One thing I REALLY liked about HERO over D&D

[Felon]

A bit late to hop in on this point, but I have to disagree with you. The roles still exist, both in terms of what's tactically necessary and what people generally gravitate towards playing. It is just that various systems allow you different ways to fill them.

Yep. A supers group needs someone to fill thetough front-line fighter niche, the investigator/expert niche, the ranged attacker niche, and so on. Psion argued that a supers group wouldn't suffer for lack of someone with Desolidification, yet I bet it would suffer for lack of someone that could deal with a desolidified opponent.

 

[Felon]

I can add a few.

-Greatly reduced buff spell duration
-Spider Climb being upped to 2nd level
-a limit of +10 worth of bonuses on magical weapons
-a limit of +5 inherent ability score bonuses
-sorcerers EVER needing material components for their spells
-potions only holding 1-3d level spells

that's all I can think of for now. I know these all are balance issues, but that's the point. Munchkinning aside, these are in place only for balance, if any reason is given at all.

OTOH, their we're not talking about taking anything "interesting" or "neat" away from the game (unless neat = powergamer-friendly), which is, as Psion stated, the problem with nerfing things for balance.

I'll try to come up with a better example (because I didn't Psi provide any). How about Ethereal Jaunt? Now that's a very abusable spell. It can ruin entire dungeons. But it also has a lot of interesting ways that it can be used to scout and gather information. I believe in 3.0 it was a 5th or 6th level spell with a 1 min/level duration. Now it's 7th and its duration is reduced to rounds. You need the 9th-level Etherealness spell to get the duration back to minutes.

 

[swrushing]

in HERo 4, damage shield was +1/2 advantage. It worked OK for simple obvious damage shields based on normal attacks like fire, the human torch waorked out Ok, but there were some odd balance issues when things like NNDs, drains, and non-attack powers like clinging were used.

EXAMPLE: Human torch could, for the same cost as a high end of the range 12d6 firebolt buy a flaming body that would cause 8d6 to anyone who hit him... the low end of the range. Enough to actually hurt a typical super with defenses in the range of 15-25, a little, when he hit the torch. Thats not, in practice, unbalancing and plays out well. That was 4e.

in HERo 5, they added a requirement for an additional +1 advantage for damage shield, which raised its effective cost for normal attacks thru the roof. So now, in 5e, its really not worth the points to use it for normal fire human torch like powers and is only really effective for those oddball nnd, drain, or clinging type powers... which are better balanced at +1.5. (tho they did tack on some other advantage options...)

EXAMPLE: Now, in 5e, he can get only a 5d6 damage shield at that range for 62 pts instead of 60... enough to only slightly warm up supers in the low end of the defense spectrum and useless against those in the upper end. For the same price the 12d6 Eb is still very very effective.

On the HERO boards, you will find plenty of threads with just a quick search about how badly nerfed damage shield was between 4 and 5 and find some people OK with it because they saw abusive oddball damage shields in 4e and how others are not.

So, you know, claiming that HERo doesn't between editions/revisions change costs for balance and doesn't "effectively" nerf some normal, in genre, previously not a balance issue powers/components in order to handle the wingnut abuses possible... is not exactly accurate.

Not that i would dream of challenging the original premise of this thread with facts, mind you.

After all, citing facts to challenge claims of HERo system superiority will get you pegged a hero basher.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

Not that i would dream of challenging the original premise of this thread with facts, mind you.

After all, citing facts to challenge claims of HERo system superiority will get you pegged a hero basher.

SWR, must you snipe at others? Your analyses of various rules are useful and interesting. So why do you keep antagonizing people unnecessarily with petty comments? Please just let your facts make your point, i.e., let's keep it civil. Thanks.

 

[National Acrobat]

Yeah!

HERO? What is this? You just described the biggest problem I have with D&D 3.0/3.5 . So many cool things were nerfed for the sake of "balance". Who cares about balance, what about all the cool abilities and things.

If the DM wants to restrict it, he should do so himself - or better yet, use that same "abusive" power against the PC's. The DM has as much and more tools than the players, it shouldn't be that hard to stop them from "unbalancing" the game.

That's what I do. I tell the players that they are free to use and ask for whatever they feel they may need, but to definitely expect 100% of the time to see a bad-guy with it as well. Bad guys are supposed to be smart and want all the neat things too, so why limit the players?

 

[Zappo]

You are right that they've been that way since 3.0. My point was that these things are slated as such for mechanical balance, and nothing else.

So what you mean is that it would be cool if, say, weapon total bonuses weren't limited to +10, but they are limited because of balance reasons. Ok, that's clearer. It's not quite what Psion was talking about, though; since these things have been the way they are since day 1, certainly the fans have had no influence on them. Besides, I disagree with lots of them being cool (bigger inherent bonuses? Same as the buffs, more powerful but not more cool IMO. Just numbers).

 

[proditor]

To me, it's not just that swrushing snipes, it is what he snipes. Yes, you can find arguments about Damage Shield. How about you go back to the release of 3.5 and check up on magic item costs, spell duration, set buffs, class combinations and PRC's. How about we mention the legal WotC class that allows you to do potentially millions of d6 in damage? The thread starts with a version that /only/ does about 1300 d6 in damage)

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142565&perpage=30

We get it, you don't like HERO. We get it, if anyone claims that HERO is, for them, a more balanced system, you have to come out guns blazing to defend d20. Sorry for my own snippiness, but the continual verbal abuse and rudeness is just seriously annoying.

 

[swrushing]

To me, it's not just that swrushing snipes, it is what he snipes. Yes, you can find arguments about Damage Shield. How about you go back to ...

SWR: snip...


We get it, if anyone claims that HERO is, for them, a more balanced system, you have to come out guns blazing to defend d20.

uhhh... Ok first off... some facts...

1. i said nothing here about d20. That would seem to be a modest prerequisite for "defending it." Wouldn't you think?

2. again, i am challenging a specific claim about HERo... in short that the hero guys don't nerf things between editions but rather just stop sign them.

3. and again, not allowing inaccurate statements to go unchallenged, gets jumped on. the joys of hero seen again.



2.

 

[proditor]

uhhh... Ok first off... some facts...

1. i said nothing here about d20. That would seem to be a modest prerequisite for "defending it." Wouldn't you think?

2. again, i am challenging a specific claim about HERo... in short that the hero guys don't nerf things between editions but rather just stop sign them.

3. and again, not allowing inaccurate statements to go unchallenged, gets jumped on. the joys of hero seen again.



2.

Okay, some more facts. This is the second time someone either said "Hey, I like this about Hero" or "Tell me about Hero" and you have attacked out of the blue. NO ONE supporting HERO on here has said "All other game systems blow chunks." In fact, if you do frequent the Hero boards, you'll find that anyone who bashes other systems there gets shot down pretty quickly for being elitist. So why do you feel the rabid knee jerk need to come out swinging against this system? I get it, you hate it. Get over it and let people get answers without your outright rude and arrogant comments. You want to make this about being a martyr for your staunch attacks on Hero? Go for it. Hopefully no one else is buying into your complex.

And yes, you said nothing here about d20. You were amply vociferous about it on the other thread where you railed against Hero.

 

[Darkness]

Not that i would dream of challenging the original premise of this thread with facts, mind you.

After all, citing facts to challenge claims of HERo system superiority will get you pegged a hero basher.

Cut that tone out, please.

If someone starts a flamewar, shoot me an e-mail at oni_no_bakaATyahooDOTcom so I can take care of it.
But don't rise to the bait - and especially don't start a pre-emptive fight over past grievances.

All of this goes for everyone, of course. Thanks.

-Darkness,
Moderator