiently wait in ambush or for a signal, and the most nearly likely to stick to a battle plan for a phase or two before getting distracted by someone with a really amusing fear.

The Coven

While not powerful mages individually, the Coven can imbue one of its members with great power for a period ranging from one to, at most, 25 hours (from midnight to 1 am the following night). The powers gained, however, depend on the member's position within the Coven and the challenge they are trying to overcome, but generally center around one of: commanding an apect of nature, like weather or fire or plants or animals, transformations either transforming others into harmless animal forms or allowing the chosen member to assume a powerful bestial or mythical form, or influencing the senses or mind, or most severely 'twisting fate' to bring about certain outcomes without apparent direct agency. When opposing those who abuse magic, the Coven can invoke & enforce the "law of threefold return" which visits the trebbled consequences of malevolent magic back upon its caster or, on the other extreme, grant an obsessive mage the object of his desire in return for setting aside magical powers (thought it's depressing how often mages, when granted what they tell themselves they have taken up magical power to attain, instead choose to continue weilding magic for its own sake). When working with the other Messengers of the Goddess, the Coven will sometimes enhance an ally's powers instead of sending one of their own into action.

The Coven, itself, is subject to the Law of Threefold Return, but they distribute the consequences among the whole, thus their empowered representative can afford to use magic to harm or even kil - sparingly.

(Yes, that's meant to count as a single character, though they could also function as background 'agents' and support when not putting all their effort in empowering one of them to superhero levels.)

Sinkhole
 
To say Sinkhole is old is like saying the ocean is deep. He looks like one of the ancient cow pokes off the cover of a Louis L'Amour book. A soft spoken man, he normally keeps to himself. Once he was seen walking along the length of a oil pipeline that had been fined numerous times for poor construction and disregarding environmental impact restrictions. As he walked the ground behind him seemed to suddenly grow soft and unstable. The entire pipeline simply sank into the ground. In the following investigation not a single trace of the pipeline or the oil it carried were ever found. It was if the earth had simply swallowed it all back down from whence it had come.

Sacred Ground is a team dedicated to protecting the lands from those that would strip it for their personal gain. The 8 members all have strong earth based ties or powers.

Wave Front
 
Max built his own power armor using some new and somewhat radical concepts. At first it worked great. Then when facing off against Mechanon, the evil robot released a cloud of nanites to try and takeover the armor. The two conflicting operating systems caused catastrophic system failures and both technologies crashed. Luckily Max was able to retreat dragging his armor back to his lab. After months of research and trial and error he was able to not only reconfigure the two systems to be compatible but when they rebooted together they caused several new quantum mechanic effects to manifest. He is once again back in the fight using his new power armor that even he barely understands the workings of.

Hern the Hunter
 
Hern is a large imposing figure. 7+' tall with the head and antlers of stag he is most often seen bare-chested wearing only buckskin breeches and leather boots. He uses both a bow and spear when in combat and has shown considerable speed and strength. Over the centuries he has targeted nobility that have been used slash and burn tactics for war and agriculture, mortals that hunt for sport instead of necessity, polluters, and those that attack the servants of the Goddess directly. It is said that once his quarry has been marked he can track them anywhere on Earth or Fairy and never quits the hunt until he has slain his prey. 

Messengers of the Goddess
 
This group of seven are followers of the Goddess and practitioners of Wicca fight against those that would misuse mystical powers they have for their own gains or to harm the Earth itself. 

Windstorm
 
What better city than Chicago, the Windy City, to be home of the hero known as Windstorm ? With his abilities to control winds and air, he is often seen fling about helping the small and large. Whether it is rescuing a little girl's kitten in Kennedy Park or a Gulfstream at O'Hara this hero takes his job seriously. There have even been some photoshopped images of him wearing a certain red and blue copyrighted outfit of another boy scout hero.

Spider's Bite
 
She was born somewhere in Asia to a mixed heritage. Her parents "left" her with relatives who "decided to give her a better life". Her childhood and adolescent years are not know of and she never speaks of them. Indeed she speak rarely at all. When she does talk her voice is cold and emotionless and oddly slow, like she is carefully turning each word over in her mind to taste it and see if it is the right one. She is slight of build being barely 4'8" and about 60 lbs. Her skin is pale but her eyes and hair are black. Many have a difficult time looking into her eyes as they lack any color other than the deep black of the iris that covers the entire eye. They say the eyes are windows on the soul and looking into Spider's eyes shows she has no soul.
 
Of all the members she is the least when it come to hand to hand combat. Where she excels is in rare poisons. Fast acting, slow building, untraceable, untreatable, painless or painful, whatever effect the client may want she has a toxin to fit the bill. Additionally she has learned thousands of methods of delivery for almost any situation.
 

White Phantom
 
Born a very long time ago, before the rise of the samurai, a boy was born to a small mountain clain. They were "allied" to the Tengue of the mountain and the boy was sent to their allies as was the custom. The boy was never seen again by his family. Years and years later after the rise of the 1st Shogun and the coming of the Samurai a group of soldiers came upon the village. They were tired and had marched far. They decided the village would be a good place to rest. The slept in the best places, ate most of the food, took who they pleased to bed, killed those who objected or who they just didn't like. On the 5th day as they were get ready to leave it was a cold and foggy morning, the smell of snow in the air. On the road before stood a figure in white. He called out to the men in stilted Japanese and told them they had to pay for the way they had used the village and its people. The soldiers laughed and derided the stranger in white but he was no longer there. They started to leave and continue their journey. Every 10 feet they moved away from the village one of their number dropped dead. When only 10 remained the stranger appeared again.
 
 "I have collected what was owed to the village of the bodies of your comrades. You are free to continue. If you fail to pay again I will return and collect payment." A small just of wind swirled the mist and the stranger was no longer there.
 
Over the decades and centuries when debts are owned, the White Phantom has been there to collect, usually in blood. He seems to always know who owes the debt. and if the person can pay. If they can not they die. If they can they are tormented until they do. In a group he starts with those that owe the most and works his way down to the least. He has never slain a child but they are often taken as payment never to be seen again by their loved ones.
 
He does not like working with Iron Hawk. for one she is a woman and should stay home, keep the house and care for the children as that is her place and her debt. He does admit she is an effectective killer if a bit indiscriminate and messy.

30,000 years ago mankind was so primitive it could barely understand languages and tools let alone the mystical workings of the world. In this time Nu moved through all the waters of the land. Then mankind began to learn and understand. In doing so they began to break up the wonder and mystery of the world into smaller and smaller portions so that their primitive minds could more easily understand things. This process broke up Nu and tore him apart. He lashed back but they were many and grew in both power and numbers. Eventually Nu saw his future and so he retreated and hid himself away. Over time he was forgotten. In the darkness of the deep waters he regathered his powers. Now his is rising to once again claim his place as Master of All Waters.

The murderous villain Carlsbad Cavern enjoys cause the slow death of his victims. By causing stoney stalagmites to burst from the ground and impale his targets he gets to watch them like bugs on pins. He appears as an old prospector from the days of California's gold rush. 
 
 

For a moment I thought this was Patrick Warburton in the costume--but it's a New York cosplayer named Michael Byrnes--
 

 

Moon Witch
 
Helen Strothers is a follower of Wicca. She got into it at college but found some of it a tad weak. She felt that there was something else, some more power. Her new beliefs clashed with her parents who pointed out the truth of her beliefs conclusively proved by the Jack Chick tract Dark Dungeons. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Helen headed out and found herself drawn to Alaska and the largest US forest The Tongass. She found herself miles from anything with only her belief to sustain her when 'something happened'. When she emerged from the forest she was now the Moon Witch servant of the goddess. As far as her family is concerned the Chick tract has come tragically true. But Helen is now happy and has a direction in life.

You asked, and I quote:
 
 
 
 
It simulate success or failure.  Given that you show tendencies to lead to your actual question or questions with a rhetorical one, I felt comfortable enough answering that second one first.
 
The entirety of the rest of the post is an attempt to answer the first part of the question-- or at least, to answer _why it is_.  "Why must it be" is not something I can answer, as it's game, and there is no "must be."  See my absolute hatred of the new Combat >ahem< _"Luck"_ for proof of that.
 
Point blank, it can be any way you want it to be.  Have fun with it.  It doesn't affect anyone who is not at your table, and if they all like it, then it's an improvement.  If they don't like it, back up, regroup, and try something else.  No one here is going to force, require, demand, or strong arm you to do it a certain way.  The same way that I like it and have no intention of changing it, I encourage you to find something you like better.  All I can do is attempt to make you understand why this is valid, and why I think it emulates comics-- the same way I understand why Combat Luck is valid.  I encourage you to to find mental powers mechanics you like, if you don't like the ones available.  I even encourage you to share them around-- we all like to see new ideas.
 
I also encourage you to understand that I am probably not the only person here who isn't going to change the way they work; I am probably not the only person here who finds the current mechanic to work precisely how I need it to work in my games: it provides a handsome boon for those willing to really invest in it, yet doesn't create an inexpensive temptation requiring every Tom, Dick, and Batman to buy EGO: 40 and twenty points of Mental Defense-- just in case.
 
It's absolutely meta balance, but it does balance well enough for my needs.
 
I did the same thing with Combat Luck:
 
Combat Luck: 5- pts.  This Skill Level applies directly to your CV, making you harder to hit and upping the odds that you will actually hit someone.  Cool!  He missed me by one!  Yep.  I reckon you got lucky....
 
 
 
You tell us.  You are the one arguing that it doesn't suit the source material.  I gave the only source material references I am familiar with, and the current mechanic jibes quite nicely with them.  Hugh raised some excellent questions on that front, too.  His examples also seem to play quite nicely with the source material, at least those instances to which he referred.  It's your turn.  Tell us why it doesn't.
 
 
 
 
So Flight is Extra Time, then?  Because to sustain a Flight, he'd have to turn it off and on over and over and over?
 
We are stumbling over reasoning from effect.  Unless 6e has done something really whacky, the only requirement for SFX is that they are detectable by X senses, where X varies by edition (I think.  Didn't 6e drop it to 2 senses?  I really need to set aside a massive block of time to re-read it, but Lord!  What a slog when my "free time" is like forty minutes every couple of days).
 
At any rate, I know that Instant Powers are activated, do their thing, and are done unless certain modifiers make them work otherwise.  I do not recall reading anything that says "must go bang every half phase and kick in anew."
 
I also know that Mental Powers are Constant Powers: you have to continually expend END to maintain the effect.  You don't have to re-roll the attack to keep the effect.
 
Hey, I know!
 
Let's look at a sunburn!
 
If I take my naked Irish butt outside and run around in the sun for a few minutes, probably nothing will happen to it.  If I do it for thirty minutes, it will probably color up a bit.
 
If I throw it on the front lawn and leave it there for four hours, it will likely get tender, red, blistered, and all kinds of unpleasant things that I will enjoy for several days to come.
 
Did the sun turn off, turn back on, attack again, turn back off, attack again, turn back off, attack again, turn back off, etc, etc, ad nauseam until the accumulated damage took effect?
or did that damage continue to accumulate the whole time that I left my butt out there in it, in one, single hours-long onslaught?
 
 
Now let's all remember that I do not sarcasm without blatant indicators.  I have gone to an extensive, years-long effort to remove sarcasm from my life, as I have seen in my life and that of others the sort of very real damage it does to people and relationships.  I have to say that-- out loud-- _constantly_, because the accursed razor that is sarcasm is so damnably ubiquitous today as to make social interaction unsettling in some cases.  I have to say that out loud because you can neither see nor hear me, and the odds are high that, given the atrocious ubiquity of it, you will read it into what I have to ask next.  It's not there; don't assume it is:
 
 
Is it _possible_-- just possible, mind you, that you are reading something into Cumulative that simply isn't there?
 
 
I am going to assume that you are using 6e.
 
Even on 6e1 p 80, the word "cumulative" is used to refer to adding bonuses from Linguist and known languages to gain a point reduction for buying a new language.  They aren't firing off one at a time; they both exist simultaneously, and they work together.
 
But that's not the Advantage, is it?
 
So, 6e1 p 153--
 
First, I want to say that I really, _really_ dislike the "each possible advantage is listed after every single power" approach of this edition.  It just drives me nuts, and kind of works _against_ creating a single, unified definition of the power modifiers.
 
There.  That's out of my system now.   
 
 
Anyway, back to p 153:
 
 
 
The one advantage of the list-every-possible-modifier-and-how-it-interacts-with-each-kind-of-power style of 6e is tailored discussion.
 
Given that there are still conversations on message boards, I don't know that they payoff was worth the trouble the author and printer went to. 
 
At any rate, "the target is not affected by it... until the first Phase in which the total rolled by the attacker ...  exceeds the amount needed to achieve the desired effect."
 
That seems pretty cut and dry that the power is building to a point-- you can define that any way you want: Lamont is peeling away your psychic resistance; the wheelchair psychic is summoning a large enough "mental push," the dragonball guys are floating over a field for eight episodes talking about how badly they are going to mess each other up-- whatever.
 
The power is one, ongoing thing that is growing more and more powerful.  Follow it with "Until that time the Power has no effect," and I really think that Cumulative is the answer your looking for, unless the desired outcome is nothing short of instant one-phase domination of whoever it is your are targeting, even if they have a really high EGO.  In those cases, the only real solution is "buy lots of dice," and as I said before, I believe that to be rather justified.
 
I didn't skimp or edit; that is the entire commentary about Cumulative with regard to Mental Powers.  At no point is there direct mention or slight suggestion that the Mental Power is cycling off and on.  There is every suggestion that the Power is growing in... well, in power!     It's _one_ attack, or one contest for mental domination, or however you choose to define it.  Just one.
 
 
Just for kicks, I skipped ahead to Dispel (because I halfway remembered what it said   ), and I found this:
 
 
 
 
Sure; it's talking about Dispel, but the point is that it reinforces the idea that Cumulative does nothing but take "Extra Time" and add a real good reason for taking extra time.    It turns it into one long power that builds and builds until it is where you want it to be (or it hits your points ceiling).
 
 
 
 
 
Again: I get where you are coming from:  you don't want it because it doesn't _feel_ right.  I get that: I have that problem myself-- I was pretty up front about Combat Luck, as a show of good faith that I _do_ think I know where you're coming from.
 
All I am asking you to do is take a hard look at what you believe cumulative means and compare it to what cumulative actually says it is, and to remember that mental powers are _not_ exactly "instant" powers to begin with.  I spend END to keep the effect running, just like a Force Field.  I can't do that with a gun.  Mind Control isn't a gun; it doesn't do what a gun does; it doesn't work like a gun.  That's why it has its own mechanic, and that mechanic plays quite nicely with Cumulative.
 

At any rate, I've been on here way too long tonight; I've got to be at work in something like....  six hours?
 
Good night, All.
 
 
 

Thank you Panpiper and Hugh. These guidelines and counterpoints have help a lot in curtailing my own tendency to manipulate loopholes and finagle "free" points out of the system thus making it better for when my son and I play. 👍

I one-hundred percent agree with this.  Back in the early days, before we started seeing supplements with things like "breaking out of prison cells" and "ripping cars in half," etc, it was _necessary_, just to have an idea of how much power made certain things possible.  Sure, we could grab a number out of the air, but without putting any thought into it, you might find that the drywall you want to burst through to surprise your opponent will require you to do three or four move-throughs. 
 
Oops.
 
Yes: there is always handwaving, but suppose your players have done something bad-- completely by accident.  During the attempt to thwart Doctor Sinister, one hero missed with his patented Lightning Gun and struck the very vault in which the Nogoodium Serum is stored!  Did the blast penetrate?  Has the serum been destroyed-- or worse!  Vaporized, even now wafting out into the air which our heroes are breathing?!
 
Sure-- you can plot device this.  But if it's not actually part of the plot-- it's something that just straight-up happened, and you want to make a fair call, well... what do you do?
 
You compare things you understand in the real world and look at analogies in the game.  You know that this vault is proof against small arms fire, look up an appropriate gun, and figure the vault needs at least X total DEF and BODY, glance at the hero's sheet and see that- whew!  There's no chance he can penetrate it with a single shot.  Lucky us!
 
 
Sure, there's the "how quickly can he drop a normal thug" thing and "can he accidentally KO himself" thing and "how quickly could a thug drop him" thing--
 
No matter what, there are many, many reasons why I endorse and use this very tool with regularity.
 
And evidently, Christopher and I aren't the only ones:
 
 
 
 
 
 
I am not being picky here; I need some elaboration.  Mental Powers are not like "other powers," save perhaps EGO Attack, which is a straight up damage dealer that works pretty much like other damage dealers.  Beyond that, for example, Telepathy or Mind Control-- aren't trying to achieve the same thing as damage dealers: 4 dice of Killing Attack can liquify a guy; 4 dice of Energy Blast can mess him up pretty bad, but no amount of dice of Telepathy or Mind Control can do those things.  Sure, enough dice of Mind Control can make him jump into the 4dKilling machine and liquify himself, but even then, it's not the same thing.
 
That being said, I think you can see that I do not understand what it is you are saying with this statement, and would appreciate some elaboration.
 
Thank you in advance.   
 
 
 
 
 
Hugh pointed it out in great detail, but at SPD 5, the character will have two Phases in five seconds.  He will have 3 in eight seconds.  If he gets enough effect in his first attack to order "Wait!" then he can get five Phases in 12 seconds.  If the cumulative total of five Mind Control rolls isn't enough, then it might be time to examine the build.
 
Wheelchair psychic man is precisely the sort of build I mentioned above:  incredibly powerful, with great smoking wads of dice, because that's all he spent his points on.  He even took the "legs don't work" Disadvantage to get more points for his mental powers.  I accept that this is a source-material example of a high-powered Mentalist.
 
I'm pretty sure that the Power to Cloud Men's Minds was nowhere near as powerful as Do My Bidding or You Are My Slave, but more "fear me" or "forget my face."  Additionally, it was used against normals-- way less dice and way less radical results.
 
 
 
 
 
It's kind of like Iron Man, when looked at another way.  In the first movie (the good one), he flies to a village in the desert and confronts a horde of men armed with machine guns.  The villagers were (rightly) terrified of the guys with machine guns, because machine guns versus normals gets really, really ugly (10-shot autofire of 3.5D6 RKA versus a 2 non-resistant PD and 8 to 10 BODY?  Yeah; bad stuff there).
 
Iron Man, however, was not the normal villager, and bullets left machine guns and hit him by the handsful and then spe-yanged off to who knows where.  There is a point in Defenses where, even if you hit, you have absolutely no effect.  This is pretty normal in Champions games (somewhat less so at Heroic levels, with the exception of several fantasy games).
 
This doesn't turn the machine gun attacks into "phase-waster" attacks, though.  It just means that they are useless against Iron Man.
 
Put another way, Defenses are a normal part of Champions, up to and including the character's native PD.  These are all deducted from the attack, and if there is no damage left, then that attack had no effect.   The Defense for Mental Powers is EGO (and, for some folks, EGO Defense, unless that's been eliminated or rebranded as "EGO: only for boosting EGO against the effectiveness of Mental Attacks, -1/2.  I don't keep track anymore).
 
If you don't have enough points on your dice to overwhelm that 'defense,' then you have no effect.  That's a perfectly normal part of every attack in the HERO System: overwhelm or circumvent defenses to gain an effect.
 
 
Now, all that being said, we could look at remodeling mental "combat" such it deals damage as normal:  Something to the effect of doing actual "points" of EGO Damage, and when the EGO gets to-- say Zero-- the target is now "EGO Dead" to you, and you can supplant your will in place of his--
 
and now I wish I hadn't said that, as the current drive to standardize and fold-in whenever possible, regardless of the logical reaches required, means that just may come to pass. 
 
 
Then we can replace "break out rolls" (which you don't get versus STUN or BODY Damage) with "EGO Recovery" or something, and as he recovers, your control slips and you can only make more and more agreeable "suggestions" to him until he is fully healed and you are no longer in control.
 
 
No; that was a serious suggestion.  It would work, and when it fails to work, it fails to work for reasons that we are already comfortable with:  my damage didn't exceed his defenses; my damage wasn't enough to knock him out; etc.
 
However, EGO Defense will likely become much, much more common, as will high EGOs even when they don't really make sense, just to guard against being "chipped away."
 
 
Ultimately, though, it doesn't do what it is that I _think_ you are wanting:  You cannot _immediately_ dominate another human being with a small investment of dice.
 
interestingly enough, it _does_ open up more "like the other combat powers" options, like Amor Piercing and NND.  Though really, you're the GM, so what's stopping you from doing that now?  I bet no one in your game has bought his EGO as Hardened or as Resistant.    Decide that these are viable in your game, and where you were once attacking EGO: 12 you are no attacking EGO: 6.  Declare a "killing" option if you want.  It's your game, ultimately.
 
 
 
 
 
Or is that not something that you let characters do with Coordinated Attacks?  I do, with the idea that they are pooling their efforts to gain control over one mind.  The rest falls down to how well they handle it (it's better if they decide one guy is "in charge" and the others are working to reinforce the given command(s).
 
 
 
You're not doing damage at all.  I know that you understand that; I simply feel it is worth pointing out that not only is there a different effect with these powers, it is an entirely different mechanic-- one which I unapologetically feel offers a nice balance for being able to control someone else's character for a bit, but that's not exactly the point here, is it? 
 
It is an entirely different mechanic.  I can't pretend to know _why_ an entirely different mechanic was chosen, but I suspect it was to drive home the feeling of "this works in a different fashion from doing damage."  Again: I don't know.  I may _never_ know. It doesn't matter, ultimately, because the important part here is that it is clearly not intended to work the way damage works.  Further, it models source material mind guys: they dump oodles of points into it if they want big effects; lots of points into it if they want rapid but moderate effects.
 
 
 
First, hats off to the "hit me in a rhythmic manner."     That was funny.
 
Moving on:
 
Why?  Why must there be participation trophy?  You tried your power and it was insufficient.  I wouldn't expect Grond to nurse a cracked rib if my shotgun failed to penetrate his defenses.  I would (after running away really, _really_ quickly, mind you ) get a much larger gun or try something else entirely.
 
Same with the mental powers: get a bigger one, or try something else.
 
 
Seriously, Christopher:  I am game to participate in hashing out a new method of using Mental Powers; I will play with that for _days_, so long as we are all having a good time with it.  However, I won't be easily persuaded that the system we have now is broken simply because having a big effect requires a big expenditure; that is something that I think is _right_ with the bulk of this system.
 
 
 
 
 
 
I touched on that in my first post:  I think the 4e change was done to address what was a serious inequality with Mental Powers.  Today's "EGO + 10" requires far less dice to get the same effect _on supers_.  Or _on heroic_.  Or, dare I say it so bluntly, on Characters With Names.
 
Let's say The Mighty Crime Puncher has an EGO of 16.  To get EGO +X levels, his attacker needs to roll 17, 26, 36, and 46.
 
To get early edition's EGO x X levels, his attacker needs to roll 16, 32, 48, and 64.
 
The differences become even more obscene when two Mentalists are dueling it out:
 
Say the target has a 25 EGO.
 
The 4e+ rules mean that the attacker must roll 26, 35, 45, and 55.
 
The Early Editions rules mean that he must roll 25, 50, 75, and 100.
 
I suspect (but don't know, unless Harlick is willing to spill the beans) that this change was made to address the very sort of issue that Christopher is wanting to address.
 
In fact, that may well be the simplest answer:  reduce the "per level" adder.  Say you need EGO +5 instead of +10.  Then you'd go EGO+1, EGO +5, EGO +10, and EGO + 15.
 
Or drop the levels-- eliminate the lowest, and let that first layer of EGO +1 be the level that was once EGO +10; EGO +10 would then equal what was EGO +20.
 
Or combine the two:  1/2 EGO would equal what was EGO +1.  EGO +1 would equal what was EGO + 10.  EGO +5 would equal what was EGO + 20-- and so on and so forth.
 
  Though I understand my long rambles and discussions don't really demonstrate it, I am pretty conservative about making changes to the rules-- I really study on them and play them extensively, and even then, I keep them as minor as I possibly can.
 
So let me offer this minor adjustment in place of every other suggestion or "what if" that I've made thus far:
 
At the consolation prize level-- determined by the GM-- say 3/4 EGO or even EGO, period-- the attacker gains a minor benefit-- perhaps a +1 OMCV against the same target, or the target simply loses the urge to attack the mentalist-- perhaps the target is even _briefly_ Stunned-- one Phase, perhaps-- something that gives a very minor boon that makes it easier to bop the target the next Phase, with the goal of filling up the cumulator.
 
That's relatively minor, and addresses everything short of "I want to subjugate his soul with 4d6 of Mind Control!"