RDU Neil

Watched Triple Frontier last night.  I agree that it'd be an excellent basis for a DI one-off.  You could even make a campaign out of it, at the intersection between special ops, espionage, and crime.  Other films like Ronin and Bourne Identity come to mind.

So, sexism, then.

It looks like the Kree have weapons that can crack the planet open like an egg, so why don't they? Earth is certainly annoying enough. And if there are all these powerful entities seeking to destroy the Earth, eventually one of them is bound to succeed.
 
It's like the Coyote problem. The Roadrunner can beat the Coyote time and again, but the Coyote need only win once.

In my current campaign of modern guns and knives and martial arts, I did make the rule that if a KA does not penetrate Hardened Defenses, it does no stun... flat out. Basically to simulate the "bullet hits the reinforced plate in your vest, you don't even notice" aspect that is duly documented in modern combat. It has served, when it comes up, to speed things up because the Body damage is clearly stopped by that particular hardened hit location... don't even bother calculating Stun.

This could be modified to something like "If Body done is less than half of the resistant defense, no Stun is done." Probably calculates out to be similar in effect as calculating the Stun for a bad body damage roll and have it be absorbed or minimal. Again... would speed things up.
 
Level II vest (7rPR without plates) gets hit with a 9mm, bad roll of 3 Body... "thwap, it hits, you barely notice" and move on.
 
On the other side of things, the low Stun multiple for limb shots and such is good for "unlikley to knock you unconscious" aspect, but bad for "holy $%!^ that hurts!" aspect. I'm loathe to increase the Stun multiple, because this is more a matter of Hero struggling for the effect of "Stunned" without taking lots of "Stun damage". That has been argued and debated in many other threads, but I think applies a lot to the "I just got stabbed and it hurts like hell and I'm staggered and not fighting back for the moment, but I'm not really close to be unconscious". 
 
It falls under the "Just how much simulation is good for the game, vs. bogging you down?" question.

Peggy Carter aged and died like a normal person. Tony Stark has aged visibly during his tenure as Iron Man; and if you count the young version of him we see in the holographic simulation, the MCU definitely acknowledges that Tony has grown up and aged like a normal person as well. Nick Fury has definitely aged (thanks to digital de-aging fx) during his time with SHIELD. The thing is, the MCU has only been around for a decade, telling stories that mostly take place during that one decade. There simply hasn't been enough time to notice that a character has failed to age "properly", if in fact that is ever going to happen (outside of characters that age much more slowly than humans, like Asgardians).

Honestly, I'd love to see a living world comic series. Hard to do on a monthly basis with limited pages. Main reason comics companies don't do this is Brand/Name Recognition and marketing.

This is where you were mistaken a bit.
 
1. No one gets to go more than once before everyone gets at least one action...
2. ... and unless you are playing demi-god level speedsters, even the chance for second actions is uncertain (you'd have to have a 10 SPD to always guarantee a second action)
3... and the order of actions changes, so there are possibilities of "slower" characters going before "faster" characters at times. (which is typical of initiative systems)
 
This moves away from the set pace of the SPD chart where every round, every time, everyone acts in the same order, and players can calculate optimized "game actions" rather than respond to the immediacies of combat that shift in the moment. The ultimate benefit I've found is that in game play, the higher SPD characters just don't dominate play time as much (or at all) which happened all the time with the SPD chart.

I totally get what your are saying megaplayboy. Below is what I came up with for my current Heroic "cinematic modern action" campaign, called Secret Worlds. The intent is for PCs and others to be "special" in their level of skill and ability (maybe a weird ability that can be explained away by science... almost) but not really superhumans. (Jason Bourne meets X-Files). 

I'm not even sure I'd keep it this way if I really work on it over time, but it is a starting place for the campaign world. I certainly wouldn't say it has to apply generically across HERO games.

 
Character Combat Skill Classes 
“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”  
 -- Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5 
 
Secret Worlds characters, particularly Specials, are most often both superior in natural ability and highly trained. This combination makes them very dangerous combatants. Below are lists of mechanics along with a "descriptor" that gives a sense of how the character would be perceived by others. 
 
Stat Level: OCV and DCV (Reflecting natural ability and combat experience) 
Normal = 3 
Athletic = 4 
Talented = 5 
Natural = 6 (A person twice as good as normal without any particular training) 
Prodigy = 7 
Phenom = 8 
Peerless = 9 (A person three times better than normal without any particular training)  
OCV and DCV should be considered separately. A character could be a Prodigy in avoiding attacks (7 DCV) but only slightly better than normal in attacking (Athletic 4 OCV), if that matches the character concept. PCs are limited to Prodigy levels or below w/o GM permission. 
 
Skill Levels: (Reflecting Training with a weapon/attack maneuver/group of maneuvers.) 
Untrained: No Weapon Fam, -3 OCV w/weapon, base OCV for basic HtH maneuvers 
Trained: Weapon Fam, minimum martial maneuvers, but no levels.  
Skilled: Trained, +1-2 with a single maneuver  
Advanced: Trained, +1-2 CSLs with a small group of attacks 
Expert: Trained, +1-2 with a small group of attacks AND +1-2 PSLs with a group of attacks or other combination  
Veteran: Trained +3 levels with a group of attacks AND +2-3 PSLs, or other combination 
Master: Trained, +4 CSL with group of attacks AND +3-4 PSLs, or other combination (but no more than 5 CSL with any one attack) 
Legendary: 5 or more CSLs AND 5 or more PSLs with a group of attacks, and no limits to how they are combined on any one attack 
Skill Levels and Stat Levels should be thought of combined to establish the character concept. e.g. A Skilled Normal, or a Trained Prodigy, etc. 
 
Combat Class: The combined total of OCV (including PSLs) vs. DCV is important for game balance and sets a characters Combat Class. A character with both medium to high stats and skill levels will quickly out-strip most other combatants.   
Choices that can stack to affect the final Combat Class of a character are: 
Weapon Familiarities & Weapon Elements 
Martial Arts maneuvers 
OCV/DCV 
CSLs & PSLs 
Combat Related Skills (Defense Maneuver and Rapid Attack, Analyze Style, etc) 
 
Combat Class Evaluation: Each PC will be evaluated as to the extent they are "better than normal" with the following criteria. 
  Attacker’s OCV -  
Target’s DCV is 
Chance to Hit 
6 
99% 
5 
98% 
4 
95% 
3 
91% 
2 
84% 
1 
74% 
0 
63% 
-1 
50% 
-2 
38% 
-3 
26% 
-4 
16% 
-5 
9% 
-6 
5% 
 
Ranged Attack Comparison Examples:  
A Trained Normal firing at close range against Normal Defender = 63% chance to hit a non-specific area. 
A Trained Normal firing at close range against a Normal Defender = .5% chance to hit with a "head shot" (-8 modifier) needing a "3" to hit. 
A Master Prodigy firing at close range against a Normal Defender = 99%+ chance to hit a non-specific area. 
A Master Prodigy firing at close range against a Normal Defender = 63% chance to hit with a "head shot" (-8 modifier) without PSLs. 
 
Difference of "6": Compare a PC's best attack to the Combat Class where they have a 6+ advantage (99% chance to hit).  These odds must be considered closely to evaluate campaign balance. 
 
Per Attack: Remember that a Combat Class is referring to a specific attack or group of attacks. A character could be a Veteran Athlete with Small Arms, but only a Trained Athlete with knives, and an Untrained Athlete with nunchaku.  

Well he's got GTFO vs WTF.  
 
And that ain't nothin'.
 
 
 

I should very much like to see this thing. 

So does this mean Kate Bishop is being set up to take over for daddy Hawkeye?

It seems like you could have a lot more fun with the acronyms. How about Royal Omega Task Force League vs World Terror Front? You’d have ROTFL vs WTF!!!

Interesting... so the idea is:
 
GM makes up "cards" that have prebuilt powers, or skill sets, or whatever.
 
Card has a name like "GI Joe Basic Training" or "Electro-Rad Powers" or whatever works, because the cards represent a specific manifestation within the game.
 
Card has a set cost.
 
Players choose cards that add up to the "point level" of the campaign.
 
So you could, to make it easy... just say you have a 30 point game.   Select cards of skills ,powers, perks, whatever (I know this game has no powers, but a game like this could...) and when they add up to 30, you've got your character abilities.
 
Seems like a lot of work in prep for the GM, but could make for a fun Con game style thing, as the players have fun building characters by selecting cards.

heck... you could make it interesting by having players "draft" cards... like each one is dealt 30 points in cards... picks the ones they want and hands the rest to the next person. In the end, you have to build from what is available and is passed to you, and then make a sensible character from the selection. That would be a hoot!

I love Iron Man 3 and the whole Stark/Little Kid part was pure gold. My favorite of the IM movies. (Huge Shane Black fan, so what can I say...)

Interesting... so the idea is:
 
GM makes up "cards" that have prebuilt powers, or skill sets, or whatever.
 
Card has a name like "GI Joe Basic Training" or "Electro-Rad Powers" or whatever works, because the cards represent a specific manifestation within the game.
 
Card has a set cost.
 
Players choose cards that add up to the "point level" of the campaign.
 
So you could, to make it easy... just say you have a 30 point game.   Select cards of skills ,powers, perks, whatever (I know this game has no powers, but a game like this could...) and when they add up to 30, you've got your character abilities.
 
Seems like a lot of work in prep for the GM, but could make for a fun Con game style thing, as the players have fun building characters by selecting cards.

heck... you could make it interesting by having players "draft" cards... like each one is dealt 30 points in cards... picks the ones they want and hands the rest to the next person. In the end, you have to build from what is available and is passed to you, and then make a sensible character from the selection. That would be a hoot!

Fair. I liked a LOT about it and some of the problems I had with it faded in time. I guess mostly "only the fun" remains, and yes, Tony gets that great lesson about the man and the machine blah blah
But the character of the Kid was gold. I want him to appear in a movie as a new Hire for Stark, maybe a brilliant Intern

Ah!  Sorry about that, I misunderstood.    
 
One idea I'd had was to make up cards, something like the Champions Character Creation Cards.  Those values are just the cost / 5, and the idea behind that is to make the numbers smaller and easier to add.  For instance, for a 150 point game you might take one stat card and some number of skills, packages, etc., that add up to 30, which would be a 150 point character.  At one point I thought I might let the players make their characters at the time of the game in this manner, which might not work for this.  But I think the general idea is sound.  
 
So, that's my particular thing.  Nothing to do with actual Hero rules.  

Obviously you can do what you want, I was just trying to understand the rationale... like... 3 pts for the above? Everything in there is completely valuable. What is the cost break rationale (not yours... but the generic package deal rationale) for getting a discount on any of that? (Sorry to distract from your thread, but I'm intrigued with understanding what your benefit is by having these cost division calculations). 

I love Iron Man 3 and the whole Stark/Little Kid part was pure gold. My favorite of the IM movies. (Huge Shane Black fan, so what can I say...)

I haven't posted my variant, but it runs along the same lines.  Offense, Defense, Mobility and Variability (number of different types of attacks) all add to an effective combat score which is capped.
 
I move the cap a bit each time we cross a certain threshold of character points and let the players decide where they will advance.  Once a character is at the campaign cap they have to either hoard points or expand in non-combat aspects.
 
This has pleasantly lead to most characters taking on a role or two and expanding into areas they wouldn't if they were allowed to keep advancing their combat abilities.

Probably more Pegasus-SHIELD

Like a charismatic lead or good fight choreography?

If you don't want higher variance, you don't want any kind of contested roll...you want flat modifiers.
 
Every additional die roll added to a resolution increases the variance. If you want the attacker and the defender to roll, that will have more variance than if only the attacker or only the defender rolls. If there are no dice rolls at all in the to hit, just a comparison of values, then its a calculation and there is no variance.

Our group doesn't really play Fantasy Hero, but I think my comments apply generally to Hero.
 
The game works best when the players and GM have an agreement on the expected power scale, and everyone sticks to it.  You can build a character that is too powerful for the game, and throw everything off.  You can also build a character who is too weak for the game, and that's just as harmful (it's basically the exact same problem, in reverse).  If you expect the PCs to be running around at about OCV/DCV 8 and Spd 5, then the guy with a 15 OCV and 8 Speed is really unbalancing.  Of course, so is the guy with a 3/3 and Spd 2.  "I'm just playing my character", he says, ignoring the fact that the GM is having to go out of his way to not kill the character, or make him feel useless.
 
For a while I tried experimenting with unusual character builds.  Desolidification, Invisibility, Darkness, Missile Deflection, Images, Shrinking, etc.  The characters had little traditional offense or defense, but instead had one cool power that they relied on all the time.  The problem with these characters was that every single battle, I was putting the GM in an all-or-nothing position.  Either there was an opponent who could see through my invisibility/hit my desolidification/penetrate my illusions/hit my DCV, or there wasn't.  If a bad guy could see me/hit me, I went down.  If he couldn't, then I was effectively invincible.  Typical combat in Hero has a sort of "whittling down" effect, but this didn't.  It wasn't fair to the GM, who had to decide when he was designing the scenario whether I was going to get dropped in the first few phases or if I'd stay up to the end.  It wasn't fair to the other players, because they were playing in a more traditional way and they ended up taking more damage because most villains couldn't touch me (so they'd focus on the people they could see/affect).  And it wasn't fair to me, because ultimately it wasn't all that fun to play.
 
This all goes towards building characters who fit the themes and standards of the campaign.  Anything that is too out of whack is going to lessen the fun.  +8 OCV with sword thrust is awesome, until it pushes the GM to start raising DCVs.  Then the other players get forced into an arms race, and that isn't necessarily what they want.  That's why the players and the GM should discuss campaign standards.  How high does my OCV need to be, to be an average swordsman?  How much to be a great swordsman?  How much to be the best in the world?  How good are we supposed to be in this campaign?  The game itself has very few real world benchmarks, so it's hard to know how good something is without discussing it with others first.

Ladies from the MCU:
 
1: Agent Carter
2: Okoye
3: Hope Van Dyne
4: Shuri
5: Black Widow
 
My top 3 are a really close run thing. I mean, if there was an Okoye or Hope van Dyne spin-off that might tip the scales... Just in case any Disney execs are reading.
 
RDU Neil: mate, we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. ?