RDU Neil

If you're truly into making firearm use realistic, then the section of your text that I just quoted needs to be tossed out the window and completely reworked.  As evidence I cite a firearm accuracy study conducted of 247 (195 male and 52 female) volunteers. The study grouped the volunteers into 3 categories: novice (i.e. minimal/no experience), intermediate (i.e. recreational experience), and expert (i.e. completed law enforcement firearms training).  The study found that experts shot only 10% more accurately than novices and intermediates at 3-15 feet.  Here's a link to the study: http://www.forcescience.org/articles/naiveshooter.pdf
 
This becomes especially important when you pair it with a firearm evaluation of the NYPD's gunfight performance, as the NYPD is arguably the largest and best-trained police force in the United States, today.  In gunfights where fire was returned, these 'experts' have demonstrated an empirical hit rate of a meager 18%.  In situations where the officer fired and gunfire was NOT returned, the hit rate was still only a paltry 30%.  Here's a link to that report (you'll find these statistics on page 14 as labeled by the report, itself, not by the PDF page counter): http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/RAND_FirearmEvaluation.pdf

Given the foregoing, the hit rates you stated (which I quoted above) are WAY too high … and since your efforts are all about adding realism, if you're serious about your efforts, you need to dial your hit rates WAY down for experts … and then dial it down (by about 10% more) for intermediates and novices.  If that seems like it's going too far (e.g. "but that wouldn't be fun"), all I can really say to that is that you must not be serious about adding realism, since most rounds discharged in gunfights are (realistically) misses, not hits.
 
Surreal
 
P.S. This is exactly what people and states that try to impose magazine capacity limits fail to consider.  i.e. The FBI statistics database shows that most threats are stopped by 2 and change shots (which we'll round up to 3) … with the actual decimal value tending to vary based on the caliber being used.  Assuming an 18% hit rate for the best-trained law enforcement officer with, say, a 9mm -- that individual will need to empty the 15 round magazine from his department-issued Glock 17 if under return fire … to score 2.7 hits.  This should also help set your 'realism' expectation for making firearms more realistic in your games, since you're both supposedly making an effort to do that.  The link to the FBI database should be easy enough to find … if you care to do so.

The Incredibles is my favorite superhero movie and my favourite animated movie, bar none.
 
Having said that, The Incredibles 2 is a worthy successor.
 
?

Hillary did her level best.  She didn't run a perfect campaign, but nobody ever does.  She won the popular vote, despite interference from a foreign power, and a press that knowingly allowed itself to be a giant mouthpiece for the Kremlin.  Hillary can sleep with a clear conscious.  None of this is her fault.
 
.  

Oh, McDonald's donates hardly any of their own money to the Ronald McDonald House.  However, that is different than saying that they steal the money from the donation boxes.  The money you put in the donation box will go to the cause, just don't expect any corporate matching funds for your donation.  Neither the corporate office or the franchises give a bleep about the charity.

I was strictly speaking of the kinetic energy of the arrow corresponding to 1d6-1.  I agree that this is low and should be increased by a DC or so to represent the sharpness/cutting aspect of broadhead arrows (plus it is just downright cinematic).  If you decided to place the limitation on the defense then adding a couple of DC is within reason (I don't know if going up to a full 2d6 is warranted however).  This is where you start to get into some serious stuff with regard to ballistic dynamics and such.  It is very difficult to account for everything in ammunition.  Just an increase of 10 grains (.65g) can change the ballistics of a bullet significantly and that is before you begin to speak of shape and composition.
 
With all of that said, the Muzzle Energy to Damage Classes is a starting point and not an exact science.  It does give us a good place to start from.  Accuracy is even more important since a .22lr shot to the head IS realistically a kill shot even though it may only do 1/2d6 killing damage.  I guess you have to strike a compromise between realism and playability.

Yes, clearly he's undermining this thread's ability to remain on topic.  

Wasn't this founded by the younger brother of Soze? I mean... what do you expect.
 
 
running away now

In my Secret Worlds game, our last big session was about five hours of a running gun battle, from the basement of an office tower to about the seventh floor (invading a PMC corporate HQ). The PCs are all above average, Jason Bourne levels, vs. trained, well armed, but much more normal troops. The dice went incredibly bad for them all night long, including one PC who had a 3 rolled against him on the very first burst from a bad guy of the game, and had to spend half of his luck chits just to take a heavy wound, rather than be greased, then rolled an 18 himself near the end of the fight, so that he failed to take out a shooter, and died subsequently (all out of chits on his end by that point.) At least two other "3s" were rolled against the PCs that evening, at least these were bad guy perception rolls and such, so didn't directly kill a character... but that was four rolls of 3 or 18 in one session, where we usually go multiple sessions without either coming up.  Also, at least 5 times, a roll massively in favor of the PCs went against them. Once, a character had the drop on a bad guy with a shotgun. Granted he was untrained with guns (master hand to hand, not so much with guns) and nearly missed, then only hit the Hand (6) on hit location... then rolled 2 1's for damage.  He essentially blew the guys fingers off and pissed him off so bad that he began just hosing the area with bullets for the next several rounds. Another guy needed a 15- to hit one shot, rolled a 16 and the return fire was really ugly. At least twice the bad guys needed a 7 or less to hit... and rolled 5s with automatic weapons, hitting twice!
 
It was so ugly. The players were both really into it and amazed only one of them died, but also dispirited. They weren't blaming me, but every roll was like, "OH COME ON!" as the "bad beats" (in poker terms) just kept coming.

It was in the nature of the game for things to be this bloody, and honestly they actually secured their objective (place a hack and rescue a captured comrade) but the fight was a loss by all gaming standards, and they lost one. I felt bad, but as the guy who lost his character said, "It's just math. You can't be mad at math."*
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* He was really mad at math, actually. 

In my Secret Worlds game, our last big session was about five hours of a running gun battle, from the basement of an office tower to about the seventh floor (invading a PMC corporate HQ). The PCs are all above average, Jason Bourne levels, vs. trained, well armed, but much more normal troops. The dice went incredibly bad for them all night long, including one PC who had a 3 rolled against him on the very first burst from a bad guy of the game, and had to spend half of his luck chits just to take a heavy wound, rather than be greased, then rolled an 18 himself near the end of the fight, so that he failed to take out a shooter, and died subsequently (all out of chits on his end by that point.) At least two other "3s" were rolled against the PCs that evening, at least these were bad guy perception rolls and such, so didn't directly kill a character... but that was four rolls of 3 or 18 in one session, where we usually go multiple sessions without either coming up.  Also, at least 5 times, a roll massively in favor of the PCs went against them. Once, a character had the drop on a bad guy with a shotgun. Granted he was untrained with guns (master hand to hand, not so much with guns) and nearly missed, then only hit the Hand (6) on hit location... then rolled 2 1's for damage.  He essentially blew the guys fingers off and pissed him off so bad that he began just hosing the area with bullets for the next several rounds. Another guy needed a 15- to hit one shot, rolled a 16 and the return fire was really ugly. At least twice the bad guys needed a 7 or less to hit... and rolled 5s with automatic weapons, hitting twice!
 
It was so ugly. The players were both really into it and amazed only one of them died, but also dispirited. They weren't blaming me, but every roll was like, "OH COME ON!" as the "bad beats" (in poker terms) just kept coming.

It was in the nature of the game for things to be this bloody, and honestly they actually secured their objective (place a hack and rescue a captured comrade) but the fight was a loss by all gaming standards, and they lost one. I felt bad, but as the guy who lost his character said, "It's just math. You can't be mad at math."*
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* He was really mad at math, actually. 

You ain't kidding. A family nearby had a child, the little girl was soooo pissed at that scene and actually said "Why did they have to do that? now I'm all MAD!"
Indignation, thy name is young fan girl.
 
 

Actually the second 18 was an EGO roll to push teleport. That 18 burned out teleport and reduced Dread to her run speed. The Acrobatics roll to dive into the ship was a failure, a 16, just not an 18. Still 18, 18, and 16 was a bad combo. Now if I had been rolling for D&D stats I'd be off to a good start.

I was running my Champions campaign last night.
 
The PCs had travelled to Malva to rescue superhumans taken for the gladiatorial games.
 
During the course of the night, they ended up on board one of the Malvan Worldships, a miles-long warship, and got into a fight with the AI soldiers on board.
 
Dread, the PC in question, has a hand-to-hand AOE (One Hex-Accurate) and attacked a couple of the AI soldiers. The final attack roll was an 18.
 
Then the PC's next roll, an Acrobatics roll as I recall, was an 18 as well.
 
I don't think I've ever seen back-to-back 18s in a gaming session before, and I've been playing for over 35 years.
 
The unluck was strong with this player last night.
 
 

In my Secret Worlds game, our last big session was about five hours of a running gun battle, from the basement of an office tower to about the seventh floor (invading a PMC corporate HQ). The PCs are all above average, Jason Bourne levels, vs. trained, well armed, but much more normal troops. The dice went incredibly bad for them all night long, including one PC who had a 3 rolled against him on the very first burst from a bad guy of the game, and had to spend half of his luck chits just to take a heavy wound, rather than be greased, then rolled an 18 himself near the end of the fight, so that he failed to take out a shooter, and died subsequently (all out of chits on his end by that point.) At least two other "3s" were rolled against the PCs that evening, at least these were bad guy perception rolls and such, so didn't directly kill a character... but that was four rolls of 3 or 18 in one session, where we usually go multiple sessions without either coming up.  Also, at least 5 times, a roll massively in favor of the PCs went against them. Once, a character had the drop on a bad guy with a shotgun. Granted he was untrained with guns (master hand to hand, not so much with guns) and nearly missed, then only hit the Hand (6) on hit location... then rolled 2 1's for damage.  He essentially blew the guys fingers off and pissed him off so bad that he began just hosing the area with bullets for the next several rounds. Another guy needed a 15- to hit one shot, rolled a 16 and the return fire was really ugly. At least twice the bad guys needed a 7 or less to hit... and rolled 5s with automatic weapons, hitting twice!
 
It was so ugly. The players were both really into it and amazed only one of them died, but also dispirited. They weren't blaming me, but every roll was like, "OH COME ON!" as the "bad beats" (in poker terms) just kept coming.

It was in the nature of the game for things to be this bloody, and honestly they actually secured their objective (place a hack and rescue a captured comrade) but the fight was a loss by all gaming standards, and they lost one. I felt bad, but as the guy who lost his character said, "It's just math. You can't be mad at math."*
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* He was really mad at math, actually. 

That general statement is true, especially for the Red Cross, but that's not accurate on the Clinton Foundation. 86.9% of its funds go to program expenses, that is, the actual programs and services it exists to deliver. That's pretty dang high as non-profits go.

Gal Gadot visits children's hospital in character

You know who is over here for a few days. The bidding starts now on making sure he doesn't go home.

What is interesting in the point you make about "What you CAN'T do"... I think this mode of thinking is actually correct... in the right game. For Supers, it is all about what you CAN do, most often in amazing ways.

In Heroic level... the more "realistic" you get, the more likely you are defined as much by what you can't do as what you can. Because the closer you get to "real human" then every character is kind of the same... and having a few unique skills, compared to other PCs who CAN'T DO THOSE THINGS is very important. "I'm the kick as swordsman, but don't expect me to be sneaking past any guards any time soon." type of thing. Thus, in the origina 3ed age, it was the Danger Internation and Fantasy Hero type games that expanded the skill list, because you needed more particular skills to help differentiate one character from another. Once you were beyond the fighter or mage or cleric or thief trope... how did two thieves differentiate? It is the same reason that current D&D and such have a plethora of classes... because every fighter needs to be different from other fighters as PCs at least, and class distinction is how they do that.
 
Again, I'm all for detailed skill lists... for the right game. The Skill list actually goes a long way to defining the kind of game the system is trying to create. Thus, I think, the appeal of stripping things back to a 3rd Ed kind of level to some folks on these boards.
 
Personally I feel 4th hit the right level for me, and it went off the rails in 5th and 6th, but the discussion and understanding of what the "skill list" represents for the game concept and play... that's what is important.

Skills, aside from flavor, should have some sort of pertinence to a character. Both in what one can and can't do, as RDUNeil pointed out with Stealth. Having it or not impacts one's options. What I'm seeing from the current gauntlet of skills is that they are trying to encourage that sort of thinking. That what you have and what you don't has impact. However as it has split it into so many subdivisions and minutia, it detracts from that I believe. 

Say you would want a smooth and suave talker? Bureaucratics, Charm, High Society, Possibly Interrogation, Oratory, Persuasion... Any one of those could be what you are looking for at any point in time. That's all just... Talking things.
What about being Athletic? Acrobatics, Breakfall, Climbing, Riding, and perhaps Contortionist and Martial Arts. 
Even being sneaky could be covered by a few skills! Concealment, Disguise, Forgery, Shadowing, Slight of Hand, and the all powerful Stealth.
 
Personally I'm surprised no one has brought up Invention as a skill. The skill that defines the creation of almost anything the mind can conceptualize is a single skill.
 
All these options don't... they don't help convey the options that the Player has. It helps define the world by what they don't and aren't able to do. By defining them all as specific types, it limits the way one tends to think about a situation. Too few skills and they are often too wide and broad to specifically narrow down what one is capable of. Too many skills and each one the player doesn't have is a tool removed from their arsenal. 

Personally, and the rest of this and the rest is conjecturing and opinion, so feel free to disregard it, I'd try and stick with Archtype like skills. Have a dozen or so of them. Academic Learning, Street Learning, Athletic Capability, Stealth Capability, Driving, Empathetic Capability, Communicative Capability, ect... Then just define them by Skill levels in those groups. Sure you might have an 11- for Stealth stuff, but for Hiding specifically? 13-. Negative Skill levels work too there. Say a star athlete with 13- for most, can't jump to save their lives, so 8- or 7-. By defining it in broader strokes, one can grab most of what they are aiming for, and be much more likely to still specialize in areas thanks to the system already in place with Skill Levels.

The only area that sort of rubs me the wrong way would be the KS, PS, SS and such. Though, if one took it more at a general idea and said "They are XXX Profession, they would know YYY because it is related, just with modifiers," then it still works just fine. Then you just sort of grab the "Professions" that define them. Club-goer, Doctor, Nature Enthusiast, Gambler, Ect...
 
An easy way to conceptualize that is the classic question, "What is an Adult?" Understanding a touch of the tax code, property rights, food cost, local area knowledge, good grocers, places to find jobs, where the police can be found, the DMV and general Medical information, ect... All the little nuances that one could go out and specifically designate, but are more easily understood under the bow of being an Adult. Though admittedly, I use this example because nothing would be more saddening and amusing to watch a superhero fail at being an adult and take the day off, or sleep in...

Long story shorter: The further down you break down skills, the more people tend to think and limit themselves to those definitions. Because I have (perhaps misplaced) faith in the Hero Community, I'd recommend parring them back, and setting it up on hunks of related skills, and defining them further with Skill Levels. Same for PS.

So I find this question of heroes and villains to be interesting from a literary and trope perspective. Most traditional superheroes start out fighting "normal" bad guys... as the only individual who can stand up to organized crime, or a cult or the KKK, etc. It is only after the superhero is established do the supervillains rise up to challenge him (traditionally him, but him or her.) This is actually brought up in Bronze age and later comics, the idea that the supers make things dangerous for everyone else by inciting all the crazies to new levels of villainy.

Now... juxtapose this with the classic fantasy literary tradition/trope of the great evil that rises, taking over and unstoppable by traditional forces, and it requires the hero (or heroes) to rise up to face and defeat the villain. It is the exact opposite... the super villain inspires the hero.
 
So you can look at the literary precedents to supers, primarily pulp heroes, and see where it comes from in comics. Sherlock Holmes or the Shadow or Doc Savage or Tarzan were superior individuals taking on the evils of the world that the common man was typically unable to handle. That was more in the vein of fantasy... a large, often faceless or organized evil where the individual of merit takes them out. But from a publishing and story perspective, these pulp characters had continuing adventures, and quickly they needed adversaries that could challenge them, since they'd proven to be too much for "normal" evil. So Moriarty appears... or for Batman, the Joker.  (Actually, I'm not actually sure who the first "supervillain" that Superman had to face, after he got tired of throwing KKK members off of buildings. I personally approve of that old Supes... sigh.)
 
In terms of the Incredibles, or any super world, I think it would be essential to the setting to have a clear idea of how the public views this? Is the general consensus that the supers arose to fight the fights normal forces couldn't?  If so, then there is likely to be a lot more cultural forgiveness for super-collateral damage. If, though, the social perception is "We never had these problems until the Capes showed up!" then things can go in a very different direction, with a lot more social pressure for control over supers.
 
Who came first, the hero or the villain?  It actually matters.

Yeah... I just wonder where it is coming from, thematically, as a writer. Is it the trope of "I'm smart and capable, but I'm overshadowed by someone who can lift a train, so I'm resentful?" Sort of, with Buddy.
 
Or maybe it is more subtle... in that this is a kids movie where we are supposed to root for the heroes... and the Incredibles really are good heroes with best intentions... but the villains are speaking for Bird as a "You don't really want to think about these hard questions, because they are hard... and therefore unpleasant, and uncomfortable... but if I put these questions into the movie as coming from the villains, I can get my subversive subtext across, while on the surface, giving the viewing public its feel good film."
 
No writer creates at Bird's level of complexity, subtlety and nuance are not addressing issues that mean something personally... but exactly what Bird's personal view is... hmmm...
 
Is he a Randian Supericist (oooh, I like that word... glad I made it up) or a Subversive Egalitarian warning about the dangers of elitism?
 
 
I think the first movie was the Gov't shielding the Parr's from the lawsuits... and clearly the government didn't want to keep using supers after the public backlash... or at least not supers like Bob who can't help but draw attention to themselves. We haven't see the Incredibles version of Batman or Black Widow or Daredevil or such. In this movie, they were no long shielding them, so things became desperate.
 
The unrealistic thing is that the government didn't weaponized the supers somehow... but I think the answer to that would be... they probably did, but the Parr family and Frozone were "good" and would never have gone for that, so they sidelined them.
 
Also, I don't think they thought it through to this extent for the first movie... but now...
 
So... Incredibles 3... The Image Years... where Bob and Ellen are upstaged by "government supers" with distorted anatomy like bulging thighs and tiny little feet, with toaster guns and names like KewlBluudKill and Ripshredgutter!

This story may be indicative of the differing mood in our two countries recently. Our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has a zero-tolerance policy toward sexually-inappropriate conduct among members of his Liberal Party. Several members of caucus have been suspended after investigation of allegations, including a cabinet minister. But he's now undergoing media scrutiny, and criticism from the leader of the opposition party, for allegations that he inappropriately fondled a young female reporter at a charity music festival. Eighteen years ago.
 
The incident was relayed in an article in the newspaper the reporter worked for a few days later. (Justin wasn't in politics at the time, but as the son of the late Pierre Trudeau he was a public figure.) The article reported that Trudeau sort-of apologized to her the next day, saying, "If I'd known you were a reporter for a national newspaper, I would never have been so forward." The article was recently re-discovered and circulated online. The woman in question doesn't want to take legal action or even talk about it.
 
I believe this photo of Justin from the festival adds context.
 

 
EDIT: At the time Trudeau was 28, and single. He started dating his now-wife three years later, and they were married two years after that.

Fixed

This, yes. Just using concepts that already exist in Hero, and putting them together in a new configuration.  Flat effect powers... yep, that exists with Flash. Reducing OCV DCV as effect? Yep, exists with Drain and Flash. Set number of combat actions affected? Yep, a number of situations. 5 pts per d6 of Effect? Yep... standard baseline. Characteristic roll to overcome an effect? Yep, baseline concept.
 
So I created a new power... mechanical effect removed of any SFX/senses... 5 Pts. for -2 OCV/-2 DCV for  X round, where X is # of dice rolled. Ranged. Defense is a chosen Characteristic Roll (or two possible ones) that if made, shake off the effect for that action.
Basically, disorient the target, but if they make a Ego or Perception check they can fight through the effect for that round. Can't stack. (Can't hit them twice to give -4/-4, just like you can't extra-flash and already flashed character.)
 
You don't have to like it, but it is a way of taking the basic functions of Hero, and putting them together in a new way to get an effect... not really creating a new power or new effect. Works for me and is in a comparable range of in game effect to other things already in existence in Hero.

ooh!  is this where psychological complications might bite folk in the behind?
 
If your character has "sulky" or "hates authority figures" or anything of that ilk then the healing effect is diminished one dice for every five points in such a complication.  That would bring home the complication element of such complications...
 
Doc