massey

There is some argument that it suffered from the "Prequel" Problem. Similar to the Star Wars Prequel Trillogy, we already knew how everything major would turn out:
We knew the Kree were A-holes from Guardians.
We knew Fury would end up with the Tessaract again from Thor/Avengers 1.
We knew she would end up free, but away fromt he planet.
We knew she would kick all the Kree's behinds.
We knew she would give Fury that Galactic Pager.
 
There was no room for Huge surprises, so they focussed on the little ones.
And at least for me and my friends, that did work out. But then we also enjoyed the story of Star Wars 1-3, so it might be a fundamental difference in goals from a movie.

Yes, but the Anti-SJW crowd, does;'t beat you with bike locks.

And so it begins . . .
 

Word of warning: Do not use that kind of language at the movie cat. It will take exception.

--Group superhero stories in the comics virtually never involve mysteries.
--Mysteries can be really hard for a group to play.
--Mysteries are hard for a GM to run without becoming a plot on rails.
--Some players just don't like solving mysteries.  It isn't fun at all for them.
--Some players may like solving mysteries, but that doesn't mean their character has any skill or interest in it.  The Incredible Hulk is not known as a great detective.
 
I usually have a hard time playing mysteries because in my experience, GMs want to hand out little details slowly and awkwardly.  In fact I tend to get mad when I ask a few questions, try to make a few skill rolls, and the GM says something like "you don't find any clues."  Then they want me to keep jumping through hoops until I randomly stumble across their plot.  It's infuriating.  After reading the recap, my thought is "why didn't the DNPC just tell him what the hell is going on?"
 
You have to realize that the player can't actually see anything that is happening.  He is 100% dependent on you giving him information.  There is no burned down catering building for him to investigate -- it exists purely in the GM's mind.  If he goes to investigate it and you say "you don't find anything", then he doesn't know what to do next.  The player doesn't know if he's supposed to continue investigating there ("I dig through the ashes, hunting for a secret basement or something"), or if he's just supposed to move on and wait for something else to happen.  Maybe the GM isn't ready to reveal the plan yet.
 
Again, I wonder why the DNPC didn't tell him more on the phone.  I'm sure the player does too.  I think the "I go and get drunk tonight" was a direct message to the GM that the player is not having fun with this story, and is ready for you to get to the point.  In my experience, behavior like that is supposed to tell the GM "I don't understand what you're going for, this isn't working".

--Group superhero stories in the comics virtually never involve mysteries.
--Mysteries can be really hard for a group to play.
--Mysteries are hard for a GM to run without becoming a plot on rails.
--Some players just don't like solving mysteries.  It isn't fun at all for them.
--Some players may like solving mysteries, but that doesn't mean their character has any skill or interest in it.  The Incredible Hulk is not known as a great detective.
 
I usually have a hard time playing mysteries because in my experience, GMs want to hand out little details slowly and awkwardly.  In fact I tend to get mad when I ask a few questions, try to make a few skill rolls, and the GM says something like "you don't find any clues."  Then they want me to keep jumping through hoops until I randomly stumble across their plot.  It's infuriating.  After reading the recap, my thought is "why didn't the DNPC just tell him what the hell is going on?"
 
You have to realize that the player can't actually see anything that is happening.  He is 100% dependent on you giving him information.  There is no burned down catering building for him to investigate -- it exists purely in the GM's mind.  If he goes to investigate it and you say "you don't find anything", then he doesn't know what to do next.  The player doesn't know if he's supposed to continue investigating there ("I dig through the ashes, hunting for a secret basement or something"), or if he's just supposed to move on and wait for something else to happen.  Maybe the GM isn't ready to reveal the plan yet.
 
Again, I wonder why the DNPC didn't tell him more on the phone.  I'm sure the player does too.  I think the "I go and get drunk tonight" was a direct message to the GM that the player is not having fun with this story, and is ready for you to get to the point.  In my experience, behavior like that is supposed to tell the GM "I don't understand what you're going for, this isn't working".

--Group superhero stories in the comics virtually never involve mysteries.
--Mysteries can be really hard for a group to play.
--Mysteries are hard for a GM to run without becoming a plot on rails.
--Some players just don't like solving mysteries.  It isn't fun at all for them.
--Some players may like solving mysteries, but that doesn't mean their character has any skill or interest in it.  The Incredible Hulk is not known as a great detective.
 
I usually have a hard time playing mysteries because in my experience, GMs want to hand out little details slowly and awkwardly.  In fact I tend to get mad when I ask a few questions, try to make a few skill rolls, and the GM says something like "you don't find any clues."  Then they want me to keep jumping through hoops until I randomly stumble across their plot.  It's infuriating.  After reading the recap, my thought is "why didn't the DNPC just tell him what the hell is going on?"
 
You have to realize that the player can't actually see anything that is happening.  He is 100% dependent on you giving him information.  There is no burned down catering building for him to investigate -- it exists purely in the GM's mind.  If he goes to investigate it and you say "you don't find anything", then he doesn't know what to do next.  The player doesn't know if he's supposed to continue investigating there ("I dig through the ashes, hunting for a secret basement or something"), or if he's just supposed to move on and wait for something else to happen.  Maybe the GM isn't ready to reveal the plan yet.
 
Again, I wonder why the DNPC didn't tell him more on the phone.  I'm sure the player does too.  I think the "I go and get drunk tonight" was a direct message to the GM that the player is not having fun with this story, and is ready for you to get to the point.  In my experience, behavior like that is supposed to tell the GM "I don't understand what you're going for, this isn't working".

--Group superhero stories in the comics virtually never involve mysteries.
--Mysteries can be really hard for a group to play.
--Mysteries are hard for a GM to run without becoming a plot on rails.
--Some players just don't like solving mysteries.  It isn't fun at all for them.
--Some players may like solving mysteries, but that doesn't mean their character has any skill or interest in it.  The Incredible Hulk is not known as a great detective.
 
I usually have a hard time playing mysteries because in my experience, GMs want to hand out little details slowly and awkwardly.  In fact I tend to get mad when I ask a few questions, try to make a few skill rolls, and the GM says something like "you don't find any clues."  Then they want me to keep jumping through hoops until I randomly stumble across their plot.  It's infuriating.  After reading the recap, my thought is "why didn't the DNPC just tell him what the hell is going on?"
 
You have to realize that the player can't actually see anything that is happening.  He is 100% dependent on you giving him information.  There is no burned down catering building for him to investigate -- it exists purely in the GM's mind.  If he goes to investigate it and you say "you don't find anything", then he doesn't know what to do next.  The player doesn't know if he's supposed to continue investigating there ("I dig through the ashes, hunting for a secret basement or something"), or if he's just supposed to move on and wait for something else to happen.  Maybe the GM isn't ready to reveal the plan yet.
 
Again, I wonder why the DNPC didn't tell him more on the phone.  I'm sure the player does too.  I think the "I go and get drunk tonight" was a direct message to the GM that the player is not having fun with this story, and is ready for you to get to the point.  In my experience, behavior like that is supposed to tell the GM "I don't understand what you're going for, this isn't working".

--Group superhero stories in the comics virtually never involve mysteries.
--Mysteries can be really hard for a group to play.
--Mysteries are hard for a GM to run without becoming a plot on rails.
--Some players just don't like solving mysteries.  It isn't fun at all for them.
--Some players may like solving mysteries, but that doesn't mean their character has any skill or interest in it.  The Incredible Hulk is not known as a great detective.
 
I usually have a hard time playing mysteries because in my experience, GMs want to hand out little details slowly and awkwardly.  In fact I tend to get mad when I ask a few questions, try to make a few skill rolls, and the GM says something like "you don't find any clues."  Then they want me to keep jumping through hoops until I randomly stumble across their plot.  It's infuriating.  After reading the recap, my thought is "why didn't the DNPC just tell him what the hell is going on?"
 
You have to realize that the player can't actually see anything that is happening.  He is 100% dependent on you giving him information.  There is no burned down catering building for him to investigate -- it exists purely in the GM's mind.  If he goes to investigate it and you say "you don't find anything", then he doesn't know what to do next.  The player doesn't know if he's supposed to continue investigating there ("I dig through the ashes, hunting for a secret basement or something"), or if he's just supposed to move on and wait for something else to happen.  Maybe the GM isn't ready to reveal the plan yet.
 
Again, I wonder why the DNPC didn't tell him more on the phone.  I'm sure the player does too.  I think the "I go and get drunk tonight" was a direct message to the GM that the player is not having fun with this story, and is ready for you to get to the point.  In my experience, behavior like that is supposed to tell the GM "I don't understand what you're going for, this isn't working".

You seem to have provided Proper Nouns to seek out and clear unstated information to ask about.  There's obvious ways forward. 
 
That said, I could see how a player wouldn't follow those paths.  The following isn't intended as a factual criticism, it's intended to represent how a player might see the information presented as unusable.  Please take it in that light. 
 
A : The DNPC is the GM's mouthpiece.  If the GM wanted me to have information on who they were meeting with or what about, the DMPC would have told me.  Therefore, I shouldn't waste time asking about what I'm not meant to know. 
B : I don't have much information on the car-burning.  What am I supposed to do with a burnt car and dead woman?  It's already clear superpowers were involved, and I don't remember any flame-themed villains so can't track them down. 
C : A burglary isn't an arson/murder, the two clearly aren't connected.  And I'm a superhero, why should I be investigating a mundane crime? 
D : Mystery plots are just the GM forcing us to read his mind and ask the right people the right things for no apparent reason, that's not fun so I'm not going to try. 

What you describe certainly sounds like it could cause this reaction. It definitely could cause it from me.
 
But then running a Mystery is always dang hard.
Just recently I had a GM be frustrated by our group of 3 Charcters failing 3 Spot checks each to notice a plot detail in a row. He had to invent reasons and circumstances for us to retry.
 
I think what might work, is to adopt the "never a real failure" option of Narative Storytelling Systems. That way you can avoid the story ever being "stuck" on failing rolls or inventing reasons to re-do the roll. Without making the skill investment pointless. As a example, look at this thread:
Under "Failure is not an option".

And then you have to factor in the value of OCV and SPD and certain talents and other powers to determine further impacts on the performance of the power. 
 
Condensing the combat effectiveness of a power to a single number is doable, but it outright requires a computer program to crunch the numbers for you. 

If you are starting with the 6th edition double-rule book set, you'll find it's very slow reading.  It's more of a reference material than an easy to read game book.  On the positive side, virtually everything is in there somewhere.  On the negative side, it's written like the tax code.
 
I think you're doing just fine as far as starting out.  And you can ask your questions here and we are usually pretty helpful.  There's a large community of people with varying levels of experience.
 
Surbrook's Stuff is a great website, but you're correct that many of the character sheets there were made by a guy with 20+ years experience in the game, for arcane reasons known only to him (and his fellow old fogeys).  A lot of very experienced Hero players will get that way, debating over tiny details and engaging in long discussions of theory.  It can be interesting, but it's not really useful when people are trying to learn the system.  I'd suggest finding some more streamlined character sheets that are easier to understand at a glance.

This is true for a lot of fiction, and not just for magic.  If you want to simulate them, you need to decide how to interpret what happens in the books.  D&D provides Feats like Eschew Materials and Silent Spell.  Hero allows buy-off of limitations, and variable limitations.  Either could be used to explain why some characters can cast spells without wands or incantations sometimes.
 
On the topic of simulating various source material, this one in particular, I was thinking this morning about the power of the killing curse as described by characters in the books, compared to the impact it actually had in the books, and it really seems a lot like:
"These blast points... too accurate for Sand People. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise."
So, do we build our Stormtrooopers so they rarely miss, and Luke, Han and Leia get taken out by blaster bolts in the first combat, because Imperial Stormtroopers are really precise, or do we build them as the mooks they are when actually appearing against PC characters?

By default, HERO is anthropocentric.  Everyone starts with two legs, two arms, sight, hearing, speech, credit card, arithmetic skills, etc etc.  Not having something a normal bystander has is a Disadvantage. 
So a horse without arms has the No Arms physlim and thus has no arms, whereas a centaur (who has not suffered tragic accident in his backstory) does not have the No Arms physlim and thus has arms. 

Mostly what Duke just said, but also consider what advantage the extra two legs provides. 
Can they still walk if they lose a leg?  No. 
Can they still kick if they lose a leg?  No. 
Are they able to grab more people at once?  No. 
Can they hold more objects?  No. 
Do they need to buy more shoes?  Yes. 
 
They're not paying for Extra Limbs because they're not getting any benefits you'd expect to come from Extra Limbs. 

See you're not thinking in Hero terms.  I mean if you want to have a house rule where powers are limited by the campaign structure rather than actual limits on powers, that's up to you, but that's not how the rules work.

In hero terms the powers are limited by how much a given effect limits them, no matter what the campaign is like.  One use per day is still one use no mater how many dice the power is.

Any power that is limited to be less powerful than it's original purchase is by definition limited and should get something off.  No matter what the campaign power level is.  A 60d6 blast may be way past the campaign's power levels but if its only usable once a day, its still worth a -2 limitation.  The campaign limits have nothing whatsoever to do with whether a power is limited or not.

Well, I thnk the Hero Point explanation is really a justification for giving villains a boost in their first appearance.
 
Let's say you've got Captain Blastarr.  He's a fairly generic energy projector in early 90s Image armor.  And he first appears on the cover of Champions #287.  He's not an amazing character, but he's got to look cool in his first issue.  So he's standing there like a cheapo Dr Destroyer, with the entire team on the ground unconscious.  He's got his hand pointed at Defender's body, with a glowing aura surrounding him.  The cover says "AT THE MERCY... OF CAPTAIN BLASTARR!!!"
 
He looks pretty tough there, and if you read the issue you see that he slaps around the team pretty easily.  He's chucking huge energy blasts that drop two or three members per shot.  Their attacks harmlessly bounce off his force field.  It looks like nothing they can do can hurt him.  By the end, the Champions will pull out a win by the skin of their teeth, and Captain Blastarr is defeated.  But one day he will return...
 
Of course, when he does eventually return six months later, the Champions don't have near the problem with him that they did the first time.  They're ready for his moves, and they pound him into the dirt.  Five years later he's making an appearance in some second string comic, and the Kindergarten Kommandoes are pounding on him.  Eventually he only shows up in big group battles, where some giant team of 50 villains attacks the heroes all at once.  He's just a face in a big group shot, and then you see him unconscious in some two-page splash panel.
 
So... how tough is this guy anyway?  Is he the guy who kicked the crap out of the Champions?  Or is he the guy who got trounced by Wonder Tot's dog?  It's too hard to judge villains by their first appearance.  Presumably some villains roll really well the first time they show up.

Let's suppose that the Killing Curse is going to be a major plot element in your game.  We want the players to be afraid of it, but we don't want it so lethal that the game ends.  If it gets used on them, we want the PCs to survive, but just barely.  We definitely want the players to sweat it.
 
So let's say that the average player character in the Kid Wizard Academy game has 13 Body and 10 resistant ED.  So let's make our Killing Curse start out as a 10D6 RKA, all or nothing.  On average, this won't affect one of the PCs.  The average roll is 35 Body, which will be just short of the 36 necessary to instant kill them.  Of course, it's easy to roll slightly higher than average.  This will still kill about half the characters you target with it.  So let's tweak it a bit.  Let's apply some of the options in my post above.
 
Main character defense + weakened all powerful attack.  Let's slap a limitation on it that mystic shields apply.  "Target applies both rED and Power Defense (-1/2)."  And we'll say that important characters can buy Power Defense.  Most people don't have it, even most wizards.  And we'll say that the average PC will have like 8 points of Power Defense.  So now the attack needs to roll 44 Body to kill them.  A roll that high won't be that uncommon, so they're still in danger, but they should be relatively safe.  It's not a great combat option against them (it will usually fail).
 
But now we try it out, and pretty quickly the PCs realize that it won't affect them most of the time.  We don't want them feeling like they're immune.  So let's add in some NPC vulnerability, The stars are right, and Lucky PC aspects to the mix.  We're going to make it so the PC's aren't automatically immune, so they'll feel some real danger and tension.  We'll also add some extra limitations to bring the costs down.
 
 
Killing Curse -- 8D6 RKA, all or nothing (-2), target applies both rED and Power Defense (-1/2), can be used 1 time per opponent per combat (-1), gestures and incantations (-1/2)
  plus
6D6 RKA, with same limitations as above (-4), and requires opposed KS: Magic skill check, gets 1 D6 per point of success  (-1)
210 Active Points, 39 Real Cost
 
Non-plot essential NPCs have a x2 Vulnerability to the Killing Curse.  Even important characters may have this Vulnerability after they've fulfilled their role in the story (they're no longer protected by the fates and so are subject to its full power).  The opposed KS: Magic roll means that the caster will roll off with the target.  The evil Lord Vrakdemarr has KS: Magic at 20-.  Wizard Kid has KS: Magic at 17-.  Lord Vrakdemarr rolls a 12, making his roll by 8.  Wizard Kid rolls an 11, making his roll by 6.  Lord Vrakdemarr won the roll off by 2 points, so he gets 2 additional D6 of RKA for this use of the power.  It's now a 10D6 RKA.  Had Vrakdemarr rolled better, it could go all the way up to a 14D6 RKA, which would probably have instant-killed young Wizard Kid.
 
What you've got here is a power that is potentially extremely lethal.  But through a variety of little tweaks to the power, we've kept PCs from being subjected to the full blast.  They'll probably survive, but if somebody really craps out on their KS: Magic roll, or the bad guy rolls awesome on damage, they could still get killed really fast.  We've added on an additional layer of complexity with the KS: Magic roll off, to throw players off and make it feel like they're in more danger than they actually are.  We're connecting it to something that isn't normally a combat stat (I'm presuming this game doesn't require a skill roll when you cast spells), so it's something they haven't pumped up as much as they could -- it's not a traditional defense.  There's also a great deal of variability in the potential dice damage, which means that an unlucky PC can eat it real fast.  So the PC's don't just have pure plot immunity.
 
Even at the 8D6 level, most NPCs will get slaughtered.  It's effectively instant death unless the GM rules otherwise.  If you are a PC or other important character, the spell user is going to have to beat you in a magic roll to see how many extra D6 he gets.  The GM can allow the Luck power (or other factors) to boost the target's roll.  This means it's theoretically ultra-lethal except when the GM needs the player to survive.

Well, I thnk the Hero Point explanation is really a justification for giving villains a boost in their first appearance.
 
Let's say you've got Captain Blastarr.  He's a fairly generic energy projector in early 90s Image armor.  And he first appears on the cover of Champions #287.  He's not an amazing character, but he's got to look cool in his first issue.  So he's standing there like a cheapo Dr Destroyer, with the entire team on the ground unconscious.  He's got his hand pointed at Defender's body, with a glowing aura surrounding him.  The cover says "AT THE MERCY... OF CAPTAIN BLASTARR!!!"
 
He looks pretty tough there, and if you read the issue you see that he slaps around the team pretty easily.  He's chucking huge energy blasts that drop two or three members per shot.  Their attacks harmlessly bounce off his force field.  It looks like nothing they can do can hurt him.  By the end, the Champions will pull out a win by the skin of their teeth, and Captain Blastarr is defeated.  But one day he will return...
 
Of course, when he does eventually return six months later, the Champions don't have near the problem with him that they did the first time.  They're ready for his moves, and they pound him into the dirt.  Five years later he's making an appearance in some second string comic, and the Kindergarten Kommandoes are pounding on him.  Eventually he only shows up in big group battles, where some giant team of 50 villains attacks the heroes all at once.  He's just a face in a big group shot, and then you see him unconscious in some two-page splash panel.
 
So... how tough is this guy anyway?  Is he the guy who kicked the crap out of the Champions?  Or is he the guy who got trounced by Wonder Tot's dog?  It's too hard to judge villains by their first appearance.  Presumably some villains roll really well the first time they show up.

Sorry late to the game.
 
In the last fantasy game I run, I made everyone buy everything with points.  The idea was, it was a Xena/Hercules style game.  So weapons, magic or what not, that you would commonly have, needed to be bought with points or you would lose them between episodes.  Treasure was never defined as X gold pieces but as X xp worth of generic treasure (about 1 pt per player for the big treasure at the end).  If the player wanted to be rich, they simply bought wealth.  If they wanted a magic weapon, the treasure haul would have the weapon amongst the items and the player would buy it with xp.  Fighters could have multipower pools defined as anime style attacks.  I dislike power pools, so not even the villains had them.  Sadly, that game died mainly due to my fault of being unprepared and a bad work situation, but the treasure idea worked well IMHO.

Well, I thnk the Hero Point explanation is really a justification for giving villains a boost in their first appearance.
 
Let's say you've got Captain Blastarr.  He's a fairly generic energy projector in early 90s Image armor.  And he first appears on the cover of Champions #287.  He's not an amazing character, but he's got to look cool in his first issue.  So he's standing there like a cheapo Dr Destroyer, with the entire team on the ground unconscious.  He's got his hand pointed at Defender's body, with a glowing aura surrounding him.  The cover says "AT THE MERCY... OF CAPTAIN BLASTARR!!!"
 
He looks pretty tough there, and if you read the issue you see that he slaps around the team pretty easily.  He's chucking huge energy blasts that drop two or three members per shot.  Their attacks harmlessly bounce off his force field.  It looks like nothing they can do can hurt him.  By the end, the Champions will pull out a win by the skin of their teeth, and Captain Blastarr is defeated.  But one day he will return...
 
Of course, when he does eventually return six months later, the Champions don't have near the problem with him that they did the first time.  They're ready for his moves, and they pound him into the dirt.  Five years later he's making an appearance in some second string comic, and the Kindergarten Kommandoes are pounding on him.  Eventually he only shows up in big group battles, where some giant team of 50 villains attacks the heroes all at once.  He's just a face in a big group shot, and then you see him unconscious in some two-page splash panel.
 
So... how tough is this guy anyway?  Is he the guy who kicked the crap out of the Champions?  Or is he the guy who got trounced by Wonder Tot's dog?  It's too hard to judge villains by their first appearance.  Presumably some villains roll really well the first time they show up.

Let's suppose that the Killing Curse is going to be a major plot element in your game.  We want the players to be afraid of it, but we don't want it so lethal that the game ends.  If it gets used on them, we want the PCs to survive, but just barely.  We definitely want the players to sweat it.
 
So let's say that the average player character in the Kid Wizard Academy game has 13 Body and 10 resistant ED.  So let's make our Killing Curse start out as a 10D6 RKA, all or nothing.  On average, this won't affect one of the PCs.  The average roll is 35 Body, which will be just short of the 36 necessary to instant kill them.  Of course, it's easy to roll slightly higher than average.  This will still kill about half the characters you target with it.  So let's tweak it a bit.  Let's apply some of the options in my post above.
 
Main character defense + weakened all powerful attack.  Let's slap a limitation on it that mystic shields apply.  "Target applies both rED and Power Defense (-1/2)."  And we'll say that important characters can buy Power Defense.  Most people don't have it, even most wizards.  And we'll say that the average PC will have like 8 points of Power Defense.  So now the attack needs to roll 44 Body to kill them.  A roll that high won't be that uncommon, so they're still in danger, but they should be relatively safe.  It's not a great combat option against them (it will usually fail).
 
But now we try it out, and pretty quickly the PCs realize that it won't affect them most of the time.  We don't want them feeling like they're immune.  So let's add in some NPC vulnerability, The stars are right, and Lucky PC aspects to the mix.  We're going to make it so the PC's aren't automatically immune, so they'll feel some real danger and tension.  We'll also add some extra limitations to bring the costs down.
 
 
Killing Curse -- 8D6 RKA, all or nothing (-2), target applies both rED and Power Defense (-1/2), can be used 1 time per opponent per combat (-1), gestures and incantations (-1/2)
  plus
6D6 RKA, with same limitations as above (-4), and requires opposed KS: Magic skill check, gets 1 D6 per point of success  (-1)
210 Active Points, 39 Real Cost
 
Non-plot essential NPCs have a x2 Vulnerability to the Killing Curse.  Even important characters may have this Vulnerability after they've fulfilled their role in the story (they're no longer protected by the fates and so are subject to its full power).  The opposed KS: Magic roll means that the caster will roll off with the target.  The evil Lord Vrakdemarr has KS: Magic at 20-.  Wizard Kid has KS: Magic at 17-.  Lord Vrakdemarr rolls a 12, making his roll by 8.  Wizard Kid rolls an 11, making his roll by 6.  Lord Vrakdemarr won the roll off by 2 points, so he gets 2 additional D6 of RKA for this use of the power.  It's now a 10D6 RKA.  Had Vrakdemarr rolled better, it could go all the way up to a 14D6 RKA, which would probably have instant-killed young Wizard Kid.
 
What you've got here is a power that is potentially extremely lethal.  But through a variety of little tweaks to the power, we've kept PCs from being subjected to the full blast.  They'll probably survive, but if somebody really craps out on their KS: Magic roll, or the bad guy rolls awesome on damage, they could still get killed really fast.  We've added on an additional layer of complexity with the KS: Magic roll off, to throw players off and make it feel like they're in more danger than they actually are.  We're connecting it to something that isn't normally a combat stat (I'm presuming this game doesn't require a skill roll when you cast spells), so it's something they haven't pumped up as much as they could -- it's not a traditional defense.  There's also a great deal of variability in the potential dice damage, which means that an unlucky PC can eat it real fast.  So the PC's don't just have pure plot immunity.
 
Even at the 8D6 level, most NPCs will get slaughtered.  It's effectively instant death unless the GM rules otherwise.  If you are a PC or other important character, the spell user is going to have to beat you in a magic roll to see how many extra D6 he gets.  The GM can allow the Luck power (or other factors) to boost the target's roll.  This means it's theoretically ultra-lethal except when the GM needs the player to survive.

Well, I thnk the Hero Point explanation is really a justification for giving villains a boost in their first appearance.
 
Let's say you've got Captain Blastarr.  He's a fairly generic energy projector in early 90s Image armor.  And he first appears on the cover of Champions #287.  He's not an amazing character, but he's got to look cool in his first issue.  So he's standing there like a cheapo Dr Destroyer, with the entire team on the ground unconscious.  He's got his hand pointed at Defender's body, with a glowing aura surrounding him.  The cover says "AT THE MERCY... OF CAPTAIN BLASTARR!!!"
 
He looks pretty tough there, and if you read the issue you see that he slaps around the team pretty easily.  He's chucking huge energy blasts that drop two or three members per shot.  Their attacks harmlessly bounce off his force field.  It looks like nothing they can do can hurt him.  By the end, the Champions will pull out a win by the skin of their teeth, and Captain Blastarr is defeated.  But one day he will return...
 
Of course, when he does eventually return six months later, the Champions don't have near the problem with him that they did the first time.  They're ready for his moves, and they pound him into the dirt.  Five years later he's making an appearance in some second string comic, and the Kindergarten Kommandoes are pounding on him.  Eventually he only shows up in big group battles, where some giant team of 50 villains attacks the heroes all at once.  He's just a face in a big group shot, and then you see him unconscious in some two-page splash panel.
 
So... how tough is this guy anyway?  Is he the guy who kicked the crap out of the Champions?  Or is he the guy who got trounced by Wonder Tot's dog?  It's too hard to judge villains by their first appearance.  Presumably some villains roll really well the first time they show up.