Doc Democracy

In fifth, I always considered area effect to be up to a maximum of the radius.  I would allow players to define the area effect.  I would charge an additional +1/4 if they wanted to vary the radius every time it was used.

Not in Hero he couldn't.

I just wanted to add that this post came up in a search result because I was wondering the same thing as the OP.  Thank you all for chiming in and lending your experience and expertise to the issue.  I found the discussion very valuable.

You basically described me, completely. Nothing I hate worse than reading an instruction manual. A game should inspire and invoke a desire to play, to experience... and the rules flow from that. I'll probably never get to play Polaris, but every time I read it, I want to.

I think 3rd edition got a bit too fiddly.  They did still publish some excellent scenario packs.  I think reading the third edition rules would not draw you into the system as they also sought to divorce it from Glorantha which made some of the game design decisions feel a bit contrived whereas in the context of Glorantha, those design decisions made real sense.

But no shout out for her role in The Return of Captain Invincible, an unmissable superhero movie...

Is the obsession with Change Environment due to its name?  Folks used to have similar issue with the Force Field and Force Wall powers until 6e changed their names to Resistant Defense and Barrier. While HERO's power names have always been pretty good placeholders for finding power descriptions, the names themselves shoud never take the place of the actual description or mechanics. Assigning a sfx based mechanic based on a placeholder's implied sfx is counter to how HERO was designed.

This thread has me thinking about this a lot.  It is a simple thing that the system does not quite tackle and forces us to twist things in quite serious ways sometimes...
 
My current thinking is that I am going to use Darkness in reverse.  I will buy it such that within the defined area, one targetting sense group does work.  If you create Reverse Darkness in a brightly lit room, then noone would notice any difference, if you create it at midnight in the middle of Glencoe moors, then there will be a blob of light within which targetting senses do work (but not in the surrounding areas).

That should mean that people a mile away with the right perception abilities and enough range, could target things in there, just like it should work....
 
Doc

Right now, I am leaning towards a multipower where slots are all bought 0 END but there is an END cost to switching slots. I am thinking that the reserve will also be bought with a limitation of slot only remains active for 1 minute, though not sure what price I would give that - would depend on how often I thought that a player would want the slot to continue for longer than that...five turns is a long combat in my games and that would mean the player deciding not to switch to alternative enchantments in that time...

I think the way the game is set up (and the way people play the game), most PCs will be able to take hits (or avoid getting hit often enough to worry about it) as noone wants to be taken out of a fight too easily.  Also, if you set up with damage dealers and damage soakers, the damage dealers are likely to go straight for the opposiing damage dealers and take them out to allow them to focus on the damage soaker.
 
Kind of like how the cavalry battles on the wings of 16th and 17th century battles would take place while infantry blocks held the centre.  Whoever won the cavalry on the wings could then decide the stalemate in the centre.  :-)
 

Doc

You say on the site that you plan to finish a book on street level superheroes (Capes, Masks and Mystery Men was the title I planned to use for the superhero game that I will never write!)

What might be valuable on the site is an overview of the decisions you made to customise HERO to get the game you wanted - this might be a decent section in the final book but it would be a useful insight to anyone interested in doing their own version.
 
Doc

Are you already using the encumbrance and endurance rules?  A suit of full plate weighs 40 kg, add a large shield for an additional 7 kg, plus a few more for all the other stuff the characters are carrying and you are easily over 50 kg.  Unless you characters all have 18 STR this meanst they are taking -2 to their DCV/DEX rolls, as well as -2m of movement and paying 1 END per turn.  This also means they lose 1 LTE per turn. 
 
If this is for heroic characters they pay 1 END for every 5 STR instead of 1 per 10.  If you use the LTE rules this means the high STR character with a good SPD runs out of END very quickly.  A character with an 18 STR and a 4 SPD uses 16 END per turn in just STR alone.  If they are moving or doing other things that require END they can easily push this to 20+ END per turn. Unless they have over a 10 REC this means they lose 2 LTE per turn. 
 
Most combat focused characters have decent STR and above average SPD.  Figure a character with an 18 STR and 3 SPD.  They spend at least 12 END per turn when going full out in combat.  That means they only last a few min. before they are exhausted.  Out of combat they will probably need to reduce their SPD or they will be out of END all the time.  Dropping down to a 2 SPD they can avoid exhausting themselves so quickly, but now are moving a lot slower.  Most people don’t consider this, or ignore it.  If you really want to keep amour in check this is one of the best ways. 

There is a problem with HERO in that so much of it is extremely detailed, so detailed that we have come to expect that EVERYTHING will be written down somewhere after very careful consideration.  That however is not true. There is no Manual of the Universe.  Authors do a lot of stuff as they think fit, and they do not always see fit to detail their thinking or to avoid using terms that are quite usefully described elsewhere.
 
My bet is, that in this instance, the author felt that the full concentration penalty was too much for his vision of crossbows.  He decided he wanted to reduce that penalty and so he reduced the associated cost break to something he felt was fair as well.  What he should have written, in that case was (Limited Power: concentration , 1/2 DCV, +1/4).  He has used the fuzzy bit of the rules, limited power, which is essentially a bit of carte blanche for GMs to customise stuff to their idea of what is fair and reasonable.
 
All of the other limitations are essentially examples of what Limited Power might be, what the authors of the rules think are reasonable cost benefit ratios.
 
Doc

So been slowly working on content for my webpage.  I recently posted The Heroes of San Corona, a group of 6 low powered heroes.  
 
What would you guys like to see next?  been toying with putting my notes for the Armory up there, also of including the premiere team of the world (called the Centurions).  Also content could be in other areas...I want to put a new thing up every week...
 
take a look and tell me what YOU want to see...
 
http://jawedel01.wixsite.com/kountry-gaming

Don't you always have to declare this? I've always played this way.
 
The whole concept of "intent" is important with PRE as well as anything else. I'd never allow "I'm just rolling PRE to see what happens!"... no... it is "I'm dropping out of the black night sky, right in the midst of the mob, and doing my best scary voice to scare them into dispersing away and not chasing the injured mutant any more!"   Ok... that is the descriptive intent... PRE Attack in the mechanic... between GM and player, figure out any plusses/minuses to the number of dice... role for any added skill checks that could help (stealth and acrobatics to perfectly time the sudden appearance, etc.)   Then roll for it...
 
Now we are judging the result on what was expected, and logically agreed would be an a reasonable outcome.

And yes... all PRE attacks take a combat action/attack action, just like any other attack... at least in my games.

As the PC that that was hit in the face with a 24 dice blast and who is a masochist I do not hold anything against Steve for doing it. I might bitch and moan a little and of course berate my teammates for running and leaving me to my doom. With that being said I will have a lot more PRE next time when I face that bag of bones Takofanes.

I don't know enough about this specific incident to categorize it as "screwing over players."
 
On the subject of Presence Attacks generally, it's worth keeping in mind that it's not exactly comparable to the Advantage-laden Blast example cited earlier. There are numerous situational modifiers which can reduce a Presence Attack's dice of effect considerably. Repeated attacks suffer -1d6 of effect, cumulatively. Presence Attacks also require at minimum, clear sight of the attacker, and usually clear hearing as well, like Mental Powers.
 
I'm not saying they're not potentially unbalancing, or don't have to be watched carefully. But not everything is stacked in their favor.

There is a poll open for the best superhero RPG book in 2017.
 
It might not be a huge thing but every award is worth it.  Currently sitting second behind Sentinel Comics: the RPG starter kit.
 
http://bamfsies.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/its-time-open-call-for-2017-bamfsies.html?_sm_au_=iVVfsD08Z4L4TWsH
 
Doc

Well done folks, thanks for the votes, our boy gone and won it...
 
http://bamfsies.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/2017-bamfsies-awards-announced.html

Well done folks, thanks for the votes, our boy gone and won it...
 
http://bamfsies.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/2017-bamfsies-awards-announced.html

Well done folks, thanks for the votes, our boy gone and won it...
 
http://bamfsies.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/2017-bamfsies-awards-announced.html

Well done folks, thanks for the votes, our boy gone and won it...
 
http://bamfsies.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/2017-bamfsies-awards-announced.html

Well done folks, thanks for the votes, our boy gone and won it...
 
http://bamfsies.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/2017-bamfsies-awards-announced.html

Well done folks, thanks for the votes, our boy gone and won it...
 
http://bamfsies.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/2017-bamfsies-awards-announced.html

Well. If you duplicate, the basic premise is that each duplicate can do everything the other can.  No need to worry about eating breathing etc.
 
The big question is how far you want to go with the whole "the head can still feel the body" thing.  Would it take damage if the body took damage (do they share the same pool of STUN and END)?
 
If the answer to those things is no, then the duplicates can be mind linked.  That provides a decent connection.  Everything else then comes down to how you want to limit each of the duplicates because it is either headless or bodyless.  :-)