MrAgdesh

The first time I met Darren Watts, I was in the middle of a game at Gen Con. He gave me his DOJ business card and wanted to talk to me after. He respected my work on fanzines such as Haymaker, Rogues Gallery, and The Clobberin' Times. He and Steven S. Long later offered me a job writing and editing at Hero Games. The timing wasn't right for me, sadly, but I did get to manage/edit the in-house magazine Digital Hero for its full run. 
 
We always had a blast together, hanging out at the booth, running or playing games together, or otherwise just shooting the breeze. I usually acted as the GM Assistant in Darren's "Build & Brawl" Champions games, in which players started with a blank character sheet and dozens of books spread around the table, with Darren and I as rules experts to help players get going. I was surprised at how many first-timers we'd get, and they'd always come up with great ideas:
a first-time player made a superhero who would push her opponents into a different dimension with no way back the planet Earth, who apparently had a secret ID, and would occasionally fight other superbeings a brain in a jar who wore a domino mask to protect his secret identity as another brain in a different jar  
I helped run the special Champions 30th anniversary game along with Rod Currie, in which Foxbat had somehow changed the timeline and made himself an honest-to-gosh superhero, admired by millions (Foxbat and His Amazing Friends). Darren, Steven, and Jason Walters were the VIP players, along with several lucky other gamers, who went back in time to prevent him from kidnapping Steve Peterson, George MacDonald, Raymond Greer, and Bruce Harlick and forcing them to change his character origin in the original source material.
 
For the past three years, I've loved listening to his Explain This, Comics Guys podcast, where he'd take us all on a behind-the-scenes tour of the early days of the comic book industry. Every episode I'd learn a dozen things that I didn't know, despite being a lifelong nerd myself. 
 
Darren's passing will leave a hole in the industry and in my circle of friends. Darren was a hero.
 

From the perspective of somebody who has worked on both WotC products for 5E and Hero System 6E, I think I have a pretty unique perspective on this. Obviously Hero System has a bit more upfront intellectual investment on character creation but once you learn it, that part is over. D&D constantly has some new mechanic that is independent in function from the system, all spells are different with interpretable text for example. So complexity is a bit more with Hero but levels out on a timeline. Players don’t get to that part has been the feedback I’ve received because often Hero players seem to be viewed as not very nice, not warm, not friendly, not inviting, and sometimes just flat out argumentative. I personally have pointed this out when someone asks a question on a Facebook page and the response is “the book is your friend” and I point out the book is hundreds and hundreds of pages and if they helped the player might have more interest in the system, gatekeeping like Gollum with a ring is s bad look. I wrote Hero System Book of Templates I and II so a player would have an easier time learning the creation process by reverse engineering the template they were familiar with, since help had seem hard to find. 

I'm working up a Star Wars Hero game with my regular group.  I'm going to charge 1/5 the normal point cost for Vehicles (including ships), Followers (including droids) and special gear (including lightsabers for Jedi, other special gear like Mando's beskar armor and jet pack).  Normal weapons, armor, medical equipment, tools, etc., are at no point cost. 

The thing is, if you break it down just to the core of the rules its still about 75 pages.  The reason its bigger is not because the rules became ridiculously complicated, they still run pretty much the way they did 2nd edition.  Its just that everything has been very carefully explained, with suggestions, with ideas behind how to run them and how to combine the rules.
 
But the bare basics?  Still the same.  That was the whole idea behind Champions Begins, to provide the core rules in a fun way, combined with an adventure and it was WAY less than 80 pages for the Player Book.  Building characters is more complicated, but you can still pull it off.  Its just a question of how much explanation and detail you want, and I think a Sidekick-like "here's just the fact's ma'am" book would probably be a smart intro to everything.  Put it all in there, but without the heavy detail and examples and "how modifiers work with this power" section, without the section on overall rules about how powers work, etc.  You could bang that thing out to a tenth the size of a standard Hero rule book.
 
Its not that the rules got worse, its that the effort to help people see how things interact and how to work with exceptions etc got more detailed.

The answers to all of your questions are yes.   
 
How dimensions, and Extradimensional Movement, work are up to the GM.  I haven't played in a game since the 80's that made use of characters being able to travel extradimensionally, at all; it's definitely not common generally, though I can't speak for all tables.  
 
The 5th edition supplements The Ultimate Mystic and The Mystic World go into more detail about how dimensions can work, and one particular setup for dimensions.  I recommend those for ideas.  

If there is one thing that I've taken away from the Arrows vs Armour videos its that plate is great vs arrows and chainmail not at all. But this ties in perfectly with the "Bashing, Slashing, and Piercing Damage" options (FH6Epg 205). So chainmail would only offer a 3rPD vs arrows if the archer makes a STR/DEX roll when they attack.
 
So (for Jolrhos) perhaps these (optional) rules are already there, just need highlighting to include them?
 
 
As Hugh said earlier, there are gameplay vs realism considerations, but having played 1E HarnMaster way back when - that had extensive rules for fighting against the multiple layers that something like a plate or chain wearer would have - it was incredibly drawn out and the nitty gritty was simply too much for me.

Yeah I have not pulled the cord on this yet but I have a scheme I have considered for a while now to have armor be 14- activation to half armor protection to represent joints, etc.  So you still get armor, just not the full coverage in that particular spot, then make it a -6 OCV area to aim at.
 
I agree that the damage range does simulate different qualities of hits (you rolled a 2? OK it glanced off a plate of armor -- GM descriptions and role playing can really liven yet another bandit fight).  That's a really simple system to use and my yen for complicated systems that give super crunchy realism is waning over time.  But the activation system still has appeal to me because its an absolute mechanic: you know what happened.

I'm personally not a fan of giving the armour an Activation Roll, simply because that makes it all or nothing. That simulates a hit to the face with an open helm or direct visor hit but doesn't work for hitting 'between the plates' where a chainmail hauberk and haubergeon should stop at least some of the trauma. I prefer the gaps in the armour being simulated by the actual damage rolled, so with the 1 1/2d6 medium bow maxing out at 9 BODY it has hit between the plates (or maybe penetrated slightly through the plate due to a 'perfect storm' of circumstances). 
 
 

Perhaps its worth a discussion on what makes an attack armor piercing in terms of normal weapons.  Is a spear head AP?  The point of a rapier?  Arrowheads?
 
Remember, this is about what it does in game terms, not what its called in real world parlance.

There's some evidence to suggest that steel arrow heads were preferred;
 
 
 
Although, even if steel heads were successfully commissioned by various English nobles, the penetrative capabilities of such were perhaps only slightly greater? (7:40 into the video).

I’ve always charged for magical items that you wish to start play with but never for anything found. 
My players never abused anything they found by overuse. In fact, many of the items were given away or sacrificed to gods.
 
If a player wanted to make a found item integral to their character then I’d charge some points but that would require a reasonable justification (somehow becomes mystically/symbiotically tied to you, maybe an intelligent item etc)

OK, trying again as requested
 
 
If the Archer wants to use the bow with no penalties, he needs to be proficient with it.  I believe that is where the cited cost of 2 points is coming from.
 
 
This just comes to a personal pet peeve that "it's not realistic" tends to be used in a very cherry-picked fashion.  Yes, it is realistic for the unarmed combatant to be at a disadvantage.  It is also realistic that the most modern weaponry is superior, so we don't have a group of characters whose signature weapons are a Trident, a Longsword, a Musket and a Submachine Gun.  Long lists of weapons that are more or less balanced against one another is just as unrealistic  as the unarmed combatant being as effective as an armed opponent. But they are a staple of RPGs - all the PCs don't show up armed identically.
 
PC's get the crap kicked out of them routinely. If we want realism, they should have long-term impairments as a consequence.  Real people don't get beaten into unconsciousness five times a day and suffer no long-term injuries.  They don't recover from nearly bleeding out on Monday, then recover from third-degree burns on Wednesday, get frostbite and hypothermia on Friday and show up hale and hearty the following Monday.  But RPG characters just take a lickin' and keep on tickin'.  That's no more realistic than our unarmed combatant being easily able to fight armed opponents.
 
This is before adding anything even more unrealistic, such as magic or psychic powers - just plain physical "realism" in the game.

And That sums up exactly why I dont do points for equipment.  For all fantasy games outside of HERO, it isn't possible to "just know" that you get to keep your favorite doodad.  In practice, I have found this knowledge to be disruptive to suspension of disbelief:
 
If I jam my +2 OCV magic sword into the bridgework where the logs are broken, the caravan can cross over safely, because it can't be broken, or I wouldn't have it,  and that isnt fair, because I paid points for it.
 
There are more extreme examples from my own experience, but two thumbs, touch screen, etc.
 
If I am playing DnD and have an heirloom item and I break it or lose it, well...  That's that.  It is a bit offensive to me that HERO fans demand otherwise, but only because I spent points on it-  points that I am not going to require them to spend on it anyway.  Points that they did not get to spend on Characteristics, Skills, Talents, etc, because they had the misfortune of playing under someone who really, truly believes that points are the be-all end-all of game balance.
 
Now let's remember who I am:  I am the guy who thinks that points are nothing but a limit switch that keeps new characters from starting out with everything (like the threat of death in Traveller character generation does: eventually, you are too satisfied with what you have to keep rolling) and a means by which character progression can be somewhat controlled.
 
I am also the guy who still allows "extra life" from that old Dragon article, because I cannot accept that "points gone forever" is somehow unfair: in order to believe that, I would have to accept that all points spent have equal value and equal utility, which would require rejecting forty-odd years of evidence to the contrary.
 
All that is part of my decision-making process, which ultimately leads me to "heroic level characters don't pay points for equipment, period."
 
 
 
 

There is also the social complication that might arise from warriors wearing heavy armour within the borders of foreign powers. It might well be seen as declaring an Act of War. This was a huge thing in the various Bushido campaigns that I've played over the years, and could easily be a thing for pseudo-European settings.
 
Also, the odd sea-faring scenario thrown in should mean you wear light armours at best. 

Re: the OP question as to whether or not bows should do less damage (for the Jolrhos Player's Guide specifically) 
 
A Very Heavy longbow does 2d6+1 and has an 18 STR min. That, on average, will bounce from full plate armour's DEF of 8. An above average damage roll (or crit) I assume has just hit at "the right angle" to penetrate. 
 
There won't be many of the populace with 18 STR though so the majority of longbowmen you face are likely to be light to medium bow users; 1d6 - 1 1/2d6, meaning that only the medium bowmen can squeeze 1 pip of BODY through on full plate if they roll maximum damage (or a critical).
 
 
To me, the damage therefore seems about right?
 
 
(I'm a big fan of the optional Bows vs Crossbows rules too; HSEG: Pg 32)

Do any of you use anything like this for a Natural 3 or 18?
 
I know that we have the Critical Hit mechanic but I'm talking about specifically the buzz of a rolled 3. Namely, there has never been one in HERO games that I've played - not like rolling a Nat 20 in a certain other well-known system.
 
Let's face it, a 3 is just so much more impressive than a 20, too, by a factor of 10 or so! 
 
Typically, a 3 has tended to be something like "I'll give you a couple of extra DCs damage" and a catastrophic 18 has only been "make a DEX roll or fall prone/ drop your weapon". I think that for Heroic level games, especially the next one that I run, I want to have something like this in place, so I've run up some tables of my own (still a work in progress).
 
I like the idea of a 3 standing a chance to turn the tide of battle, regardless of whether it's a Crit Hit or not.

It’s still my go to for the vast majority of campaign ideas; especially Fantasy, Space Opera, Swashbuckling, and of course, Supers. 
 
I’m currently running Aces & Eights Reloaded and Delta Green. I find that for these niches (realistic Western and conspiratorial cosmic horror) that those systems work just fine. 
 

It’s still my go to for the vast majority of campaign ideas; especially Fantasy, Space Opera, Swashbuckling, and of course, Supers. 
 
I’m currently running Aces & Eights Reloaded and Delta Green. I find that for these niches (realistic Western and conspiratorial cosmic horror) that those systems work just fine. 
 

It’s still my go to for the vast majority of campaign ideas; especially Fantasy, Space Opera, Swashbuckling, and of course, Supers. 
 
I’m currently running Aces & Eights Reloaded and Delta Green. I find that for these niches (realistic Western and conspiratorial cosmic horror) that those systems work just fine. 
 

This may also be partly the nature of the product and how people shop for it rather than "market share."
Board games seem to remain a "browse and talk to employees" at the brick-and-mortar item. Big boxes and lots of parts.
RPGs, which are primarily book-driven, seem to have become, primarily, a "buy it online" item. Slide it into a reinforced envelope.
 

I'm only familiar with the 1E AD&D version of Pass Without Trace - which wasn't actually about bypassing dense undergrowth at all, but simply hiking across various types of terrain (snow, sand, mud etc) without leaving footprints or scent. 
 
If you want to pass through Barriers, or just thick undergrowth, without leaving trace that you've been through (no footprints or scent) then Hugh's suggestion of a very limited Desolid seems perfect. 
 
If you want to pass through them but aren't bothered about leaving tracks then Tunneling is also elegant. 
 
The SFX of either could be that the foliage "parts before you and seals up behind you" but only the former would leave no evidence that you've passed through - to standard senses anyhow.

The only problem with teleport is what happens if the area is larger than your teleport.  You would be able to move but would be subject to the spell again.   If it is an entangle you could end up with reduced DVC after moving.  If it is a change environment, you could take secondary effects like taking damage from a wall of thorns.  Desolidification prevents all of that.  

Definitely a power that should target the character, not the things he bypasses.  Desolid, does not protect against damage (-1 RAW), only to pass through plant-based barriers or impediments (-1 RAW).  Maybe he wants it 0 END, Persistent, although the initial build wasn't (and would require an attack action). I'd waive the requirement for Affects Solid World on this one.

Rather than being Stunned, perhaps it's a feature of Knockdown?