Captain Obvious

Really? I only converted the first two in the book (the Defender and the Mantis, I think). Their weapons didn't seem to be so expensive, even with added range levels and such to account for ground scale. Maybe I came to the same conclusion as you, but it just didn't register so clearly... Thanks for the link by the way.

There was one a couple of years back about converting Robot Warriors to 4th Ed, but I haven't seen it for a while, and I haven't seen anything more recent than that either. However, I will say that The Ultimate Vehicle has a really good section on Mecha (the chapter title is "And I'll Form the Head ). I highly recommend this book. Actually, when I first got TUV, I decided to convert a couple of the mecha from Robot Warriors to 5th Ed. The poor systems-light 'bots in RW wouldn't stand a chance against the samples in TUV....

Well, to start with pure thievery, I'd say grab all those guys from Golden Age Champions...Major Glory, Minuteman, etc etc. A couple of the guys from Red Doom would fit into a Golden Age campaign (Colonel Vasalov was a Lt Col by war's end...General Mayhem's origin takes place in 1941). Several characters from the Blood and Dr McQuark fought in WWII (Blade Carstairs met Brynhild Carstairs nee Gunther on the battlefield). There's probably tons more canonical NPCs out there.... I'd say some sort of super-spy would be a good Brit character. Arm him with ultra-high-tech weapons and equipment (Goggles that allow one to see by starlight? Bullet-proof cloth? That's impossible!) and give him tons of PRE skills...essentially a Golden Age James Bond. Not much coming to mind right away. Obviously, you can take any warrior-type emblematic of the country in question and play on stereotypes to make a flagsuit. Any regular type super you can come up with can be given a name in the language of the country to make him fit (look at La Panthere, Feur, Perestroika, etc etc)....

Many of the older Hero supplements suggest that characters have defenses equal to 2 or 3 times the killing attack dice of their enemies. Anything less than that and combats will be very quick and very bloody; anything more than that and the combatants will stand around pounding on each other for hours. If you quick and bloody fights aren't a problem for you, then feel free to continue as you are. If you want things to last a little longer, then you might consider giving them some defenses...either some form of combat luck, or some armor (samurai did wear armor into battle...an impromptu duel maybe not so much...). Of course, all the suggestions about avoiding being hit altogether are something to keep in mind too....

Everything that follows is my opinion, based on my experience with Hero from 3rd Edition on. Don't go building official characters with anything posted here.... Typically, the advantage of Based on ECV comes in from three sources. First, most people have no Mental Defense, second, EGO (the targeting characteristic) costs less than DEX, and third, most people have lower EGO than DEX, resulting in a lower DECV. The description of the psychokinesis power in the FREd (p147) says that the target still uses DEX based DCV to avoid being hit, thus eliminating source number 3. Common sense implies that being hit by a thrown object (no matter whether that object is thrown by hand, by magnetic beams (a SFX of standard TK), or by the power of the mind (psychokinesis)) will hurt a brick less than a physically frail mentalist, ie PD applies, not Mental Defense. Advantage source number 1 is out. Based on the fact that the only real advantage involved in this case is that fact that the character targets the TK with the relatively cheaper EGO rather than DEX, I'd only charge the character a +1/2 multiplier instead of the standard +1. Like I said, I doubt this would float in any sort of official setting, but in my personal games, I'm not out to screw my players.

Most skills that involve motor functions (martial arts, acrobatics, TF: bicycle) aren't really related to higher thinking skills all that much. Depending exactly what sort of background you've settled on for these guys (what their lives were like before the lobotomy) any Agility skills or Combat skills should be fair game.

If you have somewhere horrible and fun in mind, go ahead and handwave some more. Based on what you've already told us, you've been more than fair already. They don't need any chances of getting where they're trying to go without further delay...

If the Multipower pool is large enough, activating a new slot won't shut down other slots. Similar logic applies to VPPs...if you have enough points to work with, you can set up an effective defense, cast attack spells, and still run a few utility type spells at the same time. Personally, I've never found the "buy each power individually" method to be a problem. Sure there are a lot of limitations attached, but most of them are part and parcel of what most people consider to be spell-casting norms: Gestures, Incantations, RSR, focus. Others suggest themselves based on the special effects, like fire spells that can be shut down with water. Granted, this method tends to yield less magic than many people like to see, but I'm no fan of high magic games. Too many players want to apply modern tactics to their magic use. Using telepathy to call in an airstrike from a fireball wielding mage mounted on a hippogriff isn't what I think of when I think of fantasy....

I think my most embarrassing superhero role-playing experience was just about every time we played Marvel Superheroes. You would think a guy with Amazing fighting skill could hurt someone every now and then, even if his strength was just Good. I guess it was my fault, because I was too stubborn to just re-roll a new guy.... This other experience didn't embarrass me, but it couldn't have been good for the guy it happened to. I was GMing the group through the adventure To Serve and Protect, wherein a well established hero group suddenly goes rogue, and throwing around harsh punishments for trivial offenses. A few early encounters in the story are scripted so that the Protectors beat the PCs (not too hard, since the Protectors had some pretty good tactics as I recall). We had one guy whose character was some kind of high-tech psycho-killer (he didn't quite 'get' the whole superhero idea...come to think of it, given some of his fantasy exploits, I don't think he really got the idea of a team...). Anyway, as the other PCs start dropping and the Protectors start looking at him as the biggest current threat, he starts thinking about running. He's low on END, though, so he decides to TP a short distance away and hide for a recovery or two. He teleports right into the Mens' room in the mall they're fighting at. When the Protectors found him, a couple of phases later, he was whimpering in a stall, still unable to fight or run....

A few suggestions: Load every scene in the adventure down with details. The characters may ignore it all at first only to find that they missed some important information, or they may take pages and pages of notes only to find that most of them were red herrings. It will help add to the whole "what the hell is going on here" feeling. Find reasons to separate the characters. A local citizen has some information, but for some reason or other, doesn't trust most of the party. PRE guy has to infiltrate a secret society/cult/old boys' network, and can't do it with all his drooling buddies hanging around. Roleplayer guy finds some out of the way shop or museum or local historical site that no one else cares about, and goes to check it out. When they're separated, make them think they're about to die...they're attacked by some weird thing, they're attacked by some unexpected foe, they're absolutely sure they're about to be attacked.... It all goes back to Bartman's FUD. The monsters don't even have to be overwhelmingly powerful. If the characters never know when the attack will come, it doesn't really matter whether the monster has a Susceptibility to oxygen. If the fear is there, the horror genre is likely there too.