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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Samurai" data-source="post: 328778" data-attributes="member: 3850">Like mmadsen, I was really hoping HERO 5th would be a major rewrite along the lines that he posted (fewer stats, getting rid of some of the formulas, making everything work together better, etc)  Instead, it was a very minor patch job on 4th ed instead of a major rewrite.  I'm sure that made a lot of Hero fans sigh with relief, but not me...There are already a host of alternate SAS rules suggestions being bandied about on their forums, and several of them address issues like "High Defense is too hard to hit" and "How to model strong but clumsy brutes."ACV and DCV may use all 3 stats evenly by default, but changing that is incredibly simple!  The default rule says (Body+Mind+Soul)/3... You could instead say it is (2xBody)+(Mind+Soul)/4, or weight Body even higher if you want... One of the best things about SAS is that it is so adaptable and easy to change.  Everything is modular.Weighting Body as more important in ACV also increases the basic hand-to-hand combat damage of a normal person (which is their ACV score), so the brainy, skinny guy now does less damage and hits less often than big dumb guy.  You can also add skills like Unarmed Combat or abilities like Attack Combat Mastery to give a character a better chance of hitting than another with similar base stats.  If the big guy actually knows how to fight and the skinny guy doesn't, the skill levels will shift the balance even more.  Without skill levels, both of them are normal kids with no combat training or experience at all...One of the most common changes people are making is comparing margins of success in combat die rolls... so instead of just beating your ACV to hit (and the defender just beating his own DCV to dodge), it is also an opposed roll.  If both succeed at their rolls, you compare the margins of success to see what happened.  This makes combat more relative to each character's abilities and reduces the chance of dodging every blow, even with a high DCV.  The variation I prefer is that if the attacker has a higher margin, they do a glancing blow for half damage instead of missing completely as the rules normally say.</blockquote>

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